And now here is Sullivan making no damned sense again:
Nyhan goes after the Democrats for baseless attacks against the US Chamber of Commerce. It is very depressing to see them descend to this kind of stuff. What they need are not tactics and resentment, which is what we’re seeing. What we need is a narrative of recovery and reform from Obama. He has the record, and he has made a couple of great speeches. But this distracts.
The Chamber of Commerce is spending 100 million dollars this election, who knows how much of it from foreign funding because they refuse to say, all of it to attack Democrats. And in Sully’s world, it is the Democrats to blame for pointing this out. “Ignore those attacks, Obama! Be above it all!”
Richar Cohen, is that you? Way to elevate concern trolling to an art form, Andrew.
Why is it that Democrats aren’t “allowed” to fight back? Why do our media elites like Andrew think this way?
Fox News spews lies non-stop for years, and the press corps gets the vapors when Gibbs points it out. The Chamber of Commerce is spending millions lying and fear-mongering, but if the Democrats point it out, Andrew gets a sad face. It is just baffling how the rules are different for the Democrats, and it is just ingrained for these guys.
*** Update ***
BTW- Rachel Maddow dropped the hammer on Andrew’s conventional wisdom on this issue tonight. Video when it is available.
arguingwithsignposts
Andrew has been doing penances at Our Lady of High Broderism, apparently.
Bullsmith
Democrats who attack are discredited, much like Republicans who don’t attack. Our media masters tell us it must be so.
El Cid
Attacks on the Chamber of Commerce aren’t “baseless”, unless you’re a lazy over-emoting shit like Sullivan who not only doesn’t know if there is a factual record of the history of its lobbying and propagandizing and particular legislative and political involvement, he doesn’t even conceive that there might be one.
After all, if at every single moment we don’t know what the Business Roundtable (or in its day, say, the Tobacco Institute) was doing, any argument about their detrimental role in politics and governance is obviously baseless and conspiracy-minded.
Michael D.
Link to Sullivan.
General Stuck
We keep telling you Andrew is a wingnut, but you won’t listen.
And I am so glad that Obama and his kapos are taking this to the plutocrats without apology, though I am sure some precious libtards will get cold feets for being unpresidential. Ram Citizens United down the pieholes of these creeps and don’t let up til the flopping around stops.
Napoleon
Sullivan is a joke.
danimal
The media elites don’t understand the problem (that the truth is obscured by the GOP-just pick an issue), so they think the solution of presenting issues through the lens of Truth favors Democrats. Since the consider themselves non-partisan, they don’t tell the truth. Bastards.
bozack
The Chamber of Commerce is truly a force for evil– not at all a force for business, just simply a force for evil.
Napoleon
PS, the only thing I respect the Reps for is their understanding how completely clueless the pundits are and how they ignore them because of it. It has really benefited them.
jl
I do recall what was supposed to be a significant scandal over the Democratic Party accepting donations that may have been laundered, from Chinese contributers. This was back in the Clinton years, and during Algorisfat’s campaign.
Anyone remember that?
Now that, my friends, was a serious scandal. Might be very big trouble for the Democrats with patriotic US citizens.
I heard the meritricious (but courtly and gracious) Schieffer ask a Democrat this Sunday about this year’s Republican version with “I mean, is that all you got?”
Well, times change, don’t they?
Wonder what the difference is? I guess Gulf Oil Sheiks are honorary US citizens. Or our politcal, coporate and media overlords feel more empathy with them, or just more comfy?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jl:
God, yes. Tim Russert thought it was the greatest national crisis since Nullification, or at least since Fellation.
Michael
Annoying as it is to defend Sully, he’s right in this case. Voters don’t care about and don’t want to hear whining about funding sources for political attack ads. Half of them don’t even know what the Chamber of Commerce is, or think for one second about who pays for the political ads they see on TV.
Republicans are nailing Dems to the wall over the economy (irony of ironies, because they crashed it).
And we’re trying to complain that the hammer and nails are foreign made.
It absolutely sucks. Failure to pass DISCLOSE this year, while we have big majorities, was the single worst legislative defeat this cycle.
Comrade Javamanphil
Democrats are only worthwhile if they stay above the fray and remain true to their ideals. Of course, then they are spineless, elitists who don’t care about you. As long as the pundit class is happy…
Ailuridae
There is a separate issue here which is that “there is only one pile” of money for the Chamber of Commerce, and nearly any business or any individual. Pretending you have a US donations pile that you use to influence House and Senate elections and then a separate pile from foreign companies that you use on political issues like passing CAFTA is, simply, irrational.
Cat Lady
@jl:
Was that the scandal where Al Gore used the wrong phone? The Wrong Phone. If he’d dressed like a Nazi he would’ve been a two term president.
Linkmeister
Sullivan and his Atlantic bosses certainly made a wise choice when they decided his blog should not be open for comments.
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Of course, the supposed (and I think in one or two cases confirmed) Chinese contributers were relatively grubby middling rich businesspeople.
This Arab Money! Which has international finance, mega wealth and pizazz about it. This is a better class of foreign subversion.
Fancy Oil Sheiks? Gulf Coast tea! Oil, that is.
jl
@Cat Lady: I don’t think so. That was the use of official public office to grub for money Algorisfat scandal.
Barb (formerly gex)
IOKIYAR. I didn’t even think this was notable anymore.
Bender
Of course, that is not true. The CoC nonsensically donates to several pro-ObamaCare, pro-Cap-n-Tax Democrats (like Frank Kratovil, D/MD-1, who’s up against doctor/Navy vet/free-market GOP candidate Andy Harris).
They’ve just recently pumped in $2M for Democrat ads (for Georgia’s Jim Marshall, Virginia’s Glenn Nye, Kratovil, Mississippi’s Travis W. Childers and Alabama’s Bobby Bright and others) to defeat Republicans.
WITH FOREIGN MONEY! Well, prove it’s NOT foreign!
Mnemosyne
@Michael:
No? Then why do right-wingers whine about (alleged) Chinese donations to Bill Clinton to this day, 12 years later?
It was an extremely successful meme for them and hurt Gore quite a bit in 2000. I’m not sure why we’re not supposed to point out the hypocrisy of the Republicans on this issue, except maybe that it’s not polite.
Mnemosyne
@Bender:
Who else thinks Bender spent at least six months spluttering about Chinese! Donations! Gore! Phone calls! Buddhist temples!
But, suddenly, when it’s his side being flooded with foreign money, having the Chinese buy your candidates doesn’t look so bad, does it?
Corner Stone
Fuck Sullivan.
What about this do you not understand?
Bender
Look, even CBS, CNN and the NYT find this “flooded with foreign money” meme laughable. As the exasperated longtime lefty Bob Scheiffer put it, “Is this the best you’ve got?”
Restrung
Occasionally, a Todd Rundgren tune says it all. It even has Nazis.
Mnemosyne
@Bender:
Gosh, the right-wing media finds the meme laughable? Well, that sure proves … something.
Alwhite
why does anyone read this moron? seriously, there is no reason to view his work as much more than an educated kornfederate wankee.
El Cid
Longtime lefty Bob Schieffer? Did he used to be part of the Weather Underground too?
Mike in NC
Ah, yes. Would that be the same Bob Scheiffer, lifelong Republican from Texas, who was cozy golfing buddy with George W. Bush, and whose brother got business favors from the Bush White House? The guy who almost cried on TV whenever people failed to show enough love for John McCain?
Or maybe that’s a different Bob Scheiffer?
Omnes Omnibus
@Bender: And that is the best you’ve got? Sad, really.
Lolis
Hear, hear.
Anton Sirius
@Bender:
Even CBS, CNN and the NYT?
You’re not from around here, are ya?
Mnemosyne
@Mike in NC:
To be fair, Bender thinks that everyone who appears on teevee is a flaming lie-bural. So there’s that.
joe from Lowell
Seriously?
No…really? Cuz that’s just funny.
tbogg
As a rule, citing Brendan Nyhan is the equivalent of paraphrasing Liberal Fascism. Nyhan is every bit as willfully obtuse as Jonah Goldberg and has been from his Spinsanity days.
joe from Lowell
Because they’re criticizing the legitimacy of people paying enormous amounts of money to media outlets in an effort to influence politics.
What do you think the people who run the General Dynamics and Fidelity ads during breaks in their political chat shows are going to think about that basic proposition?
cleek
DNFTmotherfuckingT
Gregory
@jl:
I remember when Nixon having a slush fund of secret cash contributions was part of the Watergate scandal.
morzer
Andrew Sullivan is a manic-depressive schizophrenic with alarming obsessive tendencies and increasingly infrequent lucid intervals. As for the slobberfest by carefully selected “old comrades” over his ten years of self-promoting delusionality… let’s just say that even Glenn Beck might have found it a little de trop.
kindness
I was listening to NPR on my way home this afternoon & they brought the guy from Politifact on asking him if Obama’s statement that the Chamber of Commerce is using foreign funds to pay for attack ads against Democrats.
Well the guy goes on about it being ‘half truth’ and NPR did grill the guy but he kept to politifacts ‘ruling’ and I just didn’t get it. He admitted the Chamber takes their foreign funds and puts it in the same account as all their other money. He admit this is the same fund the Chamber pays for their attack ads with but when NPR asks how he can say the Chamber isn’t mixing the money, he said the Chamber claims to have ‘a system’ in place where the money won’t mix. NPR got him to say the Chamber won’t tell anyone their ‘system’ but based on the Chamber’s statement, Politifact has decreed it’s Obama that is telling a lie and the Chamber is OK.
OK, so the Chamber is a lobbying organization, lobbying organizations lie for a living & yet this ‘neutral fact checking organization’ gives the Chamber a pass.
Like I said, I just don’t get it.
El Cid
Remember, to conservatives, the notion of journalism itself is liberal, because in its basic philosophy it’s supposed to involve observing and finding actual facts and then writing about those things sanely.
Journalism in the conservative view is PR for the conservative cause, and this is why Colbert joked that ‘facts have a liberal bias’ and when he tore the hell out of Emperor Bush Jr. to his face and the press corps simultaneously…
Omnes Omnibus
@kindness: Sounds like commingling of funds.
El Cid
@kindness: Look, just because I get funds deposited into my bank account by the mob doesn’t mean that when I use that account to pay my bills that I’m using mob funds to pay my bills.
John O
@morzer:
I might disagree with the specific diagnosis, and agree that Andrew is a little more crazy than most, but he’s a damn good writer and I can’t help but visit his damn blog daily.
It is an excellent version of civil discourse; personal, passionate, intelligent, thoughtful and respectful. Interesting and fun more often than not, too. He’s unafraid, having faced death a little bit more personally than most of us, and persuadable. This one is probably the only blog I visit more consistently.
Andrew makes me hopeless and furious from time to time for being so fundamentally dysfunctional (my definition being partly made up of voluntarily belonging to Clubs that don’t want you) yet famous and rich, and I disagree with him much as John described yesterday or so, but that doesn’t mean I can’t think he’s good.
And an OK human, too.
Steve
He just called Bob Schieffer a lefty? Seriously? What a fool.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Napoleon: The pundits aren’t clueless. They are like well trained dogs. They know what to do for their corporate overlords(ie. support the Pukes).
morzer
@John O:
I disagree. Sullivan is a decent writer, but as a human being he is not to be trusted. One day he’ll talk about civility, the next day he’ll stick the rhetorical shiv in as deep as he can.
Barb (formerly gex)
I know the true reason many keep reading Andrew. For all the rationalizations we have, it’s just intermittent positive reinforcement. The frequency with which he blogs is like the loosest slot machine on the planet.
John O
@morzer:
Fair enough. I don’t consider “rhetorical” shivs to be any big deal except in terms of hurt fee-fees, about which I don’t give a crap. In fact, I like them.
At least he posts dissent.
piratedan
well naturally this comes down to morals and ethics right?
After all, we can trust the right to take the moral high ground after the examples that were made for them by McCarthy, Nixon, Ensign, Coburn, Sandford, Vitter et al…
To be honest, I understand that people are sometimes less than truthful, faithful, ethical from time to time depending upon personal needs and demons, I really wish the tha Republicans weren’t so damn sanctimonious about it and simply come out and say…. “we’re backing the rich guys, we’re sellouts, come onboard, maybe there’s room for you on the party boat”.
Everyday it seems like it all comes back to Meatballs, we’re Camp Northstar and they’re Camp Mohawk.
Barb (formerly gex)
@morzer: You’re just a Fifth Columnist.
kindness
@El Cid: It just seems like they are saying they are only a little bit pregnant, that’s all.
Lesley
If Sullivan is encouraging Obama to be the Jesus and turn the other cheek, I can only assume he thinks the Republican smear/hate campaign is Satan.
ronathan richardson
How naive. Yes, some lovely “narrative of recovery and reform” will convince people to vote democrat…bs. People are mad right now, and want to hear negative, angry rhetoric. I mean seriously, barely 45% of the country supported a FinReg bill that was full of no-brainers just because it felt better to yell about the government endlessly bailing out it’s wall street cronies. People want angry, people want negative.
Sly
Because they have a “system,” Republican money is magically non-fungible.
daveNYC
@El Cid: Yep, and my tax dollars only go towards education and unicorns.
rikyrah
Maddow has been on the money
Emma
I keep telling you people. Sullivan is an overeducated, monstrously self-centered professional prig with religious issues. To paraphrase TNH, just because you’re on his side it doesn’t mean he is on your side. Capisce?
Joe Buck
The right will keep doing this as long as Democrats keep falling for it. If Republicans tell Democrats that the same tactics that Republicans have long used are unethical if Democrats are tempted to try them, Democrats will agree, because many of them care about looking good and about the process than delivering actual results.
Chris
Consider this a vote for letting the other side have Sullivan back.
He’s too smarmy too often, especially for someone who’s been really wrong about a lot of things (The Bell Curve, “the fifth column,” Iraq, Afghanistan; his Saletan-esque misogyny on abortion and indifference to personal sexual responsibility would be part 2 of the shit-list) and right about two main things (torture, gay marriage), one of which didn’t even require him to imagine what it’s like to be someone else.
To paraphrase a Seinfeld reference, I’m still suspicious he converted to continue taking potshots at us.
snarkypsice
@Michael:
I absolutely agree with you. Sullivan isn’t concern trolling – he’s expressing a valid concern that the Demos look like a bunch of whiners when people want them to look like leaders.
I disagree with his conclusion that Obama should come out and talk about deficits – how the hell will that help create jobs? But I do think people are way past hearing complaints about the political process and just want to hear someone in Washington talking to them about their real concerns.
gil mann
Brendan Nyhan? The guy with all the keen political instincts of Howard Fineman but none of the take-no-prisoners pugnacity?