When it comes to hypocrisy, no one delivers like Andrew Sullivan. In this post, he objects to Michelle Malkin’s dead-on characterization, as a “show trial,” of the soon-to-be-televised legal challenge to California’s Proposition 8 same-sex marriage ban:
The anti-gay right is afraid … Transparency kills them. Bring it on!
This from a blogger who has produced no serious comment on President Obama’s brazenly broken promises of transparency in the health care “reform” process, or the C-SPAN controversy that has transfixed the rest of the media for two days.
For Sullivan, the importance of “transparency” depends on whether it serves his ideology or not. If it can be used to intimidate Prop. 8 supporters, transparency is a very good thing. If Obama’s C-SPAN pledge turns out to be a brazen lie, Sully just yawns.
The point of transparency is to enhance democracy. In these 2 cases, TV is being abused to thwart it. The Prop. 8 cameras will abet an effort to overturn the will of the voters while C-SPAN’s absence from the reform “negotiations” will allow the Dems to avoid voter scrutiny.
If Sullivan really gave a rat’s ass about transparency, he would be calling for President Oblarney and his congressional accomplices to let C-SPAN’s television cameras into the back rooms where they are systematically dismantling U.S. health care.
In the Orwellian world of the Obot, however, there are no actual principles. For the Obot, as with any infant, there is only what he wants.
Comments 12
This is an ad hominem attack. It doesn’t even address the subject of the Prop 8 lawsuit. Weak. No substance.
Posted 07 Jan 2010 at 11:52 pm ¶It’s not worth my time to engage the “substance” of your (non)argument in support of Malkin on purported witness “intimidation” in Perry v. Schwarzenegger (intimidation by whom? the minority of Californians who voted No on 8? oh noes!!).
But, to defend Andrew, he has highlighted views from both sides of the C-SPAN/health care coverage debate:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/01/the-final-chapter-is-missing.html
Maybe you should try reading Sully’s blog before you castigate his purported hypocrisy?
Posted 08 Jan 2010 at 12:35 am ¶He has highlighted views from both sides of the C-SPAN/health care coverage debate.
Actually, Chad, I have read that post, and it’s main thrust is not about the lack of transparency. It suggests that the primary problem with shutting out C-SPAN is that it robs us of videos showing the “final chapter” of this “historic” process. It ducks the real problem here (i.e. that Obama is a pathological liar).
Posted 08 Jan 2010 at 12:40 am ¶his agenda, your agenda, blah blah blah. Of course Obama should be televising the health care negotiations on CSPAN. And of course it’s right that the prop 8 trial be televised. Malkin’s characterization is not “dead on,” any more than shining CSPAN light on HC negotiations would make it a “show negotiation.” Goose meet gander.
Posted 08 Jan 2010 at 12:44 am ¶Of course it’s right that the prop 8 trial be televised.
What you’re not getting here, DP, is that TV would add value to the health reform “negotiatations,” by keeping the Dems relatively honest (admittedly a stretch for them).
On the other hand, in a courtroom (where evidence should rule), they can’t add any substance. Surely the OJ circus proved that, in a court of law, they only serve as a means of intimidation.
But the main point involves Sullivan’s double standard. His position on the Prop 8 cameras would be palatable if he were also talking about C-SPAN. His silence about the latter, however, shows him to be a hypocrite of the first order.
Posted 08 Jan 2010 at 5:30 am ¶Exactly, DP. A “show trial” is one in which the outcome is a foregone conclusion, and used for propaganda purposes.
Posted 08 Jan 2010 at 5:47 am ¶Merely televising a trial doesn’t make it a “show trial”. Malkin flailing, yet again.
Actually, it is a show trial: the judge knows that the plaintiffs will lose the testimony of a great many of their witnesses if it is, indeed, televised, which will, inevitably, sink their case. (And why would they lose that testimony? Because of the lunatic actions of the anti-8 crowd in the wake of its passing and how, if they are put on camera, activists will make their lives a living hell, if not subject them to potential, physical, ‘retribution.’)
I also have to add, again, that it’s amazing that every time Sullivan gets a mention here, the loons come crawling out of his festering hole to defend his noxious and logically-unsound positions–do you guys sit by your computers, googling Sully’s name 24/7??
Posted 08 Jan 2010 at 7:58 am ¶Calling people who disagree with you “loons” is really convincing. There is no evidence whatsoever that anyone should fear “retribution.” There is as much to be gained from televising the trial as from televising the healthcare negotiations, and a hypocrite is someone who thinks opposing one is “dead on,” while opposing the other is wrong.
Posted 08 Jan 2010 at 12:12 pm ¶The prop 8 trial is not a live feed. It will not be “televised” as such, but it will be taped by court cameras and excerpts given to the public. The full transcript of the trial will be documented and available after the trial, as such things usually are.
With regard to fears of “retribution,” the names and businesses of those who donated to Yes on 8 have long been available to the public (as are the No on 8 donors). You can probably expect the level of retribution to be about the same in kind and proportion.
Posted 08 Jan 2010 at 1:16 pm ¶Actually, no, you are incorrect: it will be fed onto YouTube, which is really the big problem so, no, it will not be “the same in kind and proportion” especially after the loons on the ‘Tube start slicing and dicing the testimony to get the desired result, i.e. the people testifying come across as knuckle-dragging ogres hell-bent on ‘keeping people down.’ (Which is why those people will likely choose not to testify: who the hell wants to subject oneself to the abuse that people in Cali and beyond have already been only amplified to a tremendous degree.)
Posted 08 Jan 2010 at 2:04 pm ¶You and Malkin do realize that trials are always public, and witnesses are (almost) always identified, right?
Who are these secret, delicate flower witnesses, anyway?
Here are the witness lists:
Supporters of Prop 8: https://ecf.cand.uscourts.gov/cand/09cv2292/files/292.pdf
Every single witness (other than the plainfiffs themselves) are experts - public figures who’ve already staked out a public position on the issue.
Plaintiff’s list:
https://ecf.cand.uscourts.gov/cand/09cv2292/files/284.pdf
Again, the plaintiffs, experts, and the proponents of the Proposition. These are people who were active in the (successful) campaign to influence voters. These aren’t people pulled from obscurity.
And ECM, you are incorrect. It’s not a live feed. Every story makes it clear that a tape will be
Posted 08 Jan 2010 at 2:39 pm ¶Mr. Cooper, you evidently have a gift for missing the point. Perhaps you sustained a head injury on that sloppy parachute jump from which you never recovered.
Even if “trials are always public,” which they manifestly are not, Sullivan’s double standard remains. Neither he nor anyone else can credibly claim to be an advocate of transparency while remaining silent on the S-SPAN thing.
It’s hypocrisy in its purist form.
Posted 08 Jan 2010 at 3:53 pm ¶Post a Comment