Blogblah!!! » Andrew Sullivan

October 10, 2009

John Long — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 05:47:00 +0000

For some people, Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize will never be as good as the one Bush deserved after invading Iraq.
There was an incredible amount of commentary on the event in the punditocracy today. Look at Memorandum and be amazed. Josh Marshall gathered up the sleaziest and Andrew Sullivan looked for the most witty.
I Twittered a little bit about it, as you can read on the right hand column of my feed.
I had a personal reaction to news he won the prize: I felt like all of us had won it by turning our backs on the past four years of the neocons. It’s a big reason why I voted for him.
You had to know that his election with his proletarian background and Muslim name would make the world see us as more grown up and less like trigger happy cowboys. People who care about peace worldwide must have breathed a sigh of relief at his election. Think about it. He may not yet have ended the two wars he was handled, but he’s darn less likely to start any elective wars and that must seem like a blessing from Norway’s point of view.

cosmic hand of god

The congnitive dissonence of being a patriotic Republican who thinks America losing the Olympics is a good thing and an American president selected as Nobel Peace Laureate is a bad thing. My country, right or wrong. My country over party. Boom! Heads explode.
Watching little internet snippits of Fox commentators has amused the hell out of me.
But, I couldn’t help but notice that the putative grown ups in the GOP, the elected officials, kept it short and gracious.
And, last week, Bob Dole and Bill Frist endorsed Obamacare.
I think someone is starting to read the right polling.
I think the American people have lost their taste for abortion, gays and guns because they think war, the economy and health care is more important. I don’t think most of us have time to worry about the birthers and racist blather from the fringes.
I’m proud of us and I hope we do more and more to earn the honor, it’s a task that can’t be completed, as it should be.
Blogblah

P.S. I loved this from the Obama State Department. Don’t mess with Hillary.

10.09.09 — 6:37PM

Snarking It Up In Foggy Bottom
A State Department spokesperson, commenting on the Obama’s Nobel:

Certainly from our standpoint, this gives us a sense of momentum — when the United States has accolades tossed its way, rather than shoes.

Rimshot, please.

–David Kurtz

August 4, 2009

John Long — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:18:42 +0000

THIS IS FROM ANDREW SULLIVAN’S BLOG,
TheAtlantic.com:

HP – invent from Tom and Matt on Vimeo.

June 13, 2009

John Long — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 03:12:13 +0000

Blogblah

On the DOJ’s gay-hostile brief filed in a Defense of Marriage Act case, Andrew Sullivan and his readers/cohorts seem baffled. What was Obama Thinking? Is it a Bush-era holdover brief? Is he playing some game with eliminating “don’t ask, don’t tell”?
I want to suggest an alternative to those I’ve read. When I look at the brief and it’s very nearly absurdist anti-gay arguments, I’m thinking this is one big softball for some court to create a new 14th Amendment gay equality right.
I don’t deny that the arguments are offensive to many gay people, especially in their use of vivid language. However, as legal reasonng, they are a hoot and a knee slapper. Nevertheless, they also state the legislative record behind the statute, IIRC the Senate “debates.” Remember the now-gone GOP senators who voted for the beast?
Not even a conservative court would have an easy time accepting these arguments. At the least, these arguments will be judicially rejected in whatever decision comes from the Courts. In the case, I think this one is headed for the 9th Circuit, the most unpredictably left wing of those appeals courts. These arguments are tailor made to a response of “disparate treatment” under the 5th and 14th Amendments. A refusal of a right of marriage sounds also to me like one of the “badges” of slavery, which would be an interesting argument to make. (Cf. Lawrence, Loving)
Obama wouldn’t be the first president to hide behind the courts, oh so reluctantly as it will turn out.
Blogblah

May 31, 2009 updated at 3 p.m., 5 p.m., midnight

John Long — Sun, 31 May 2009 15:15:02 +0000

(last update) THIS is very cool. Move your cursor! Thanks to Megan B!

The New York Times reports that a Wichita, KS, abortion doctor was shot and killed while attending his church Sunday morning.

(2d UPDATE) I found some “conservative” reactions to the above at Andrew Sullivan, and they are really shocking in their calloused view of this event, in my opinion.

Not long ago, Republicans were outraged at newly appointed Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano because her agency had released a threat assessment concerning extreme conservatives.

shut up, he explained

However, it seems to me that today’s news reinforces the idea that the right wing in America has gone over the edge. None of this seems to even speak to those survivalists/militia types that skulk around in the great northwest and along the Mexican border (plus, of course, our own local armed crazies along the Arkansas/OK border). The greater radicalization of the already armed extreme right seems rising and that is frightening in its prospects to me. G. Gordon Liddy (don’t even think about getting a link from me) saying on the radio he hoped no important court decisions were made when Justice Sotomayor’s menstrual cycle was near makes me ill with disgust. How can such vile gutterances (intentional made-up word) get into the mainstream of information? How can this be acceptable to decent people of ANY political stripe? God bless us, every one.

A FOLLOW-UP

I reported the comment mentioned in the last post to Politico and it’s been taken off the thread. However, this story appears in today’s online Salon, noting that a Pennsylvania newspaper had to drop and report to the Secret Service a classified ad that appears to invite the assassination of President Obama. You can be sure these right wing fuctards think torture is just fine and dandy. How did they ever become part of the civil discourse of our times? It’s disgusting, frighting, horrible and unacceptable.

Blogblah

April 3, 2009

John Long — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 21:47:18 +0000

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s … WHAT THE HELL?

I don’t know where Andrew Sullivan finds these things, but here’s Superman, India style:

February 24, 2009 (updated)

John Long — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 02:43:42 +0000

THE TWITTER FEED WAS LUNATIC!

An Obama Speech Live Blog by Andrew Sullivan

LiveBlog of speech by Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo

“Progressives” LiveBlog Obama’s speech at Daily Kos

ABC.com LiveBlogs the speech with Twitter Twist

I didn’t bother to watch — I don’t have TV at home now, and I didn’t want to go out — but that doesn’t matter as much as the blogosphere and CW reax in tomorrow’s papers, for which I am not going to wait up. If I have anything of substance to say, I’ll do it after digesting some likely bloated pontificating by pundits of all stripes.

DID TUESDAY MAKE ME LOOK FAT?

Historically Carnival has been a last hurrah before the Christian season of Lent40 days of fasting and penitence beginning on Ash Wednesday. But its roots reach at least as far back as ancient Rome’s Saturnalia, a hedonistic winter celebration of Saturn, god of the harvest.

National Geographic

A Saturnalian Moment in Brazil

I haven’t heard from my son, who lives in New Orleans, about his experiences, but I’ll give him a couple days rest before I make him talk to me on the phone. I did notice a tweet from him about missing the Vieux Crew ball, but I’m not all that sure I want to know what goes on at the Vieux Crew ball. Compared to my children, I’m not nearly as mature. In fact, compared to most people, I may not be that mature, but that’s another matter.

Blogblah

I didn’t celebrate Fat Tuesday this year. Something about me being a recovering alcoholic and knowing better than to go to slippery places if you don’t want to slip, but that’s 12-Step insidery stuff that I hate to foist on you Earthlings (AA term for non alcoholics). I really don’t ever remember being all that worked up about the start of Lent because I never really observed Lent. Advent also escapes me, among other things. Lent is kind of like Ramadan, isn’t it? A long period of fasting and penitential character building? Sorry, I’m already a character and it’s something of a ramshackle building, but I rather feel comfortable in it. I put my feet on the table and eat over the sink and no one complains as long as there’s plenty of wet cat food available. And “penitential”? Me? Whifff. Besides, I can resist anything but temptation. Why would I deliberately set myself up to fail before the Almighty? So, this year for Lent, I’m giving up ritual and cant. How’s that?

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.

ISAAC ASIMOV

I READ THE NEWS TODAY, OH BOY

Minnesota Still Without Senator

Former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-MN, has strung out last year’s election and is still going and we’re not yet to the appeal level. I don’t think most people believe he has a chance of being successful in this challenge to Al Franken, but that’s not the immediate point. If he strings it out, as he’s done so far, it is one less vote for the next big bill, the budget resolution, universal health care, whatever, and one more Republican that’s needed to break the filibuster deadlock at 60-40 in the U.S. Senate. Meanwhile, his legal position becomes more and more attenuated and ludicrus, as this day’s entry in the soap opera demonstrates.

This is about topical politics, but I’m not linking to any one particular headline, but I must admit to being puzzled by GOP decisions to oppose Obama as a bloc. Let’s take U.S. Rep. Mary Fallin, R-OKC, who voted against the stimulus bill along with her caucus. Trouble is that the stim bill includes beaucoup money for Oklahoma, including a HSR system that will go from Tulsa through Oklahoma City down to Dallas and from there to either San Antonio or Houston. Seems like this will create 100s of Oklahoma jobs and pour millions into the local economy. Unemployment is rising and those with jobs are crazy afraid and she votes against funding unemployment checks? She voted against a tax cut for 97.36% of her constituents? What’s next? Put Tinker up for closing? What the hell is she thinking? I mean, really? (The link in this paragraph will take you to her constituent access page where you can send her an email asking such questions, if you’d like)

Chairman of the Bored

SINATRA SPEAKS!
Muffy, he says there’s a lots of cool cats in Minnesota, but I still think I smelled a rat. I watched a robin and a mockingbird fight for nesting space in my back yard today. I think I like the jay fledglings the best, but you enjoy what you can and endure the rest, I suppose. I think something’s wrong with him, Muffy. He’s been waking up too early and getting up even when I cuddle in. That’s just not right. I’m pretty sure the boy’s just not right, but that’s what makes cats the rulers of the universe, isn’t it?
Mel Brooks had it right: it’s good to be king.