The comment from "John," in this post, urging me to read Andrew Sullivan, wasn't just rude--it was clueless.

Even accepting the (dubious) premise that Andrew is a "conservative," why would John think that I would care, or that labeling him such would make me take what he says more seriously? I can only presume that it is because "John" deludes himself that I'm a "conservative," and that therefore I'm intrinsically impressed by what other "conservatives" have to say. I'm not a conservative, but even if I were, I judge peoples words by the words themselves, not by the arbitrary political labels that are (mis?)applied to their authors, whether by themselves or others.

Sigh... people keep assuming I'm a conservative too. Gets tiring.

It's a strange form of "argument by authority".

You've got the first part of the response - "I don't accept Sullivan as an authority".

The second part is "But, since you do, I'll hold you to it."

I actually think Andrew Sullivan is a conservative, if by that one reasonably means his overall political philosophy. The problem with Mr. Sullivan is just that he has this little emotional switch about you-know-what which gets thrown whenever a political leader insults that group or fails to support its current goals passionately enough. He's incredibly paranoid about it, and has been since his TNR days. Generally speaking, unless he's talking about gay issues he's quite sensible. This season he has unfortunately lost his composure, his rationality, and, I fear, much of his reputation, because that switch got thrown a few months ago by the Bush team. It's very sad to those of us who used to enjoy reading him. He used to be a cogent and perspicacious detached observer. Now he's just a shrill advocate. I've often wondered whether something in his private life happened to destroy his ability to, as Terry Pratchett so eloquently puts it, distinguish between the personal and the important.

I expect that the john in question is a recent convert to Mr. Sullivan, attracted by the latter's recent descent from rationality. Indeed, if anything is sadder than what Mr. Sullivan now writes, it's the regrettable nature of the disciples he now attracts.

Sullivan is a narcissist-- he only cares about how an issue will affect him. For several years, those issues happened to coincide with major conservative issues (foreign policy), and insecure people on the right took his agreement, along with his position as former editor of left-wing publications like New Republic, as some sort of validation of their position.

Worse, he's a single issue type. Like some anti-abortion or nativist or term-limits advocates, if you don't fully agree with his postion on the subject, he try to defeat you even though the other guy would never support his position..

So trotting out Sullivan as a "conservative" is little different from trotting out Pat Buchanan as a Republican. They aren't.

Sully has recently been granted high office within the Ancient and Hermetic Order of the Shrill.