The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘This Neofascist Fantasy’

Posted on | September 15, 2011 | 25 Comments

Dr. Andrew Sullivan, M.D. OB/GYN, esteemed director of the prestigious Tina Brown Center for Advanced Republican Obstetric Investigation, uses the title quote in reference to moi, a “deranged rightist.”

My post evidently wasn’t good enough for a Malkin Award nomination, but his comment is at least a welcome reassurance of my sanity. Being called “deranged” by Sully is rather like being called “fat” by Meghan McCain or called “ignorant” by Al Sharpton.

Elsewhere, Recovering Liberal M. Joseph Sheppard credits me with the “inner core humanity to do and say what is right and damn the torpedoes” — a compliment I’ll gratefully strive to deserve, reminding me of an incident when I was a boy of about 10.

Our family was vacationing at Daytona Beach, and we’d rented one of those heavy-duty inflatable floats. Late in the afternoon, it fell my task to return the float to the beachside vendor, which I did with some well-taught words of courtesy: “Thank you, sir.” And then the vendor returned my thanks, telling me I was “a gentleman and a scholar.”

This phrase is a sort of commonplace old-fashioned saying, but as a 10-year-old I’d never heard it before and so I’m sure, as I walked back to our motel, I strode the dunes with a newfound pride and dignity at having been recognized as a gentleman and a scholar.

My scholarship was in subsequent years rather erratic and I have often failed to meet the duties of a gentleman, but my aspiration to live up to that long-ago encomium has never been entirely extinguished.

Everyone desires praise, and most people get less than they deserve. Perhaps you’ve heard of a Marine named Dakota Meyer:

As the forward team took fire and called for air support that wasn’t coming, Meyer, just a corporal at the time, begged his command to let him venture into combat to help extricate the team. Four times he was denied his request before Meyer and another Marine, Staff Sgt. Juan Rodriguez-Chavez, jumped into an armored Humvee and headed into battle. . . .
“They told him he couldn’t go in,” said Dwight Meyer, Dakota Meyer’s 81-year-old grandfather, a former Marine who served in the 1950s. “He told them, ‘The hell I’m not,‘ and he went in. It’s a one-in-a-million thing” that he survived.

Surviving to collect the Medal of Honor is a damned rare thing, and Meyer’s heroism cannot be praised enough, for so few heroes like him have lived to hear the praise their courage deserved.

In comparison to such mighty deeds of valor, it is a trivial thing to write a blog post or two slamming a worthless punk like Joe McGinniss. But when I saw the chortling reaction at TBogg — mocking Palin and her admirers — something like a sense of duty overwhelmed me.

Something more needed to be said, and if someone had told me not to publish it, I hope my answer would have been, “The hell I’m not.”


Category: Andrew Sullivan

Comments

25 Responses to “‘This Neofascist Fantasy’”

  1. Todd Palin Defense Fund Update : The Other McCain
    September 15th, 2011 @ 8:26 pm

    […] half, though.TODD PALIN LEGAL DEFENSE FUND Just in Case He Actually Needs It, IYKWIMAITYDUPDATE: For the benefit of Andrew Sullivan readers.Category: Books, humor, Media Bias, Sarah PalinComments […]

  2. Duane Lester
    September 16th, 2011 @ 12:30 am

    My mother used to call me a gentleman and a scholar.  I’m guessing it was wishful thinking.

    From one old squid to an honorable jarhead, I offered my thanks and my respect.  Well done, Meyer.  Well done.

    And let’s hope none of us ever hesitate to say what needs to be said. 

  3. Duane Lester
    September 16th, 2011 @ 12:30 am

    My mother used to call me a gentleman and a scholar.  I’m guessing it was wishful thinking.

    From one old squid to an honorable jarhead, I offered my thanks and my respect.  Well done, Meyer.  Well done.

    And let’s hope none of us ever hesitate to say what needs to be said. 

  4. Anonymous
    September 16th, 2011 @ 1:11 am

    Okay, if Todd goes after Andrew as well…what do you think? Guaranteed two terms for the Mrs?

  5. Dave
    September 16th, 2011 @ 1:25 am

    Stacy! You linked to TDB! Bad Stacy! I clicked on that link, and now have…sullied myself.

  6. Daily Pundit » Backfire: With Both Barrels
    September 15th, 2011 @ 9:29 pm

    […] ‘This Neofascist Fantasy’ : The Other McCain Dr. Andrew Sullivan, M.D. OB/GYN, esteemed director of the prestigious Tina Brown Center for Advanced Republican Obstetric Investigation, uses the title quote in reference to moi, a “deranged rightist.” […]

  7. Dianna Deeley
    September 16th, 2011 @ 1:31 am

    I cannot praise Dakota Meyers enough, and thank you for repeating his story.

  8. elaine
    September 16th, 2011 @ 2:11 am

    It bothers me that, to the lefty mind, what constitutes “evidence” is thirty-year-old grievances by people who clearly have an axe to grind.  There is no proof offered whatsoever, yet Sully claims this book is well researched.

    Wha?

    This from the guy who knows all about Trig Palin’s conception.  And seems to have several different theories, to suit his various moods.

    So, yeah…

    Further, the Palins have had to endure (as we have, as well), all these grotesque attacks against a woman who would be hailed — were she a lefty —  as the epitome of the super woman the feminists have claimed we could all be.  She is the poster child for the have-it-all woman (wife, mother, career gal, and accomplished at all three), yet they rip her to shreds, all because she doesn’t agree with their politics.

    It’s sick…

    It occurs to me that to the lefties, she can’t possibly be what she seems to be: a committed wife and mom, a confident professional, a person who passionately loves her country.  So they create this filth which resides in their own minds, a reflection of their own souls, and constantly fling it at her and anyone who speaks well of her.

    Again, it’s sick.  It’s a symptom of their diseased souls.

    At least SOME lefties admit to the cheapness of this latest attack.  Good for them.  Maybe the veil will be lifted for them, and they’ll start to see her as she really is, instead of the caricature the left makes her out to be…

  9. Roxeanne de Luca
    September 16th, 2011 @ 2:44 am

    We saw the same thing with Clarence Thomas, Nikki Haley, Allen West, Christine O’Donnell, and all of the other talented women and minorities who happen to not agree with the leftists.  They hate her because she is a pro-life mother of five who ran a state, not in spite of that.

  10. Garym
    September 16th, 2011 @ 3:08 am

    And she had the GALL not to abort a son who she knew would have up syndrome ( I refuse to call it down syndrome).  

  11. JeffS
    September 16th, 2011 @ 3:26 am

    They hate her because she is a pro-life mother of five who ran a state, not in spite of that.

    It’s in their handbook, after all.

  12. JeffS
    September 16th, 2011 @ 3:29 am

    Sully is beyond the “Eat Shit, And Bark At The Moon” crazy level. 

    Seriously.  The dude is terrified of any Republican uterus, but the thought of Palin even coming close to reproduction put him over the edge and right down The Crazy Hole.

  13. ThePaganTemple
    September 16th, 2011 @ 3:48 am

    I wonder what that idiot Gryphen has had to say about this. I’m sure many of you here have at some point run across his execrable “The Immoral Minority”. That’s an entire blog dedicated to Palin bashing. Maybe the original Trig Truther. These are the kind of people, him and Sullivan, Charles Johnson, etc., that gleefully lead the charge against Sara Palin, or anybody else that offends them with their decency and integrity. Yet, they call RSM “deranged”. If they had written a post recommending that somebody violently assault a person that had offended them, you can bet there would be nothing tongue-in-cheek about it.

  14. melanerpes
    September 16th, 2011 @ 4:13 am

    Sullivan closed with a warning about the nut-jobs in the cult of Sarah ready to “unleash violence against McGinniss”.   Sarah’s cult seems to be very heterodox.  For instance, Sullivan himself is a member, worshiping at the alter of Sarah’s fertility.

  15. Matthew Gray
    September 16th, 2011 @ 6:27 am

    “It bothers me that, to the lefty mind, what constitutes “evidence” is thirty-year-old grievances by people who clearly have an axe to grind.  There is no proof offered whatsoever, yet Sully claims this book is well researched.”

    I can’t help but notice that you offer no proof whatsoever that the people airing these grievances “clearly have an ax to grind”. 

    “Further, the Palins have had to endure (as we have, as well), all these grotesque attacks against a woman who would be hailed — were she a lefty —  as the epitome of the super woman the feminists have claimed we could all be.  She is the poster child for the have-it-all woman (wife, mother, career gal, and accomplished at all three), yet they rip her to shreds, all because she doesn’t agree with their politics.

    It’s sick…”

    Speaking of evidence, do you have any to support your claim that Sarah Palin would be hailed as the epitome of a feminist super woman if she were a lefty?  Or that she is the poster child for the have-it-all woman?  I’ve seen many, many conservatives make these claims and no proof is ever offered whatsoever.

    I can see why conservatives think Palin is some kind of poster child because she’s the epitome of the ridiculous modern conservative.  She views any and all criticism as unfair and has a pathological need to see herself as a victim.  She has little regard for fact or the truth and seems proud of her ignorance.  She tells ridiculous lies about her opponents and their beliefs and then has the gall to accuse THEM of doing that to HER.  

    Case in point:

    “It occurs to me that to the lefties, she can’t possibly be what she seems to be: a committed wife and mom, a confident professional, a person who passionately loves her country.  So they create this filth which resides in their own minds, a reflection of their own souls, and constantly fling it at her and anyone who speaks well of her.”

    What ridiculous nonsense.  If I didn’t know any better I’d say that paragraph is a satire of what passes for “thought” amongst conservatives.

  16. Andrew Sullivan
    September 16th, 2011 @ 6:34 am

    I am starting to lose my faith in America.  You are making me weep for the future.  I have to go for a walk to clear my head.  I have to hug the beagle.  Maybe I need to smoke some…medicine. 

  17. Andrew Sullivan
    September 16th, 2011 @ 6:36 am

    No we hate her because of her odd lies.  And her accent.  And her love of biscuits and gravy, combined with her not being fat (how dare she!). 

    And all the reasons you list above. 

  18. Andrew Sullivan
    September 16th, 2011 @ 6:38 am

    Get out of my head.  Stop it.  Stop it.  I can’t hear you. 

  19. elaine
    September 16th, 2011 @ 7:22 am

    I can’t help but notice that you offer no proof whatsoever that the
    people airing these grievances “clearly have an ax to grind”.

    Every source for these lies are political enemies or people who’ve hated her for decades.  Doubt that?  Check out anything which actually sources the quotes.  Every single one is from someone with an ax to grind.

    How about this fact: she had somewhere between an 80 to 90% approval rating as governor of Alaska — the highest rating of any governor in the country.  A rating, I might add, which included high marks from democrats in her state.  No one except political enemies (including the republicans of the good ol’ boy network she took down within the party in Alaska) had anything bad to say about her until McCain tapped her for his VP.  THEN all of a sudden, we get all these lies.

    Sounds like evidence to me, but maybe I’m stoopid…

    Speaking of evidence, do you have any to support your claim that Sarah
    Palin would be hailed as the epitome of a feminist super woman if she
    were a lefty?  Or that she is the poster child for the have-it-all
    woman?  I’ve seen many, many conservatives make these claims and no
    proof is ever offered whatsoever.

    Gee, let’s see.  Michelle Obama is held up as the ideal woman for the left.  Hillary Clinton.  Nancy Pelosi.

    You know what all of THOSE women have in common?  Every one of them is famous or successful because of her daddy or her husband.   Not one is a self-made woman.  Where would Michelle Obama be without Barack?  Where would Nancy Pelosi be without her rich husband?  Where would Hillary Clinton be without her rich father and her politician husband?

    The fact that you think I need to offer proof for my statement is ludicrous, because I KNOW what the feminists told women back in the 70s and 80s about having it all.  I read Cosmo, just like all my peers.  I know what the criteria of having it all was.  It was:

    1) being successful at your job (and Palin was, until the left decided to inundate her with nuisance lawsuits, taking her focus away from the state she represented to have to defend herself against bogus ethics charges.  All of which were dismissed, BTW.  That’s one of those pesky facts…)  Again, over 80% approval rating, the highest of any governor.  That sounds pretty successful to me.

    2) being a wife and mom.

    Feminists told us we could have it and be it all.  But most women found that balancing the needs of husband, kids, and work was a pretty daunting task.  Yet Palin seems to make it look effortless.  I’m sure she has her struggles.  (Obviously so, given the past three years.)

    Did you even bother to read the letter she wrote to friends and family before the birth of her youngest child?  Those aren’t the words of someone who hates being a parent and is unprepared to meet the challenges life throws her way.

    But why should you?  You’ve already closed your heart and I’m talking to a wall.  So be it…

    And I make that assertion based on this paragraph of yours:

    I can see why conservatives think Palin is some kind of poster child
    because she’s the epitome of the ridiculous modern conservative.  She
    views any and all criticism as unfair and has a pathological need to see
    herself as a victim.  She has little regard for fact or the truth and
    seems proud of her ignorance.  She tells ridiculous lies about her
    opponents and their beliefs and then has the gall to accuse THEM of
    doing that to HER.

    Let me ask you something: is it fair that one of the most famous (alleged) quotes of hers “I can see Russia from my house!” isn’t even true.  It was said by Tina Fey, not Palin.  Yet people swear they know Palin, the stupid moron must have said it.  Is she just supposed to take that?

    It’s fine enough when they attack her, she can take it.  But what about when people start saying crap about her kids?  Is she supposed to just lie there and take that, too?

    “Pathological need to see herself as a victim.”  Really?  For the past THREE YEARS the left has lied about her, pretty much on a daily basis.  They’ve maligned her character.  They’ve photoshopped her into some grotesque sex object.  She’s just supposed to smile and say nothing about any of that?

    Does Barack Obama have to listen to people talking smack about his daughters on a daily basis?  Or making snide comments about his obvious homosexuality?  Or how stupid he is by using made up quotes as proof?

    No, he doesn’t.

    We can make fun of him using his real words, thanks very much.

    You want to talk about thin-skinned, with a pathological need to play the victim, let’s talk about your guy, Barry, okay?

    But allow me to ask, where’s your proof for the assertions you make in that paragraph I quoted above?  Where’s the proof that all the attacks are fair?  Where’s the proof that she “has little regard for fact or the truth and
    seems proud of her ignorance”?  Where’s the proof that she “tells ridiculous lies about her
    opponents and their beliefs and then has the gall to accuse THEM of
    doing that to HER”?

    You make these assertions which are based on what the Mainstream Media tells you is the truth about Palin, and you accept it as fact.  There’s no proof in any of it.

    McGinnis wrote his book because he wanted to add to the smears against her.  He assumed that conservatives are such uptight racists that we’d all freak out because

    1) she had premarital sex, and
    2) she did so with a black guy.

    Guess what?  Nobody cares.  Because that whole notion we’d freak out is based solely on a caricature the left has (which YOU share) of what people on the right are like. how we think, and what we believe.

    You’ve spent your whole life convincing yourself how superior you and yours are to people on the other side.  And you can’t even recognize your hatred and ignorance for what it is.  I really feel sorry for you, that you live in such a hate-filled way of looking at life and your fellow man.

  20. Adjoran
    September 16th, 2011 @ 9:10 am

    I tried to tell Stacy this would happen, but would he listen to me? 

    Now he’s got Andrew Sullivan probing his private parts like he was a Palin.  Can Amanda Marcotte be far behind? 

    And you can bet your bippy that Pam Geller will get word of it, too . . .

  21. Anonymous
    September 16th, 2011 @ 9:13 am

    Damn you both, Stacy and PaganTemple. I just had to go over to CJ’s slum (first time in… hell, I dunno) and see if he’d lost his shit over this yet.

    And if you’re wondering… no. But he can’t resist forever…

    J.

  22. ThePaganTemple
    September 16th, 2011 @ 12:19 pm

    Everything you said was right, but you did make one mistake of omission. It wasn’t just Nancy Pelosi’s husband who made her successful. The fact that she comes from a political dynastic Maryland family was her first doorway to success. If you want to dignify anything Nancy Pelosi ever did as “success”, that is.

  23. ThePaganTemple
    September 16th, 2011 @ 12:23 pm

    If you’re talking about Gryphen, give him time. As soon as he sees Sullivan’ post I’m sure he’ll be all over it. At least I will give him some grudging respect. He moderates his comments, but he will put you through the vast majority of the time. That little pussy Sullivan won’t even allow comments.

  24. Garym
    September 16th, 2011 @ 1:39 pm

    Very well said.

  25. Charles Johnson
    September 16th, 2011 @ 2:59 pm

    I lost my shit a long time ago.