I will agree with everyone else and state that I, too, will not spend all day talking about Sullivan’s bizarre defense of Paul Ryan and the GOP’s ridiculous “plan.” And while I am not talking about him, I will not mention that this is what he looks like when he is in over his head- after every reputable economist and budget analyst has completely laughed the plan off as a cruel joke (just start scrolling on that last one, Krugman has too many posts to link), Sully is reduced to passive-aggressive pot-shots and linking to McMegan:
It’s only marginally more sensible than John Cole’s unhinged rants against the rich.
Apparently, I speak for “the left” these days. No links, of course, because I haven’t been ranting about the rich in either a hinged or unhinged fashion, and he just made that up. I have been ranting, however, that Ryan’s decision to shift trillions to the well-off while nuking medicare and medicaid is a bad idea, a non-starter, and not a good faith approach, despite Andrew’s insistence otherwise.
And while I am not talking about the Daily Dish, I will not point out that despite going on an on about an honest and earnest debate, Sullivan chose to selectively quote one out of what feels like hundreds of posts about this issue, and then completely make shit up about that quote:
John Cole’s Debt Solution
Drum roll, please:
Here is my plan- I AM NOT CUTTING TAXES BY TRILLIONS FOR RICH PEOPLE, AND THE TAX CUTS WE JUST EXTENDED WILL EXPIRE. Voila!
And he seems to believe this will actually end our looming fiscal crisis (while accusing me of being a “complete innumerate clown”). He also seems to think that the lower tax rates are unfunded additions to the debt, as Bush’s were. But they are paid for by eliminating tax loopholes, shelters and gimmicks. My proposal for more revenue would be to lower the tax rates less and use the extra money from getting rid of tax expenditures for the deficit. The removal of the myriad shelters and loopholes in the budget, moreover, would actually take these boondoggles away from the rich, making the tax environment fairer.
But when Cole is this angry, it’s hard to argue with him. And yes, the bold caps are his.
Here is my original post, and as you can see, Sullivan isn’t even attempting to argue with me, but the voices in his head:
The Ryan/GOP Plan, as has been pointed out to Sullivan a hundred times now with little to no effect, slashes taxes by trillions and makes up for those tax cuts by slashing trillions in services to our neediest members of society. For there to be “much more tax revenue in the plan,” all you would need to do is FUCKING NOTHING. NOTHING. Here is my plan- I AM NOT CUTTING TAXES BY TRILLIONS FOR RICH PEOPLE, AND THE TAX CUTS WE JUST EXTENDED WILL EXPIRE. Voila! We are automatically better off than we would be under the GOP Ryan plan. This GOP/RYAN plan is so ridiculous, so transparently absurd and based on flawed assumptions, magical thinking, and cheap parlor tricks that if you are really concerned about the debt and the status of our fiscal well-being, DOING NOTHING is a better option by light years.
Does he seriously not understand that outside the Halperin/Scarborough universe, he looks like a complete innumerate clown? Can his ideology really be blinding him to this extent? Is he simply incapable of absorbing anything that Krugman, Chait, and others point out? Is he really this easily fooled into what constitutes “courage” and “bravery?” Paul Ryan and the GOP just proposed massive tax cuts for the well off on the shoulders of the American people while ending Medicare and Medicaid, and Sullivan honestly thinks this is “brave” and a conversation starter? It’s so brave it exempts everyone who is currently on Medicare, so they won’t see what he is doing. That’s called a bribe in most circles, but it passes for “bravery” in Sullivan’s.
My god, this is painful to watch.
As you can see, that wasn’t a plan to reduce the debt at all. It was a way of demonstrating how ridiculous the Ryan “plan” is- that if we had the options of doing nothing, or enacting the Ryan plan, we would be better off doing nothing. Sullivan wants more on the revenue side? Doing nothing and letting the Bush/Obama tax cuts expire would achieve that better than the Ryan plan, which slashes taxes and proposes closing loopholes as an afterthought. Only through selective quotation and willful and dishonest buffoonery could one assert that I honestly was proposing the way to end our financial problems is to do nothing. It’s almost as offensive as Sullivan ranting about “shared sacrifice” for several days while talking about a plan that slashes taxes for the well-off paid for with massive cuts in services that cream the poor and the future elderly (because Ryan has bravely exempted everyone over 55- they won’t have to be part of the “shared sacrifice.”).
Although, on the upside, I think we can all agree that Sullivan’s behavior the past few days is bracing and evidence that the debate on whether he is stupid, willfully ignorant, or just trolling us can move on to more earnest grounds. I am sure Oakshott or Niebuhr quotes could help flesh out that question.
Hobelhouse
I see what you did there.
bodacious
If you’re not already on blood pressure medication, please try and get some. My poison of choice is silence – just turn off the radio, toss the paper, and listen to
70’s,80’s, cool jazz tunes. I’m only here looking for cute doggie photos.Tim F.
Sullivan likes pie?
justawriter
We shall bring him to his knees by talking about how we are not talking about him.
Arguing with conservatives is just another form of wrestling with the ignorant. Eventually they pull you down to their level and beat you with experience.
sixers
I think this place needs another post on how we arent going to talk about sullivan anymore. The math demands it.
FormerSwingVoter
Hey, welcome to the club. I’m apparently a Marxist now, because I believe controversial things like “wars should end eventually” and “the tax rate for the rich shouldn’t be zero”.
The Dangerman
Sooner or later, even people like Sullivan will have to conclude that the problem is on the revenue side, not the spending side (see: Surplus, Clinton, circa 2000). This isn’t rocket science. Exhibit A: It’s a really, really stupid thing to bitch about things like Planned Parenthood to hold up the whole fucking budget.
gmf
Ugh.
I’d not gone back to read the quote Sully was referring to, so I’m glad to see you refer back to it….is O’keefe guest-blogging over there?
It’s sad to see him dig in and double down on this – I guess he’s due for a swing back into the nuthouse after crushing on Obama for so long.
joe from Lowell
That is not a mistake Sullivan could have made in good faith. The context proving that he is wrong is right there in the previous sentence.
He literally had to make sure his cursor didn’t fall in the wrong place when he edited your quote, or it would have shown that he was misrepresenting you.
cleek
oddly, the MSM does not seem to care about Ryan’s pseudo-plan.
currently on the front pages of CNN.com, MSNBC,com and ABCnews.com, only CNN mentions Ryan’s plan at all. and CNN’s is a single opinion piece by a professor of pediatric medicine, who says it’s a bad idea.
so maybe this “conversation” Sullivan is so excited about is between primarily between bloggers. BFD
John PM
I would like to start a petition to get John Cole on Colbert or Maher. Sullivan has been on both, so it seems we need John on to even things out, since he represents “the left” and all.
Comrade Javamanphil
I love it when a meme comes together.
different church-lady
Crawlspace war: advantage Cole.
Sully ain’t gonna get a lick of other work done today.
Then again, neither are you.
Bruce S
“I am sure Oakshott or Niebuhr quotes could help flesh out that question.”
Please don’t sully Oakeshott or Niebuhr with Andrew…
You, incidentally, just did a wonderful job of hoisting him on his new asshole…(or something like that.)
Countme In
In Sullivan’s defense, while he buys much of Ryan’s murderous calculus regarding the elderly poor down the road, he doesn’t support fucking the elderly as they die.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/04/dan-savage-bait.html
Zifnab
Damn. For a moment I almost forgot Sullivan is a Republican. Now it’s all coming back to me.
Remember when Sully was all Pro-Bama back in ’09 and he looked like he was coming around and all the saner conservatives and moderates in the blogosphere were having a kumbaya moment while FDL was running off to make love babies with Grover Norquist?
That shit was weird. I really appreciate this return to normalcy.
Tractarian
Take a look at this chart posted by Austin Frakt.
This should be tattooed on the forehead of every Capitol janitor and inserted into the menu of every swanky DC restaurant. That way, maybe our brilliant elected officials and intrepid journalists will realize:
There Is No Great Looming Fiscal Crisis
Instead, as you said John, we can simply leave everything alone – that is, do nothing – and still have the same chance of reducing the deficit than if we enacted every letter of the GOP-Ryan plan.
Dave C
I read Sullivan daily and generally find his opinions to be worth hearing, but he has gone so far off the reservation regarding the Ryan plan that I agree with others who have suggested you add him to the “Blogs we monitor and mock as needed” pile.
Violet
I’m enjoying the pointing out of Sully’s idiocy. It’s especially fun when he responds.
Zifnab
@John PM:
Only if John has his face blacked out or his voice covered up. I don’t know if this blog could survive knowing what our esteemed blogger-in-chief actually looked like.
p.a.
RosiesDad
No shit.
I think you need an intervention Cole.
West of the Cascades
I love the smell of Cole deciding not to talk about something in the morning. Smells like victory.
Chris
@bodacious:
Stress relief advice for all, courtesy of an S, N! blogger’s blog: http://atrocityshow.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/kittens.jpeg
cyntax
While it can get a little tiresome letting the topic of Sullivan’s epic idiocy dominate the front page, I’m all for pushing back vigorously on this kind of disingenuous BS, so I’ll chalk the monomaniacal focus up as a necessary evil. But maybe keep Sully posts at a 1:2 ratio?
trollhattan
@Zifnab:
Easy–Tunch mask.
wasabi gasp
You don’t watch enough South Park. It shows.
Tony J
Okay, who’s holding the pot for the bet on how many posts Cole is going to spend responding to Sully if he namedrops him on Maher’s show as an example of “the unhinged rants of the Blogosphere Left”?
Cris
Sullivan can’t tell one “writer at Balloon Juice” from another.
Just Some Fuckhead
Oh John, why why are you so angry?
arguingwithsignposts
Cole, are your Soros Bucks in the mail, or is it direct deposit?
trollhattan
Could we ask Iranians to go back to demonstrating? That’ll distract him for a bit while he busies himself painting the Beast green.
Shinobi
Andrew Sullivan inspires me to take extra precautions to never support a backwards worldview through my own self delusion.
kindness
The whole Sully thing….I say it isn’t too early to start drinking for the weekend and let someone else screw (metaphoricaly) Sully. Sully isn’t worth my energy.
trollhattan
@arguingwithsignposts:
He’s busy finding 72 virgin nurses.
The Thin Black Duke
“Will nobody rid me of this troublesome Sullivan?”
Dave
I have a simple solution. Let’s just say we are going to return the top marginal rate to where it was during the height of Reagan’s two terms. That would be between 1984 and 1986. And since Reagan is never wrong and was perfect in every way, then we should have no problem passing the law through the House and Senate.
Just Some Fuckhead
Keep in mind that one of the many things that makes Medicare unsustainable is the 10 trillion dollar unfunded liability created by Republican’s Medicare Part D giveaway to their most loyal voting constituency.
Morbo
I’m with Dean Baker, we owe Paul Ryan a debt of gratitude. With the list of people defending his budget he has helped expose more hacks than anyone in the last decade. Yes, Sully, I’m calling you a hack.
Poopyman
@John PM:
Well, first he’d have to write a book and get it published. Say something along the lines of “Tunch is My Copilot”, although of course it’d have to be retitled “Why the Left Left Obama” or somesuch to give it the requisite veneer of Seriousness. Then he’d be the darlin’ of all the cable shows.
Joel
alternative proposal:
clinton era tax levels.
the end.
Studly Pantload, Vibrant Trollbot for Obama
I’ll admit that one of the draws of this place for me is Cole’s unhinged rants, but the funny thing is, it’s been quite a spell since the last one, and it had nothing to do with Teh Rich.
Not that I’d object to a good unhinged rant about that matter, mind you…
Martin
Heh, Sully is trolling Cole for pageviews.
Poopyman
@p.a.: Is that Jim Kramer? ‘Cause the visuals in my head of what follows that are awesome!
Hermione Granger-Weasley
toljaso toljaso toljaso
sukabi
I am sure Oakshott or Niebuhr quotes could help flesh out that question.
Sarah Brave and Tall… this is a call for more Studio 54 stories about a young consort named Andrew…
Legalize
@Zifnab:
Lots of GOPers did that in an effort to make themselves look sane – to distance themselves from the unpopular disaster that was the W years. This had the added bonus of letting them do what they are doing now: claiming that they supported Obama in 2008, but since then he’s let them down by proving to be too much of a [insert bad thing here]. Now that everyone has forgotten about the W years, they can go back to being what they really are – Little Patrick Batemans.
mclaren
Yes, Cole, you’re now a far-left fringe longhaired body-pierced hippy, just like me.
“We should stop giving more tax cuts to the rich.”
Unhinged rants against the rich.
“The president of the united states has to obey the law.”
Crazy racially-motivated attacks on Obama.
“The democrats need to get some spine and say no to the republican cuts in infrastructure and the social safety net.”
Demented and deranged, a sign of mental illness.
Standard stuff.
We’ve now moved so far to the right that stating “2 + 2 = 4” is widely regarded as a sign of insanity.
Mary Jane
I know! Let’s talk about some of the other half a billion things the reality-challenged are doing.
Such as Arizona passing legislature to open carry firearms on campus. Or the 14,000 magic votes in Wisconsin. If we want to stick with the budget showdown, we could discuss the Teapublican’s policy riders. Hmm, Sec. 1339 Prohibits NASA from collaborating with China. What’s your take on that?
Poopyman
@trollhattan: In my experience (ahem!) he may find them in heaven, but he’ll never round up that many here on earth.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@trollhattan:
the hilarious thing about that is that green is the color of Islam. The color of Hamas, Hizb’, Jaamat-e-Ismali and the Taliban. The color Qaddafi draped his fake civilian death coffins in for the CNN photo-op.
Has Sully secretly reverted?
dbwhite
Sully’s just transfered his Palin-phobia and Obama-philia to debt-phobia, which, like other such subconscious emotional responses, is not responsive to reasoned argument. Now I’m not suggesting John here is the anywhere close to the best source of reasoned argument, but Sullivan has surely been pointed to budget experts pointing out the lack of any substantiation for Ryan’s claims about the amount of revenues his tax proposals would raise. Yet Sullivan continues trumpeting the party line that the tax cuts in the Ryan plan would be offset by closing vague loopholes and reducing tax expenditures – this sounds about as realistic as fighting debt by cutting earmarks given the historically low tax levels in the Ryan plan.
FormerSwingVoter
@Joel:
Alternative alternative proposal:
Reagan-era tax levels.
And then the deficit was gone forever. The end.
Cat
Someone does not respect the safe word…
kdaug
@John PM:
No one gets to see the Cole.
Not no one.
Not no how.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Just Some Fuckhead:
So Republicans are essentially saying, we gave you too many Christmas presents this year so we’re gonna have to
cut yer allowanceeliminate yer allowance, cut you down to one meal a day and rent your room out to foreigners with cash money.ppcli
@sixers: No, we need another topic besides “I’m not talking about Sullivan anymore”. How about “I’m not talking about how much I’m not talking about Sullivan anymore.”
joes527
@Dave C: I find that even when he is right, he manages to be wrong.
He was absolutely correct about the whole “Strange lies of Sarah Palin” series. But he couldn’t stick to the relevant material and had to mix in the whole Trig Birther nonsense.
He wrote a heartbreaking post clearly documenting how we had crossed the line into torture in Iraq, but then summed up by saying that he wanted Bush to raise his hand and say: “my bad” so that we could have a group hug and Turn. The. Page.
I can’t bear to read him. If I find myself agreeing with him I know that sooner or later he will take the nugget of truth and trade it in for a pile of shit.
p.a.
@Poopyman: cool idea. who else would make a good sub for Cosmo in that Andy v. John scene? How ’bout the “Let’s get ready to RUMBLLLLE!” guy.
daveNYC
@Zifnab: Especially after the mopping naked incident.
Elia Isquire
Quick question for those of you more numberwise than myself:
Wouldn’t 3% points in this context be quite a lot?
BR
I’m glad I haven’t read him in a long time, just as I haven’t read HuffPo or Politico or CNN or …
And I feel better for it. Currently my favorite blog is by John Michael Greer.
Can't Be Bothered
can we get M_C/Hermione to DDOS Sullivan so that Cole can play with his dogs for awhile instead of slamming his head against a wall?
PurpleGirl
@The Dangerman: I’ve been told by any number of people that the Clinton surplus was an illusion, it wasn’t real. No reason as to why, just that it was. Therefore… unicorns and sparkles (I guess).
Chris
@Dave:
Ah, but Ray Gun is just like the Founding Fathers and Jesus: a perfect being, but a dead one, and if he were alive today, and saw what we had to deal with today, he’d totally… eh, you know the rest.
trollhattan
Zowie, maybe Sully can get on the speakers list for the upcoming George W Bush Institute conference on economic growth? Yeah, I didn’t make that up.
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/04/meg-whitman-to-speak-at-bush-c.html
Greg
Hey, he posted my email rant. It’s the long one that admits to voting for W the first time. Sadly, I still don’t think he’s getting the point.
stuckinred
on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on
Tractarian
Let’s be fair: Sully has backtracked somewhat on his initial enthusiasm of the Ryan/GOP Plan. He seems to recognize that it’s cooked up with phony numbers. He has said that the optimal solution is somewhere between Ryan and the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
His real problem now is his continued insistence that Obama and the Dems “have no plan” to rein in the debt. In reality, anyone can come up with a mixture of tax increases and spending cuts to balance the budget. It’s not difficult. The trick is to come up with a proposal that is workable and politically feasible. Schakowsky has done that; arguably Bowles/Simpson did that; Ryan most certainly has not.
Silver Owl
Sullivan could not post the full quote in context. Your post failed to properly worship and praise the republicans. lol
First, nothing is ever better than what a republican presents. Ever.
Second, we do not ever use such negative descriptions towards our randian overlords such as; ridiculous, transparently absurd, flawed assumptions, magical thinking, and cheap parlor tricks…
lol
EconWatcher
Cole, this is it. This is the straw that has to break the camel’s back. Up until this one, I would defend Sully as having some redeeming qualities (opposition to torture and whatnot).
But with this one, we’re forced to the obvious conclusion: He’s a hack. He’s a dilletante. He’s callous and casual about matters that mean life and death, for the most vulnerable people in this country. He has postures, not principles. He’s a bad guy.
You need to just write him off. Do it publicly and loudly. And then pay him as much attention as you do Redstate. That is, point and laugh every now and then. No more is due.
Tim, Interrupted
@John PM:
Oh please. And again: Oh please. What do you think this 24/7 man-on-man Sully onslaught has been all about? Bareback Andy is on Maher tonight, and John is hoping for a mention during the back and forth, as one of Sullivan’s critics.
Hmmmm…perhaps you are one of JC’s commenter sockpuppets?
kdaug
@FormerSwingVoter:
Eisenhower tax levels – SURPLUS!
This is easy.
Paul in KY
@Morbo: Isn’t that like calling Alan Keyes ‘daffy’?
NonyNony
Just to show you how this Overton Window shit works – it used to be the “Jane Hamshers of the left” now it’s the “John Coles of the left”.
Tractarian
@Elia Isquire:
1) Yes.
2) It’s actually 4%.
3) “Gutting defense” has no effect on revenue!
West of the Cascades
Also, bravo John for including the excerpt from Sully’s site. Not spending any more of my hard-earned page hits on the Daily Beast.
freelancer
@Elia Isquire:
As EDK points out, YES. Three percent of GDP can nab you quite a lot of Pet Shop Boys albums.
Omnes Omnibus
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Fix’t.
kdaug
@Can’t Be Bothered: If only Sully had a comment section…
wvng
I am starting to wonder if this Sullivan fellow John is not talking about is trying to get sent back to the Atlantic by being incredibly wring and think headed and embarrassing his new employer.
Mark S.
@Elia Isquire:
Right now, 1% of GDP is around $150 billion.
Morbo
FTMFW
bemused
Freaking liar Senator Kyle said on the floor that 90% of what Planned Parenthood does is abortions. I hate these people.
wvng
@NonyNony: Well, I know from reading pajamas media that John Cole has actually always been a communist.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@freelancer:
.oh yes INDEEDY. Because the Imaginary Old-Growth Forest of the Market will save us all.
stuckinred
@West of the Cascades: Yea, it’s fucking great.
Tsulagi
Riiiiiight.
You do know a day or two ago you strayed well into this territory, right? Recognizing you have a problem is the first step to recovery. Baby steps.
dbwhite
@EconWatcher: Personally, I’m leading toward a mix of *stupid* and *overly emotional*. His credulity and the extent to which he seems to have legitimately internalized the nonsense about the “looming budget crisis” and “the math demanding cuts!” (while never showing the math, of course, since apparently he can’t subtract 18 from 22) is remarkable.
Bob Loblaw
At this point, you’re all more pathetic than Sullivan is.
Col. Klink
I honesty like Sully, but this is total bullshit. First, I’d like to see one example from Sully. Second, screaming ‘class hatred’ in this atmosphere wherein the poor are entirely without representation within our current political discourse and while the very wealthy are wealthier than ever is simply absurd.
Elia Isquire
@Greg: That was a good email.
His response is, I think, the worst post in this thread yet. It’s really shockingly evasive, dishonest, and obtuse. He’s entering “fifth column” territory again.
daveNYC
@bemused:
I think that makes sense if the only thing you care about is abortions, and minor stuff like birth control, prenatal health care, and pap smears for cancer screening don’t count.
Yutsano
Stop.
It.
Naow.
Or I’ll drag out that damned definition of insanity again.
PeakVT
@PurpleGirl: It depends on what you look at. If you look at publicly-held debt, there was a surplus. If you look at the net debt, there was a small deficit (about $18B, or a 0.31% increase, which is essentially a rounding error). You can also play games with the fiscal year vs. calendar year.
The fact is the FY2000 budget was the closest to being in balance since the 1960s, and by a significant amount.
ETA: Link to graph of YoY changes.
freelancer
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Give it up, you hopeless, reflexive, ginger-loving, kneejerk, one-dimensional bint.
different church-lady
@wvng:
I smell new rotating subhead!
Robert Waldmann
Well Sullivan does have one good point (slightly marred by what must be a typo). He wrote “But they are paid for by eliminating tax loopholes, shelters and gimmicks.” of course he meant “But they are [not] paid for by eliminating tax loopholes, shelters and gimmicks.” As Sullivan no doubt knows, Ryan did not describe any elimination of tax loopholes etc. He just included a magic asterix saying that tax revenues would be increased by such means, without describing any cut in any specific loophole.
I mean for Sullivan to claim that Ryan listed reductions in tax expenditures which made up for his tax cuts for the rich, he would have to ba an buffoon too arrogant to notice that he is totally utterly uninformed.
By they way, your DO NOTHING alternative proposal is scored by the CBO as giving a debt/GDP ratio 3% lower than Ryan’s even though the CBO had to accept Ryan’s magic asterixes at face value. If Ryan didn’t have the power to tell them what to do, they would have estimated Sullivan’s error as much larger than s mrtr $600,000,000,000 or so.
piratedan
speaking as a relative newcomer, I can understand the frustration over the focus on Sullivan. Yet, if he’s a touchstone pundit, by that I mean that everyone stops there to take the temperature of the political weather, so to speak, then JC has to do what he can to try and bring enlightenment to the sorry bastard. The other side of the coin is that his betters could give a shite what he says, he’s great for getting site hits and links.
In a way, we need to muscle in on that side of the street to get people talking about the “seriousness” of raising the tax rates of everyone making over 250k and a bigger take for those over a million and then again over 5m. We need to talk about the dreams of America, why isn’t light rail a good idea? Why can’t we reinvest in our own infrastructure? Why shouldn’t we end tax subsidies for the oil and coal industries? Why can’t we enact financial regulations with teeth? Do we have to re-examine the role of the military and if so, to what? The conversation has to change imho, we need to stop talking about what a tremendous group of morons these guys on the other side are. Without their messengers they’re just so many drooling idiots like those droning conservatives parodied on Python. We need to find a way to remove these asshats like Luntz and Rove that allow these barking dogs any kind of credibility. We need to invest in our own media that will tell the truth (even if its ugly for us) and give us objective reporting. Better candidates that aren’t bought by corporate interests would be nice too. And a pony.
Yutsano
@freelancer: Waitaminute…what’s wrong with ginger? It’s one of my favorite rhizomes.
licensed to kill time
@The Thin Black Duke:
Cole:
Whence is that knocking?
How is’t with me, when every Sully noise appalls me?
What hands are here? Hah! They pluck out mine eyes.
Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this Sully spew
clean from my blog? No; this my hand will rather
the multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.
Fabreze-ing the Debate
Don’t we realize at this point that Sullivan is dusting off a much older song from his back catalog? Caught in the act of pumping math that he didn’t understand but which dazzled him, he retreats from the actual implications of the thing he praised and instead writes post after post praising himself and the thing itself for “Putting it on the Table” and “Airing the Debate”?
This is The Bell Curve Rag all over again.
Mark S.
Sully thought he had a year’s worth of columns to write on this. Ryan’s piece of shit will never pass and Sully could
writeconcern troll about how Obama and the Democrats are unserious about confronting the greatest moral challenge of our times.Stillwater
@Elia Isquire: It’s actually a 4% difference in revenue, which is about a 20% gain over the competing plan, eg., it would bump revenue collections of 2.5 trillion (2008) up to 3 trillion.
{{Please, someone check my math}}
John PM
@Tim, Interrupted: #72
No, I am a lawyer, so I am a sockpuppet only for my clients who pay me.
Quiddity
This stumble by Sullivan is on the order of his Bell Curve mistake. In both cases he put ideology over mathematics (among other things). This Ryan Affair will dog him for years, especially his casual acceptance of the joke Heritage Foundation numbers and other insane elements such as reducing discretionary spending – including defense! – from 12% to 3.5% of GDP.
bemused
@daveNYC:
What really gets my blood pressure soaring is that I don’t get the feeling Kyle is a true believer anti-choice zealot. He will just lie or do whatever scummy thing he can to keep the wealthy, including him, on top.
Efroh
I love it when you get angry, JC.
Zifnab
@Tractarian:
I actually have a problem with this, too. Democrats need to be louder about what they want to cut. When Republicans released their goofy little “YouCut!” website, it was piled high with people asking for military cuts and farm subsidy cuts and taxes on weed and the like. Republicans ignored them, and continue to ignore them at their own peril.
Democrats have lush turf with which to counter offering their own suite of tax cuts. But they’re clamming up.
And I understand why they’re clamming up. Any cut the Democrats would propose would give Republicans ammo to fire. Dem proposals are meet with cries of “Death Panels!” So if Sullivan is confused by the Democrats’ silence, he really has his own side’s horde of obnoxious assholes to blame. They kill every serious debate with their asshattery.
Mark S.
@Quiddity:
That’s one of my favorite parts. We spend 4% of GDP just on the military right now!
Quiddity
Can we get the Balloon Juice rotating headline to include “22 – 18 = 3”
From Sullivan’s: (at the present time, that’s what’s on the blog; it might change)
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: I believe freelancer was reference the original Hermione’s love of a redhead.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@freelancer: if you don’t link him i will cheerfully ignore him. Go slobber over him in that wretched glibertarian hive of scum and villiany at Forbes.
Hermione Granger-Weasley – April 8, 2011 | 1:25 pm · Link
@Stillwater:
and to prefer the Imaginary Old-Growth Forest of the Market, even though all the valuable timber has already been made into freemarket tables and chairs.
;)
Elia Isquire
As he said in his response to Greg, all he wants/cares about is seeing someone say they’ll gut Medicare and Medicaid (and needlessly shrink Social Security also too) — the Seriousness of a proposal is completely and totally defined by this sole metric.
What I find more risible is when he obfuscates this position — pretending, as he did earlier, that he wants to kill medicare to save it — or conflates ACA with Ryan’s privatization plan. The latter in particular is just so bizarre and disingenuous that I’m honestly surprised that more people haven’t brought it up yet.
Omnes Omnibus
@John PM:
You do know that you have an ethical obligation to do pro bono work, right?
Martin
@Quiddity: Fuck. It’s not even revenue 4% higher. It’s revenue 21.8% higher, which is pretty much the whole ballgame.
Poopyman
@licensed to kill time: No, no. That’s the Scottish Play. I think you wanted the Irish one.
Ana Gama
@freelancer:
Ouch! That will leave a mark.
Chris
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
I really had to laugh at “the sufficient to the superabundant.” Yeah, just look at their tax policies and the people writing them.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: In my drug-induced state that subtlety could have eluded me. But at least I’m taking a three day weekend now. There are perks to ebil gubmint work.
scav
Poor dear. That was the response of a small man and I’ll bet a small man who knows himself to be one. I’m getting whiffs of the screaming heebie-jeebies you get at about 2 in the morning when you’re trying to justify yourself to yourself after another sleepless night. The smallness is in typing it out letter by letter and posting it whereas most of us would recognize it as the nonsense put out by a sleep-addled brain trying to protect a fragile ego.
geg6
Yes, Cole. This is exactly what I was talking about.
Kick his fucking lying ass.
Brachiator
I guess the only good thing is that Sullivan at least reads John Cole (and other posters) even if he does’t understand them.
eemom
@freelancer:
“bint”??
dianne
I approach Sullivan’s blog like slowing down for an accident, ready to avert my eyes if I need to. I still like the view from my window spots, though.
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@Zifnab: You know it’s really run by Tunch, don’t you?
FlipYrWhig
@Zifnab:
Why are we talking about cutting things at all? The problem we’re facing here and now is putting people back to work. Let’s worry about that. Shovel money as fast as we can at making that happen. The discussion should be where and how to spend, not where and how to cut.
West of the Cascades
@EconWatcher: This, and what Dave C said re: adding Sully to the “Blogs we Monitor and Mock as Needed.”
Tim, Interrupted
Listen to me, people!
With Sullivan, it is always and only about Ryan’s blue eyes, thick black hair, and prominent nose, which is often a harbinger of prominent other things down below.
Sullivan gets intense, adolescent style crushes on public figures, and since he has no self awareness and is a repressed, (happily married–hahahaha) Roman Catholic, he expresses these squashed yearnings thru embarrassing displays of political/sociological fawning.
I’m guessing the public figures he crushes on are always right wing because, as another commenter mused, this feeds his bottom/submissive psychological makeup.
He really just needs to go bareback with Ryan at least a few times, and then we’d hear not another word about the budget proposal, as soon he would be hung up on someone else and on to another displaced fixation.
Aaron must not be boning Sullivan enough to keep things settled in that household. I really wish he’d step it up and do us all a favor.
Mark S.
BOBO ALERT! BOBO ALERT!
None of the changes Bobo wants have anything to do with the massive tax cuts for the rich. Also, I loved this little sentence:
Not being able to afford coverage is actually freedom because you’re simply exercising greater control over what you won’t be covered for. That’s some Orwellian shit.
Mandramas
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Given that, you can be conservative and free market proposal, since the big feature of free market is innovation, and conservatives are opposed to any innovation, by that definition.
We should get some trolls, just to have some fun troll-bashing.
Dan
Ryan is the gay Republican’s Palin! Starbursts!!!
Donut
I’ve not read the comments in this thread nor any of the other threads about Sullivan, so pardon me for posting with that bit of ignorance, but why on god’s name does anyone give a shit what Sullivan thinks? I’m asking honestly – does anyone think, seriously, that he has a big impact on whatever the current conventional wisdom is on the Ryan budget proposal? Yeah, he has a lot of readers, but so? That means borhkng in the end excelt he gets a bigger paycheck and can hire lackeys to draft his “work” product for him. Not much else.
Why all the garment rending and hair pulling in the first place?
Kinda pointless, all this over some dude with a popular blog.
Ana Gama
@Tim, Interrupted:
So with Bush, it must have been that flight suit…..
danimal
While I don’t think Sully’s sex life should be a subject of speculation or mockery, his idiocy on fiscal matters needs to be exposed with a spotlight. Keep it up, Cole. There are other subjects in the world, and this blog will eventually move on to them, but the pushback against the Ryan budget and the exposure of Sully’s emotional attachment to it has already paid dividends.
We’re under his skin, and Sully has walked a long way back in a short week. The one valuable point that Sully makes is that we need to have a real debate on the budget. If we can use the Ryan budget to pin down the GOP and force them to defend it, we can clearly show the sharp contrast between the two parties. This budget is a clear statement of GOP principles; principles they usually try to hide from view. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and a good blogfight is a wonderful way to expose diseased thinking.
MikeJ
@eemom: Daughter.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Mandramas: the glibertarian mythology of the “innovation of the market” is a euphemism for fuck the poor and farm the middleclass.
eemom
Krugman,at the end of today’s column:
See John? All eleventy zillion of those ranty screamy blood-pressure-skyrocketing posts distilled into a single dignified, devastating sentence.
JPL
John, Glad that you are fighting back.
Davis X. Machina
There’s fresh-water economics, salt-water economics, and holy-water economics.
The latter judge policy decisions based on whether they have a salutary effect on the national moral tone.
They seek an increase, first and foremost, in the GDP — Generalized Deference for Pooh-bahs.
This school is also marked by an obsession with NAIRF — the Natural Austerity-Induced Rate of Forelock-tugging.
If you remember ‘Pinky and the Brain’, Pinky was big on the second….
aimai
@danimal:
We will never have a real debate on the budget. One side of the argument simply *doesn’t want a realistic budget* and doesn’t see why they have to have one. The other side is honestly trying to run the damn country on a shoestring, without contributions from its wealthiest members. There can’t be an honest conversation about the budget, there can only be begging and pleading from the dems and, apparently, a series of angry and hysterical fart jokes and shrieks from the right wing.
aimai
Villago Delenda Est
Andrew Sullivan is not intellectually honest.
There. I said it.
Of course, I’m stating the blindingly obvious, but, what the heck!
Donut
Should have read “That means nothing in the end except”. Typing on an iPhone is not so easy.
eemom
@Tim, Interrupted:
I must admit that strikes me as a spot on assessment of this exceedingly boring individual.
Yutsano
@Donut: Oh I dunno. I think a good borhkng would do a lot of folks some good right about now.
FlipYrWhig
@Yutsano: Especially an excelt borhkng in the end. What’s not to like?
Midnight Marauder
@Elia Isquire:
“And he seems to believe this will actually end our looming fiscal crisis (while accusing me of being a “complete innumerate clown”).” — Andrew Sullivan
Cassidy
Been confirmed; the military is getting half pay on the 15th. First round of collateral damage to those psychopathic fucks.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Mark S.:
Wow. Just wow.
This is Market-tested gobbledy-gook meets The mask is slipping.
It’s as if Frank Luntz and Hannibal Lecter donated their DNA to jointly create a genetically-engineered love child, and we get to watch it emerging from the creche.
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@freelancer: Just couldn’t help yourself, could you? If you keep picking at it it won’t get better.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
Sullivan: “lower tax rates … are paid for by eliminating tax loopholes, shelters and gimmicks.”
This isn’t to single out Sullivan, since many of the Serious are for this, including a good many Dems, but this is by far — by far — the stupidest proposal to have come out in the recent months of deficit hysteria.
Suppose you establish a flat(ter) tax rate with no deductions or loopholes. It is less certain that you will die than that the following will happen (over/under is 15 minutes after the law is enacted):
1. Corporate/financial interest X tells Congressperson Y that they can’t possibly compete in the global marketplace without deduction/loophole Z.
2. Z is enacted into the “no deductions” tax code.
3. Revenue shortfall ensues. Shared Sacrifice is the only answer.
Go back to 1 and repeat until all corporate/financial interests are sated.
So long as we continue to have the political system we have, financed the way it is, this will happen. This WILL happen. THIS WILL HAPPEN.
Since this dynamic is a certainty the only thing that can be done is to set the marginal rates as high as you can get away with and make the oligarchy whittle it away from there. Our government managed (barely) this seemingly impossible feat in 1993 and there is at least a glimmer of hope they can do it again at the end of 2012. So please, Sullivan et al, drop the idiotic flat(ter) tax ideas and get back to realistic proposals.
Paul in KY
@Mark S.: The laws against begging in public apply to the rich just as much as they apply to the poor.
Donut
@FlipYrWhig
That’s an excelt borhkng in the end, thankyewverymuch. Important distinction.
El Cid
I like the notion of no one obsessively following Andrew Sullivan here, but I’m afraid it’s a bit too much to imagine coming true.
mikefromArlington
Guys like Sullivan are starving for a sane conservative voice that doesn’t talk about birth certificates or talk about legislating a woman’s vagina so when someone like him comes along, they fawn all over him.
Him being intellectually dishonest is minor in their eyes because somehow, in this town, intellectual dishonesty passes as serious policy discussion.
Paul in KY
@Yutsano: I thought that was a kind of Mongol aristocrat: ‘Genghis Khan then gathered his borhkngs and bashars together at Samarkhand to plan his next campaign’.
Or maybe it would be a officer in the Shardukar (Hermiome will grok this one).
stuckinred
@Donut: Now wait for the bullshit responses you get about this fucking twink.
replicnt6
@John Cole
You’re beautiful when you’re angry.
Alex S.
I can’t be around here too much at the moment and it makes me tremendously sad. The recent stories are all right up my alley.
Yutsano
@Cassidy: Another consideration: no supplies to the field in Iraq or Afghanistan. A military friend of mine just confirmed those pipelines shut off. So either we rely on a coalition partner for that or they’re fucked.
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@Mandramas: We already have them; you just haven’t noticed them yet. One is … something.. Clarence Thomas. Another has a five letter name that I can’t think of off-hand, like jcrew or something.
Tonybrown74
@Quiddity:
We can call it: “McMath! 22 – 18 = 3!”
eemom
@El Cid:
Indeed, it is starting to sound frighteningly like “I can quit anytime I want to.”
Paul in KY
@eemom: Or “I’ve been reading him for 10 years and I ain’t hooked yet”
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@aimai: This!
Tim, Interrupted
@eemom:
Coming as it does, from a fearsome nemesis such as yourself, I am humbled at the granting of your kudo. ;)
FlipYrWhig
@Tonybrown74: Or “gastritis broke my 4.”
MBunge
@Donut: Sullivan and his buddy Christopher Hitchens are what passes for public intellectuals these days and as such, help shape the contours of our political and social discourse.
The problem is that while folks used to become public intellectuals because the quality of their intellect demanded it, Sully and Hitch became public intellectuals the same way other guys became bond traders. They just put themselves on a certain career track and rose through the ranks.
When folks talk about the “dumbing down” of America, they exclusively focus on the middle to lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder but the worst dumbing down occurs among our elites, where a mediocre brain who’s prone to hysterics like Sullivan is considered a Very Serious Person.
Mike
Martin
Well, Reid made a statement that Boehner couldn’t get the GOP caucus to agree to the number that all parties had agreed to last night. The freshman teabaggers are running Walkers suicide play to the letter.
cleek
@Shoemaker-Levy 9:
exactly.
and it’s a fatal flax in all the “fair” or “flat” tax schemes, too. their simplicity and lack of loopholes is one of their major selling points. but for all the effort that goes into coming up with and defending these pretty, logical, simple tax schemes, the defenders never account for the human/political element. the politicians who will implement the schemes will massage them to suit constituent demands, and future Congresses will tinker with them, too. and in no time at all, we’re right back where we started, with a complex mess of a tax code that is full of hidden giveaways to wealthy/influential constituents.
the typical libertarian love of simple answers fails to consider that people are complex creatures.
john b
@Greg:
he posted mine and called me “nasty” for calling ryan’s plan childish drivel. pretty proud of that one.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@MBunge:
In Soviet America, opinions provide pundits.
p.a.
@Mark S.:
Oh my. I may prefer to use my magic future forecasting powers to become a NYSE-playing multi-billionaire (I just chose not to), but if Republicans want the rest of the population to use their powers to predict what future medical procedures they won’t need and which diseases they needn’t worry about, that too is a productive use of our superpowers.
Ana Gama
@mikefromArlington:
I think you’re right. He’s got a post up now about cruising Craigslist for sex.
AAA Bonds
The issue is clearly that Andrew Sullivan is blaming you for my comments. When I see a rich person I pop my jaw like a python and worry about the tax implications later.
Joel
@Bob Loblaw: irony much?
Ronc99
The solution: Start a rumor. Sarah Palin AKA Mooseburger Helper and Our Lady of Lock & Load, popped out another *mystery* baby and it looks like Sully.
geg6
@Ronc99:
Dayum, dude. No one detests the Snowbilly Grifter more than I do, but even I wouldn’t wish that on her.
Ronc99
Geg6,
LOLOLOL! ^5
A L
Who cares
stuckinred
Now here’s something that IS interesting:
Mark S.
@Martin:
Either Boehner’s an idiot or he really wants to shut down the government:
Who the fuck leads this way? If it were really important, like some tax cut for the rich, Boehner would never adhere to such a stupid requirement.
Villago Delenda Est
@Shoemaker-Levy 9:
The thing about “flat tax” proposals is that they never anticipate revenue shortfalls.
Nor do they provide a proper market solution to the issue at hand…who pays for the invisible infrastructure of society, which makes the generation of wealth possible? You know, stuff that provides the basic stability that allows risks to be less severe and encourage innovation and investment? A progressive tax very simply charges those who benefit the most from the system to pay the lion’s share of its costs. This is elementary, and fair.
The problem is, the rich don’t want to pay for all the invisible infrastructure that makes their wealth possible. They are cheap skates. They want to shift the costs to someone else…those less wealthy than themselves.
They are assholes.
stuckinred
@Mark S.: Isn’t it the old bullshit of giving “cover” to specific critters?
Yutsano
@stuckinred: Giving cover means allowing no votes when a controversial issue comes up as long as you can get to 218. Trying to get your whole caucus on board is covering Boehner’s ass and no one else’s.
Amir_Khalid
@Mark S.: Either/or? My own suspicion is that the Speaker is both. He’s well aware of the practical consequences of shutting down national government, and of the likely political consequences for his party. But more than he fears the consequences of that step, he fears that the Tea Party will bring about his personal downfall, if he doesn’t show himself as pure enough for them by bringing about the shutdown.
For what he’s prepared to do to save his hide in the short term, I would call him a coward as well.
Scamp Dog
@eemom: Bint is UK slang. It’s a somewhat derogatory term for girl or woman. See Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where Dennis refers to the Lady of the Lake as a “moistened bint”.
FlipYrWhig
@Yutsano: Yup. Sounds like he wants to be able to say, “This is ours, we made it, it’s The Republican Agreement.”
Dan
John, I typically lurk, and on the rare occasions I don’t it’s usually for some kind of criticism. Let me just say: The Sullivan posts have been a delight, I’m not tired of them, let others say “green balloons,” and keep updating as he continues with this foolishness.
Funny thing is, one of his signature techniques is to post abundantly on the topics he cares most about. Multiple updates throughout the day, day after day. I’m fine with that – I don’t get exasperated with it like others do – but it’s funny to see how agitated it makes him to be the object of someone else’s undivided attention.
Martin
@FlipYrWhig: He could claim that no matter what. He really wants to claim that he took the libruls to the woodshed. Dems should all vote for the deal and deny him that.
birthmarker
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Kind of like choosing between basic and premium cable…I’ll insure myself to treat poison ivy but not cancer.
@Poopyman: Kramer as in Seinfeld. A pretty hilarious scene on Seinfeld.
aimai
@Midnight Marauder:
Yeah, I got out of the boat and clicked on Sullivan’s link and it took me to the most disingenous piece of crap review of the “progressive people’s budget” you could possibly have scraped off your shoe. Not only is Sullivan too lazy to read the budget under consideration he outsources it to Megan whose legendary innumeracy and complete disdain for numbers leads me to believe that the progressive budget probably produces 3% more revenue, or 30%, or 3000% more. IF we are relying on Megan’s ability to do the math I really like the odds of the people’s budget being a gangbuster of a good deal for revenue generation.
aimai
malraux
Repeating myself, 17 years ago, Sullivan felt it was important to publish lots drivel about how blacks are genetically stupid because some right wing hacks said it was true. The fact that he jumped to endorse a plan that is nonsense just because it came from the far right shouldn’t be a surprise. It’s par for the course.
sukabi
@Donut: “The Drudge Effect”… Sully has it… “Very Serious, Important People” read him to reinforce their predilections’ … and he’s one of the mouthpieces for the latest bit of propaganda that needs pushing. That’s why Cole is flogging this beast, to expose it’s corrupt soul so that sunlight will help
itus heal…FlipYrWhig
@Martin: He also wants to keep the Tea Party on board and prevent them from saying that he betrayed them to cut a deal with Democrats.
Chris
@Amir_Khalid:
I think you’re right.
At this point, Boner has two choices: stick his neck out for his country and risk angering his party, or stick his neck out for his party and risk angering his country. The latter must look more appealing: if he goes down, he gets to go down swinging as the Man Who Stood Up To The Obammunist Wave. If he does that, the Republican machine will take care of him no matter how badly things turn out.
(After all, Gingrich’s epic fail in 1995 hasn’t hurt him enough to stop him from being one of the leading potential candidates in this primary).
FlipYrWhig
@Martin: Also IIRC some years back the Republicans when they were in the ascendant concluded that anything they passed had to have support from “a majority of the majority.” Boehner’s approach sounds like that all over again.
malraux
@aimai: According to the comments here (as I won’t give McMegan or sully a click), its 4% of GDP. IOW, its huge.
nitpicker
The most succinct distillation of Andrew Sullivan’s take on the Ryan plan:
Period.
FlipYrWhig
@Chris: But even that isn’t going to work very easily. What are the conditions under which he would _end_ the shutdown? If reaching any deal with the WH and Senate is inherently capitulating, how’s this ever going to end? IMHO he gets even weaker after the gov’t is actually shut down… unless he has something in mind that would enable him to claim not just a deal but an outright victory. I don’t know what that would be.
Midnight Marauder
@stuckinred:
That’s pretty interesting considering the terms that Allen West is entering the news stream today:
My deepest sympathies. You do not have them, John Boehner.
Chris
@FlipYrWhig:
How about keeping the government shut down until Obama and the Democrats agree to everything? I would normally never think any politician’s that crazy, but this Congress and their constituents are nucking futs enough that I could just see it happening.
sukabi
@FlipYrWhig: I seriously don’t think he’s thought that through… I think the R’s are thinking, hoping, betting on that the Dems will be the ones to eat shit and compromise away Planned Parenthood and anything/everything else after a shutdown just to get things up and running again…
Don’t think they’ve thought for one second about anything else…
FlipYrWhig
@sukabi: @Chris: Boehner could take “Yes” for an answer _now_ and do a victory lap about how strong and manly Republicans squeezed our free-spending president into the steepest spending cuts EVAH! I mean, a few more billion dollars isn’t going to change the dynamic _that_ much. If I were Boehner I’d be doing my damnedest to make a deal before the shutdown actually began. It’s sort of like the bank robber with one hostage. After he kills the hostage, now what?
Zifnab
@FlipYrWhig:
Because we’re over a trillion over-budget this year. And we’ve been running this trillion dollar budget gap for nearly a decade.
We have a ton of waste in the federal budget that really could use cutting – super extra special particularly in the US military sector – and if the concern trolls want to make this a fight about what to cut, this is a great opportunity to pin a giant bullseye on the newest nuke upgrade or super-duper $40 trillion flying submarine.
Poopyman
@Midnight Marauder: Wow. Allen West holding the moral high ground. Strange days.
Joseph Nobles
Sullivan has published a reader email pointing out his dishonest quoting. However, he offered no apology because, apparently, John Cole is mean and because what John said didn’t solve the whole problem — which is odd, because the Ryan plan doesn’t solve the whole problem. But for Sullivan, the Ryan plan is “a start,” even though the “Cole plan” does more to eliminate the deficit than the Ryan plan. But Cole is not serious because Cole indulges in class hatred — which is odd, because the Ryan plan destroys Medicare and Medicaid in order to fund massive tax cuts for the wealthy and that’s not considered class hatred or warfare.
It just goes to show you: never get involved in a bitch-slapping contest with a masochist, because they’re playing to lose.
sukabi
@FlipYrWhig: that would be the “sensible” thing to do, but it won’t happen… Boner’s “manhood” is all tied up in being the “strong man” and facing Obama and the D’s down…. compromise, of any sort just won’t do…. especially since the tears rolling down his cheeks make him look like a p^ssy on a good day.
FlipYrWhig
@Zifnab: I’m being kind of nitpicky, but IMHO what you’re suggesting about defense is less “We need to cut, so here’s where we start” and more “We need to spend, so here’s how we spend intelligently.” Now is not the time to worry about a budget gap. I’m fine with continuing to throw stuff on the national credit card until that raise comes through, _then_ worrying about paying it down.
sukabi
moderation hell again???
@ FlipYrWhig: that would be the “sensible” thing to do, but it won’t happen… Boner’s “m@ nhood” is all tied up in being the “str0ng man” and facing Obama and the D’s down…. compromise, of any sort just won’t do…. especially since the tears rolling down his cheeks make him look like a p^ssy on a good day.
Amir_Khalid
@FlipYrWhig: Agree with sukabi #203. It would be most unlike the Tea Party to think that far ahead.
If the shutdown is prolonged … well, there’s an Asimov story, The Life And Times of Multivac. Multivac is a computer network and sort-of-benevolent world dictator. A small group of people sits around and makes big talk about shutting Multivac down and regaining humanity’s independence; but when one of them actually goes and does it, the others stare at him in horror.
Warren Terra
I formed my opinion of Sullivan from his editorship of The New Republic (Bell Curve, Betsy McCaughey), and intensified my opinion in response to Sully’s completely execrable behavior in the early Bush era (he was the guy at TNR penning the “Gore Must Concede” editorials, and after 9/11 he went completely nuts, in a way best described by Eric Alterman, who may be completely insufferable but is not often wrong – and Sully never meaningfully apologized for anything I’ve named in this paragraph). Sully was useful, and often even eloquent, during the Obama campaign, but the simple fact remains that he’s a willfully ignorant, intellectually lazy man of intense and irrational crushes. Sure, it was fun when his crush and my judgment happened to coincide, but he’s a pure narcissist and has no judgment of his own. He is, simply put, to be neither respected nor trusted.
Case in point: the follow-up post cited (but not linked) by Joseph Nobles, above. First, Sully uses a nonsequitor to blow off an email basically making Cole’s point that Sully had misleadingly edited and deliberately misunderstood his post; then he publishes an email (five paragraphs not counting the Bruce Bartlett blockquote it features) that is the gently cajoling voice of sweet reason to the effect that Ryan is a complete fraud and Sully should let the scales fall from his eyes – and the key point of Sully’s rejoinder is:
That’s right: the ACA (which, iirc, Sully eventually backed) has some plans that might help – but Sully now believes they can’t possibly do the job. But Sully is convinced that Ryan’s plan “tackles” the rising cost of health care – because Ryan’s plan is that a Congress ten years from now will let seniors go untreated or bankrupt themselves seeking treatment and so die in the gutter. Now, that is the sort of intellectually serious proposal that “does actually tackle entitelements” and makes up for the transparent dishonesty, innumeracy, and viciously Randian class warfare of the rest of the proposal – not that those elements are missing from Ryan’s health care plans.
Lit3Bolt
Sully in a nutshell:
Letting Bush tax cuts expire = class warfare, ad hominem
Ryan budget gutting social safety net = bold, serious, courageous, ball in Dems’ court
Just Some Fuckhead
Here’s Andy:
Shorter Andrew: Death panels are cool as long it’s corporations doing the sentencing.
les
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Sweet. Of course, the Ryan plan eliminates the minimal threshold. Which he misspelled.
Just Some Fuckhead
Andy is such a douchebag. I blame the money the federal government spends on AIDS research. If not for that, he’d likely be dead and the world would be a better place.
Meanwhile, Paul Ryan is only where he’s at because of the Social Security death benefit he received when his father died.
By virtue of their existence, these douchebags really make a case for eliminating all federal spending
FlipYrWhig
@Just Some Fuckhead:
WTF is this anyway? The point of “government picking” with regard to healthcare is to minimize the number of people who lose.
And by “winning” he means “being healthy,” I suppose? It’s kind of strange to imagine a poor-but-healthy person saying, “In your face, America, look at all this health I’m enjoying on your dime, sucks to be you, don’t it?” Is it really a zero-sum, “winning” and “losing” thing?
FlipYrWhig
@Just Some Fuckhead: He’s got all that surplus health, practically wallowing in it, and it came out of all of our pockets! No more of that. I don’t believe in government picking winners like that. That’s why I believe all pharmaceutical companies should devote themselves to treating profitable conditions the market will support, like toenail fungus and Lazy Dong Syndrome.
themann1086
I for one still haven’t forgiven Sullivan for his “The decadent left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead – and may well mount a fifth column” quip. That quote, which shows his true colors, should follow him to his grave as far as I’m concerned. Fuck him.
Chris
@Just Some Fuckhead:
What the fuck does that MEAN?
That rich people will be able to afford better medical care? NO SHIT, BUCKWHEAT, and the market has nothing to do with that! The same was true in feudal and communist economies – whether you gain your wealth by manipulating the market or collecting taxes at gunpoint from the peasants, of course you’ll be healthier than the poor, to the extent that it’s under your control!
WHAT the FUCK does that fucking MEAN?!?
Amir_Khalid
The Economist described the Ryan budget proposal as “fundamentally immoral”, for giving to the rich and taking so much from everyone else. I wonder if Andrew Sullivan has seen that description. If he has, being such a devout Christian and all, would he still stand by his support of the plan?
Chris
@Amir_Khalid:
I suspect his “Christianity” is the kind that tells the congregations to shut up, grin, and bear it, because paradise awaits them. (In the next life, not this one).
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Chris: Sully is a catholic. When he gives a sermon, it is apologia for raped alterboys, which are not representative of the Noble Catholic Tradition.
Just like his conservative sermons.
Just Some Fuckhead
BTW, I’m not advocating for Sully’s death. I’m just showing how earnest I am by bringing it up for debate.
Gus
I like Sullivan fine. I read his blog a lot, but sometimes he gets on subjects and I can’t read his commentary on them. He hates Hillary Clinton so much that during the primary season 2008, I quit reading him. His obsession with the “Bristol is Trigg’s mom” conspiracy theory was also pretty annoying. I think he just wants to show he’s still a conservative dammit.
Cassidy
@Yutsano: No supplies means soldiers with no hot chow, no fuel, etc. No fuel could potentially mean no missions, no medevacs, etc. You know missions will resume, though. How long do you think it takes the enemy to reseed an area with IED’s and mines. This is not a good thing.
Mark S.
I wonder how much it would cost to insure a 67-year-old man with HIV? Would anyone insure such a person?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Mark S.:
Of course, but the premium would be so exorbitant, only a very wealthy 67 year old HIV sufferer would be able to afford insurance. However — and here is the good news – that would just be the market deciding who lives and dies, not a nefarious government death panel.
EconWatcher
Hermione Granger-Weasley:
I’m writing the guy off–see comment #71 above. But I don’t think your particular criticism is well-placed. Sullivan has hit the church hard and repeatedly on the abuse scandals.
Svensker
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Sully has a lot of faults, but that thing you just said about him is not true and not nice.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Svensker:
It is not nice, but it is absolutely true. Sully treats the pederast priests exactly the same as he treats the teabaggers….as aberrations of a a Noble and Honorable Institution, the Catholic Church in one instance, and “Real” Conservativism in the other.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@EconWatcher: see above.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
restate for clarity:
It is not nice, but it is absolutely true. Sully treats the pederast priests exactly the same as he treats the teabaggers….as minor aberrations of a Noble and Honorable Institution, the “Real” Catholic Church in one instance, and “Real” Conservativism in the other.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Cassidy: I like the part about Toxic Waste inspection and EPA regualtions being suspended. An opportunity for massive freemarket innovation in dumping biohazards.
Amir_Khalid
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Surely you didn’t need to post three comments in a row to defend a one-sentence statement disparaging Andrew Sullivan.
Sullivan defends and praises Catholicism, as he has every right to. But from what I’ve seen he does criticize the Church, harshly, for being complicit after the fact in its priests’ pederasty. So I have to agree with Svensker and EconWatcher’s criticism of you.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Amir_Khalid: salaamu aleykum brother.
sure I did. You, for example, still dont get it. My crit is perfectly accurate. Sullivan defends “Real” Catholicism, just like he defends “Real” Conservatism. Neither concept actually exists in this spacetime branch of the metaverse.
Are you some sort of maftoon, Brother Amir?
Because you seem wholly charmed.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
I think you should all mail Cole and tell him how awful i am.
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
“….Rather than government picking who wins and who loses, I favor the market picking. That means, I know, that above a minimal threshhold, the rich will tend to be healthier than the poor.”
That’s got to be one of the most heartless, thoughtless comments I’ve heard in weeks.
Just Some Fuckhead
@opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland:
That’s the fundamental difference between conservatives and the rest of us. They only have empathy for themselves so they are only interested in solutions to sticky problems when those problems impact them personally. If Sully was to go broke tomorrow, he’d be the first in line advocating for a vibrant health safety net. Until that happens, he’s perfectly content with a system that favors his means.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Just Some Fuckhead:
No, the fundamental difference between us is they will say absolutely anything to win…. and we want so desperately, so cravenly, so pathetically, to believe in some common human decency that we fall for it every time.
Not me, not anymore.
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@Just Some Fuckhead: I don’t understand why/how they can’t see themselves in that scenario, how Sully can’t see himself in that scenario, I mean Sully, fer crying out loud! He of all people should know better. Yeah, yeah, I know, his political allegiance makes no sense since that party would love to be permanently rid of people such as he, but I understand this in a way. It’s partly because of the way we’re raised: if Mom and Dad voted X so do most of their kids, and the ones of us who wake up and actually choose something different, not just to spite our parents, that is a smaller number. Although, I have to say that the NeoCons are creating a lot more Democratic voters.
It’s s remarkable since a significant number of them have crawled out of poverty themselves. I know that privation can create this effect, this lack of empathy, but all of them? To paraphrase Indiana Jones, “Didn’t any of them go to Sunday School when they were little?”
I decided a long time ago that the Jesus they like to claim as their own is not a person I’m familiar with.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland: ah, yes, you are a “real” christian i betcha.
The world makes sense again.
;)
Triassic Sands
Your mistake was starting again. There is a finite amount of time in life and any time spent reading Sullivan is time wasted. (He says, commenting on Balloon Juice. Time for re-appraisal.)
Adolph Jones
Sullivan once blamed some laziness on his HIV. I actually have heard that it does mess with behavior and moods (neurological symptoms) so maybe that is his problem.