Can Someone Tell Andrew Sullivan to Shut Up?
After Benazir Bhutto's assassination yesterday, Hillary and Barack got into one of their little spats over how the other one was politicizing it for a last-minute gain. Hillary's statement on the assassination offered regrets and also mentioned that she knew Bhutto as first lady. Barack's statement just offered regrets, because he didn't know the lady. But the big politicizing came later in the afternoon, when Barack's senior foreign policy adviser David Axelrod went meanypants on Hillary: She authorized Iraq, which diverted our attention from Pakistan, which grew into further turmoil, which is where Bhutto was assassinated. Now, if you've been following Andrew Sullivan's blog the last few months, you've noticed that he's not only supporting Barack -- which obvs is fine, go for it -- and slamming Hillary in every post for her gutless attacks, but he won't say a friggin' word when Barack pulls out the Nasty. Check out how he handled yesterday's Clinton-Obama repartee, and then someone please tell him to go back to libertarian land, where he belongs.
Sullivan -- one of the more "authoritative" bloggers out there -- posted yesterday afternoon about Hillary's statement on Bhutto, saying "Meanwhile, Clinton manages to spin again. It really is always about her, isn't it?" Yeah, yeah, we know: Hillary Clinton is an awful person. We don't care for her much around here, believe it or not. But we don't think Obama is much of a messiah, either, especially after those Axelrod comments:
REPORTER: But looking ahead, does the assassination put on the front burner foreign policy credentials in the closing days?
AXELROD: Well, it puts on the table foreign policy judgment, and that's a discussion we welcome. Barack Obama had the judgment to oppose the war in Iraq, and he warned at the time it would divert us from Afghanistan and Al Qaeda, and now we see the effect of that. Al Qaeda's resurgent, they're a powerful force now in Pakistan, they may have been involved -- we've been here, so I don't know whether the news has been updated, but there's a suspicion they may have been involved in this. I think his judgment was good. Sen. Clinton made a different judgment, so let's have that discussion.
OK. So Hillary usually wins the Unnecessary Exploitation Award in times like these, but please: Axelrod's comments -- probably the biggest news in the Democrats/Bhutto storyline yesterday afternoon -- give Obama said Award for at least yesterday. Sullivan, however, has yet to bring up Axelrod. Instead, he got all kissyface over Barack's new stump speech :
I have found his oratory to be peerless, and the steadiness of his character remarkable. On this front, Clinton simply isn't in his league. And with the exception of McCain and Paul, none of the Republicans matches his integrity. Clinton is competent, careful, prudent ... but Obama is in a different class.
Well, maybe he discussed Axelrod this morning? Oh look, there's an Obama post, maybe that's it, finally! Oops, no, he's showing YouTube videos of Obama playing basketball in high school. Hmm... that's good... too?
People are still listening to this guy, but why? It was pretty cool when he went against his conservative/libertarian background and opposed Bush, but isn't his association with the Demrats about expired by now? This is the same guy who supports Ron Paul for the Republican nomination. Hillary and Barack are both nasty politicians. Does anyone care that Andrew Sullivan only sees it one way?
Obama's Pakistan spin [Politico]