So the roasting and toasting of Andrew Sullivan and the Daily Dish is well underway. I’ll add my two cents.
First of all, we here at The League and myself in particular owe Andrew a huge debt of gratitude. Speaking for myself, Andrew was instrumental in introducing me to a much wider and more interesting array of blogs and writers than I’d read before I stumbled on The Dish. He was also instrumental in introducing my work to a larger array of readers. Prior to Sullivan linking to my posts, I’m not sure any other high profile blogger had. Thanks in large part to the exposure Sullivan (and the whole Dish crew) gave to this blog and to my writing, I’ve had what I consider a pretty successful run at this whole blogging thing.
The Dish was among the first to add The League to its blogroll, and sent a huge swath of our readership our way. So in purely mathematical terms, Sullivan has been a huge asset to this blog’s (and this writer’s) success over the past two years. While many established bloggers have very little time for unimportant, unestablished bloggers, Sullivan doesn’t flinch at bringing new and often unheard voices into the mix. This is invaluable. It keeps the conversation alive. And as one of the very first bloggers out there, it is remarkable that he maintains such an open door to latecomers like myself.
But there’s much more to Sullivan’s blog than friendly traffic. Andrew is passionate, and even when he’s infuriatingly wrong about something, I always trust that his sincerity is intact. He’s introduced me to an extraordinary range of ideas and writers and, hell, just to the art of blogging, all of which has been invaluable to me as a writer and political thinker and human being. I can say quite honestly that no other blogger has had as much of an impact on my blogging as Andrew has. For all these reasons and more, I’m profoundly grateful.
Here’s to ten more years!
I found the Dish via National Review back when I followed them in a sortof gorrillas in the mist fashion to see what the people who were running the government in 2000 were thinking. He’s a great read and I think I found the League via either him or Freddie but since I found Freddie via Sullivan all the roads lead back to the dish either way. Happy anniversary Sully.Report
At the risk of never being liked by the Dish, I find Sullivan too selective and hypocritical in his “passionate” righteousness for my tastes, but if he’s helped you along, that says something.Report
@MFarmer,
“linked” and “liked”Report
Here’s to Andrew Sullivan! May his blogging virtues be an inspiration to others; his intellectual vices, a warning.Report
I found the Dish during Election 2008, and it is (in a roundabout way – via the now-defunct culture blog that Friedersdorf and others used to write on, which led to me to Mark Thompson’s blog, which led me here) how I found this site. I used to enjoy it, mostly for his ardent condemnation of torture and of neoconservative warmongering, but I don’t read it any more. I really don’t like his pushing of Trig birtherism, and he seems to be trying too hard to defend Obama simply because he likes Obama, even when his policies are bad and inconsistent with the ones Andrew has previously supported. Sullivan seems incapable of moderation – on torture, on civil liberties, on Iraq, on Obama, on Palin, there is no middle ground. You’d think that having been so wrong about supporting the neocons would have taught him some humility, but it evidently hasn’t.
Maybe it’s partly that he looks bad by comparison with TNC, who’s exceptional as a blogger in being introspective, thoughtful, and willing to admit when he’s wrong.Report
@Katherine, There are some things that don’t deserve a middle ground. Torture, Iraq, Palin and Republicans are just four of the many things that are just plain wrong.Report
@dexter45,
That’s what I’ve been saying for years, but I’m accused of being black and white. I guess it’s a skill unique to liberals, liberaltarians, progressives and moderates to know when there’s no middle. Libertarians and conservatives are just stubbornly ideologically closed.Report
@MFarmer, Aer you agreeing with dex that Republicans are just plain wrong?Report
@MFarmer,
Well, of course they are. If the Democrats are right, then the Republicans have to be wrong.Report
@MFarmer, Now you’re backpeddling with all these extra conditions …Report
I guess it’s a skill unique to liberals, liberaltarians, progressives and moderates to know when there’s no middle.
Au contraire. There certainly are conservatives and libertarians who acknowledge that use of torture, starting aggressive wars, and disregard for civil liberties are unambiguously wrong – it’s just that those people have no influence on the consensus positions of the Republican Party.Report
I agree, but unlike Andrew I believe we should draw a distinction between Palin the politician whose statements and ideas I entirely disagree with and Palin the human being whose personal and family life is none of my business.
I do believe there are some conservative positions that have merit, but the Republicans don’t hold any of them.Report
@Katherine,
No, the Republicans have no merit, unlike the Democrats who have lots of merit. And although some conservatives are arguably right about a few things, the fact that they will be voting Republican shows that the Democrats have successfully proven that although they are right, the election will probably go mostly Republican, because conservatives are wrong about at least one thing, and that is that although the Democrats are right, they are wrong for American voters, who are wrong to think the Republicans will get it right. The Democrats have been right all along, to everyone’s surprise.Report
Hey Erik:
Glad your glass of champagne came along to douse my sizzling charcoal a little bit.Report
Speaking for myself, Andrew was instrumental in introducing me to a much wider and more interesting array of blogs and writers than I’d read before I stumbled on The Dish.
Word. If someone knows of a better blogroll, let me know. I probably would have found this place eventually, but as it happened, I found it there.Report