Andrew Sullivan
At
The Nation, Eric Alterman writes
Sullivan Versus Sullivan. An excerpt:
I have read a lot of nonsense about Andrew Sullivan this past week. It’s ironic for so many reasons I can’t quite keep track, especially in light of all the nonsense that has been written about The New Republic and, again, makes one’s head explode if one tries to take too many of them seriously simultaneously.
But here are a few:
How was The New Republic so crucial a bastion of American liberalism if under Andrew, it published and promoted Charles Murray’s racist pseudoscience? (Andrew: “one of my proudest moments in journalism.”) And ditto Betsy McCaughey’s lying, dishonest takedown of Clinton’s health care reform? (Andrew: “I was aware of the piece’s flaws but nonetheless was comfortable running it as a provocation.”) And if it were so dedicated to serious, thoughtful journalism, what the hell was Andrew doing publishing Camille Paglia on “Hillary the man-woman and bitch goddess.” And do I even need to mention that he appointed Stephen Glass as the magazine’s first-ever head of fact-checking?
But even funnier are the positions Andrew himself took. Back in the days when he was still part-Marty Peretz, Sullivan literally called me a traitor to my country, telling an outright lie about my allegedly stated views on Afghanistan. I repeatedly offered to give thousands of dollars to charity if Andrew could substantiate his lie but he never even tried. He also attacked me as a purveyor of hateful anti-Semitism owing to my analysis of the media coverage of Israel, comparing one of my columns to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Now, he has done a complete 180 and is far more critical of Israel than I ever was (or will be) and viciously attacks the people who used to be his comrades, thereby inspiring his one-time friends and colleagues to wonder why Andrew, himself, hates the Jews. So the old Andrew would have called the new Andrew a traitor and an anti-Semite.
And the new Andrew apparently thinks the old Andrew is an idiot, who supported stupid imperialist wars and ran interference for evil countries. (Notice I did not even have to bring up the Trigg thing.) If this person is the most influential “intellectual” in America as I have seen two people claim in recent days, then that’s about the worst thing I’ve ever heard anyone say about my country. Andrew is to intellectuals what Sarah Palin is to politicians and Vanilla Ice was to hip-hop.
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2014—You're terminated!:
Some things are harder to kill than others. A simplistic myth abounds among the usual suspects, that the simple act of killing a government program ends it, cuts spending and thus the deficit. Like so many beliefs, this one is far from accurate. The government can terminate a contract for two reasons: the exceedingly rare case of breach of contract that can be proven in court, or convenience, when Congress or other officials pull the plug. Lately that's usually for fiscal-hawk reasons. But when a big government contract is chugging along, there are costs associated with shutting it down rarely taken into account by those poor souls suffering from late stage Deficit Obsession Syndrome. Bills already owed, fixed costs that cannot always be easily unwound, sometimes layoffs and severance benefits ahead. So, in many cases, the government requires a pile of money to be set aside to cover what's generally referred to as termination liability.
There are lots of ways to do this. The money can be folded into the cost or bid by a contractor, it can be set aside by the government or the company itself, or a combo of both in some cases, it might be waived in special situations. It should come as no surprise that that kind of ambiguity is fertile ground for lawmakers to meddle around in, as they muscle for advantage over one another in the endless, exhausting battle for taxpayer dollars flowing to their districts. It can affect any program theoretically. Right now it's affecting one agency in my blogging bailiwick of science and science policy: Specifically, NASA.
Tweet of the Day
On
today's Kagro in the Morning show,
Greg Dworkin helps round up the latest vaccine nonsense news. Chris Christie takes a balanced approach to blowing up Twitter. Sarah Palin is also toast. Also. Texas school kid suspended for sorcery (sort of). The weird story of the Bellamy salute. Battling over the President's budget, explained. A preview of the Commonwealth Fund's slide show presentation on cutting health care costs. Privilege and America's "hereditary meritocracy." Speaking of which, Jeb Bush smoked pot in prep school but everything worked out for him because merit. A series of diaries from
pajoly, from next door to a Florida front yard "gun range."
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