What keeps homo-journo Andrew Sullivan up at night? The Clintons, “a horror movie that never ends…”
Obama-loving Sullivan took to The Sunday Times yesterday to posit some Romero-inspired theories on America’s most prominent couple, Hillary and Bill:
The Clintons have always had a touch of the zombies about them: unkillable, they move relentlessly forward, propelled by a bloodlust for Republicans or uppity Democrats who dare to question their supremacy. You can’t escape; you can’t hide; and you can’t win.
…
The media are marveling at the Clintons’ several near-death political experiences in this campaign. Hasn’t it occurred to them how creepily familiar all this is? The Clintons live off psychodrama. They both love to push themselves to the brink of catastrophe and then accomplish the last-minute, nail-biting self-rescue. Before too long the entire story becomes about them…
Well, what else are the Clintons supposed to do? Acknowledge that Hillary’s odds actually look pretty slim? No way! They talk her up, extend a gracious hand to “Veep” Barack Obama and let the press do the rest. Too bad Obama’s not rolling over and playing dead.
emb
Hm. Well Bill’s “zombieness” is hardly mysterious: he is a brilliant media-age politician who was able to engage enormous crowds on an individual, in-you-livingroom basis, convincing them that he really really cared about them personally; and was publicly perceived as fighting a continuous battle against relentless (and ultimately fruitless) republican attacks against his past business dealings, his political policies, and his presidency over the pettiest of transgressions blown up by the neocon propaganda machine into scary beasts that the public managed to see through. So he was empathetic, a fighter, a victim, and an orator who looked good: no mystery about his long popularity.
Hillary’s continued popularity, on the other hand, is a total cypher to me. She’s not warm and approachable; the ideas she presents are not particularly new, nor are they compellingly presented. Her stage presence is robotic, and her attempts at wit in debate come across as over-rehearsed. Certainly she has the victim thing going (no expense was spared by the repubs during the 90s in trying to smear her along with bill), but she entered this race last year with an attitude of entitlement, as if she were the grand old dame of the democratic party, and not a 1.5-term senator whose previous “experience” is as a presidential and gubernatorial first lady–a limited functional and strategic role even for the most aggressive. And yet about half the democratic primary electorate seems dead set on getting her nominated, and she seems willing to accept even the most backroom, tainted and divisive of roads to secure that nomination.
These two are fascinating individuals, and intriguing historical figures. I’m just not sure I want four or eight more years of them.
jeeb
Well, regardless if you love or hate the Clintons, that was a fairly amusing read. I’ve always been impressed by Sullivan’s writing abilities, even if I don’t agree with him on all points.
Leland Frances
Well, there’s ONE good thing to say about Repug butt boy Sullivan’s roaring hard on for…er endorsement of Obama—we guess he’s stopped believing in the “blacks are genetically stupid†fake science of Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray [“The Bell Curveâ€] whose work he promoted when he was editor of “The New Republic.†But then, technically speaking, Obama is only half-black so maybe that’s why Andy Pandy is willing to give HIM a pass.
As for the credibility and integrity of anything he’s written about anyone — including the Clintons or Obama — consider the tread marks in his tighty WHITEY history:
Mr. Sullivan, aka “RawMuscleGlutes,” although HIV+ was exposed years ago by Michelangelo Signorile for trolling online for bareback sex “bi-scenes, one-on-ones, three-ways, groups, parties, orgies and gang bangs” but no “fats and fems” at the same time he was demonizing gay men for their â€libidinal pathology” AND…..drum roll……Pres. Clinton … surprise … for his “sexual recklessness.†Attempting to distract from the fact that the issue was NOT sexual freedom of choice but his own HYPOCRISY, Sullivan, of course, denounced Signorile for violating HIS “privacy†even though, through his publications, he had made the private acts of so many others, including a President of the United States, HIS business, the subject of his own self-righteous sermonizing—whenever, that is, RawMuscleGlutes took a break from sorting through responses to his personal ad.
Privileged male Sullivan would overturn “Roe v. Wade†and has also pontificated at length AGAINST job protections bills like ENDA as creating unfair “special rights”—“the push for gay employment rights is unconvincing and whiny. …gay men and lesbians suffer no discernible communal economic deprivation and already operate at the highest levels of society.”
He was a screeching, demagogic drum major for the invasion of Iraq—only criticizing it now because Bush fucked it up. “Sullivan’s Taliban style of argument and his rigid habit of separating the world into the blessed and the damned turns American politics into a free-fire zone where any deviation from his view of the national program is immediately leveled.†– Salon. Gee, kind of sounds like the “Clintons as zombies.”
Most revelatory of many examples of Sullivan’s solipsism was his effectively declaring that “AIDS is over!†twelve years ago—more specifically the “end of the plague”—we assume, because wealthy white gay men in the US have access to anti-retrovirals. Too bad about all those—according to the authors he promoted—mentally inferior 100% black people with AIDS in the US and around the world.
And RawMuscleGlutes has the fat, pendulous balls to criticize the Clintons?
ggreen
Well, regardless if you love or hate Democracy, America, Mom, Kittens, Gays, that was a fairly amusing read. I’ve always been impressed by Sullivan’s (Colter, Buckley, Kristol, Limbaugh, Beck, Savage) writing abilities, even if I don’t agree with him (them) on all points.
Why do Reagan Democrats/Blue Dogs/Log Cabin Gays always spout this drivel about Andrew Sullivan? Sullivan a self-interested pig, period. His observations usually impress other self-interested pigs.
jackscribe
I’m an ‘ABC’ gay independent and respect Sullivan’s observations. His daily VERY LENGTHY blog are always informative. I’m humored by the Clinton strategy to suggest that Obama might be a great VP on a ticket. Cajones grande…for the trailing candidate to suggest that the leader take the number 2 spot.
Jack Jett
Sullivan was a HUGE supporter of the Iraq war.
Nuff said.
janstapel
Thank you Leland Frances for setting the record straight so to speak.
Tom Bacchus
It perplexes me that so many blogs feel it necessary to regurgitate the blatherings of that hedgehog-faced teabag Brit snit.
seitan-on-a-stick
Didn’t homocon cutie-turned-bear Andrew Sullivan quote “AIDS is Over!” in the late 1990s? Barack Obama for Vice-President (or, we’ll totally lose)