Andrew Sullivan...
For some reason, I still read Andrew Sullivan's daily dish (www.andrewsullivan.com) because his perspective WAS somewhat unique. As I read him descend into the depths of utter insanity (read: leftism) out of hatred for Bush, I wonder why I still bother going to his site. Apparently, it's because I just can't look away from a train wreck. For the uninitiated, Andrew Sullivan is openly gay, HIV positive, and was an active Thatcherite/Reaganite Republican. There are few true Libertarians left, and he was one of them, with a point of view in politics that basically said Smaller Government, Fiscal Restraint, Social Liberal, and the Constitution trumps Judicial Fiat.
However, he broke from the Republican party over the gay marriage issue, and has become increasingly vitriolic over the current president, and the Republican party in general, to a degree that defies all possible logic. Again, I still don't see why it is that Rush's name inspires such horror in both leftists and rightists alike, but the minute you start throwing Communist propaganda references in, you lose ALL credibility every bit as much as using Nazi rhetoric. His morning entry today said:
"LIMBAUGH'S AGIT-PROP: At least Ramesh is honest, with somewhat forced cheeriness, in the NYT. Limbaugh's "state-of-conservatism" piece reads like something an aide to Andropov might have written in the waning years of the Soviet Union. We still get exhausted, dead-as-a-parrot cliches like this one:
The left, on the other hand, sees the courts as the only way to advance their big-government agenda.
How many ways does this sentence not make sense? Limbaugh later details how "the left" is actually divided in a hundred ways. If it is split into warring factions, why is it so monolithic a few paragraphs earlier? And the relationship between the Supreme Court and the expansion of government spending and power is, shall we say, strained. If anything, the Court has been the only brake on the Bush administration's astonishing expansion of government power. Maybe the memo never made it to Rush, so let's see if we can get this through to him: it was the "held-in-contempt" Bill Clinton who reduced the size of government; it is your president and the conservative movement that has expanded it at a faster clip than at any time since FDR. That's not an opinion. It's what is called a fact. Deal with it. Or you too will never haul yourself out of the past."
Let's insert a bit of logic into this, shall we?
* Fact: the Supreme Court is the only branch of government the Left in this country still controls, and has expanded power of the branch to FAR exceed the Constitutional limits that were placed there very specifically. For example, Roe v. Wade, Homegrown Medical Marijuana in California (I forget the name of the case), Kelo v. New London, Lawrence v. Texas - all wrong decisions made to increase the size and scope of the Government to everyday lives. All of them ultimately say, "Our sayso is all you need, despite there being no law to interpret on any of these cases, and in many cases openly contradicting the laws on the books."
* Fact: Expanding size and scope of the Federal Government into everyday lives is the unifying theme of any and all Democratic agendas, as disparate as they happen to be. There is NO strain whatsoever in making the connection that Rush made. If you look at the Dems with open eyes, you can see exactly what he's talking about, as the only thing they agree on is hatred of Bush.
* Fact: The Court has only been a check on Bush's choices with regards to the National Defense, basically saying we're gonna expand every way we can except yours.
* Fact: "Held-in-contempt" Bill Clinton did NOTHING AT ALL to decrease the size of the Federal government, and was doing everything in his power to increase it (can we say HillaryCare) before the citizens of the US shut him down in 1994. From the point of that changeover onward, Newt Gingrich was the one calling the shots with respect to the size of the government, not Clinton.
* Fact: You need to start studying history, and not making it up to have a talking point.
That particular idiocy makes me tired. I get it Sully, you don't like Bush... stop talking about history like a leftist (lying about it in order to cut Bush).
EDIT:
Rush's Piece in the WSJ: http://www.opinionjournal.com/ac/?id=110007417
Ramesh's Piece in the NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/17/opinion/17ponnuru.html
However, he broke from the Republican party over the gay marriage issue, and has become increasingly vitriolic over the current president, and the Republican party in general, to a degree that defies all possible logic. Again, I still don't see why it is that Rush's name inspires such horror in both leftists and rightists alike, but the minute you start throwing Communist propaganda references in, you lose ALL credibility every bit as much as using Nazi rhetoric. His morning entry today said:
"LIMBAUGH'S AGIT-PROP: At least Ramesh is honest, with somewhat forced cheeriness, in the NYT. Limbaugh's "state-of-conservatism" piece reads like something an aide to Andropov might have written in the waning years of the Soviet Union. We still get exhausted, dead-as-a-parrot cliches like this one:
The left, on the other hand, sees the courts as the only way to advance their big-government agenda.
How many ways does this sentence not make sense? Limbaugh later details how "the left" is actually divided in a hundred ways. If it is split into warring factions, why is it so monolithic a few paragraphs earlier? And the relationship between the Supreme Court and the expansion of government spending and power is, shall we say, strained. If anything, the Court has been the only brake on the Bush administration's astonishing expansion of government power. Maybe the memo never made it to Rush, so let's see if we can get this through to him: it was the "held-in-contempt" Bill Clinton who reduced the size of government; it is your president and the conservative movement that has expanded it at a faster clip than at any time since FDR. That's not an opinion. It's what is called a fact. Deal with it. Or you too will never haul yourself out of the past."
Let's insert a bit of logic into this, shall we?
* Fact: the Supreme Court is the only branch of government the Left in this country still controls, and has expanded power of the branch to FAR exceed the Constitutional limits that were placed there very specifically. For example, Roe v. Wade, Homegrown Medical Marijuana in California (I forget the name of the case), Kelo v. New London, Lawrence v. Texas - all wrong decisions made to increase the size and scope of the Government to everyday lives. All of them ultimately say, "Our sayso is all you need, despite there being no law to interpret on any of these cases, and in many cases openly contradicting the laws on the books."
* Fact: Expanding size and scope of the Federal Government into everyday lives is the unifying theme of any and all Democratic agendas, as disparate as they happen to be. There is NO strain whatsoever in making the connection that Rush made. If you look at the Dems with open eyes, you can see exactly what he's talking about, as the only thing they agree on is hatred of Bush.
* Fact: The Court has only been a check on Bush's choices with regards to the National Defense, basically saying we're gonna expand every way we can except yours.
* Fact: "Held-in-contempt" Bill Clinton did NOTHING AT ALL to decrease the size of the Federal government, and was doing everything in his power to increase it (can we say HillaryCare) before the citizens of the US shut him down in 1994. From the point of that changeover onward, Newt Gingrich was the one calling the shots with respect to the size of the government, not Clinton.
* Fact: You need to start studying history, and not making it up to have a talking point.
That particular idiocy makes me tired. I get it Sully, you don't like Bush... stop talking about history like a leftist (lying about it in order to cut Bush).
EDIT:
Rush's Piece in the WSJ: http://www.opinionjournal.com/ac/?id=110007417
Ramesh's Piece in the NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/17/opinion/17ponnuru.html