Month: October 2010

The Dish came into full focus for me when Andrew started writing about torture in a sustained way, for which I have always honored him. I'd certanly read the Dish before — in fact I recall complaining in a letter to Andrew in about 2002 or 03 that he was lumping "Islamofascists" together the way hardline anticommunists used to lump all communists together. In any case, I am certainly among those for whom the Dish defined blogging, as I really didn't read other blogs regularly for quite some time before branching out from the Dish, probably via Andrew's links as much as anything else.

Part of what makes the Dish addictive is the sheer variety, " the DJ factor " — the links to interesting tidbits about everything under the sun — which is a relatively recent development .

The Dish, as choreographed by Patrick, Chris and Zoe as well as Andrew, is uniquely tuned to the rhythms of procrastination or short-term attention breaks, i.e. mental health breaks, or mental dissipation breaks. By the same token, the Dish is also a window into so many worlds. I have a google reader and can also check my own blogroll for something new to read, but I tend to go the Dish first.

I do think that via an elaborated theory of blogging Andrew allows himself too much leeway to go off half-cocked, and that various critics are right to varying degrees that he has done so damagingly with regard to Israel at times — nothwithstanding that like various of Andrew's critics on this front, I think he's right in broad outline about the settlements . But on Israel, Andrew doesn't do nuance, doesn't look at the countercurrents, e.g. the effect on Israelis of the violent rebuffs that have met the greatest risks they've taken for peace. Sometimes sharp attacks from others put Andrew into a more reflective, balanced mode, which is a good thing. Part of the ebb and flow of blogging, he would say.

When I began blogging myself — also on October 10 — in 2007, Andrew was doubtless the dominant model , and in fact the imagined interlocutor. As I once wrote to Andrew, for many years I ran silent dialogues in my head with another intimate, impassioned, opinionated Brit — C.S. Lewis — for whom I could only imagine answers. It's been my great privilege to carry on a similar dialogue in recent years two ways — with Andrew. Here's to the next ten years.

Read Andrew at xpostfactoid.

Roggeveen toasts and roasts:

The Daily Dish continues to fascinate because it is so strong on US politics, culture and life. But for foreign policy wonks, it can be unreliable and frustrating. Despite Sullivan's slow and steady disillusionment with George W Bush, the Dish continues to reflect that Administration's pre-occupations with the Middle East and terrorism. The transformation of Asia and the rise of China — what Richard McGregor calls 'a global event without parallel…a genuine mega-trend, a phenomenon with the ability to remake the world economy' — is largely ignored.

Now, we all write what we know, and there's no shortage of good reading on China's rise. But it's hard to believe that, had the Daily Dish been around in the 1950s, it would have had so little to say about the rise of Soviet Russia (or, in the '70s, the rise of Japan). It would be disturbing to think that Sullivan's biases in this regard reflect those of the Washington intelligentsia.

Read Sam at The Interpreter.

 

If it's not too late….

I started my web site exactly five years ago next month. Funny thing is, I thought I knew what blogs were: vacation pictures, personal rants and obsessions, rumors, sharing likes and dislikes as if they mattered to anyone — you know, like Andrew's blog. And as I announced in my very first post, I had no intention for my site to become any thing like that.

But web sites, whatever you want to call them, are curious things, and the first thing you learn is that if you're really paying attention you don't get to tell your web site what it will be. It tells you, through the interactions and relationships you build with your readers. And Andrew's blog is, I think, the finest example of that. It's not just about Andrew, but the multilateral conversations that we all are having. If you run a web site, you either converse, or you pontificate, and if there's one thing we've learned in the past fifty years, it's that nobody pays attention to pontiffs.

So happy anniversary, Andrew. And my blog-widow partner sends his condolences to yours.

Read Jim at Box Turtle Bulletin.

Like most Dish readers I know, I have a love-hate relationship with Andrew's writing. This "Christianist" meme of his is unfair, inaccurate and tiresome. I grow weary of the emotionalism in The Dish, even when I agree with Andrew's point of view on a topic, and I wince when Andrew falls into treating his opponents as enemies — especially when that opponent is me!

And yet, I keep reading The Dish, probably more than any other single blog on my blogroll. For one thing, Andrew's chief flaws as a blogger are pretty much my own — the histrionics, the tendency to over-moralize everything, the exhausting beating of dead horses (Andrew's got pot legalization and bear culture; I've got the Benedict Option and foodie fanaticism). But I hope that Andrew's virtues as a blogger are also mine: the passion, the eclecticism, and the capacity to surprise, and the irrepressible urge to share my enthusiasm with readers.

The reason I keep reading The Dish, even when Andrew drives me crazy, is because I know there's a real person writing it, and that someone is a voice I feel that I have some sort of daily relationship with. It's a voice of someone who is keeping an eye on things that are important to me, even if he and I are going to be on entirely opposite sides of the issue. It's the voice of someone who is messy, inconsistent, crusading (did anybody make a more powerful stand against torture than Andrew and The Dish?), intelligent, often annoying, sometimes thrilling, and above all, unignorable. That, I think, is the best any blogger can hope for: not to be loved, or to be hated, but to be thought of as impossible to ignore. For Andrew, it's all personal, and that's what makes The Dish so vital.

Love it or hate it — and most days I've done both before lunch — the damn thing is alive! May The Dish, and Andrew, continue to thrive, and to keep me challenged, entertained, delighted and infuriated for many years to come.

Rod is between blogs right now.

There is much to admire about Andrew and The Daily Dish. He's always been great about highlighting lesser known bloggers (like your truly). He writes better than just about anybody I know. And (with the possible exception of the Trig Palin issue), his political instincts are outstanding. He was one of the first major conservative pundits to realize what a disaster George Bush was for the conservative movement (I think I beat him to the punch on that one, but if so not by much). He knew from the start that torture and an American gulag were inconsistent with conservative values.

Today, Andrew is leading the fight to oppose those who are trying to morph conservatism into populism. Russell Kirk wrote that "Populism is a revolt against the Smart Guys. I am very ready to confess that the present Smart Guys, as represented by the dominant mentality of the Academy and of the Knowledge Class today, are insufficiently endowed with right reason and moral imagination. But it would not be an improvement to supplant them by persons of thoroughgoing ignorance and incompetence." Andrew, I think, would say much the same. And he would be right.

Read Stephen at Professor Bainbridge.

Before Andrew Sullivan, it was possible to argue — or at least fear — that online writing could not be worthwhile writing. Over the past decade he has shown how rich, impassioned, immediate, sly, sometimes wrongheaded, often self-correcting, and always worthwhile this medium can ideally be — and how closely connected it can be to the writing he continues to do for our magazine and in books. I don't always agree with Andrew — Beards! Yuck! — but I do always want to know what is on his and his readers' minds. I am glad to be his neighbor in the Atlantic's part of the online world.

Read James at the Atlantic.

Thompson toasts:

Sullivan is all that so many have said about him over the years, both good and bad.  But to me, the good has just about always outweighed the bad (with the notable exception of his interest in Sarah Palin’s uterus).  More importantly, though, the same traits that can make Sullivan so frustrating to read at times are also the same traits that make him unfailingly interesting and intellectually stimulating. 

Ultimately, though, the reason I keep going back to Sullivan day after day and year after year, has more to do with the areas where I disagree with him than the areas where I agree with him.  I struggle to think of many - if any – writers who have had the ability to change my mind, and indeed my entire outlook, more frequently and with more force than Sullivan.  This ability, I think, stems from Sullivan’s insistence on weaving reasoned factual arguments with a raw emotion and passion that his detractors so often characterize as “shrill.”  It is that emotion and passion, driven by real-world concerns rather than loyalty to any “party or clique,” that makes him impossible to ignore and that brings his words to life.

For me, that emotion and passion when applied to Andrew’s arguments about same-sex marriage, full civil rights for gays, and anti-gay prejudice more generally made me confront my beliefs head-on in a way I never would have imagined.  They made me realize that what I had tried to rationalize away as simply “common sense” views about human nature and sexuality and as the furthest thing possible from bigotry was, in fact, exactly that: bigotry. 

A year later, for the first time in my life, I had the experience of a friend coming out.  I like to think that I responded appropriately and supportively to this news, though it’s certainly possible (even likely) that my ego has made me remember being less awkward and more casual about it than I actually was.  Regardless, I know how I would have reacted to this news before I ever read Andrew Sullivan, and the thought of that does not fill me with pride.  Instead, I suspect the thought of how I would have reacted before encountering Andrew Sullivan – which is the way many in the past, and (sadly) the present would have reacted – goes a long way to explaining why it took until my 25th year on this planet for me to learn that someone I knew was gay. 

Read Mark at The League Of Ordinary Gentlemen.

 

As far as I'm concerned, Andrew Sullivan is the blogosphere's Socrates. He prods each of us beyond the easy, lazy politics of our day — particularly those driven by identity. I don't care that he's a guy. Or that he's gay. Or that he's Catholic. Or even that he's conservative. I care that Andrew uses his uniqueness to champion universal values. May our shared God continue to bless the Dish.

Read Irshad at her eponymous blog.

Six years ago last month, I decided to start a blog about political polls. It felt daunting and little crazy, especially given that I lacked any background in journalism. A few days before clicking "publish" for the first time, The New Republic published a brief article by Andrew Sullivan on the blogosphere's uprising against Dan Rather's and CBS News. It included this passage:

Journalism is not a profession as such. It's a craft. You get better at it by doing it; and there are very few ground rules. By and large, anyone with a mind, a modem, a telephone, and a conscience can be a journalist. The only criterion that matters is that you get stuff right; and if you get stuff wrong (and you will), you correct yourself as soon as possible. The blogosphere is threatening to some professional journalists because it exposes these simple truths. It demystifies the craft. It makes it seem easy–because, in essence, it often is.

I found that paragraph "truly inspirational." I know this to be true because I used those words in an email I sent at the time to my wife. "Though I'm not sure how I'll find the time," I added, "MysteryPollster.com, here we come."

I got the blog launched, of course, and a few weeks later, amazingly, Sullivan started linking to things I wrote. Six years later, there is still no higher compliment than a link from the Daily Dish.

As we all know, Sullivan helped invent the literary and journalistic form known as blogging and continues to set the bar for excellence in this evolving new idiom. It is an honor to help celebrate ten years of the Daily Dish. May it be with us for many years to come.

Read Mark at Pollster.

I'll be on Charlie Rose later tonight on PBS. Sorry for the late notice.