January 11, 2011

Andrew Sullivan calls for calm

Having endlessly "live-blogged" the Arizona shootings, Andrew Sullivan now is calling for a calm, rational, impersonal, civil discussion of the bigger issue, namely:

The Poison Of Limbaugh

Very very very few people have contributed more poison and hatred and extremism to the culture than Rush Limbaugh.

To understand Andrew Sullivan, you have to read his long article in the NYT Magazine in 2000, “The He Hormone,” in which he explained the powerful impact his prescription testosterone cycle has upon his judgment:
“Soon after I inject myself with testosterone, I feel a deep surge of energy. My attention span shortens. My wit is quicker, my mind faster, but my judgment is more impulsive. …

“Then there’s anger. I have always tended to bury or redirect my rage. I once thought this an inescapable part of my personality. It turns out I was wrong. Late last year, mere hours after a [Testosterone] shot, my dog ran off the leash to forage for a chicken bone left in my local park. The more I chased her, the more she ran. By the time I retrieved her, the bone had been consumed, and I gave her a sharp tap on her rear end. “Don’t smack your dog!” yelled a burly guy a few yards away. What I found myself yelling back at him is not printable in this magazine, but I have never used that language in public before, let alone bellow it at the top of my voice. He shouted back, and within seconds I was actually close to hitting him. He backed down and slunk off. I strutted home, chest puffed up, contrite beagle dragged sheepishly behind me. It wasn’t until half an hour later that I realized I had been a complete jerk and had nearly gotten into the first public brawl of my life. I vowed to inject my testosterone at night in the future.”

Trying to compete with Sullivan makes me feel like Ichiro Suzuki must have felt like trying to compete with Sammy Sosa.

34 comments:

  1. Yeah, we all know Rush gave us COP KILLER, THELMA AND LOUISE, MACHETE, V FOR VENDETTA, BOURNE MOVIES, AVATAR, REMAKE OF THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, AL SHARPTON, LA RAZA, NEW BLACK PANTHERS, TIM WISE, FRANK RICH, 24, AND KANYE WEST'S LATEST VIDEO WHERE HE KILLS A WHOLE BUNCH OF WHITE WOMEN.

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  2. adfadsasdfasdf1/11/11, 6:04 PM

    You know, maybe the liberals don't want calm. They could be willfully driving us crazy with these insults to make us more angry in the hope that more violent acts will occur--which they can exploit.
    Just how does one call for calm by spitting in people's face?

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  3. Polichinello1/11/11, 6:23 PM

    Can Sullivan be so clueless that he's unaware of what a joke he's become? Is it metaphysically possible. Seriously, does anyone with a triple-digit I.Q. go to his site for anything other than his constant supply of unintentional jokes? His self-parody may be the first example we have of post-post-postmodern analysis.

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  4. Polichinello1/11/11, 6:28 PM

    It just occurred to me that Sullivan has become the M. Night Shyalaman of the blogging world. The guy who keeps getting work no matter how many bombs he produces. I mean, who didn't laugh when they read Steve's post title. Steve could have stopped right there. No further need to explain the joke. It was just like watching a preview of "Devil" in the theater, and the audience simultaneously started sniggering when the announcer said, "From the mind of M. Night Shyalaman.."

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  5. "The Poison Of Limbaugh
    11 Jan 2011 04:31 pm
    Very very very few people have contributed more poison and hatred and extremism to the culture than Rush Limbaugh."

    That's rich coming from Sullivan, who has quite probably infected several people with a lethal disease, and thereby helped contribute to thier untimely deaths.

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  6. They figure if they repeat that the guy was a Tea Partier (instead of a nutcase, leftwing to the extent he had any coherent philosophy) they can kill the Tea Party.

    They're probably right: this stuff is aimed front and center at "Nice White Ladies" who are appalled at icky White guys in the first place, and believe it because, hey, Katie Couric said it.

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  7. "Very very very few people" is a nice way to de-intensify, don't you think?

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  8. "My wit is quicker"

    Objection, not supported by the record.

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  9. Limbaugh was addicted to pain killers like Oxycontin some years back, purchasing thousands of them. Reportedly he popped up to 30 of them in a day. Yet his radio listenership never noticed anything unusual about him? He was as high as a satellite while pontificating on anything and everything and his audience thought he was simply wonderful?

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  10. I saw Sullivan on tv for the first time in several years a week or so ago.

    I couldn't believe the physical change in him since the last time I had seen him. In those days, post 9/11, I recall that he had a pleasant appearance. He always wore a neatly trimmed beard, a typical suit and tie, and was rather soft-spoken, even when he spoke with passion. I should add, I suppose, that the perpetually disheveled Chris Hitchens sat near Sullivan so the juxtaposition of the two probably made Sullivan look a bit better than had he been sitting next to, say, a Peter Jennings sort. (Maybe I should also add I'm female.)

    This time, however, what hair he had was untrimmed, his beard was downright wooly, and when the camera pulled back, what I saw kind of startled me. He looked downright rotund. It made me realize that the years do that to all of us, but the neatly groomed Sullivan of years past stood in stark contrast to the pudgy ill-groomed Sullivan.

    My eye was caught by his shoes, of all things. I could be wrong, but they looked like those that are worn by diabetics who have problems with their feet, for they had what are called a high toe box, a very high and rounded toe area.

    The stylish Sullivan of years ago was not the guy I saw last week. I know he's HIV+ and that he takes drugs to combat it. Whether his state of health has anything to do with his appearance I don't know, but I wondered.

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  11. albert magnus1/11/11, 7:22 PM

    I've always liked his blog. Sullivan is excitable to say the least, but he has a sense of humor and his readership sends him lots of interesting e-mails. He has a number of people working for him who are good at finding the interesting links of the day.

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  12. Polichinello1/11/11, 7:23 PM

    They're probably right: this stuff is aimed front and center at "Nice White Ladies"...

    Nope, not this time, Whiskey. There's too much push back from the new media. Even the hens on The View won't push this meme, it stinks so bad.

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  13. I wish that he'd just get married and settle down to china patterns and decorating!

    Leaving the keyboard alone forever!

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  14. Polichinello - you're needed over here

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  15. What exactly do Thelma and Louise,La Raza, Tim Wise, and Avatar have in common again?

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  16. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS_dementia_complex

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  17. This gets more ridiculous by the day.

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  18. Let me just say that cauliflower is the brain of the fruit kingdom.

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  19. I'm always amazed at how many losers, wierdos, freaks, and dummies dominate our national discourse.

    Sullivan, Hitchens, Frum, the freaks on the View, Oprah, the Weirdos at MSNBC, Beck, O'Reilley, Jonah Goldberg, Media Matters, Frank Rich, Krugman, David Cohen, Stern, George Will, Bill Maher, Stewart, etc.

    Why should any of us care what a pot-smoking, bareback riding, English Fag thinks about the USA?

    Good God, in 1960 Andrew Sullivan wouldn't have been read outside of Greenwich Village.

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  20. The Biased Media!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAfjCjgjyA0&feature=fvw

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMSPnlBHOog&feature=related

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  21. Sullivan's probably pissed that Sarah Palin had poor Trig circumcised.

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  22. "Reportedly he popped up to 30 of them in a day. Yet his radio listenership never noticed anything unusual about him?"

    They did notice and he was compelled to make up some stuff about possible studio equipment to blame due to his voice drawling (as he progressively lost more hearing).

    Also you aren't familiar with the lengths to which addicts can go to cover up their use, maybe this is a subject you should read up on before asking more questions in some unrelated forum.

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  23. "Good God, in 1960 Andrew Sullivan wouldn't have been read outside of Greenwich Village."

    The average American has no idea who Andrew Sullivan is. I started to say "Good," then reconsidered. Perhaps the more the average America sees and hears and reads these people, the better.

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  24. Limbaugh is a ray of sunshine compared to almost anyone else in talk radio or TV punditry, on the left or the right. Unlike the rest of them, he is happy and has an excellent sense of humor (which helps explain why he also has the largest audience).

    There is the idea of Limbaugh that torments the minds of shrill hysterics like Sullivan, and then there's the real Limbaugh: the guy who has a black call screener/right-hand man, and had a gay man entertain his friends and family at his wedding.

    Limbaugh is sort of the Sailer of talk radio: he's the one with the wit, sense of humor, and the largest audience.

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  25. Sullivan used his soap box to pimp for war against Iraq. Nuff said.

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  26. I'd like to meet Sullivan's dog and tell him that it's easier to just run into traffic on the Rock Creek Parkway- quicker, probably painless- than it is to try and choke yourself on a chicken bone.

    Poor animal.

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  27. Sullivan was criticizing this statement by Rush:

    "What Mr. Loughner knows is that he has the full support of a major political party in this country."

    Does anyone here believe this? If anyone really believes that they might have mental problems. I don't think Rush believes it. I think he is just saying it to piss off liberals.

    I think it is stupid to criticize liberals with nonsense when there is a lot of legitimate things you can attack them for. He could spend his broadcast time bashing liberals for things they deserve instead he makes up idiotic stuff like saying they support the shooter because it is more inflammatory. I would prefer he attack them on immigration, diversity, wasted educated spending, etc. Do people here want to change bad government policies or do they prefer to irritate the left. Rush prefers the latter. I prefer the former.

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  28. Fred said...

    There is the idea of Limbaugh that torments the minds of shrill hysterics like Sullivan, and then there's the real Limbaugh: the guy who has a black call screener/right-hand man, and had a gay man entertain his friends and family at his wedding."

    Then there's the real real Limbaugh: a drug-addict blow-hard who used conservative politics to make himself a fortune, and doesn't really give a damn about actual conservative policies or principals, and who toadies up to any republican party hack who is in power. But at least he isn't stupid. So he has that over Sean Hannity.

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  29. Yeah, Limbaugh "covered up" his use of drugs by blaming "possible studio equipment" problems, a real believable explanation. I'm surprised he was able to walk into and out of his studio unassisted. It just proves his audience was probably just as stoned as he was, the more he babbled the more they applauded. The commentator who said that " losers, weirdos, freaks and dummies dominate our national discourse" really hit the mark. I just wonder about those millions out there who listen to them.

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  30. helene edwards1/12/11, 10:20 AM

    Mr. Anon, Andrew Sullivan doesn't pitch, he only catches. Don't you remember his famous columns about finding someone to bareback him?

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  31. Fred's right, one of the things people like about Limbaugh is that he strikes a nice balance between cheerfulness and bombast. It's also a big part of why the left hates him so; he seems like a great guy as he goes for the throat.

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  32. I suspect Andrew Sullivan's testosterone-induced mood swings have more to do with the way in which he's using it rather than the fact that he's using it. I puts the entire 200 mg in a butt-cheek once per week, whereas more reasonable schemes include the use of human chorionic gonadotropin to keep endogenous production going and the spacing of smaller doses 2-3 times per week. Also, his estradiol levels have likely built-up as he doesn't appear to be using an anti-estradiol drug.

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  33. "Then there's the real real Limbaugh: a drug-addict blow-hard who used conservative politics to make himself a fortune, and doesn't really give a damn about actual conservative policies or principals, and who toadies up to any republican party hack who is in power. But at least he isn't stupid. So he has that over Sean Hannity."

    1) He was a drug addict. So what? He got treatment for it, and apparently has been clean since.

    2) "Conservative politics" didn't make Limbaugh a fortune; his broadcasting talent did. If conservative politics were all it took to make a fortune, most of Steve's readers would be rich.

    3) Limbaugh opposed Bush on Medicare Part D and on open borders, and he has had plenty of contempt for McCain.

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  34. One of the many pundits I wrote off when no WMDs were found.

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