Andrew Sullivan

Andrew Sullivan

Andrew Michael Sullivan, born August 10,1963, in South Godstone England, known for his popular and provocative style of political journalism, is a current resident of the US, having lived both in Washington, D.C., and Massachusetts for over twenty years.

Sullivan is a self-proclaimed conservative by his own definition, but has dissociated himself from the Republican Party as of this writing in 2006.

Sullivan is an author, and former editor of The New Republic, known for both his unusual personal-political identity (HIV-positive, gay, dedicated conservative and practicing Roman Catholic), as well has his successful and pioneering efforts in the field of blog journalism.

The author of four books, Sullivan is also a speaker at major universities, colleges, and civic organizations in the United States, and a frequent guest on many national news and political commentary television shows in the United States and Europe.

Biography

Sullivan was born in Surrey, England, to a Roman Catholic family of Irish descent, and received a B.A. in modern history from Oxford University (Magdalen College, Oxford), where in his second year he was elected president of the prestigious Oxford Union. He went on to earn a masters degree in public administration and a Ph.D. in government at Harvard University, where he wrote his dissertation on conservative British philosopher Michael Oakeshott. In 1986, he began his career with The New Republic magazine, serving as its editor from 1991 to 1996 [1].

In that position, he expanded the magazine from its traditional roots in political coverage to cultural politics and the issues around them. This produced some groundbreaking journalism but also courted several high-profile controversies.

Some longtime subscribers, who had never forgiven Sullivan for firing veteran political writer Morton Kondracke when he took over, regularly took umbrage at the articles written by Camille Paglia that he published.

In 1994, Sullivan decided to publish excerpts on race and intelligence from Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray's controversial The Bell Curve, which argued that some of the measured difference in IQ scores among racially defined groups was the result of genetic inheritance. Almost the entire staff of the magazine threatened to resign if material which they considered racist was allowed to be published ; when the issue did come out, it included lengthy rebuttals from more than a dozen writers and contributors.

Sullivan's departure as editor of The New Republic is also not without controversy. Even among those who wrote for The New Republic at the time, opinions differ about whether he was fired or quit after losing a bitter power struggle with Leon Wieseltier, the magazine's literary editor and a longtime friend of editor-in-chief and co-owner, Martin Peretz. In any event, Sullivan had only recently gone public with his HIV status and was likely to be taking a break for treatment soon. Regardless, Andrew Sullivan is currently a senior editor of TNR.

Later, Sullivan wrote for The New York Times Magazine briefly. He left the magazine in 2002.

His article in The New York Times Magazine about African-American bisexual men caused a controversy, and may be where the term "down low," considered by some in the gay, bisexual and lesbian community to be offensive, came into the mainstream vernacular. Sullivan self-identifies as a member of the gay "bear community," writing in 2003 a whimsical and oft-cited Salon essay on the subject.[2]

Sullivan is often compared to lesbian academic Camille Paglia, another gay intellectual who argues from a non-leftist perspective. Paglia wrote for The New Republic during Sullivan's tenure as editor.

Controversies

In May 2001, Village Voice columnist Michael Musto said that Sullivan had anonymously posted advertisements for bareback sex (anal sex and / or oral sex without a condom) on America Online and the now-defunct website barebackcity.com. Subsequently, the Italian-American journalist and activist Michelangelo Signorile wrote about the scandal in a front-page article in a New York gay magazine LGNY, igniting a storm of controversy.

Sullivan's critics have argued that it was hypocritical of Sullivan to engage in this kind of sexual activity while arguing against gay sexual promiscuity. They claim that the vision of gay sexuality presented in Sullivan's writing is at odds with the activities he was said to be engaging in. They also charge that because Sullivan was HIV-positive, it was unsafe for him to engage in sex without a condom. Sullivan's critics also contend that it is unfair for Sullivan to criticize Bill Clinton's sexual indiscretions as "reckless" while engaging in unprotected sex himself. This scandal was parodied in the popular gay television show, Queer as Folk. In one episode, a well-known gay political commentator condemns a 30-year-old gay man for dating an 18-year-old, only to be later caught attending a bareback sex party.

Sullivan's defenders respond that the advertisement noted that Sullivan was HIV-positive and that Sullivan only had bareback sex with consenting adults who were also HIV-positive. According to Sullivan, this significantly reduced the risk inherent in his behavior. Moreover, he has derided what he called a "thin reed of evidence" of the existence of "reinfection" which, according to medical professionals, heightens the destruction caused by the virus. His supporters have also argued that it was a violation of his privacy to publish information about his sex life. Sullivan has called the scandal "sexual McCarthyism". Sullivan's supporters also argue that those who revealed the details about his sex life were motivated by a desire for payback because they disagreed with his politics and his comments about the gay community. In Sullivan's book, Love Undetectable (pub. 1999), Sullivan writes:

Although I never publicly defended promiscuity, I never publicly attacked it. I attempted to avoid the subject, in part because I felt, and often still feel, unable to live up to the ideals I really hold.

Sullivan's journalistic ethics were called into question when he announced that he would be accepting a sponsorship to write his blog The Daily Dish. from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the lobby for the industry that he credited with saving his life, but which has also been criticized for its practices in AIDS-affected areas of the Third World. The controversy lay in Sullivan's initial refusal to disclose the relationship in writing outside his blog, even though much of that often touches on drug manufacturers and their policies in poor countries. He dropped the sponsorship in the ensuing uproar.

Religion

Andrew Sullivan's Catholicism and view of Catholicism has been an occasional source of confusion or criticism. The Roman Catholic Church considers homosexuality to be a disorder and homosexual sex to be a mortal sin. Nevertheless, Sullivan has maintained an interest in the faith and has never indicated abandonment of it.

His books have at times dealt with this issue. For example, in Virtually Normal (ISBN 0679423826), he takes the position that the Bible forbids homosexuality only when it is linked to prostitution or pagan ritual. His ideas are perhaps influenced by the writing of fellow homosexual Roman Catholic John Boswell. Still, Boswell's views are generally not supported by mainstream Roman Catholic theologians.

His views led him to have concerns about the election of Pope Benedict XVI. In Time Magazine for April 24, 2005 in an article entitled, "The Vicar of Orthodoxy,"[3] Sullivan stated his criticisms of the new pope. He expressed his view that the current pope is opposed to the modern world and women's rights, and deems homosexuals to be innately disposed to evil. His interpretation of the current pope's beliefs have been disputed by Michael Novak and criticized by many other Catholics. He has, however, agreed with Benedict's assertion that reason is an integral element of faith.

Blogging

In late 2000, Sullivan began his blog, The Daily Dish. In the wake of September 11, 2001, attacks, it became one of the most popular political blogs on the Internet. By the middle of 2003, it was receiving about 300,000 unique visits per month. Between starting his blog and ending his New Republic editorship, Sullivan wrote two works on homosexuality, arguing for its social acceptance on libertarian grounds. His writing appears in a number of widely-read publications. He currently serves as a columnist for The Sunday Times of London.

Sullivan's blog has been characterized by passionate argumentation and a willingness to admit doubts and entertain changes of mind. The blog's core principles have been fiscal conservatism, limited government, and libertarianism on social issues. Sullivan opposes government involvement with respect to sexual and consensual matters between adults (such as the use of marijuana). Sullivan believes recognition of gay marriage is a civil-rights issue, but is willing to promote it on a state by state legislative federalism basis rather than trying to judicially impose the change. [4] Most of Sullivan's disputes with other conservatives have been over social issues such as these and the handling of postwar Iraq.

File:Dailydish.png

The former layout of Sullivan's blog, the Daily Dish, before being moved to the servers of Time Magazine

Sullivan reluctantly decided to support John Kerry's presidential campaign due to his dissatisfaction with the handling of the postwar situation in Iraq by the Bush administration, their views on gay rights, and their fiscal policy. Sullivan is a supporter of John McCain and Arnold Schwarzenegger [5] and other fiscally conservative Republicans.

Sullivan also gives out "awards" each year on various public statements that parody those of people the awards are named. These awards include:

• the Michael Moore Award (originally the Susan Sontag award) for "egregious anti-Americanism in the war on terror" [6]; later for "egregious moral equivalence in the war on terror"
• the John Derbyshire Award (for "egregious and outlandish comments on gays, women and minorities")
• the Paul Begala Award (for extreme liberal hyperbole)
• the Nicholas Von Hoffman [7] Award (for "egregiously bad predictions on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars")
• the Brent Scowcroft Award (for "continued punditry on Iraq after egregiously bad predictions on Afghanistan")
• the Michelle Malkin Award [8] (for "cliché-ridden writing from the left and right intended to insult"; Ann Coulter is ineligible for this award so that, in Sullivan's own words, "Other people will have a chance.")
• the Matt Yglesias Award [9]) (which is "an award for bloggers — or anyone else for the matter — who are prepared to alienate their core readership with some unpleasant truths")
• the "Poseur Alert" for those who pretend to know what they are talking about [10]

Sullivan has recently expressed interest (at the suggestion of a reader) in creating a new award "honoring" Nancy Grace. [11] The Nancy Grace Award would be bestowed on those evincing "lack of grace and empathy," a "stunning embrace of crassness and misplaced self-regard," and a "nauseating level of absolutist self-righteousness on the part of the Nominee."

In February 2005 Sullivan decided to go on "hiatus for a few months" after nearly five years of continuous blogging. [12] By this time his blog was receiving over 50,000 visitors a day, and was among the most linked-to blogs in the world. Sullivan planned to work on a book, do some traveling, and focus on other projects. His plan is to return to blogging "full steam" in roughly nine months. In response to readers who asked whether his continuing blogging meant that he had given up on his "hiatus," he wrote:

In deference to my relationship (and my sanity), I'm not blogging in the early hours any more… I blog when I feel like it… The pressure to promise something every day first thing no longer haunts me... But I'm making progress on the book and writing longer stuff. It's all about balance, no? [13]

He attributes his ability to "blog, write my usual columns and work on my book" simultaneously to an increase in energy after being fitted with a CPAP machine to help him sleep. [14] This has allowed him to return to blogging full time. His blog has remained very popular since then.

Gay marriage

Sullivan made a case for gay marriage in the 1980s, before the idea had become a major political goal of people in the LGBT community (and indeed, was and is the topic of some hostility). Andrew has argued the case for gay marriage on the basis that marriage is a unique institution that can codify love and commitment. Sullivan laid out his argument for gay marriage in his book Virtually Normal. In response, Michael Warner, a Rutgers University English Professor and gay activist wrote The Trouble with Normal, which argued that Sullivan's desire to normalize gay men and lesbians through marriage was a dangerous move that would leave those individuals, straight, gay, or otherwise who did not want to marry without appropriate governmental and societal respect or protection.

Sullivan has been very critical of civil unions, which he has dubbed "marriage lite." He has argued that civil unions will only serve to weaken the unique status of marriage, both for gays and heterosexuals.

In the 2004 election, Sullivan criticized the Republican Party for what he saw as political exploitation of a hated minority:

I've been trying to think of what to say about what appears to be the enormous success the Republicans had in using gay couples' rights to gain critical votes in key states. In eight more states now, gay couples have no relationship rights at all. Their legal ability to visit a spouse in hospital, to pass on property, to have legal protections for their children has been gutted. If you are a gay couple living in Alabama, you know one thing: your family has no standing under the law; and it can and will be violated by strangers. I'm not surprised by this. When you put a tiny and despised minority up for a popular vote, the minority usually loses.[15]

War on terrorism

Sullivan strongly supported the decision to go to war in Iraq. He has generally been hawkish in the war on terror, arguing that weakness would embolden terrorists. However, he has harshly criticized the Bush administration for its postwar efforts, especially regarding the numbers of troops, protection of munitions, and treatment of prisoners. Sullivan strongly opposes the use of torture against detainees in U.S. custody and has had heated disputes with Heather MacDonald [16] and fellow British-American John Derbyshire, among others, on that issue. Though Sullivan believes that enemy combatants in the war on terror should not be given status as Prisoners of War because "terrorists are not soldiers," [17] he also believes that the U.S. government must abide by the rules of war -- in particular, Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions -- when dealing with such detainees. [18] This opposition to Bush's policies has caused many disputes with other conservatives, who argue that he is changing his support for the war itself.

Disputes with conservatives and media figures

Sullivan has caused controversy for his heterodox conservative views and his strident attacks against fellow conservatives. He did not support the re-election of George W. Bush (he endorsed John Kerry in 2004 instead), and has repeatedly suggested that much of the Republican Party has abandoned its conservative ideology and has implied that the party has been coopted either by those he refers to as Christianists, or at other times, by a "Cult of Bush." In one recent post he described the ideology of the modern Republicans as "Christianist socialism."

James Lileks in response stated: "Of course, 'Christianist' is a term of Mr. Sullivan’s invention, and is infinitely applicable; I am probably a Christianist myself if I vote for someone who gives off that Christianist whiff, just as people who vote for Democrats are really closeted Communists, and Libertarians secretly want poor people to be heaped into graves and hosed with napalm." [19]

In three days, he wrote in three different places that "[c]onservatism is a philosophy without a party in America any more. It has been hijacked by zealots and statists" [20], that "[w]e're getting to the point when conservatism has become a political philosophy that believes that government — at the most distant level — has the right to intervene in almost anything to achieve the right solution. Today's conservatism is becoming yesterday's liberalism" [21], and that "the only real difference between the Democrats and Republicans at this point is that the Democrats believe in big, solvent government and the Republicans believe in an even bigger, insolvent government" [22].

He has been particularly critical of some conservatives' defense of the administration's actions involved in the Abu Ghraib and other prison scandals. Sullivan criticized Instapundit and Glenn Reynolds, NRO and Ramesh Ponnuru, and other conservative groups for not speaking out on the issue quicker and more forcefully. Sullivan was especially critical of Power Line, Michelle Malkin, Jeff Goldstein, and John Derbyshire, whom he has accused of active support of such tactics. Sullivan accuses Power Line and Hugh Hewitt of completely partisan and unconditional support for the Republican Party (which has hurt conservative principles). Sullivan frequently chides Slate blogger Mickey Kaus for his perceived anti-homosexual bias; the back-and-forth between the Daily Dish and kausfiles has become an ongoing feud. Though Sullivan was very strong in his praise of George W. Bush immediately after 9/11, he has recently called such views "stupid and premature" in retrospect. He has simiarly since characterized the president as a "shallow, monstrous, weak, and petty man." [23] In response to suggestions by Sullivan that Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld may have intentionally refused to support the Iraq War effort (during occupation), conservative warblog Ace of Spades did a parody of Sullivan's Daily Dish site. [24]

Sullivan aligned himself with commentators such as Glenn Greenwald, Jack Balkin, and Marty Lederman.

Andrew Sullivan is especially critical of Mel Gibson, considering the actor to be a misogynist, homophobe, and anti-Semite. Sullivan was outspoken against The Passion of the Christ, believing it to be an anti-Semitic work that would inflame such prejudices, especially in the Arab world. Sullivan is also critical of Gibson's ultra-conservative pre-Vatican II Catholic beliefs. Sullivan has argued that Gibson's statements during his July 2006 DUI arrest only confirm what he has been saying all along. Sullivan has been outspoken in attacking commentators on the right whom he contends are apologists for supporting Gibson after his arrest [25]; also those whom he believes have not been forceful enough in condemning Gibson. [26] Sullivan was especially critical of Hugh Hewitt. [27]James Lileks, in defense of Hewitt, accused Sullivan of "intellectual shabbiness" and an unfair attack. [28]

Consistency

One of the most common charges Sullivan addresses is that he is inconsistent, that his views on certain policies (such as the desirability of invading Iraq) and people (such as George W. Bush) change radically over time. A typical defense of his changing views follows:

If you want to read a blog that will always take the position of the Bush administration on the war, there are plenty out there. Ditto if you want to read a relentlessly anti-Bush blog, like Kos. But this blog is a little different. It's an attempt to think out loud, which means there will be shifts over time in argument and emphasis. It may appear wishy-washy or excitable or whatever. But it's my best attempt to figure things out as I go along. If you don't like it, read someone else.... I try and read as much criticism of my fallible work as I can. [29]

Endorsements

Sullivan often makes reference to his past presidential endorsements. They are:

• 1992- Bill Clinton
• 1996- Bob Dole
• 2000- George W. Bush
• 2004- John F. Kerry

His endorsements of Democrats have usually been hesitant. In the case of Kerry, he stated that his endorsement was primarily against Bush.

List of works

• Sullivan, Andrew (1995). Virtually Normal: An Argument About Homosexuality. Knopf. ISBN 0-679-42382-6.
• Sullivan, Andrew (1998). Love Undetectable: Notes on Friendship, Sex and Survival. Knopf. ISBN 0-679-45119-6.
• Sullivan, Andrew (2006). The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How to Get It Back. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-018877-4.

Other notable projects and interviews

• A Union In Wait

External links

• Andrew Sullivan's blog, The Daily Dish
• Andrew Sullivan discusses The Conservative Soul during a Cato Institute forum
• Andrew Sullivan's own biographical statement
• Biography of Andrew Sullivan; Royce Carlton,Inc.
• The New Republic
• In Defense of Andrew Sullivan
• Michelangelo Signorile Comments
• Risky business
• Andrew Sullivan, Overexposed
• Hottest Gay Journalist Contest