Andrew Sullivan's Pep Talk for POTUS
Here's what President Barack Obama looks like from a point of view that is likely different from yours:
This, after all, is a president who has ended the war in Iraq, killed Osama bin Laden, passed universal health insurance, rescued Detroit, stabilized an economy in free-fall, dispatched Qaddafi, deftly presided over a democratic transformation in the Middle East, and guided the political system toward a far more honest assessment of our fiscal crisis. He has quite a story to tell. He just needs the audacity to tell it.
Well, tonight we'll see the first attempt. What ultimately forges a presidency is how it responds to the moment when it is getting pummeled. Good luck, Mr President. This time, you'll need it.
I wrote about Sullivan defending bailout economics and giving Obama "the benefit of the doubt" one year ago.
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His delusion is as deep as his sweater is hideous.
I think that's a poncho.
Shhh, he's channeling Swayze in Point Break.
"Back off Warchild, seriously."
C'mon Sug.....he's working his man crush! A condition that hardly lends itself to a clear appraisal of the facts at hand!
It is not a delusion. He is arguably the biggest Obama supporter in the country.
Bigger than Matthews (AKA The Tingler)?
?
Yeah, that was a real doozy. But "guided the political system toward a far more honest assessment of our fiscal crisis" is even more ridiculous. Sullivan has seriously gone off the deep end.
deftly presided over a democratic transformation in the Middle East
Don't forget that little gem. I am sure it will come as a hell of a surprise to the people in Cairo and Tunisia that Obama is responsible for their uprisings.
Sullivan has been nuts for going on four years now. I honestly can't believe a mainstream publication publishes him. It is kind of sad in a way. The people at the Atlantic have to know he is crazy. And they indulge him for the sake of web hits.
And he stabilized the economy. I guess the unemployment rate has arguably been stable.
About as stable as the health of Generalissimo Franco.
Well, if you subtract all the people who've given up looking for work, who've committed suicide, who've left the country, or who've gone back to school or joined the military, then yeah. That unemployment rate's like, totally stable.
He is no longer with The Atlantic. I believe he resides at The Nation.
The Daily Beast.
Isn't that Newsweek now? I think Sarah Palin's uterus has more readers than that.
Yeah but her pages are all sticky!
Typo. Replace the "e" with an "a".
The first "e", that is.
He moved on to the "Daily Beast".
Well, he got elected, and all the violence in Iraq and the war dropped off the front page. Thus, he ended it.
Media makes reality, as Teddy Roosevelt proved when he ended the NYC crime spree.
Obama, by continuing Bush policies but getting them off the front page (or making no longer controversial), ends them.
Giving Obama excessive credit for something is partisanship. Giving him credit for things that never even happened is....? Insanity?
Does anyone have any idea how to descibe Sullivan's politics? His writings and positions appear to be completely random. It is impossible to accurately predict where he will stand on any issue.
Sullivan is a lover-hater. He picks a political figure to love, and therefore a corresponding TEAM, and sticks with them for a while, but then get sick of them, becomes appalled that he liked them, and then switches TEAMS in revulsion. He loved Bush for a while too. I imagine he'll flip again in the next few years.
I suppose the succinct word is "fickle".
Fickle, fickle!
Cut the pickle!
Tickle, tickle!
There is always money in the pickle stand, NutraSweet.
I thought he would flip on Obama. But he hasn't. I don't think he will. I don't think he flip on Bush for any reason other than he started to go a little nuts. And he has just gotten worse.
He flipped on Bush over gay marriage. Sullivan had hopefully followed insider rumors that Bush was going to steer clear of the issue, but the day the White House announced Bush would be supporting the Defense of Marriage Act, suddenly Sullivan decided that pretty much every action and policy of the Bush administration was wrong.
If you think I'm exaggerating, read the archives (assuming they're still up) and watch the switch flip.
Sullivan simply adores being taken seriously by the circles of power. He'll flip as soon as someone else nears the ring. Sad and despicable in many ways.
Whatever drives the most hits??
And he is oh-so dreamy.
He has quite a story to tell. He just needs the audacity to tell it.
Yeah, he's awesome. Too bad he hates talking about himself and his great ideas. If only he would give a speech once in a while.
This situation requires some book-length firepower.
From Merriam-Webster: "Audacity: bold or arrogant disregard of normal restraints."
It would certainly require bold or arrogant disregard of normal restraints to make such patently false mischaracterizations of Obama's record.
Andrew Sullivan apparently relocated to the Bizarro World, and I missed it.
Barack Obama's government is the only thing that saved Sullivan from deportation for marijuana possession. Why would anyone take anything he has to say about politics seriously?
This is why I stopped reading comic books. I can't keep track of all these alternate universes.
Sullivan is from Universe 932, the one where Bill Cosby founded America.
You just got COSBY SWEATER'D.
Bill Cosby Sweater
Although everyone is forced to wear hideous state-issued huxta-sweaters in U-932, intoxicated citizens are allowed to beat midgets to death. So it's not all bad.
You laugh, but in that universe, chocolate cake is made available to all citizens for breakfast.
Why shouldn't it be? It has milk, and eggs, and gets your kids to sing songs about how "Daddy is Great!/Gives us Chocolate Cake!"
But then dangerous hordes of sentient pudding pops roam the land, avenging themselves on the citizens of today for the crimes of The Founder. "Revenge is sticky sweet!" they scream, the tick tick ticking of their po-going sticks the only warning of their approach...
Dad is great. He gave us the chocolate cake.
"There's always room for Jell-O" never sounded more sinister.
U-932 is hell on earth for the lactose intolerant.
I would, however, say that the "Theo Act" of 12 AC (After Cosby) did a great deal to reduce the wearing of droopy pants in this Universe.
The forced internment of the "kids with their hip hop music" was a little too harsh if you listen to anyone other than Sullivan.
It may have saved us from the droopy pants scourge but it also brought the requirement that we all wear ill-fitting dress shirts poorly tailored by Lisa Bonet. The cure proved to be worse than the disease!
I had a few crumbs of respect left for Sullivan. No longer.
Years ago, I found him to be an insightful and unique voice. But now, he's just kind of sad.
Out of all of the supposed achievements listed above, the death of Bin Laden is the the only one that can even be said to have happened. Iraq is not over, Qaddafi has NOT (yet) been dispatched, Detroit sure as fuck has not been rescued, nor has the economy as a whole, the revolutions in the Middle East may very well turn out to be something far from democratic (and if they can be traced back to an American president's moves, the trail sure as hell doesn't end with Obama), and if "We have trillions and trillions of dollars just waiting to be spent" is an "honest assessment" of our economy, then I guess I'm writing this from another dimension.
Bin Laden is dead, though. And what other President but Obama would have given the order to kill him? Oh, any of them.
Yeah, I enjoy reading thoughtful opinions from people who don't necessarily share my point-of-view, so I don't have any problem with Sullivan straying further and further from anything remotely libertarian (not that he was ever libertarian, but he had libertarian leanings). My problem is with him straying further and further from anything thoughtful.
Make trains go faster!
"He has quite a story to tell. He just needs the audacity to tell it.
Well, tonight we'll see the first attempt."
Someone should find and arrest all those Obama impersonators!
Or maybe tonight will be the first speech he gives without a teleprompter. The other's were actually someone else's speeches.
Please, Obama, come save me again.
I am so sick of hearing liberals trying to overcome their wimpy image by saying tuff gai stuff like how Obama "killed Osama bin Laden" like he did it with his bare hands or something. The reek of desperation and false bravado and overcompensation stinks up the room.
Next they'll be shouting out their genital dimensions involuntarily during debates
The same people who brag about Obama killing Bin Ladin then get a case of the vapors when the Republican debate crowd cheers Rick Perry for applying the death penalty. If the death penalty is so barbaric, which is what last I looked liberals claimed to believe, then why are they doing the happy dance about Obama ordering the killing of Bin Ladin?
"Any crowd that instantly cheers the execution of 234 individuals is a crowd I want to flee, not join,"
That is Sullivan on the cheering of Perry last night. But doing the macho dance over Bin Ladin is just a ok.
Ha, that is precisely what I was thinking about too. As soon as I heard the cheering I knew it would be red meat for liberals.
No to mention all the people killed by drones. Which is somehow awesome, according to people who think Gitmo is an unforgivable sin. So I guess Sullivan's problem with Gitmo and tribunals under Bush was that they didn't just kill the accused outright.
Andrew Sullivan, you so crazy!
We really, really, really need to get away from the idea that "spin" and the Big Lie are somehow acceptable. Because it's making some people absolutely crazy. Obama is a terrible president by any standard. He's helping to prolong a recession far past the point it should've ended. He can't do anything better than lie about the things he isn't doing and lie about the things he is doing. Yet the Democratic base simply cannot accept reality and move on and are making the most ridiculous statements that have no basis in reality whatsoever.
Aside from Nixon--and there's still time to catch up--he's easily the worst president of my lifetime.
The problem is pro that people like Sullivan and Chris Matthews and other reporters did a lot of things to foist Obama on the country. They ignored the Reille Hunter scandal and kept Edwards in the race longer. That alone got Obama the nomination. Had the scandal broke in December of 07 when it should have, Edwards would have never split the anti-Obama vote with Hillary. They refused to ever ask him any tough questions or do any kind of the normal background stuff they do on every candidate. If not for the media, Hillary would probably be President right now. And I don't know a single person who doesn't think that would have been an improvement.
They sold this pig in a poke to the country. And everything they are doing now is trying to avoid responsibility for it.
Hey, there's nothing Americans love more than an apology and redemption. Tell us you fucked up supporting Obama. Advocate spending cuts and deregulation. We'll forgive you.
But that would require them giving up their smug sense of superiority. To do that they would have to admit that the average American knows how to run their life better than they do. And they will never do that.
Since they're so into the Big Lie, why not just say they were against Obama in the first place?
That is probably what they will do. I think by 2013 Obama will be like one of those big John Travolta driven social phenonena movies back in the 1970s (SNF, Grease, and Urban Cowboy). Millions of people were wearing tight wranglers and cowboy hats in the summer of 1980 and planning pilgrimages to Gilley's. But by 1981, it was like it never happened.
The nadir of the republic, in many ways.
I'm getting just a little fed up with giving others the credit for electing Obama. I did it! I'm responsible! I crashed the stock market. The candidates meant nothing after that! I historically elected the historic first half-black President. Give me the credit I worked so hard to earn.
Nightmare fuel. Do not click this link.
The Kardashian sisters are so hot.
AAAAAAAAAH The Eyes!!!!
You bastard, some of us have Reasonable installed!
REVENGE! I show you the contents of a crocodile's stomach.
That foot is kind of hot. I wonder if it's doing anything Friday night.
Awww, c'mon Sugarfree, it's sweet that Warty found someone. Stop raining on his parade.
Let me be jealous. It's how I cope.
Nah, can't be that. I'm thinking Warty's girl could squat SF's body weight.
I have a great one for you Sugar Free. My wife has a friend from college she was talking to. And apparently her husband is into her telling him about other men she had been with when she was single during sex. Kind of a strange kink. But it doesn't sound that far out to me. So anyway this woman is appalled and made the poor bastard go to marriage counseling over it. The marriage counselor told him that he had a warped virgin/whore view of women and that the fact that he got off on hearing such things was a sexual deviance. Really? I thought a deviance was like screwing sheep or something.
So my wife's suggestion was just to throw the poor guy a bone in return for him cleaning the kitchen or doing something you really like. If the guy is getting off I bet he will be a great husband. She will no longer speak to my wife over this. The mere act of suggesting that a woman trade sex for something in a marriage shows she has no respect for women. Is it any wonder we have the divorce rate we do?
Retroactive cuckholding fetish. Interesting. Not really all that deviant... And I'm not sure it's a virgin/whore dichotomy either.
Of course, the guy's wife might be right to worry... if that's what he'll ask for, what he probably really wants is to watch her have sex with another guy while he watches from the closet and touches himself. Which, if she is down... sure, why not? But if she feels uncomfortable talking about past relationships, I doubt she's into the cuckhold game.
All true. I was just appalled by first, how easy we throw out the term "deviancy". And then the whole objection to the idea that a woman should use sex to get things in a relationship. Both conservatives and radical feminists are equally fucked up about sex. Both sides try to make it out into some mystical all important experience, when, at least after about age 18, it really isn't. This is especially true once you are married. It is just a fun activity. As long as it doesn't involve other people or committing a crime, there are few things I would deny my wife is she wanted it, even if it didn't work for me. If it works for her, why not take one for the team once in a while?
That she likely wouldn't find your wife's suggestion to be at all objectionable if it didn't involve sex proves your point exactly. Compromise in a relationship? Oh my stars!
After you are married for a while, sex isn't mystical anymore. I suppose it can be in its moments. But for the most part it is just another fun activity. Why you can't compromise on sex just like you compromise on everything else is beyond me.
After you are married for a while, sex with your wife isn't mystical anymore.
You're right, SF. Yet she'll probably end up "punishing" his "deviancy" by sleeping with another guy behind his back.
Maybe he will like it and it will be a happy ending all around.
No, because she would hate that he liked it.
People are weird.
They really are. They make their lives so much more miserable than they have to be.
told him that he had a warped virgin/whore view of women
Seriously? People still do Freudian psychology? And get paid for it?
My thoughts exactly. Maybe he just likes the idea that his wife got around a bit and had another side to her once. Maybe it makes her sexier and seem less like a mom and a housewife.
Maybe he's just a guy who likes to think about other guys during sex.
Your wife's "friend". Uh-huh.
LOL. nah. If I was into that I would just admit it. I don't see the big deal. And the proof it is not me is the marriage counselor part. You couldn't get me to a shrink at gun point.
John,
Sounds like your buddy is going to get scammed real soon.
That is awesome.
With the dude in the Onion piece? Shit....that's not extortion it's charity work!
Huzzah! Akron makes the Onion!
Got a phone number for me?
Apparently Obama is SO awesome, he did all of those things without anybody noticing. Good thing Mr Sullivan came along to let us know they've been done.
Jesus works in mysterious ways and his path is often alone.
Damn that rightwing Media.
They just refuse to report on how glorious the O is.
Sullivan you creepy stalker.
has ended the war in Iraq, killed Osama bin Laden, passed universal health insurance, rescued Detroit, stabilized an economy in free-fall, dispatched Qaddafi, deftly presided over a democratic transformation in the Middle East, and guided the political system toward a far more honest assessment of our fiscal crisis
What are lies, Alex?
Yeah but Sullivan really is that crazy. He actually believes that stuff. Is it a lie if you believe it?
A lie honestly believed is called a "delusion".
The war in Iraq is not over, we still have thousands of troops there, will continue to have troops there, and at the first sign of turmoil will send more troops there in the future.
Bin Laden was found and killed by the CIA/military intelligence and the Navy SEALS, respectively - after billions of dollars, thousands of lives, and 10 years of mind-numbing war not named Iraq...one we are still involved in.
The value and constitutionality of universal health insurance aside...nothing about Obamacare is "universal." Millions of people will still go without health insurance, the mandate is completely unenforceable.
Qaddafi was "dispatched" by a Libyain-rebel uprising. Not to mention our involvement in that war is illegal, not of our making, and regime change (i.e. dispatch) was supposedly not the goal.
Where is the democratic transformation in Libya, Syria, Yemen, et al.? Oh yah I forgot the Middle East consists of Egypt, Iraq, and Iran only.
Who the fuck is honest about our fiscal crisis in our government?
There's a reason the Daily Beast doesn't allow comments.
If Obama's conduct throughout his presidency doesn't warrant impeachment, I don't know what the fuck it'll take for people to start giving a proper shit
I think Gunwalker probably does. How many people died as a result of Watergate or the Monica Lewinski affair? The justice department was selling guns to Mexican drug gangs in order to create the political will to enact gun control. It is the most blatantly horrible thing I have ever seen.
Seriously. Why are people not dragging these assholes out into the streets and curb checking them?
Because we are fat, dumb, and relatively contented Americans. We are as rebellious as tabby cats!
Also, American gangs, if the latest reports out of Indiana are true.
"or the Monica Lewinski affair"
Clinton assisted China is acquiring massive amounts of US military tech. That may yet cost an enormous number of lives.
Lewinsky was the public reason for impeachment because it involved clear criminal activity, not required for impeachment, but deemed important because the Rs knew the media would defend Clinton to the last.
The real, but unstated, reason that WJC was impeached was that he violated the political gentlemen's club rules by doing things like shaking on a deal in private and then immediately holding a press conference and lying about what took place. The Rs got all boo-hoo about that.
The reason Clinton should have been impeached (and thrown in prison for the rest of his life) is that he actively assisted the Chinese in acquiring the ability to reliably launch long range missiles, the ability to reliably launch payloads into space, MIRVed warhead technology, advanced supercomputer technology and America's nuclear test explosion data. I think there was more, but I'm drawing a bit of a blank. Clinton also actively obstructed FBI investigations into Chinese espionage activities.
Characterizing Clinton's impeachment as being about sex with an intern is Clinton's spin.
John is right, he is not going to turn on Obama. He is all in
Addressing each point...
This, after all, is a president
Yes, we agree. He is a president.
who has ended the war in Iraq
Nope.
killed Osama bin Laden
I think the Seals did that...
passed universal health insurance
Not quite universal. Besides, it's a huge friggin' mess, you moron.
rescued Detroit
Hardly. Let the damn thing die already! They did not change their business practices, and the unions have even more power than before.
stabilized an economy in free-fall
holy hell, this is hilarious. If you actually believe that, I have a bridge to sell you. We're entering a double dip, and you think it's stabilized?
Besides, anyone who thinks that government can stabilize the economy is an idiot.
dispatched Qaddafi
Fair enough, but why bitch about Iraq if you're fine with this?
deftly presided over a democratic transformation in the Middle East
Democratic? You're stupid. It's just one bunch of assholes taking power from another set of assholes. The new assholes may prove to be WORSE than the assholes they replaced!
and guided the political system toward a far more honest assessment of our fiscal crisis.
Worst point, yet. Shoot yourself in the head if you think it even remotely resembles honesty.
Are we sure this isn't a spoof like the Krugman one a couple weeks ago?
As absurd as the "killed Osama bin Laden" claim is, its the closest one to true on the list.
But it isn't like he pulled the trigger. And when the best thing you can say for a President is that he thought it would be a good idea to kill the murderer of 2800 Americans, haven't you set the bar pretty low? Would any President have not killed Bin Ladin?
It's not like the hunt started under Obama or that he had some great idea to find the guy. I don't have a problem with a "happened on my watch" claim, but that's really not worth much. I mean, is anyone going to vote for him because he happened to be president then?
Yeah. Good for him. He didn't call of the hunt. And they got him. And Bush deserves a lot of criticism for not getting him at Tora Bora. But I don't see where it makes Obama some kind of great President.
I agree its moronic, but nothing else can be considered even remotely true.
He might as well have added "the Packers won the Super Bowl" to his list of accomplishments.
He's got the coveted Green Bay vote wrapped up, that's for sure.
When it comes to Sullivan, no spoofing is necessary.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't the drawdown in Iraq been proceeding pretty much on the schedule that was set back around early 2008+/-?
Yes. The Bush Administration negotiated the SOFA in the summer of 08. And the draw down has followed that schedule. We could have given Bush a third term and it would not have made a dime's worth of difference.
"We could have given Bush a third term"
Actually, if Bush had gotten a third term, it would have raised a few eyebrows.
The day after the election in 2012 after the whole thing goes down in spectacular flames, the schadenfreude is going to be epic. The world will reach peak whining, thumb sucking and crying
The day after the election in 2012 after the whole thing goes down in spectacular flames, the schadenfreude is going to be epic. The world will reach peak whining, thumb sucking and crying.
Rest assured Team D already has a press release prepared about how it's all your fault.
It is going to be the Libertarian's fault fish. If it wasn't for the five percent of the population that calls themselves Libertarian and have never elected more than a House Rep, all of their scheme would have worked. You people are very cunning and devious.
And of course racism. Expect a lot of thumb sucking pieces during the winter of 2012-2013 about the lost hope of the Obama administration and America's continuing racial divisions.
Makes me want to go out with thirty of my closest friends and loot a Vegas convenience store.
Whatever Sully is smoking these days, I sure want some of the same.
I don't think you want what he's smoking (NTTAWWT).
Riiiigggghhhht
I'm pretty sure it's these magnificent bastards that deserve the credit for that one.
I guess it is only fair to say that the NATO air support (which as usual had the US doing most of the heavy lifting) was a big help to them. But I'm pretty sure that the EU could have done that on their own, albeit on a smaller scale. Obama's leadership in this is not much in evidence.
There was a link on instapundit last week about some college kid who went over and joined the rebels over the summer. That is just bad ass. That is like Orwell Hemingway bad ass.
I saw that on MSN or some such site. He talked about it as though it was any other semester-spent-traveling-abroad excursion. It was simultaneously hilarious and awesome. It'll be the best r?sum? bullet point ever.
Ahhh! The "Technical". SUV of the 3rd world!
The army of Muslim women in #5 looks deadly. What does Obama think he is doing in #16?