Man, sometimes Sullivan just sucks it right out of me.
Let me rephrase that.
There was a time, when I was just starting out with the site, that getting an E - mail of the Day on Sullivan's site was just a tick or two below an Instalanche. It didn't generate any traffic, but it was a brush with a Big Dog. I'd been noticed. Even got an e - mail back.
Then, as the Bush - Sullivan honeymoon began to fade, and finally exploded into anguished betrayal and increasingly obvious backpedalling, I grew tired of Sullivan's blue and white piano, which apparently only has a GAY key and a CATHOLIC key on it, plus three expression pedals for OFFENDED, LOUDER, and (just for good measure) GAY.
Which is fine, his site, his rules, a bit light in the loafers myself, et cetera and so forth. It has been interesting to watch his transformation from "Bush supporter" to "cautious optimist" to "bitter, used political tool." To read his site today, you'd never know he ever had a kind word to say about the Dubster, his adminstration, or their handling of the war effort. All of which, Sullivan maintains, is due to a variety of factors - - Bush's weird brand of big spending, big government Republicanism, lack of accountability in his administration, the repeated rewarding of loyalty over competence. But I'd be willing to bet that much of that would get more of a pass if, say, George had come out solidly against the FMA, or maybe repudiated James Dobson's brand of Homosexuals Want Your Children Christianity.
Of course I can't prove that, because one of the popsicle sticks on my rubber - band powered alternate - universe slipstream device broke. But I do wish that Andy would just admit that, his intelligence and sophistication notwithstanding, the overwhelming fact of his life and politics is that he's gay as a treeful of parrots. Gay, gay, gay! A big ol' buggerin' bear, he is. It is the axiom that underlies all of his thinking. He tried to pretend otherwise after 9/11, but by gum Dubya wouldn't let him.
And so, I don't read him much anymore, which isn't so much an example of cocooning as it is of my general boredom with the whole Blogosphere Thing. Maybe I need to get out more. Virtually, that is. Sullivan isn't even telling me anything that I don't know or particularly disagree with. I'm just tired. Of. Hearing. It.
I'm also tired of wriggling on an epistemological spit turned by the billion handed beast of Information. Goddammit, I don't know what's going on in Guantanamo. And unless you're locked up there or guarding someone who is, neither do you. There's so much manure being flung in all directions, masquerading as news, that it's impossible to delve into that and many other issues without stinking. I'm tired of stinking. I want to ride my bike and eat Doritos.
That should about do it for Overwrought Metaphor Corner. Join us next time, when Pat Buchanan will play a medly of Pet Shop Boys hits on Andrew Sullivan's BIG GAY PIANO.
