About

This is not my definitive “About” page, but for the meantime …

A recent passage on my blog:

This misrepresentation or dismissal of Halbertal’s points was disconcerting. It added to my worries about the negative effect of Sullivan’s rhetoric on the anti-torture cause, his intemperate dismissal of liberal questions as neocon causes, and his inability to detect different motives in people who claimed to speak for the Greens. These things together moved me to start The Daily Dishwater blog. I felt that there had become certain issues, where I could rely on The Dish to throw away its interest in stimulating critical thinking and just as often to rally for troops of believers.

[…] less than a week ago, Andrew Sullivan wrote that Israel

pre-emptively tried to kill Obama’s attempt to reach out to the Muslim world by the brutal, polarizing Gaza campaign,

Incredible.

What “dissent” would he post, what alternative point of view would he consider, to ideologically balance the “anger and paranoia” (his diagnosis of a certain group of people) responsible for this radical reworking of reality, whereby Israel did not stop the Gaza action because of Obama’s inauguration but sent its own young men into harm’s way in order to thwart new hopes for peace that people saw in an Obama presidency.

How will Andrew Sullivan in this case promote, like F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time,” when one idea is so deranged?

[…] Such a complete objectification of other people’s self-regard, projecting one’s own cynical political motives on them, is … clinical (a word Andrew likes to use for many Republicans).

Please feel free to email me at with any examples you find of Andrew Sullivan, the author of The Daily Dish,

1. showing an obtuse lapse in critical thinking;
2. blatantly misreading parts of another author’s text, either cynically or haplessly;
3. radically misrepresenting the overall point of view of another author’s text or of someone quoted in the text; and
4. employing rhetoric that’s about as helpful to American discourse as his nominees for the “Michael Moore” or “Michelle Malkin award.”

I’d be happy to reprint examples that indicate egotism has taken over the writing of a post, including alternating between self-righteousness and self-laceration. You could also alert me to examples you have found of excessive Obamaphilia — he has jokingly referred to himself as an “Obama hack” — although I voted for Obama and for the most part appreciate what he’s done so far.

However, please do not email with complaints about Andrew Sullivan’s coverage or speculation regarding Sarah Palin. Although I often disagree with the spirit of his excoriations of Sarah Palin, I’m glad he has not abandoned inspection of her statements. I agree with Sullivan’s criticism of Palin and what she represents in contemporary American politics.

Most importantly, please do not email me with copies of your emails with Andrew Sullivan. Andrew needs the freedom to privately write people without thinking about public repercussions.  Grand missteps on his blog are another matter. So the address is

dailydishwatertcp@gmail.com

Take out T-C-P … BTW, I still get over 50% of my news links on The Daily Dish, more than any other source.