Sully: Practicing What He Preaches Against

Once every six months or so, when I get really desperate, I'll head over to Andrew Sullivan and see what he's got to say. Some progressives are welcoming him into the fold, given his tough talk against the management of the Iraq war and the growing Christianist movement in the US. But he'll still use exactly the same tactics in his own arguments that he decries in other people's.

For example, today he's gone on and on about Mel Gibson's remarks, with particular emphasis on the reaction from the conservosphere. He sees a very particular technique in how they're deflecting Gibson's comments and turning them into an attack on the Left:

The diversionary tactics being deployed by the theocon right (and fellow-travelers) in defense of their cultural icon, Mel Gibson, are getting quite inventive. Here's David Frum, who uses the occasion to suggest Gibson's anti-Semitism qualifies him to become head of the U.N. Can you imagine him taking such a jocular approach if, say, Louis Farakhan had been ranting similar things about Jews?

Here's Captain Quarter's blog who summons up his greatest outrage for Abraham Foxman:

Foxman had our support while he expressed outrage and disgust at Gibson's drunken rant. However, he loses it when he advocates criminal penalties for merely offering an opinion. Gibson's remarks, as reported, were hateful and obnoxious - but Foxman's are truly dangerous.

You'll find no more passionate opponent of hate crime laws than me. (there's a platform to run on! -ed.) But Foxman's idiocy is more dangerous than spreading medieval anti-Semitism through the Middle East in the midst of a global terrorist movement to eradicate the Jewish people and state? Please.

Sully has other examples, but I think you get the picture. He can't stand when bloggers bring a completely unrelated boogeyman into a debate to distract from having to confront the real issue, i.e. bringing up the UN, or Abe Foxman, or Ted Kennedy, or liberal Hollywood, when the issue is Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic comments (and his long history of them, I might add).

In the very next post below the Gibson one, Sully links to something very dangerous, namely that Ayatollah al-Sistani, our erstwhile partner in Iraq, is warning the US that he will protect and defend his Muslim brothers from aggression:

Iraq's top Shiite cleric demanded an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon, warning Sunday that the Muslim world will "not forgive'' nations that stand in the way of stopping the fighting [...]

"Islamic nations will not forgive the entities that hinder a cease-fire,'' al-Sistani said in a clear reference to the United States.

"It is not possible to stand helpless in front of this Israeli aggression on Lebanon,'' he added. "If an immediate cease-fire in this Israeli aggression is not imposed, dire consequences will befall the region.''

To which Sully adds his piercing analysis:

Maybe even Moulitsas will have to have an opinion now.

So, instead of acknowledging his role in promoting the neocon element that has led us to the brink, instead of discussing how Iraq has put us in this horrible military and geopolitical position, instead of arguing the complexities of the situation in the Middle East, instead of GIVING HIS OPINION, he scoffs at Kos for not giving HIS opinion. And therefore all of Sully's credibility as the intrepid truth-seeker, punishing pundits with the destruction of their Chewbacca Defense-like arguments, is completely wasted in the course of one sentence, when he uses the exceedingly real threat of a wider war in the Middle East as a means to bash Markos Moulitsas.

How is that ANY different from his examples of bloggers using the Mel Gibson situation as a means to bash their usual suspects?

Of course, when has consistency EVER mattered to Andrew Sullivan, I guess that's the better question.