Dissecting the writings and ideology of Andrew Sullivan

Christopher Badeaux at The New Ledger has a seriously devastating takedown of Andrew Sullivan, the likes I’ve never seen before. He covers Sullivan’s rampant hypocrisy, his various political “awakenings,” talks at length about Sullivan’s obsessions (like Sarah and Trig Palin, for example), and his famed hostility towards the Catholic Church for their stance on gay marriage – and then some.

Anyone who has followed Sullivan’s metamorphosis over the last several years from Clinton supporter to Bush supporter to Kerry supporter to now Obama supporter will recognize a lot of what’s written there, but some of it will be new as the writer reaches back more than just a few years on Sully’s writings.

That being said, if someone is desirous of writing a serious critique of a fellow writer, I don’t recommend the way in which it was done in this piece. It drips with sarcasm and venom, and isn’t very constructive. And I say this as someone who has criticized Sullivan myself over the years. Sullivans’ not always been this way, though, and I guess I still have a tiny (very tiny) soft spot for the writer he used to be. Back before Sullivan “went left” (again) pre-Bush and the gay marriage amendment push, I found him to be a good writer, capable of seeing both sides of an argument. In fact, before I started blogging, I was a fairly regular reader of his blog, and even emailed him once in disagreement about something he wrote – and he wrote me back and told me I made some fair points. But after Bush “declared war” (the left’s description) on gay marriage, Sullivan bailed quickly and he’s never looked back.

But I digress.

The types of serious writer criticisms (more than just something written off the cuff) I prefer are more often than not constructive in nature (exception!), much like we saw at National Review after Kathleen Parker decided she despised Sarah Palin and social/Christian conservatives. They – for the most part – took a lot less time to write, a lot less webspace, and got to the point rather than ripping the criticized writer a new a*******. That’s what this critique of Sullivan ideally would have looked like to me. I mean, with everything that is going on in the world, is it worth it to devote the level of time I suspect it took to write this detailed critique of Sullivan in the first place?