Sullivan's Clinton shtick

Andrew Sullivan suffers. And oh, how he wants us all to suffer with him. His neurosis could make a brawny man weep a-boo-hoo for Sully's CDS-afflicted cerebal cortex. Obsession, sending a cascade of neuropeptides through his neural tissue, may cause him to gasp like a hooked fish but his hankie quick to remove any hint of lickspittle beguiles him into the quiet, insidious work of deposing his darkest, deepest fear: The Clintons.

Denigrating The Clintons feeds his raison d'être, a crutch against otherwise mediocre political meanderings. Woe is he, a fine writing talent wasting his craft on polemics that rival Jonah Goldberg's wacky farragoes. Yet, what is a conservative to do in an era when rightist ideology lies scattered like withered petals on the lawn of the Rose Garden? His former war hero, the talking codpiece, has been unmasked as a proven idiot. And worse.

BUSHIE INFATUATION
In the archives of Salon, one can find anti-leftist, antiwar Sullivan harangues. Two examples: in 2003, "Idiocy of the Week: Sheryl Crow, brain-dead peacenik in sequins," and his immortalizing column in 2000, "Why is this race even close? Because George W. Bush has campaigned better, proposed more forward-thinking programs and proved, in the end, that he's smarter than Al Gore." Cue up the laugh track.

Sully wailed a post-9/11 "shriek, hitting an ear-piercing decibel that, whether intended or not, [drove] out the possibility of rational discussion," by acting as a self-appointed inquisitor "to evaluate whether his fellow writers and commentators [were] sufficiently patriotic." David Talbot summarized in October 2001, "Sullivan has often fallen to his own knees before President Bush in Salon."

In May 2001, gay columnist Michelangelo Signorile derided Sullivan for his plagiarism and Bush-worship:

...attacking the gay left after first pilfering its ideas and claiming they are his own, the writer Andrew Sullivan wrote a critique of Hollywood's closet. Sent to me by several perceptive readers of this column and my other work, it appeared on his Web site, where Sullivan licks the boots of George W. Bush daily. . . Perhaps we shouldn't expect fairness, let alone admissions of intellectual growth and a change of heart, from someone so self-obsessed and seemingly insecure.

Fast forward. The New York Review of Books wrote last year:

For more than two years, Sullivan relentlessly shilled for Bush and for the war on terror, including its "central front" in Iraq. It wasn't until the early months of 2004 that he broke with the "shrewd," "quiet," "underestimated" figure of the President, first over Bush's endorsement of a constitutional ban on gay marriage, then in moral repugnance at the evidence of government-condoned torture at Abu Ghraib. In October 2004, he "endorsed"—as he rather grandly put it, as if he were an editorial board—John Kerry as "the lesser of two risks." Since then he has attacked the administration with all the vehemence he formerly lavished on its detractors. Nowadays, on Sullivan's blog, Rumsfeld is labeled a "war criminal," Bush a "boneless wonder."

What may sting the "odd duck" more than the loss of idealized Daddy Bush now transformed into modern history's most unpopular American president was Sully's exposure "by the gay press for advertising for 'bareback' sex (unprotected by condoms) in an AOL chat room... denounced as a hypocrite by his liberal gay critics for engaging in risky sexual practices after attacking President Clinton for his own incautious behavior."

Oh, my. Does Andrew hold questionable moral standards: one for he, and another for thee?

BASHING THE CLINTONS
Joining the Obama bandwagon under the guise of a post-partisan, post-boomer world, aka meet the new boss, same as the old boss, may distract Sullivan from reckoning with an existential strife as a gay conservative "small-government independent" without a political home save the media circus. Perhaps anxiety over having been so incredibly wrong about Bush has mobilized a return to a familiar diversion, his undying hatred for his pet scapegoats, The Clintons.

At his Daily Dish during last night's primary returns, his brain fogged at 11:27 pm by WWTSBQ resentment when he failed to calculate simple arithmetic. He prematurely announced that Oregon is "[a]lmost a mirror image of Kentucky tonight: currently a 60 - 40 Obama win." Ah, poor fact-challenged Sully. Almost? A 35-point victory for Hillary over Obama is more than twice as large as Obama's 16-point win over Clinton, n'est-ce pas? Of course, I don't expect a hit-and-run blogger posting fodder for sticky eyeballs to match the depth of analysis of the always-astute Anglachel.

Nineteen minutes earlier at 11:06 pm, Sully approvingly posted a reader's message under the headline, The Clintons And Race, which opened with wild-eyed wonder at "how horrible, how evil it is to vote against a black man -- because he's a black man?" Predictably, it was Hillary's fault because magically the reader through an inexplicable Vulcan mind-melding process knew that, like he, "Hillary saw the exact same exit polls and passed up a chance to speak out against them." Sullivan's response?

The Clintons have only one principle: their own power. Minorities are there to serve their purposes. If not, not. I saw this very vividly in the 1990s. They haven't changed. It's always only about them.

One should question how clearly Sullivan can see.

Peruse Sullivan's writings at the Times Online, a scornucopia of anti-Clinton vitriol:

Hillary’s suicidal gamble with race poison
Clinton's decision to stop chasing the black vote has become her undoing as shown in last Tuesday’s North Carolina primary

Obama-Clinton, a hate-filled dream ticket
The Democratic front-runner is no street-fighter, which is why Hillary would make a perfect running mate

Hillary and her old enemies cuddle up for a kill
Last week was officially the moment that the race for the Democratic nomination slipped through the looking glass into surrealism

Judgment Day looms for Hillary the wrecker
Pennsylvania could show that the paradigm that has reigned in US politics for at least two decades has been shattered

The Clintons, a horror film that never ends
The Clintons live off psychodrama. They love to push themselves to the brink of catastrophe and then accomplish the last-minute, nail-biting...

In the later March 9 article misogynistic hit job, Sully bared his adolescent fangs for Hillary, and because she is indelibly inked in Andrew's lexicon as the wife of Bill, he conjured a fright fest, The Clintons:

Put your own movie analogy in here. Glenn Close in the bathtub in Fatal Attraction – whoosh! she’s back at your throat! – has often occurred to me when covering the Clintons these many years. The Oscars host Jon Stewart compares them to a Terminator: the kind that is splattered into a million tiny droplets of vaporised metal . . . only to pool together spontaneously and charge back at you unfazed.

The Clintons have always had a touch of the zombies about them: unkillable, they move relentlessly forward, propelled by a bloodlust for Republicans or uppity Democrats who dare to question their supremacy. You can’t escape; you can’t hide; and you can’t win. And these days, in the kinetic pace of the YouTube campaign, they are like the new 28 Days Later zombies. They come at you really quickly, like bats out of hell. Or Ohio, anyway.

But that will never capture the emotional toll that the Clintons continue to take on some of us. I’m not kidding. I woke up in a cold sweat early last Wednesday. There have been moments this past week when I have felt physically ill at the thought of that pair returning to power.

Why? I have had to write several columns in this space over the years acknowledging that the substantive legacy of the Clinton administration (with a lot of assist from Newt Gingrich) was a perfectly respectable one: welfare reform, fiscal sanity, prudent foreign policy, leaner government. But remembering the day-to-day psychodramas of those years still floods my frontal cortex with waves of loathing and anxiety. The further away you are from them, the easier it is to think they’re fine. Up close they are an intolerable, endless, soul-sapping soap opera....

...And evil means that anything the Clintons do in self-defence is excusable – even playing the race card, and the Muslim card, and the gender card, and every sleazy gambit that the politics of fear can come up with. This is how they have arrested the Obama juggernaut. It’s the only game they know how to play.

Sully's self-delusions would never allow him to acknowledge the media inventions that viciously trashed Hill and Bill in the 1990s and freshly minted smears during the current 2008 campaign. Nor can he admit his willing and heavy-handed participation. The neurotic's prize is to be right more than anything and he will fight to prove that he's right even when he's wrong.

Lucid revelations would require an honest assessment, a self-introspection, but Sullivan, soaked in sweat from hidden abscesses stewing in his brain, hasn't nurtured the skillset or the awareness to give up shaking his waah-waah baby rattle at a politically powerful couple who have caused him no personal harm. Does he covet their clout? Or is he milking an established press corp melodrama to hasten his career trajectory?

What can one expect of a gay political pundit who, for years, ironed the wrinkles of the Emperor's new clothes and polished George's boots?

Someone has to pay for poor Sully's disappointments. So he dons his night vision goggles to hunt his perceived terror... The Clintons.

Imagined zombies have driven him mad but I suspect his shtick fetches a handsome fee.

UPDATE 5/22: Sullivan refers to people "who voted for the Clintons"--as he did 20 May 2008 09:48 pm at his Daily Dish (no, I won't link to his blog)--a sexist remark since Bill isn't running for office no matter how many ways the media darthling tries to spin his preposterous assertions. Sen. Hillary Clinton is the name Sullivan most often avoids. Why is that? You know why.

CREDITS: Illustration from the David Levine Gallery.

Nora Ephron's white people

The white people of Nora Ephron's movies.

Joseph alerted me to Nora Ephron's insipid column on "White Men." The Ephron excerpts that he quoted:

This is an election about whether the people of Pennsylvania hate blacks more than they hate women. And when I say people, I don't mean people, I mean white men.

Hillary's case is not an attractive one, because what she'll essentially be saying (and has been saying, although very carefully) is that she can attract more racist white male voters than Obama can.

Oh, gawd. Go read Joseph for his political viewpoints and to get the link to Ephron's column. He's absolutely right about Ephron's implied threat, Vote as I tell you to vote, or I'll call you a racist or a sexist.

What nauseates me about Ephron? Her blindness to her projection onto Hillary of the very criticism of which she's made a career: white woman meets white man, relationship unfolds toward commitment. M'yeah. Meg Ryan, who played the romantic lead in Ephron's movies, Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail, represents a white female who isn't happy without the white man of her dreams played by actor Tom Hanks. Has Ephron considered how she's contributing to the sexist, racist storyline she now decries? She depicts a world in which her main characters are all white. Have Pennsylvania voters become influenced by all the Hollywood movies that reinforce white racial hegemony? Has Ephron considered the underlying racist narratives in her films? Silly idea, isn't it?

Of course, it ridiculous in Nora's mind to entertain the possibility that PA voters prefer Clinton's policy positions over Obama's. Or maybe PA's white male voters have been repulsed by Barry's negative and dubious campaign attack ads against Clinton. I dunno. But I can say with confidence that skin color doesn't qualify a candidate to solve the economic worries that voters say are their top concern. I support Hillary because she offers solutions I prefer. Perhaps Obama hasn't convincingly persuaded PA voters on the issues more than Clinton. But to Nora, those white men in PA are racists and so is Hillary. Disregard that their voting preferences may be predicated on their wallets and who can best fill them with job income and better economic conditions.

I'll set aside the anti-feminist argument that a woman needs a man for her self-fulfillment because humans do crave companionship. How Nora represents these human yearnings irk me as a feminist. Simply, she infers sexist stereotypes. Funny that Nora hasn't discovered the log in her eye.

There's another reason to discount Nora Ephron's ramblings: she mishandles facts. In her column she stated (with emphasis):

Even around the time of Ohio, when there were primarily three candidates, the outlines were murky, because Edwards was still in there, picking up votes from all sectors.

Edwards dropped out of the presidential race before Super Tuesday on Jan. 30, 2008, when he declared, "It's time for me to step aside so that history can blaze it's path." Ohio's primary date was March 4. Hello! Earth to Nora. Edwards was not in the race "around the time of Ohio."

So pardon moi if I open a can of bwahahaha when Ephron makes an fallacious, inflammatory assertion without any proof that Hillary is saying although very carefully that "she can attract more racist white male voters than Obama can." Proof, Nora, present your evidence if you can without mangling the facts. When a pundit undertakes the serious allegation to smear a candidate implying racism, it's her job to present evidence. Subjective propaganda and opinion isn't acceptable. Show me the proof to substantiate the claim or to my thinking, the accuser is an unmitigated slanderer or a hopelessly irresponsible ninny.

Historically, white racists vote Republican (see the Southern Strategy). Why would they turn out for a Democratic primary? I can think of a reason: vote for the unelectable candidate, the one they think their GOP candidate can beat in the fall. I could speculate that spoilers are crossing over in open primaries to help Obama beat Clinton so they can vote against him in November since Clinton is more likely to defeat McCain.

Secondly, Ephron evidently lacks a depth of political knowledge to realize that playing the race card isn't a new invention used against a Democratic presidential opponent. Bill Bradley maligned Al Gore in 2000 when he "ripped the vice president for injecting racism into the 1988 campaign by raising the Willie Horton case against Michael Dukakis.” It wasn't true--Gore is not a racist--but our mindless press corps picked up the racial theme against Gore and spread it, just as our biased media have painted the Clintons as slobbering racists in this campaign. [Ed. note: Al Gore never mentioned Willie Horton in case you don't click the The Daily Howler link. H/t to Joseph Cannon in comments.]

Why liberals fall for this specious propaganda, one can only speculate, but none of the answers are good when allegedly intelligent people follow the plot lines our morally-bankrupt news media concoct. If the Clintons are such super-smart politicians, why the hell would they commit electoral suicide undermining Hillary's chances of winning? It defies logic, but don't expect to find sound reasoning in Ephron's column (or from rubes who swallow such drool).

Based on Nora's own "insights," how has Ephron exempted herself from the fact that she devises a world on film that is predominantly white-skinned? Are we to assume, based on Nora's suppositions, that she is saying she can attract more racist white movie-goers than Spike Lee can (and has been saying, although very carefully)? Goose, gander, sauce, Nora.

Ephron bemoans, "after all these stupid articles about how powerless white men are. . . after all this, they turn out (surprise!) to have all the power." You know what's ironic? The swooning of Nora's female characters into the arms of men in her cinematic works. In You've Got Mail, the Hanks character owns a bookstore chain that eventually puts our struggling heroine's independent bookstore out of business. The female lead played by Ryan can't stand the powerful businessman who precipitates her company's demise. Yet, in the end, they fall in love. Cue soundtrack, Over The Rainbow. Can you believe it? Maybe it's time to start boycotting her sexist movies where men "turn out (surprise!) to have all the power."

Why Nora continues to churn out intellectually-shallow polemics is a mystery. In her "White Men" column, I wonder if she's attempting to assuage her white guilt for having been racially insensitive in casting and writing screenplays that tell stories about white people. Just a guess. I have no proof other than her filmography, which relegates African-American actors to bit parts. To foster such an argument is as overly-simplistic as Ephron saying that Hillary can "attract more racist white male voters than Obama can."

Maybe Nora hasn't paid attention. Obama is attracting more African American voters than Hillary, but I wouldn't particularly assign a racial component to Barry's voting bloc. History-making and enthusiasm? Yes. Racist? No. Sexist? Maybe. Of course, there are racists, sexists, and homophobes. But are we to blame the candidates for how bigots vote? Not if they don't pander to them. What's also troubling is Ephron's judgment that "white men cannot be relied on, as all of us know who have spent a lifetime dating them." Ahem. Making judgmental generalizations isn't helpful in healing whatever divides men, women, ethnic groups, or any segment of our society.

I don't have time today--aren't you lucky--to analyze why women like Nora dislike Hillary enough to slime her. But there's something deeply pathological and psychologically disturbing going on. Using racial smears is ugly business. Doing so without facts is libelous.

One thing you can bet: Winged Tasmanian wombats will fly out my bum before I waste one dollar on any Nora Ephron enterprise past or future.

POSTSCRIPT: One key observation from Joseph that I failed to mention: "People like Nora Ephron do the Republican Party's work so expertly that I wouldn't be surprised to learn of a covert GOP pay-off."

IMAGE: Cropped from a movie poster of Sleepless in Seattle. Poll graphic from Yahoo! News.

UPDATE: Edited for clarity.