1.10.2006

The Decline of Sullivan

Until recently, Andrew Sullivan’s blog used to be one of the 3 or 4 blogs I checked every day. He seemed to “tell it as it is” and had few if any sacred cows. This is no longer the case. This is not a matter of disagreeing with any of his positions as I’ve always disagreed with some but instead his transformation into a shrill ideological hack; a rigid believer rather than the questioner he was before. Kevin Holtsberry does a pretty good job summarizing this recent rhetorical decline:

It seems to me, that he rarely argues in good faith and his animus and personal obsessions color almost everything he writes.

Sullivan is a skilled polemicist. He is obviously smart and can be, or at least has been in the past, an effective advocate for a particular type of conservatism. It is not, nor has it been, the dominant form in this country, but it is a legitimate form worthy of debate and discussion.

But I am afraid I can no longer take his arguments seriously on a host of issues when he blatantly over-generalizes and argues from bad faith based on emotion and sloppy rhetoric rather than logic and first principles. As I noted above, Sullivan would not tolerate this type of argument from others regarding homosexuality or any of the issues important to him. His double standard is a mile wide: trust those who support your ideas and distrust everything the other side does.

1 comment:

Ben said...

Andrew Sullivan's was the first blog I came across, and for some time, my favorite. I've not been reading him regularly of late, for similar reasons. Basicly, since he mentioned that he was writing a book I've found his posts to be a little lacking. They've tended to feel like one-note rants (justified or no) as opposed to a comprehensive dis of a particular POV.

However, I can't say that this lack has persuaded me to think Sully's full of crap. I've still tended to agree with him more often than not. He simply doesn't give me as many novel reasons to do so. I hold out some hope that when he's done churning out this book, he will return to form. If not, well, that's where the rest of my bookmarks come in...

Either way, I'd be interested to see a comprehensive critique of Sully's posts, this Holtsberry guy's attempt didn't really do it for me.