What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.
We should never forget those in our government who used the worst terrorist attack in our nation’s history as an excuse to launch completely unrelated wars, to do unprecedented damage to Americans’ historic liberties, to run roughshod over the Constitution, and to betray the Founders’ vision by savaging some of our most deeply held values.
The last decade has been a tragic one in countless ways. Few if any Americans would like to see it repeated.
I don’t read Sullivan anymore, but I assume the first is a Moore Award nominee and the second is up for a Yglesias Award.
wvng
I’m not certain the good Dr. Krugman would be comforted by this.
dedc79
I generally agree with the Krugman quote, but I think it’s a bit unfair to Giuliani. Giuliani did everything a mayor should do in the days following 9/11 (and on the day itself). Yes, he later tried to use the tragedy as an excuse to stay on past his time, but I do think he deserves some credit for how New York handled the aftermath of this tragedy.
SRW1
Purely on an intellectual level this will deeply offend Andrew Sullivan’s fee-fees.
gene108
Ha….I never noticed Ron Paul/Paul Krugman,..they’re both Paul’s…and doctors!
Will coincidences between these two ever cease?
On a side note, Rep. Paul’s pretty close to most liberals views on civil liberty issues, with the exception of his views on abortion.
What’d be interesting is to get them debating on the merits of going back to the gold standard. I bet Rep, Paul could get Prof. Paul’s head to explode.
d0n camillo
Did Sully ever give himself a Moore Award for his “Fifth Column” comparison?
Sam Houston
@gene108: Ron Paul Krugman 2016!
schlemizel - was Alwhite
So, if Kthug & Ayn Paul agree does that mean Kthug is wrong or that a blind sow just found an acorn?
I know any time I see the blind sow display an acorn I have to reevaluate my own thinking on the topic just to make sure I am not as delusional as he is.
Chyron HR
@schlemizel – was Alwhite:
Leave Sarah Palin alone!
Morbo
@schlemizel – was Alwhite: You hate freedom.
EconWatcher
@d0n camillo:
I’m ashamed to know this, but a shrill comment from the right is actually eligible for a Hugh Hewitt award, while a Moore award is for purportedly shrill comments from the left.
And yes, I’ve pretty much stopped reading Sully now.
DKF
I know it’s not the most popular move in these here parts to defend Sullivan, but I still read the guy, and I am absolutely certain that he would agree with Krugman’s sentiments. Sully has evolved quite a bit over the last few years.
Geeno
The Yglesias award is for speaking out against your own side.
Mark S.
@EconWatcher:
I thought shrill comments from the right got a Malkin Award, but I do seem to remember Hugh Hewitt awards as well.
And I’ve never read Sully regularly. When I still bothered with Google reader, I put him in one time. I took him out because if you took a couple days off reading blogs you’d have 300 unread items, with 90% of them being Sully.
Marc
There is a lot of interesting stuff over at Sullivan’s place. If you can’t be bothered to read it, at least refrain from making things up that you imagine he’d say.
John Cole changed his mind; so did Sullivan. The bile that a lot of leftists carry for Sullivan just mystifies me – it apparently carries over even when he doesn’t do anything.
mistermix
@Marc: Here’s why I quit Sullivan. It has nothing to do with his position on Iraq, that’s old news:
https://balloon-juice.com/2011/05/03/hitting-unsubscribe/
lol
I think he’s pointing out Sullivan’s habit of dismissing opinions as “shrill” if they come from a hippie but embracing as “brave” the exact same opinion if it comes from someone that’s nominally on his team.
Comrade Javamanphil
@DKF: This, too, shall pass. It always does with Sully. One step forward, two steps back.
superluminar
Why?
A lot of us here were regular readers of Sully, and many found this place through him. We’re familiar and exasperated enough with his oeuvre that we can easily imagine what he would say.
Marc
@mistermix:
OK, understood. Every once in awhile he goes off on some bizarre tangent (who is the real mother of a Palin baby? Paul Ryan 4ever!) But there is also a lot of solid writing and work over there, largely from the hive mind of course.
In the online left we wrap ourselves up in the opinions of people very close to our own views; dangerously so in my view. Sullivans provides a bit more of a window onto a non-loathsome conservative worldview, at least to me.
Marc
Well, let’s see. On 9-11:
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/09/the-prescience-of-mearsheimer.html
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/09/911-and-the-end-times.html
A tribute (as here) to Father Mychal Judge.
An article on Cheney titled “The press and the war criminal”
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/09/the-perils-of-religious-enthusiasm-.html
I don’t see a lot to object to there.
Oliver
This seems passingly strange. The post was basically about Krugman, and to some extent the infamous anti-Semite, Ron Paul. Then the comments pulled it into an Andrew Sullivan thread, which is even stranger given that Krugman and Sullivan now-agree on most things.
Oliver
This seems passingly strange. The post was basically about Krugman, and to some extent the infamous anti-Semite, Ron Paul. Then the comments pulled it into an Andrew Sullivan thread, which is even stranger given that Krugman and Sullivan now-agree on most things.
stormhit
@superluminar:
Because it’s stupid, you’re wrong, and it makes you look like petty idiots.
He even actually has an “award” up yesterday, and it’s the totally opposite of mistermix is suggesting it would be. It took all of 5 seconds to go look.
d0n camillo
@stormhit:
I haven’t read Andrew Sullivan in years. Frankly I couldn’t give a shit if he’s evolved over the years. He has never fully apolologized for the Fifth Column remark. That limey prick basically called anybody who dissented from George W Bush’s post 9/11 foreign policy a traitor. And he has the fucking nerve to hand out Malkin and Morre awards to people he considers shrill? Fuck him. Fuck him to hell and back.
bago
The secret is that both Yglesias and Moore have skimpy beards.
Linda Featheringill
Not a Ron Paul fan but . .
I think he assessed that situation and expressed it very well.
Also on Ron Paul, during the last debate when he said that a fence that could keep “them” out could also be used to keep us in. He’s right, you know.
stupid, wrong & a petty idiot
I don’t have 5 seconds to spare to check that what you wrote is completely wrong, so maybe you could provide a link?
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@Marc: Sooooooo, we shouldn’t be bothered that he called everyone who opposed the Iraq War a fifth columnist? He’s never apologized, you know.
If/when another major terrorist attack occurs, he’ll be right back to calling for everyone to his left to be sent to the camps. Fuck him.
G
to parse the quotes
Ron Pauls uses Wars.. meaning more than 1 war. meaning both Iraq and Afhanistan
Krugman uses war, singular, not the plural
both use unreleated.
Now it’s perfectly reasonable to say that we’ve continued too long in afghanistan, and that perhaps a non-war deal could’ve been worked. But you’d have to be a nutcase who wants to real the civil rights act, and a gold-bug isolationist to be dumb enough to call afghanistans, which houses and allowed, and harbored Bin Laden before and after 9-11 as
unreleated.
Iraq, however was unreleated. singular, plural… major difference in meanings in those two quotes
El Cid
__
Cheney. Eric Prince. And so forth.
Frankensteinbeck
@Linda Featheringill: and @gene108:
The thing with Ron Paul is that he’s an honest lunatic. He’s nuts. He wants to dissolve the Federal Reserve because it’s a tool of Jewish bankers to control us. He sincerely believes in the beauty of unrestrained capitalism like we had before 1900. He’s one very small step from being a sovereign citizen.
BUT, this same madness produces some good opinions amidst the bad, and it’s so astonishing for a Republican to say such reasonable things that he looks sane.
Xecky Gilchrist
The Krugman article is bang on, I think, but he doesn’t mention the part that made it far, far worse – the demonization of everyone who disagreed with the stupid, cynical rush to war. The death threats, the traitor-callings, the sneering dismissiveness from government and media. There’s far more for the right to be ashamed of than what Krugman lists.
Tractarian
Wow, it must be a really long time since you read him, because that Krugman quote could have been taken word-for-word from 2011-vintage Daily Dish.
Quiddity
@dedc79: Agree about Giuliani. Back then, when everybody was freaking out, Giuliani would be out there every day saying that 94 trucks are moving debris to a facility, that 203 tons of supplies were being brought in, that 441 police were looking for survivors. Stuff like that. It wasn’t particularly complex, but it gave people a sense of order and that something was being done.
That was particularly important because in the first days after the attack, Bush was very passive. At one point there was a nationally televised conference call between Giuliani and the White House. Bush was definitely the subordinate figure in that exchange. It was Giuliani saying “We New Yorkers are hustling and doing what we can to clean up the area and tend to the injured”, and Bush saying “That’s a good job you are doing”. A lot of people forget that.
Giuliani was maybe a bit of a fascist at that time – commanding this and that on limited authority – but sometimes in the immediate wake of a shocking tragedy, that kind of we’re-in-control posture helps calm the populace.
burnspbesq
Must be fun living in an echo chamber. Even so, you should get out more. Only hearing your own side eventually makes you stupid. And “eventually” comes sooner for some than for others.
gene108
@Frankensteinbeck:
That’s why I’d pay money via Pay-per-View to watch the Pauls debate about monetary policy.
Krugman will come in with all these facts and stuff and Ron’ll just blow them off and declare the Constitution demands we go back to the gold standard. Also, to concede to 21st century sensibilities, I think Ron’ll be pushing to introduce any fancy-metal-as-currency-standard, so you could have silver and maybe platinum backed money as well.
There should be a good line at Vegas, as to when Krugman’s head will explode, in attempting to deal with Ron’s beliefs versus economic facts.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@burnspbesq: Right. Either we give credence to the opinions of a man who’d have gladly had most of us stuffed into concentration camps as traitors, or we live in an echo chamber. Because Sullivan’s is the only voice brave enough to note that Michael Moore is fat, and we really need to hear that.
SRW1
@burnspbesq:
So if you don’t heed Sully, you live in an echo chamber?
Me agrees, that’s a worrying sign of a limited horizon.
eemom
So a post about Paul Krugman, Ron Paul and 9-11 devolves into Argument Number Eighty Gazillion Eleventy-Seven Thousand Five Hundred and Sixty-Three over SULLIVAN.
Y’all are some sick puppies.
D0n Camillo
@eemom:
Yeah what do you know? A post that references Sully’s giving out awards for being shrill becomes about Sully’s past shrillness. Whoocoodanode?
D0n Camillo
@burnspbesq:
I still remember the feeling of being gut punched when I read his Fifth Column piece. He published it on September 16, 2001. So less than a week after 9/11 he was accusing anybody who dissented from his views of being a traitor. I actually supported overthrowing the Taliban, but I was still appalled and disgusted.
I still remember what it was like to oppose the Iraq invasion and George W Bush’s torture and rendition policies back in 2002 and 2003. There was almost no outlet apart from blogs for that point of view. If you want to talk about an echo chamber, just look back at the newspapers and television news of that period. See what kind of dissenting views were allowed.
cokane
For those defending sullivan
I read his blog pretty regularly, but I still find tons of reasons for disgust at him. The man and his whole team went all Labor day weekend without a single article about Labor/workers. He never commented on the Hoffa misquote. The man has no idea what real work is. And for those who say there is good writing over there. Sure he sometimes links to good writing, but Sullivan’s own writing is atrocious and reveals his total lack of work ethic imo.
He may say many things I agree with now, but he still has a deep narcissism and a shoddy work ethic that I find despicable, moreso since he’s championed fiscal austerity in recent months.
Kola Noscopy
I recently broke an eleven year addiction to the destructive habit of reading the Daily Douche. About six weeks clean now, and my soul is better for it.
Kola Noscopy
If this mystifies you, you don’t know what you are talking about. Sullivan is a fear-based, raging egomaniac with writing skills.
Kola Noscopy
@Marc:
And you know, we STILL don’t know what Cole proposes to have changed about his system of thinking; about how he approaches and processes information, from when he was a wingnut and a two-time Bush voter to now being a slavish establishment Dem.
He’s changed his allegiances, not his devotion to cults of personality and weakness for lock step, group-think within a deeply flawed system.
Kind of like an alcoholic switching from rot gut moonshine to wine to “cut back,” but still consuming just as much booze.
Speaking of addictions to booze…
Marc
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
No. It’s just pretty stupid to say “I imagine that blogger X would do this” when he, you know, didn’t actually do this. And, in fact, when the blog actually did pretty much the opposite of what you image they’d do.
Criticize people for what they really say, not what strawman you construct for them say.
And it took me a long damn time to forgive Sullivan for the 5th column crap. Cole said some pretty damn stupid stuff too, and yet I also managed to let that go – and find berating him about that to be pointless.
tomvox1
The problem with “reasonable conservatives” like Sully is that they say shit like this:
And fluff “reasonable conservative” politicians like David Cameron and his beautiful austerity, which makes Andrew & his pals so horny:
http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2010/10/the-tory-liberal-gamble/180957/
All of which is just bad, bad, bad for the working people of the UK and the USA. So fuck Sully and his agonistes. In the end, he always comes down on the side of the privileged and powerful over the common, working people in Western democracies. Unless you are in the top 2%, he is not your friend.
Naive and Sentimental
I was driving home late Sunday and the local pop radio station was giving a little montage of news soundbites relating the events of 9/11 and ending with Obama’s news conference announcing bin Laden had been killed.
And in the middle of this montage was Bush announcing they were about to invade…not Afghanistan, but Iraq. Just found that fascinating and disturbing.
Maybe I’m a bit in too deep when I start to see subtle propaganda coming from Breeze FM
El Cid
@Kola Noscopy: People who don’t like Sully must be in the wrong section of the Bell Curve, that awesome scientific publication which was so important and which Sully helped put on the national agenda.
eemom
never will I understand the fascination — whether positive or negative — with that self-absorbed, self-important, head-up-the-ass, clue-challenged, overindulged and oversized British schoolboy. NEVER.
b-psycho
@Frankensteinbeck:
Delete the rank anti-Semitism (which I don’t recall Ron Paul getting into anyway) from that line and what would be wrong with what’s left?
Seriously. That the Federal Reserve is a wholly and inherently captured entity operating for the benefit of high finance seems so obvious by now that it shouldn’t be controversial to say. The “it’s the JEWS!!” angle some mouth-frothing morons tack onto that criticism is what is whackjobbery.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@Marc: Cole has apologized, repeatedly, and never makes excuses for how stupid he was. Cole never, ever tries to justify the stupid things he said but rather admits that he was stupid.
Sullivan has never properly apologized for his fifth-column remarks. He’s never shown any indication that he’s really examined why he was so wrong to say it, and he’s certainly never changed the way he thinks.
Why should I forgive Sullivan for calling me a traitor? Seriously, why? Just what does his writing have to offer that’s so good it’s worth pretending that he did not, in fact, call me a fifth-columnist for the crime of seeing through Bush’s bullshit? What has he ever written to indicate that he truly doesn’t believe that anymore?
Sullivan is a scumbag. The fact that anyone still cares what that piece of shit has to say is a prime indicator of how terrible our discourse is in this country. Fuck Sullivan and fuck anyone base enough to defend his stupid ass.
And double fuck you, Marc. I’m not imagining anything. When someone calls me a traitor, I assume that they want to give me a punishment that’s due to a traitor. That’s not a strawman, that’s self preservation. If you think that Sullivan is on your side, and you’re not a rich conservative patrician, you’re a god damned idiot.
Kola Noscopy
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
BUT…he also never explains what he has changed, or is changing, about himself and his core ways of thinking that led him to be a Bush lover in the first place. It’s like the Bush Boy “quitting” drinking without any program of change or self improvement to accompany him, which left and leaves him a dry drunk. Cole gave up the Republican Koolaid, but whatever it is about him that made him love it in the first place remains a factor. Thus his need to pick a SIDE within the Dem party to support and aggressively promote, ie. Obama.
How about trying to be a dispassionate observer within the progressive sphere? Why is that not an option for Cole, who quite obviously has a good heart and a working mind?
Kola Noscopy
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
Hmmm…that sounds interesting…
eemom
@Kola Noscopy:
are you SURE you’re not Timmeh?
Kola Noscopy
@eemom:
OK, who the flying fuck is Timmeh?
Let me look: No, I mean yes, I am not him/it.
grandpajohn
@eemom: Yep another thread shot to hell, when we could be demonizing real war criminals. sullivan like the wingnut bloggers is too insignificant to waste time on.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@El Cid:
The Bell Curve. That’s all that has to be said about Sullivan.
Fuck him and his delicate sensibilities.
Marc
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
And on that note, into the pie filter you go.
Nothing I wrote deserved that abuse.
Ken Pidcock
I happen to remain a Sullivan fan, not least for his September 4 Newsweek piece.
But I do have to say that your observation here is dead on.