Format Break: Andrew Sullivan’s 180 On The Iraqi Elections

28 Jan, 2005 by John Hawkins

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Gather round folks and watch Mickey Kaus make a fool out of Andrew Sullivan….

“On the Chris Matthews Show that aired last Saturday, Andrew Sullivan was giddily upbeat about the result of the war in Iraq and, in particular, the coming elections:

Mr. SULLIVAN: We are going to have these elections, Chris, and I–the other thing, I think that there’s going to be–people are going to be shocked at how successful they are. …[snip]

…Mr. SULLIVAN: …and that’s the other point about Iraqi democracy. The signal it will send to Iran, which is our real enemy right now, will be enormously helpful. I’m a–I’m a complete optimist about this. I think it’ll–I think it’ll work. [Emph. added]”

So Sullivan expects the elections to be a complete success? Fantastic, I agree! However, we’re talking about Andrew Sullivan here, a man whose muddled beliefs wildly shift to and fro with minimal prompting. Hence this excerpt that Kaus quotes from a post that Sullivan made on Thursday…

Our predicament is that you cannot have democracy without order and you cannot have a new order without democracy. Do I want the elections to succeed? Of course I do. Only those blinded by partisanship or cynicism wouldn’t. Maybe a democratic miracle can occur. But at this point it would be exactly that: a miracle. So pray, will you? [Emph. added]

So is Sullivan a “complete optimist” about the elections or does he think it will take “a miracle” for the elections to be a success? Who knows? Certainly not Sullivan…

PS: In the piece quoted above from Sullivan’s page, he also sneers at Instapundit, Powerline, & The Belmont Club for, in essence, not being critical enough of the war in Iraq.

Yeah, I guess they should be more like Andrew and have wild, mercurial mood swings about how things are going in Iraq based on the President’s stance on gay marriage, what Andrew had for breakfast that day, or whatever else it is that causes Andrew’s whimsical disposition to change at the drop of a hat.

You know, it’s so disappointing to see a guy like Sullivan, who wrote so many eloquent & well reasoned columns in 2003, turn into a pompous, scatterbrained James Wolcott clone who primarily trades in masterfully written, yet still illogical and largely inconsequential, snark…