Thursday, July 29, 2004

Sullivan the Dull

When I first started reading blogs about a year ago, I read Andrew Sullivan a lot. At the time he was pushing the values of a moderate gay Republican. It set him apart from the crowd of whitebread WASP Republicans and Libertarians that inhabit the blogosphere. Woo hoo! New ideas and viewpoints!

But eventually I read him less and less. Its obvious that gay (homosexual? same-sex?) politics are very central to Sullivan for obvious reasons, but somehow he had tricked himself into believing the very evangelical GW Bush to be his man in this area. What a shock that the evangelical President sides with the Christians on same sex marriage... Sullivan's rants on Bush's "betrayl" became tiresome quickly but never dropped in frequency. Of course it didn't help that I'm an evangelical who's ideals are much closer to the President than Sullivan.

So I read Sullivan today for the first time in months (work is slow) and it read way too party line Democrat. Granted its still a gay partyliner, but with democrats thats not so striking. I'm not the only one to notice. Sullivan often harped on topics I didn't care about, but now he's simply fallen into the Democratic pseudo-strategist noise.
And the Democrats can now claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility that the GOP, under Bush and Hastert and Frist, has abandoned. It will be hard for Bush to defend the tax cuts for the very rich in a debate, especially one framed this way by the Democrats.

Just one problem, all of Bush's carefree spending has been on bills proposed by whom? By Democrats. The Republicans were the one with ideas behind expanding Medicare and they certainly didn't write Teddy Kennedy's education bill. Sullivan's logic which I respected, even if I didn't agree with it, is increasingly left behind for this:
Domestically, I also thought Edwards was able to offer traditional Democratic support for the less fortunate without engaging in sour leftist resentment. I'm always moved by white Southern men of a certain generation who can also speak so effectively about civil rights.

Wow you're moved. Thats great. What happened the old less-predictable Andrew Sullivan? Is this what supporting Kerry does to a man? Turns him into a hollow shell of himself who can only repeat "I'm not a democrat" while he walks and talks like one? Ugghh not for me not anymore.

No comments: