Certainly appears to be a poofer, but I do see that he cheated on his wife of over two decades last year.
Classy people, these moonbat journalists are.
Posted on 02/08/2010 11:35:06 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Andrew Sullivan, the journalist and blogger, who flirted for many years with conservatism and the Republican party, has become the most reliable chronicler of the hyperbolic comings and goings of Sarah Palin.
Sullivan is one of the few journalists who, almost from the beginning, has taken Palin seriously and kept up a warning drumbeat about a political phenomenon that has already turned her into the leader of the American opposition party.
His minute-by-minute catalogue of Palin’s $100,000 speech the other day to the Tea Party conventioneers—of whom, Sullivan rightly points out, she is the de facto head—is a horrifying and comical road map of how meaninglessness can come to stand for something in America.
But capturing it all—the clichés, vapidness, illogic, inversions of reality, Cheneyisms, and her constant whacking at Obama’s legitimacy—he yet misses something.
He misses how really compelling she is. Unaccountably amazing. It could be the meaninglessness itself, and her confidence in it, that is so riveting. But I think it’s something else. It is, that, curiously, she makes sense.
Most politicians have a certain expertise and have done a reasonable amount of preparation before they speak. They thereupon manage to communicate almost zero feeling. Policy is the antithesis—at least many men seem to see it that way—of emotion. Now, you might get, from of a media savvy pol, signals of competence, or anger, or empathy, but seldom is there a palpable, pleasurable feeling on the skin. No rush. No identification. A white guy in a suit is a white guy in a suit. Not emotionally available. Obama (himself quite a cold fish) made and benefited from this case. (Hillary Clinton’s problem was that she always seemed like a white guy in a suit.)
Sarah Palin is a terrible speaker. She garbles syntax, flubs lines, loses her train of thought, and yet it’s easy to find yourself hanging on every word. For one thing she sounds so memorable—the weird pitch catches you. Most other politicians would have been coached on this, would have moved their voice from upper chest to diaphragm.
She’s full of casual provocations, which other politicians would have let themselves be talked out of (“too much,” an advisor would have said). Her sarcasm, taunting and childish, is a crowd pleaser. Her rank sentimentality is lower than where even the most craven man would ever go (that’s the Trig purpose). She’s eschews, even mocks, respectability, perhaps the thing politicians value most highly. And that it’s a woman doing this makes it all the more show stopping. Maybe it requires a woman. (Really, the crib sheet was cute. So junior high school.)
Now partly what this means is that all the things that make her so compelling are the things that will keep her marginal. She’s a moron, after all, albeit a game and tenacious one.
But what Sullivan seems to sense with such great foreboding is that an alternative to all that is deadening and disconnected in American politics might really catch us by surprise. It already has.
******
More of Newser founder Michael Wolff's articles and commentary can be found at VanityFair.com, where he writes a regular column. He can be emailed at michael@newser.com You can also follow him on Twitter: @MichaelWolffNYC.
Jealous and scared to death she will run in 2012!
The chatty Kathy’s are getting catty.
Andrew Sullivan is a reprehensible, scum of the earth individual who should be held accountable for his endless slander of Palin, her family, and especially her baby.
They need to get off the $100,000 fee. They all get paid for giving speeches. Enuf already!
Are you sure that’s not a picture of Anton LeVay? And he cheated on his wife with what sort of creature?
Agreed! Palin could have been somebody. Instead, she runs with the crowd - she’s just a new flavor of ice-cream politicians.
I’d like to suggest that the headline read “Back-handed politicians” instead of “left-handed politicians.” I understand the pun, but right-handers find it offensive that left-handers get all the credit for what is an ecumenical sport of political slappy-face.
correction: I meant “ *-handed compliments “, not “politicians”
Their fear is delicious.
Perhaps just another member of the same organization.
I’d like to suggest that the headline read “Back-handed politicians” instead of “left-handed politicians.” I understand the pun, but right-handers find it offensive that left-handers get all the credit for what is an ecumenical sport of political slappy-face.
What are you talking about? Your post makes no sense.
Anybody making sense amongst the peons and peasants...those uneducated rubes of flyover country...just must be a moron ..doncha know?
The condescension just drips....just who does this horses pattootie think she is to have any opinion at all of what We the People think are our priorities?!!
Perhaps the intent of my comment was not clear. She is a very special somebody and IMO doesn’t run with the crowd. I would be proud to campaign for her in 2012. I would expect some organizations to offer her a fee to speak and quite frankly I don’t care what she does with it.
I was having fun with “left” vs “right” handed compliments (familiarly known as “back-handed compliments”). As part of the fun I pointed out that Sarah Palin is really just the “right” version of what “lefties” don’t like. IN other words, Palin ain’t special, she’s the flavor of the month in this ice cream politics they serve up for us (we are gluttons addicted to the sugar)
I’m staying out of this RIGHT- LEFT blame game of slappy face. Enjoy :)
oh, I’m also trying to give up idol worship
LOL - He looks like the Chief on the old Get Smart TV show.
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