Wherever He Goes,There He Is

IOZ on Andrew Sullivan:

Sullivan calls himself a conservative, which in his writing, if not his mind, means a defender of his own habitudes against the depredations of those "fundamentalists" (Yglesias is good on his use of that word) whom he sees seeking some radical alteration of Andrew Sullivan's quotidian existence. In the universe of his writing, Andrew Sullivan is the immovable object. The Church drifts from him. The War drifts from him. The Party drifts from him. But poor Andy, wherever he goes, there he is.

IOZ also offers a magnificent excerpt from Susan Sontag, from her essay after 9/11, after which IOZ concludes:

Sullivan called her a traitor and fifth columnist and said that she "waits in a welter of metaphor until they murder us again."

...

Susan Sontag is dead, of course, and Sullivan still gives out an award named in her dishonor to those whose positions deviate too greatly from his own, even as he has come to agree with that far greater, better, kinder, more decent, more intelligent, and more humane human being five years after the fact.

Read the rest. [And further commentary here, about the renamed "Sontag Award."]


And here are a few of my own adventures in Sullivan-land over the years:

Undying Myths, and Sullivan's Lies on the Path of Penance

Please, Sir, May I Have Another War?

From my series, On Torture:

Of Means and Ends

The Truth that Lies Within, and the Truth that Many Will Not Face (I)

The Truth that Lies Within, and the Truth that Many Will Not Face (II)