And yes, of course, the president's support for the FMA has colored this. How could it not? If you had spent much of your life arguing a) that gay people deserve civil equality and b) that civil marriage is the fundamental mark of that equality, it would require Herculean masochism to endorse a president who wants to enshrine the denial of marriage to gays in the very Constitution itself.

Well, gee, that's all fine and dandy. But then we're still left with this curiosity:

National Review's Kathryn Lopez made the following remark before my spring break: "I do wish Sullivan would save time and come out for Kerry now. In just a matter of time he will come up with the rationalizations, but it's taking him painfully long to get on with it. I'm betting all Kerry will have to do is say that he's against terrorism." I'm mystified by this remark. It has always seemed to me that a political writer is not necessarily partisan. Some of us are actually trying to figure out who's the better candidate for the next four years and haven't made our minds up already.

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Posted by: Ace at 10:11 PM | Comments (45)
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No, I mean besides that.

Apparently they're big fans of stating two quite-divergent positions before two different audiences, when they wrongly assume that one audience will not hear of the statements made to the other.

Jonah Goldberg, who's bent over backwards to deal fairly with Sullivan, catches Sullivan making absolutist, anyone-but-Bush statements in an advocacy essay in The Advocate (a gay magazine).

And yet his currently stated position on his blog -- read largely by rightish libertaranians and warhawks -- is that he's still deciding between Bush and Kerry. His posture, over and over, is that he is a reluctant Bush critic who's offering advice to a man he could potentially support in November.

Still deciding, Andrew? How's this square with your "still deciding" posture?:

But itÂ’s time to say something very clearly: BushÂ’s endorsement of antigay discrimination in the U.S. Constitution itself is a deal-breaker. I canÂ’t endorse him this fall. Like many other gay men and women who have supported him, despite serious disagreements, I feel betrayed, abused, attacked.

That's all well and good. You're entitled to feel that way. You are not, however, entitled to hide those opinions from readers of your blog in order to attempt to advocate to them under the false flag of political alliance.

Compare that forthright anti-Bush statement, delivered to a largely-leftist gay audience, with the, errr, rather more "nuanced" fare he offers to readers of his blog:

National Review's Kathryn Lopez made the following remark before my spring break: "I do wish Sullivan would save time and come out for Kerry now. In just a matter of time he will come up with the rationalizations, but it's taking him painfully long to get on with it. I'm betting all Kerry will have to do is say that he's against terrorism." I'm mystified by this remark. It has always seemed to me that a political writer is not necessarily partisan. Some of us are actually trying to figure out who's the better candidate for the next four years and haven't made our minds up already.

A long, long time ago -- well, six months ago -- I said Sullivan is, was, and always has been a political hoaxer, someone posing as having some rightish views in order to ingratiate himself to the right and then, quite dishonestly, preach to them from within the church rather than from the outside, as it were.

He's maintaining his pose as an independent because he knows that he's a more effective advocate for Kerry in that guise. No one wants to listen to a partisan supporting the party line. But an independent... now that's different. And someone whose mind has been changed...? Even better still.

Advantage: me.

Overstatement Alert: When I say he's a "hoaxer," I don't literally mean he's falsified the entirety of his political dossier. I don't mean he's a bicycle-shorts wearing Manchurian Candidate.

I simply mean that he has always been a natural ally of the left, and a natural opponent of the right. And I mean he has quite-consciously decided to emphasize his rightish credentials in order to more effectively preach to the right, and he did all this in order to achieve his primary, secondary, and tertiary goals of gay marriage, gay marriage, and of course gay marriage.

This is tactically smart -- I am more willing to give a listen to James Baker's anti-war arguments than Noam Chomsky's, for example -- but it is fundamentally dishonest. The entire tactic is a bit of a confidence game, an exploitation of the simple fact that we're much more willing to agree with our allies than our opponents.

And Jonah's most excellent catch is perfect proof. We now have Sullivan on-record to a left-liberal audience stating that he'll never support Bush, while, for the heathens he's attempting to convert to his cause, he claims he's in an extended period of internal torment over the question.

He's not in any such internal torment, and never has been. He was a Kerry supporter before he even knew Kerry would win the Democratic nomination. He was a Kerry supporter a year ago, he was a Kerry supporter when he claimed to K-Lo that he was still in a state of Hamlet-esque internal dialogue, and he's a Kerry supporter now.

He's just not saying so, because the moment he says so, he'll lose a good number of Bush-supporting readers, all of whom are good prospects for conversion to the cause.

It's time for honesty, Sullivan. You are posing as a Bush supporter, or potential Bush supporter, or former Bush supporter, and thus someone whose critiques on the deficit or Abu Ghraib are to be taken all the more seriously, because, hey, you're no liberal hack screeching about these things. You are taking advantage of the time-tested Gee, even Andrew Sullivan says so... tactic.

But this pose is disingenuous. You are, in essence, a liberal hack, and your critiques on these issues should be discounted on the basis of the source they're coming from. Stop dishonestly claiming to be an undecided independent on Bush. If we have the right to have the New York Times' bias clearly and honestly admitted to us -- as you have long maintained -- I can't see how you can claim the right to continued dishonesty as to your own bias.

Update: Check out Sullivan's post:

AEI - hardly a liberal institution - knocks down any notion that George W. Bush is comparable to Ronald Reagan on fiscal matters...

In other words: You can trust them as to an anti-Bush judgment, because they're basically on Bush's side.

Okay. Fair enough.

Does it not follow then that someone with an anti-Bush agenda should be trusted a little less when it comes to anti-Bush judgments?

Hmmmmm... Maybe AEI would do Bush a favor by claiming to be "undecided" between Bush and Kerry.

Why not press my luck and predict something else? Sullivan is going to react quite emotionally and nastily to Goldberg's politely-worded (but tough-minded) query. He'll restrain himself somewhat at first, but over the coming weeks we're going to hear an awful lot about political inquisitions, loyalty oaths, the much-reduced space allowed to us for our own personal exploration of difficult political issues, etc.

You know-- all that whiny bullshit by which Sullivan cries "victim." The right to privacy he's always nattering on about (last seen being used to explain why Gary Condit shouldn't be forced to ask those mean policemen's questions) will conveniently morph and expand one more time to include a paid writer and poltical commentator's publically-stated political beliefs.

And no, I'm not saying that gay men are nasty and emotional. But I am saying that this particular gay man is. I've seen his work before; this should be a doozy.

Hey-- I Almost Predicted It! I was just a week or so late.

I predicted he'd announce for Kerry here, on May 16th. You all called me mad! You're insane, you all cried!

Insane...?! Insane?!! My mental derangement has given me the power to see things more clearly! More clearly than the so-called "sane," their perceptions obscured and blinkered by conventional mores and logical thinking!

Check out the date on Sullvian's J'Accuse piece. May 11th, baby.

Might as well mention this almost-prediction from May 10th, too.

Posted by: Ace at 05:25 PM | Comments (34)
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This is really more of an update to a previous post, but it's such a huge admission I'm giving it its own new post.

Earlier I linked this Rush Limbaugh bit, in which he plays a Bill Schneider report and then comments on it. I read the first few lines, dug it, posted it.

And then I stopped reading it. Because, for one, I'm not really the world's biggest Rush fan (tuned out after Power Windows, doncha know), and for another, I figured I knew what the rest of the article said. The economy's doing better than people think. End of story.

Actually, Bill Schneider had more to add. A lot more.

Here's the relevant report from Schneider, and then a bit of by-play with Judy Woodruff.

SCHNEIDER: Here's a little secret. The nation's economy is actually doing very well.

At this rate, the administration's projection of 2.6 million new jobs this year, a figure that was widely ridiculed a few months ago, now looks too low. Are happy times here again? Not if you ask the people who matter. The voters.

35% say the country's economy is in good shape. President Bush's job approval on the economy is still low. It hasn't budged in months. Don't people believe the good economic statistics? No, they don't. Right now, when you ask people about the economy, they may not be thinking about growth rates and jobs created. They may be thinking about gas prices and health care costs, the bad news.

[End of report; now comes the Q and A:]

SCHNEIDER: Here's another reason why the good economic news may not be having much impact. It's not being reported.

Media Tenor, an independent media analysis institute, reveals that news coverage of President Bush's economic policy has practically vanished from the major broadcast networks since the beginning of the year. It's all been Iraq. The improving economy is a secret.

WOODRUFF: But we're talking about it here.

SCHNEIDER: Yes, we are.

WOODRFUFF: Okay. Bill Schneider.

"But we're talking about it here," meaning, "Well, we mentioned it once, so we're covered."

Schneider seems to imply that it's because there's news coming out of Iraq that the economic news is being kept a secret.

Here's the problem with that:

There was lots of news coming out of Iraq when the economy was doing poorly, and yet the media managed to find the time to inform us of our economic misery.

Suddenly, the economy is growing like gangbusters, and aw shucks, wouldn't you know it, it turns out the media just plum doesn't have enough minutes in its newscast to devote to the subject.

Remember: When we captured Saddam Hussein -- rather big news, if I remember correctly -- they still managed to squeeeeeze in the news that the economy wasn't growing new jobs. They even were able to point out that capturing Saddam wouldn't create any new jobs.

And now that we're creating lots of jobs? They just want to talk about other things.

Now, I'm not conspiratorially minded or anything. But geeze, I can't help but noticing the media's idea of an important story that must be covered is always whatever story hurts Bush. When the economy hurts Bush, report it; when it helps Bush, hush up.

Posted by: Ace at 04:41 PM | Comments (3)
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It's pretty damn amazing, when you think about it. John Kerry, the man who is both for and against the war on Iraq; the man who is both for and against funding our troops in the field; the man who both agrees with Dick Cheney on gay marriage and yet thinks him intolerant for holding his position; the man who is simultaneously for more spending but also less spending, in order to balance the budget; the man who simultaneously promises to be "tough" and "aggressive" on terrorism while doing less about it-- well, it turns out that lately he's accomplished a new trick.

According to Ben Goddard ("Who?"), he's simultaneously "looser" and "more focused" too.

It's funny. I've never succeeded at that trick. When I'm "loose," I'm not focused, and when I'm intensely focused, I'm not "loose." The terms seem to be contradictory, by definition.

I gotta tell you: I'm really starting to think I just might vote for this cat. On a daily basis he achieves the logically impossible. How freaking cool is that?

On the other hand, I still remain of two minds. I guess you can say I'll be voting both for and against him on election day.

Posted by: Ace at 04:08 PM | Comments (3)
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Is this lying shit worth your valuable time?

He's not. But, if you want to know what "Ranger Wright" has been up to lately...

den Beste catches Ranger Wright's Battalion of Truth spreading lies about his Jalvert, Jim Treacher. Basically, Wright noticed that Treacher and another blogger named Kevin Parrott had the same DNS look-up on WhoIs? (Yeah, I have no good idea what that means, either.)

Wright concluded: Treacher and Parrott are liars! Just like me! It's actualy the same person, pretending to be two people!! That's just as bad a lie as my lie!

Uh-huh. Either that or Kevin Parrott hosts Treacher's site. Just like Pixy Misa hosts this site.

One or the other, Ranger Wright. Either/or. Either he's a liar just like you, or else he, like a thousand other bloggers, have a site hosted by someone else.

Michele at A Small Victory bats Ranger Wright in her clause like a crippled mouse over his Treacher Is Parrott claims.

Ranger Wright gets all tough with Jim Treacher in an email exchange.

If you don't know who Ranger Wright is, well, go here, and start at the last, bottomest post and work your way back up as you see fit.

You will be forgiven for not knowing who he is, or not caring to learn. He's a nobody and a never-was. Plus, he's an admitted liar.

Update: Apparently Ranger Wright deleted his posts on the subject (Rangers always "cover their tracks," you know), but Treacher has discovered this repost of Ranger Wright's outstanding Internet Detective-work.

Posted by: Ace at 12:35 PM | Comments (10)
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Sgt. Hook has begun Operation Shoe Fly, a charitable drive to put shoes on the feet of shoeless Afghan children:

After the mission was complete and back at our home base, I was sitting around with a group of crewdogs cleaning our hogs (M60D machine guns). I mentioned what I had witnessed earlier regarding the little girl with the bright blue eyes and one of the crew chiefs said, “You got to unwrap the candy first when you give it to the girls Top, that way they can pop it in their mouth right away before the boys can get to it.”

It seems my crewdogs have already figured out a way to bring some joy, even if for only as long as it takes to eat a piece of candy, to the Afghani children, boys and girls alike. The conversation continued with concern for the children of this place as Coalition forces fight to rid the Taliban and other enemies of Afghanistan while brining stability to the region so as to allow democracy to flourish, there are the children, the children with no shoes on their feet.

Just about every flight engineer and crew chief has noticed over the course of flying across this place called Afghanistan these past months that a large percentage of the children have no shoes to wear and of course, almost all of the girls are shoeless.

We've all got those stupid bad-weather sneakers, and shoes that never quite fit right, sitting in the backs of our closets. They're wearable, but we don't wear them.

Send 'em on to kids who will:

Operation Shoe Fly
B Co, 214th Aviation Regiment
Bagram, Afghanistan
APO AE 09354-9998

They'll take new shoes too, of course.

Posted by: Ace at 11:18 AM | Comments (4)
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Bear in mind that the true predictor of inflationary trends strips out the frequently-volatile price of food, fuel, and cowbells:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. jobs picture showed signs of improvement in April and May, the Federal Reserve (news - web sites) said on Wednesday, as potentially worrisome wage pressures and consumer prices appeared tame.

"Reports from the Federal Reserve Banks indicate that economic activity in April and May continued to expand across the nation," the Fed said in its "beige book" report, an anecdotal look at the U.S. economy as seen through the eyes of its 12 regional banks.

"Employment activity continued to improve, with hiring increasing at a faster pace in most districts; meanwhile, wages and salaries experienced little or muted upward pressures," the Fed said.

"Many Reserve Banks reported modest increases in consumer prices, but most districts noted rising prices of inputs, especially energy-related products, building materials, and steel."

Steel. The lifeblood of the cowbell industry.

Key quote:

"Employment activity continued to improve, with hiring increasing at a faster pace in most districts."

That means we're looking for better than 300,000 jobs per month down the road.

300,000 jobs per month -- if it continues long enough -- means that Bush will actually create net jobs by November.

It also means that he'll be creating jobs at a much faster pace than the 10 million in four years promised by Kerry.

Vote for John Kerry

He promises to create fewer jobs than his opponent.

Rush Limbaugh notes that Bill Schneider has finally scooped the rest of the media on "the big secret" that the economy is actually doing "very well."

Blaster links that, plus he discovers that even two future Kerry-endorsers -- the Washington Post and Andrew "Flip" Sullivan -- have figured out that the economy is roaring.

Again, I'm unable to afford any cowbells at this time. However, I can offer a TOPPS trading card of C3PO sporting an erection:

Hey...! "Didn't you already do those last two jokes like three months ago?"

I believe in recycling. Don't you? Give me a break. How much mileage has Wonkette gotten out of the words "butt" and "sex"?

Posted by: Ace at 10:43 AM | Comments (6)
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Yes, it has the stink of a political deal.

And yes, by the lights of justice, he should be dead.

But al-Sadr is primarily a threat to the stability of the Iraq government, not us directly. If the Iraqis want to make peace with him, that's chiefly their decision. He's their problem, ultimately, not so much ours. He's only our problem if he actually comes to power. I think it's a smart bet that he won't.

Posted by: Ace at 10:37 AM | Comments (3)
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I'm sure it's a coincidence, but just as the GOP puts the FMA on the table for voting, the stridency with which Sullivan criticizes Bush on other grounds spikes.

NRO notices Sullivan's "evolution" on various issues.

A couple of key Sullivan quotes:

Bush has coopted Kerry's position on Iraq; and is busy swapping recipes with Jacques Chirac.

No president since Johnson has been so supportive of big government as George W. Bush. Why are fiscal conservatives still supporting him?

Thanks to both Nick and Rusty Shackelford.

Posted by: Ace at 10:28 AM | Comments (7)
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...with a predictable change-of-heart coming within a few posts. Very funny.

You know, I don't bother calling for a "return to civility" because 1) I don't believe that such a prelapsarian state of political politeness existed and 2) because I kinda like incivility.

You should probably stop reading this post at this point.
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Posted by: Ace at 09:36 AM | Comments (4)
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