Friday, February 12, 2010

Unprincipled and opportunistic War Party collaborator Sullivan finds himself today hoisted upon his own "anti-Semitism" petard

The Weathervane as Metaphor
Andrew Sullivan, hoist on his own petard
(AntiWar.com) -- by Justin Raimondo --

...Among pundits in the English-speaking world, Sullivan has achieved a truly special status: he’s a veritable canary-in-the-mine when it comes to identifying impending disasters. Whenever he’s embraced a particular folly – whether it be the idea of “liberating” the Muslim world at gunpoint, invading Iraq (or nuking it), or smearing anti-interventionists as a “fifth column” sympathetic to al-Qaeda – it soon became ubiquitous. He was always in the vanguard, the one who set the standard in the War Party for new ways to argue for the very policies he now rejects as misguided, and worse. When the first antiwar protesters peeked their heads out from under the avalanche of post-9/11 war hysteria, it was Sullivan who claimed that some nut-ball handing out copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion on the fringes of an antiwar protest was somehow representative of the antiwar movement.

Now the blogosphere is abuzz with angry denunciations of Leon Wieseltier’s ridiculously vicious hit-piece in The New Republic claiming Sullivan is a closeted anti-Semite, and “outing” him as an anti-Jewish bigot, all without actually saying it. I’ll leave others to describe the absurdity of Wiseltier’s specific charges, and let them defend Sullivan against these admittedly unfair charges, while I just kick back and enjoy the spectacle, a little morality play which might be titled “Hoist With His Own Petard.”

Back when it was okay, and even fashionable, to smear anti-interventionists as purveyors of the Protocols, and it was dangerous to be considered part of a “fifth column” because John Ashcroft might be inspired to lock you up and throw away the key, Sullivan had no compunctions about acting out his chosen role as the War Party’s Grand Inquisitor – including impugning the loyalty of the staff of this Web site.

As the political weather turned, however, so the weathervane began pointing in another direction. Sullivan became a devoted Obama-ite, albeit still hanging on to the bare threads of his alleged conservatism. Several mea culpas later, Sullivan has seemingly come nearly full circle, with a strong critique of neo-conservatism such as one might easily find throughout our archives. That he is now subject to the sort of attacks he used to specialize in, launched by his former chums over at The New Republic, is a glorious confirmation of cosmic justice, enough to awaken the stony heart of even the most hardened and militant atheist to the possibility of divine intervention in the affairs of men...

Sullivan has not only attacked the antiwar movement as a veritable den of neo-Nazis, he has routinely smeared anti-interventionists such as Pat Buchanan and even echoed claims made in The New Republic that accused Ron Paul of being a closet “white nationalist.” Now that same transmission belt of slanderous innuendo is running in reverse, unleashing its poison on him, and it couldn’t have found a more deserving target...MORE...LINK

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