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Sullivan’s ambivalent critique of a hard-line Clintonite
Literary critic Carol Iannone informs us that Andrew Sullivan’s harsh review of the Clintonite Sleaze Master Sidney Blumenthal’s new book is more ambiguous than it initially appears. While criticizing Blumenthal for his no-limits defense of Clinton in the Lewinksy scandal, Sullivan himself takes Clinton’s side in that scandal. Sullivan’s attitude brings to mind our recent discussions at VFR about the inability of liberals to draw a principled distinction between what they regard as morally acceptable and what they regard as “going too far.” Here is Miss Iannone’s note:
Andrew Sullivan’s review of Sidney Blumenthal’s new book is quite severe on the author. Sullivan is basically saying that Sid, as he calls him, has no moral compass whatsoever. He is a Clinton acolyte for whom morality is whatever serves the Clintons and the Democratic Party. But did you know that Sullivan himself was glad the Clintons rode out the storm, and preferred Clinton to the “puritanical” Starr? He tells us so in the course of the review. So his pretention to having a moral basis while Sid has none is really vacant. If anything, Sullivan is a libertarian, with whatever tenuous moral principles accrue to that position. Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 16, 2003 04:48 PM | Send Comments
Compare “this book is worth reading. It’s brutally revealing about the stupidity, bigotry, malevolence and extremism of the right-wing forces that became obsessed with President Clinton.” with “Then there are, alas, the smears. The portrait of Christopher Hitchens as an unreliable right-wing drunk is particularly vicious and dumb. So is the evisceration of the late Mike Kelly, and vituperation directed at Mike Isikoff of Newsweek, Susan Schmidt of The Washington Post and other actual journalists. This is ugly stuff, and Mr. Blumenthal revels in it.” It would have shown more regard for his readers to go to the trouble of suggesting a reason for thinking the book is “brutally revealing” about Starr and “vicious and dumb” about Hitchens rather than the reverse. Blumenthal evidently writes in the same manner about both. I also found his Gospel analogy rather disgusting: “It’s a Gospel. Its facts are assembled, as the facts in the Gospels were assembled, for one purpose only: to affirm the faith, to rally the flock, to spread the further glory of the Church … That’s what happens when the religious temperament prevails. The need to prove not just that Mr. Clinton’s opponents were evil, wrong, dumb, malign, gob-smackingly corrupt and duplicitous in every single respect, but that the President was noble, grand, progressive, epic and world- historical must, by its very nature, obscure nuance. Nuance, after all, could lead to doubt; and doubt to error; and error to damnation.” So the Gospels stand as a symbol of the mindless crudity and partisanship of the religious outlook. Does anyone take seriously Sullivan’s claim to be Catholic? Posted by: Jim Kalb on May 16, 2003 6:00 PMAn attempt to answer Mr. Kalb’s question follows. Probably some thought briefly that Mr. Sullivan’s belief was serious because a credible intellect such as David Horowitz gave Mr. Sullivan a platform in FrontPage Magazine, a credible magazine where some discovered Mr. Sullivan. Mr. Sullivan’s glorification of his precious practicing homosexual ESSENCE is repugnant to two thousand years of Catholic intellectual tradition (not to mention Sodom, modern cognitive therapy, and prayer). Logically, his public rejection of the Gospels and unrepentant embracement of a homosexual lifestyle does indeed preclude him from being taken seriously as a Catholic. All he has to do to be taken seriously is to publicly confess a few words: “Bless me Father, for I have sinned with my homosexual lifestyle.” |