Andrew Sullivan on Slate today said:

Funnily enough, most Western nations were also run by some form of tyranny until recent 'history'. I could go on about this awful man for ages...

"There have been 20 internecine deaths so far: a harbinger of what a Palestinian state would eventually look like. If they're so brutal with their own, can you imagine what they'd do with any Jew who happened to find himself in their neighborhood?"

The "they" in the first one and the "their own" in this one are pretty shifty. In fact, this last sounds roughly like a Klan member talking about a black neighborhood.

really liked this post:

Why Hitch Backed Bush In 2004

He defends his support of Bush's re-election here. I didn't like Kerry either. Who did? But I wasn't crazy enough to give Bush-Cheney-Rove four more years. I regret my support for Bush in 2000. But it was honestly held, based on what he promised to do: cut taxes in a surplus, conduct a humble foreign policy, be socially inclusive.

I don't regret my support for the president after 9/11.

In such a crisis, a president of any party deserves the benefit of the doubt. I do regret deeply and indelibly my subsequent backing of the Iraq war. It was a terrible mistake. Again, it was an honest judgment based on the evidence then provided me. But it was an intellectually lazy position and far too passionately held. I have tried to atone since: on the war, on spending (which I was whining about in 2001), on torture, on the constitution, on Christianism.

But on the critical matter: I took a stand in 2004 and again in 2006. Others didn't. I took a stand in defense of real conservatism early in Bush's first term and wrote a book making my case in 2005. It has taken Chris Buckley until October 2008 to come to the same conclusion. That's not because I'm smarter than he is. It's because the conservative movement policed dissent very effectively. But I'm not the intimidated kind.

where did this appear?

His blog.

Never mind. And Hitchens looks like a humpback whale in that Bloggingheads clip.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/10/why-hitch-backe.html

liked his reference to National Review as a "circular firing squad" today

I read his blog daily, and I don't mind that he changes his mind.

i read his blog daily - and he is a ridiculous person - crazy post rate tho!

I don't regret my support for the president after 9/11.

In such a crisis, a president of any party deserves the benefit of the doubt.

Yuck.

Oh, I think he's great, although it's definitely also true that:
He's all id
Mr Sullivan likes to take a contrary position on every view
like a lot of very smart guys, he thinks he can pronounce on just about anything. it never seems to occur to him that he might not know what the fuck he's talking about
(though NB that smart≠wise if that's the result)

But once you adjust for that, you're left with a pretty solid core of ... I don't know, decency or moral propriety I suppose, and certainly sincerity. Which is why I like him, as opposed to e.g. the Spiked! lot, whose contrarianism wears thin quickly when you realise it's just a pose

his blog's pretty entertaining and i like that he's genuinely unpredictable -- sometimes he thinks himself into odd positions. but he's also basically kind of a lunatic.

(mind you, as a pro-obama-conservative lunatic i find him a lot easier to take than as a terror-warrior lunatic.)

I would hate to have been his husband during that long Labor Day weekend, just after the Palin pick was announced.

"Christianism"? wtf

he is a ron paul-loving douche

It's his way of differentiating between Xtians and wingnut-Xtians. If you ever read his site, it kind of makes sense.

I doubt that.

christianist is a parallel construction to islamist, i think is the idea.

anyone read his book on conservatism?

is it about being a conservatist?

"Islamist" is also a totally bullshit construction btw

it's his tiresome way to browbeat the evangelicals who have taken over the gop from true reaganite conservatives (in his estimation)

Shakeyism

the conservative soul is the unappealing title possible

unappealingEST

"islamism" has a sort of interesting history. i can see the case for it (and "christianism") to denote political rather than spiritual movements, even though obviously the people involved in either/both would argue that their political aims are spiritual. on the christian side, i understand why there's been a move away from saying "fundamentalism," but i get tired of everyone using the euphemism "evangelical," which is broader and a lot vaguer.

haha from that site
“Some people used language in describing evangelical Christians that we can’t even reprint in the report,” Sellers said. “Evangelicals were called illiterate, greedy, psychos, racist, stupid, narrow-minded, bigots, idiots, fanatics, nut cases, screaming loons, delusional, simpletons, pompous, morons, cruel, nitwits, and freaks, and that’s just a partial list. The insults and anger directed at this population group by a surprisingly large proportion of Americans was truly shocking. Some people don’t have any idea what evangelicals actually are or what they believe – they just know they can’t stand evangelicals, whatever they might be.”

I feel like I could stand to read more conservative writers just to have a better understanding of where they're coming from, but Sullivan is about as much as I can stand. Are there any others worth reading? Most of the most-read voices from the right seem to also be among the most tone deaf.

culture11 is a sometimes interesting attempt at hipper, less stupid conservatism. still wrong, but more self-aware than the NRO types.

Ross Douthat is worth reading too.

No he's not.

Well, define "worth reading." A conservative "worth reading" makes the case for conservatism without wingnuttery.

i'm sort of in "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" mode now w/r/t a lot of these conservative writers

xpost I don't think that kind of case exists.

the ones who have jumped ship or actively criticized mccain/palin, that is xp

Well they are all criticizing McCain now. No one likes a loser.

i'm more morbusian on conservative writers, i.e. "fuck them all." i read the corner for lols but i could give a shit about trying to figure out which conservative contains the least amount of wingnut per sentence and therefore i should read and listen to them

or is that morbiusian

The latter, I think.

long term strategy: divide and conquer, imo

They seem to be doing that well enough on their own.

I like intellectual self-justification for its own sake even if I don't buy a fucking word of it; I'm not much of a liberal either.

To each their own. I don't get much out of reading nonsense.

I guess I don't think the principles of small government, strong military, and social traditionalism are inherently nonsense, they're just not positions I agree with on the whole.

I'm not even sure what those three things mean, but I can guarantee that people who consider themselves strong proponents of all three are either idiots or completely insane.

the military isnt part of the government formulation is magically stupid

No no the military pays for itself in magic conservative land.

I'm horribly anti-social with my fellow pundits. I'm a no-show for parties, dinners, soirees. It's not some kind of above-it-all purity. I just have enough friends, one husband, two dogs and a great big television. My closest friends tend to be in non-political fields. Being a fag helps too. You get an instant social circle outside of professional networks. And I'm lucky enough to have been able to write this blog for eight years without having to belong to any party or clique. I realize now how unusual this is. But it helps explain why it was a lot easier for me to call these Republicans out as total poseurs long before most of my fellow conservative hacks. I mean: backing Kerry in '04 wasn't much fun but at least I didn't suffer any real social or professional blowback.

we should have an atlantic "voices" poll

yeah!

Ta-Nehisi will win in a walk due to gamer geekdom (well, and most everything else too).

HE had to make sure he didn't "lose it"

Would it be a stretch to say that words like "christianist" and "islamist" sound ridiculous to us in part because they would have been redundantly-suffixed once and are only made even questionably useful in a partially secularized world?