Mr. Auster: When you write letters like this one, are you not afraid that you will be accused of being “judgmental”? Is it not more important to have a collegial spirit of accommodation with all public figures rather than to merely try to save Western civilization? Just curious.

Right on. Andy suffers from severe cognitive dissonance in many areas, which he sinks from consciousness with unstoppable, gushing torrents of rationalizing bibble-babble. I no longer bother with his site except for anthropological purposes.

His basic problem is that he is a sexual deviant who allows himself to be defined by that deviance, and will say or do anything to avoid having to admit that it is deviance, feverishly excoriating the other 98½% of the human race who can’t help noticing that anal intercourse is…er…somewhat outré.

Though Mr. Coleman is asking his question ironically, I’ll answer seriously. Sure, it’s best to try to stay on civil terms with people, especially public figures. I have had a couple of civil e-mail exchanges with Sullivan in the past. But when I saw recently that he was promoting what I would call perverted material at his site, such as that portrait of Ashcroft that I linked, the realization hit me that this guy is basically a sicko looking for an opportunity to spread his sickness. I realized that this was not just a campaign to normalize homosexuality, but a campaign to normalize filth. Of course, lots of people traffic in that kind of thing. But Sullivan is doing it via a website devoted to the “patriotic” theme of supporting our country in war and so on. He’s getting himself accepted by patriots and conservatives, and using that acceptance to normalize various sexual perversities.

The bottom line is that I’ve concluded he is a bad person, so I’m not interested in being “collegial” with him. But even so, notice that the worst I say about him is that he’s “phony” and “naive.” That’s pretty mild stuff compared to the vilification that is current in “mainstream” politics today.

Mr. Auster—What is with Mr. Sullivan’s site background color (psychadelic purple)? It is very hard on the eyes, and I couldn’t find your email to him anywhere and I had to look for a pair of sunglasses just to read the letters in white print! Ugh. Doesn’t seem like the kind of site I would want to visit very often.

On a similar vein, I am wondering what you and others (Mr. Coleman, Shrewsbury et al) think of lesbian “conservative” talk show host, Tammy Bruce. She is sharp, and not the “Bushie” that Laura Ingraham is, but then she states “I am a pro choice lesbian feminist conservative” and I nee to pause to decide if I should be impressed.

Mr. Sullivan indeed has no understanding of the power, or dark forces that can be unleashed with human sexuality. He is in many ways a child, or a fool, or perhaps both.

To Mr. Levin,

I didn’t send the e-mail to Sullivan’s site, but to him personally.

If you have trouble with the black background at that site, I believe it has a feature where you can turn the background to white.

I haven’t read Tammy Bruce, but anyone who calls herself a “feminist lesbian conservative” does not have a strong grasp of the meaning of words. It’s important to remember that there are various liberals who may be useful in criticizing the extremities of the left, but that that doesn’t make them conservatives. Bruce sounds as though she may fit into that category. One of the great confusions today is that anyone who is anti-left is called a conservative. It would be as though, during the Cold War, anyone who was anti-Communist was called a conservative, which would have made Harry Truman, Hubert Humphrey, John F. Kennedy, and Henry Jackson “conservatives.” The misnaming we have today not only creates intellectual confusion but is substantially harmful to conservatism, in that (1) it makes real conservatism impossible by defining conservatism as liberalism, and (2) another way of saying the same thing, it defines conservatism as opposition to the hard left, rather than as opposition to liberalism.

I must strongly disagree with J. Hagan’s statement, “Mr. Sullivan indeed has no understanding of the power, or dark forces that can be unleashed with human sexuality.” Au contraire! The Milkman has an exquisite understanding of this, one that is positively intestinal (or intestinally positive), so to speak:

“[Sullivan] …has made a lucrative career of condemning gay culture as excessively sex-oriented, yet it turns out that nice little Andrew has some fairly unsavory pursuits of his own…
He has built a career on railing at the supposed moral failings of others, from his fellow gays to Bill Clinton, while secretly practicing an extremely dangerous and irresponsible form of sex. He urges assimilation and traditional morality for other gays, while immersing himself in a subculture that most gays know to be hazardous to the whole community.”

This catty critique is courtesy of http://milkyloads.tripod.com/
[Warning: that site and its AOL link are tame enough to visit, but the link with the hippophile name offers Sullivan’s, er, cheeky portrait, along with some salty and emetic language. Don’t go there.]

Ever notice that the régimes with the most brutal control of sex relations, such as those in Africa and Araby, occur in the most highly-sexed male populations? The burqa isn’t there to control the woman…

Reg, when I stated that Andrew Sullivan has no understanding of the darker forces that sexuality can unleash I did it knowing full well that the kind of sex he has practiced has ruined his health, and given him a terminal illness. I doubt Andrew wanted to aquire HIV in any conscious way, but yet he did. If Sullivan had been able to take a more rational approach to his own sexuality in his personal life, without letting his lusts overtake him, perhaps we would see a better, and more healthy intergration of his personal and public life. It seems to me Sullivan is paying the ultimate price for his lack of understanding: terminal illness.

Ah, but with the help of the MANLY MOLECULE, testosterone, Andrew is feeling fine! (Steve Sailer has witten a column or two mentioning Andrews penchant for promoting prescription steroids, which apparently have helped him regain some semblance of health. Mr. Sailer also pointed out at one point that Mr. Sullivan’s continuous moral crusading could be out of guilt - namely, that he feels guilty about the fact that he has probably killed dozens if not hundreds of gay men through unprotected anal or oral sex.
btw, more evidence of the breakdown of civilization:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1212734,00.html

There is a real need for software that can instantly analyze (a computer’s purpose) incoming comments for certain alphabetic character sequences and redirect certain comments to an editing bin or a waste disposal bin. Perhaps there are some IT people out there who can make suggestions.

Mr. Auster’s May 9th 11:14 AM reply to my post said it very succinctly. With regards to Tammy Bruce, I obviously need to learn more before forming a fair opinion. I have listened to her sub for Laura Ingraham, and she sounds tough and SOUNDS like a conservative. But then…she hits me with the “I’m a pro-choice lesbian feminist conservative”. Anyway, I am very wary now of any so-called “conservative talk show hosts” on the radio. The reason? None, as you have stated in another thread, are traditionalist conservatives. Every one of them has said they are voting for and are pushing for Bush—Michael Savage, Blanquita Cullum, Lars Larson, Sean Hannity et al.