Smarter Andrew Sullivan

It is with a mixture of regret and satisfaction that I announce that Smarter Andrew Sullivan, known as “SASsy” to its friends, will be going on hiatus for an undetermined period of time due to several pressing personal engagements.

With regret, because when it comes to Andy there is so much work to be done and never enough time to do it.

And also with regret because the great Media Whores Online recently gave a much-appreciated nod to SASsy, leaving me feeling obligated to wage the good fight MWO sees this and other sites fulfilling given the prevailing climate in and condition of the media in America.

With satisfaction, because more and more people are recognizing that Andy just isn’t interesting anymore. He’s become predictable, shrill, petty, tiresome, and just plain boring. This endeavor isn’t as fun or as challenging as it once was.

And also with satisfaction because the explosion of the blogging phenomenon has brought many more voices into the field of abnormal psychology known as Sullivanology.

And so I leave you--if only for a while--in the capable hands of my many colleagues: SullyWatch, Roger Ailes, Eschaton, Rittenhouse, Max Sawicky, Oliver Willis, Brad DeLong, and Bob Somerby, among many others.

Oh, for Christ’s sake, enough with the Howell Raines stuff already.

Face it, Andy, you were fired.

You lost your job.

You were canned.

You were pink-slipped.

You fucked up.

The Times dumped your ass.

They said, “Sayonara, baby!”

They gave you the old “Heave ho!”

You were fired because your writing sucks and, yes, probably because you took a little too much joy from criticizing the house. Nothing wrong with that, something you may learn now that you’re actually an employer (of sorts, and no, editing the New Republic doesn’t count, because we all know about Martin Peretz).

So quit with the I’m-so-principled act and DEAL WITH IT!

Andy can be hilarious, especially when he doesn’t intend to be.

Here’s the world’s most comical gay “pundit” writing today about the world’s most eloquent gay journalist:

“SIGNORILE MAKES SENSE: Yes, it can happen. He makes some decent points in this piece about the AIDS death of Herb Ritts and the new silence surrounding the epidemic.”

The reference, in case you missed Andy’s (“Signorile”) or mine (“the world’s most eloquent gay journalist”), is to Michelangelo Signorile and his latest column in Newsday, “Don’t Hide the Truth About AIDS.”

Give it up, Andy. Mike is so far out of your league it’s not even funny.

It’s Friday, and regular readers know what that means: It’s the day Andy picks up his weekly check courtesy of Sung Myung Moon, head of the Unification “Church.”

In return, the Washington Times gets to recycle The Daily Dish, recast in the form of The Weekly Dish.

Still no mention of this bizarre gig over at Andy’s vanity site.

But Why Do Anti-Intellectuals Love the Right?

Andrew Sullivan, who yanked some parchment from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, today cites a piece from Robert Nozick on why intellectuals have long displayed a greater affinity with the left than with the right.

Don’t bother. Neither Nozick nor Sullivan has anything to say that we haven’t read since the subject emerged amid the birth of modernism. (Makes me wonder whether Sullivan reads anything other than Paul Krugman these days.)

Of course, the question Sullivan doesn’t ask, perhaps because it hits just a little too close to home, is why anti-intellectuals love the right wing and why the right wing is just fine with that, thank you very much.

The Monoligual Sullivan

I can’t help but wonder who helped Andy by translating the Der Spiegel interview with New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. (See Andy’s January 3 piece, “A New Marcos.”)

To the best of my knowledge, Andy neither speaks nor reads any language other than English, standards for earning a Harvard Ph.D. having come down substantially in recent decades, and the Brits having a longstanding aversion to learning anything other than the mother tongue.

If that’s the case, shouldn’t he give credit where credit is due?

Makes me wonder: Is the Republican National Committee sending around strategic translations?