Metaphor Madness (Gag Me With A Spoon!)

Andrew Sullivan gets paid the big bucks for delivering this sort of vivid lead paragraph:

It is difficult to look into the future when you are going through what America is going through. All I can say about the atmosphere in the United States right now is that it feels as if the country is about to vomit. The nausea is there; the vote is imminent; and the purge necessary. And yet it hasn’t happened yet. Americans are still staring at the porcelain. And those who desperately want a change — as I do — have to wait.

Ooooh.  Uncle Sam is waiting to drive the porcelain bus - thanks for sharing.

Well.  Because My People are everywhere, I have obtained special, double secret access to some of Mr. Sullivan's early drafts.  Let's watch and learn as a Big Time Writer practices his craft:

It is difficult to look into the future when you are going through what America is going through. All I can say about the atmosphere in the United States right now is that it feels as if the country is waiting on the toilet for that one Big Movement that will start the day.  Every bit of available reading material has been perused; the importance of more fiber in the diet has been re-weighed, and re-discarded - rabbit food is for, well, rabbits.  And Frenchman.  And John Kerry surely eats lots of salad.  As he said the other day, "Eat lots of salad, or you get stuck in the throne room; just ask President Bush."

And yet is hasn't happned yet - right now, it feels as if America is just waiting to drop a log.

Well, one can see why the editor tossed that back.  Here we go again:

It is difficult to look into the future when you are going through what America is going through. All I can say about the atmosphere in the United States right now is that it feels as if the country is listening to a wailing baby and steeling itself to change its diaper.  The smell is there, and it is clearly Time For A Change, but the prospect of handling the steaming pile of brown goop, a significant fraction of which will surely end up on our hands, has left us hesitant.  Americans are still staring at the diaper, and although they look forward to the new diaper as a New Beginning, the cyncis among them know that new diapers become soiled and goopy in their time, and that it Takes A Village to truly bring about meaningful change.  And so we wait for the villagers to lead us...

Well, one must applaud Mr. Sullivan's good judgment in going with the "Nicole Ritchie Prepares To Vote" metaphor.

LET OTHER VOICES BE HEARD:  SaveFarris thinks Sullivan is so compelling he ought to be hired by the NY Times.  Wouldn't that put him on the TimesSelect Island of Lost?  That's not a bug, it's a feature!

Comments

[BumperStickerist]

Smart people throw up in the trash can not the toilet. Easier to clean, less chance of injury or drowning.

They also vote 'Republican'.

.

[Other Tom]

Seeing some interesting stuff, last-minute-poll-wise. Seems to be a growing consensus that the GOP will hold the Senate, but will lose the House majority by a small margin. Rothenberg is still predicting a loss of 40 seats or so. To the extent the Dems are at all disappointed in whatever happens, my fervent hope is that it all gets laid at the feet of John Kerry.

[clarice]

It is difficult to look into the future when you are going through what Sullivan is going through. All I can say about the atmosphere in the United States right now is that it feels as if the country is listening to a madman with a terrible mood disorder. The depressive mood is there, and it is clearly Time For A Change!!, but the prospect of the mind busting rollercoaster ride has left us hesitant. Americans are still staring at the ride down, and although they look forward to the thrill as a New Beginning, the cynics among them know that today's down is tomorrow's up, and that it Takes A fat butt to stay strapped in one's seat on a Sullivan Metaphor ride. And so we wait for the arrival of this week's lithium delivery...

[Jane]

BTW Yesterday on the Chris Matthews Show on the "Tell me something I don't know" segment, Andy vowed that Karl Rove was in on the whole Foley scandal, and that while knowing he was a rampant pedophile ecouraged Foley to stay in the Senate.

Basically he was calling for a frog-march.

[Larry]

Andrew jumped the shark with me about a year ago. All I saw were Iraq war criticism, obsessive focus on Abu Ghraib/torture and in-your-face gay issues. Not to deny these are important issues, but his arguments went from sane to irrational in six months' time.

[Gary Maxwell]

Who reads Sullivan any more? He went so far around the bend, he is more than unreadable. He got sent to the same place in my blog roll that I sent Polipundit. The nuclear option works great for purging unreadable tripe. Internet column do not just show up on your virtual doorstop like the morning news. Nuke him and feel good about it.

[Other Tom]

Mickey Kaus has a great putdown of Sullivan today. Hard to believe I used to check in on the guy's blog on a regular basis. I think he started to go around the bend about three years ago. He came out for Kerry, and it seemed pretty clear to me that for all his posturing it was really just a single-issue gay thing. I'm sick of the fool. Great metaphor rant, Clarice--you're on a roll.

[Jack on Track]

Sullivan is to waffling and fickleness what Kerry is to nuance. This guy's brain is supported by ball bearings. It literally moves in any direction he wants it to depending on his inclinations and feelings that particular morning when he woke up. Reading him is like what waterboarding is to enemy combatants - you give up pretty easy and never finish it.

[clarice]

Thanks, OT--He was the first blogger I read, and I financially supported him, but I left him when you did. One cannot rationally put together his various views. (Do you suppose he was infiltrated by some alien pod?)

[jwest]

But…but… Sullivan is one of the country’s leading conservative pundits.

MSNBC told me so.

[azredneck]

Andrew who????

[sbw]

Hey, either way tomorrow's vote is an opportunity.

If the Republicans hold, there is a lot of reeducating to do to return their support of smaller, affordable government and support of individual freedom.

If the Democrats gain one house, then we get to examine the dearth of positive ideas and criticize any vacuous thinking discovered.

If the Democrats gain both houses, then thank goodness it was during a midterm election which gives ample time for people to come to terms with what they have done before the next Presidential campaign.

And no matter who is elected, we get to expose the entertainment that passes for news and begin the process to innoculate readers and viewers to defend themselves from it.

[clarice]

As to your last point..I hope so.
Daniel Ortega (Sandinista and Chavez butt buddy) just won the vote in Nicaragua. Compare how little coverage that got as opposed to the endless coverage of a little known Evangalist's pants and drug problem.
Sheesh

[anonymous]

A democratically-elected President in Nicaragua? The Bush administration is not going to let them get away with that kind of anti-American nonsense.

[PWT]

It is difficult to look into the future when you are going through what I am going through. All I can say about the atmosphere in here right now is that it feels as if the country is about to ejaculate. Uncle Sam has my head pinned down against the toilet bowl and he is pounding my ass mercilessly. The friction is there, the shame is there, the release is necessary and yet it hasn't happened yet. I am still kissing the edge of the rim staring at my pride (and the smiling donkey in the corner now smoking a cigarette) waiting for the final thrust, we he screams out "DIEBOLD", pulls up his pants and tosses the smiling donkey a five spot. Such is the life of a left wing whore.

P.S. I'll be working here all week.

Kisses,
A.S.

[Other Tom]

Absolutely brilliant, PWT.

Anonymous, I'll warrant that the Bush administration will be far more tolerant of a democratically elected government in Nicaragua than the left has been of the one in Iraq.

[clarice]

Ditto.PWT.

[anonymous]

'll warrant that the Bush administration will be far more tolerant of a democratically elected government in Nicaragua than the left has been of the one in Iraq.

Posted by: Other Tom | November 06, 2006 at 11:09 AM

Ditto.PWT.

Posted by: clarice | November 06, 2006 at 11:10 AM

I have no doubt that the Bush administration will treat the new government of Nicaragua in much the same way it has treated the democratically-elected governments of Haiti and Venezuela.

[SaveFarris]

I say we start a movement to petition the New York Times to hire Sullivan and put him behind the TimesSelect firewall.

Who's with me?

[cathyf]

One cannot rationally put together his various views. (Do you suppose he was infiltrated by some alien pod?)

Awhile back Taranto was working through a theory which involved Sullivan's utterly freaked-out obsession with the US "torturing" terrorists with fake menstrual blood. When you saw all the quotes one after another, and the sheer volume of them, it looked a lot like the simple knowledge that women menstrate is torture to Sullivan. Basically Taranto came to the conclusion that it's a gay thing -- adolescent boys may be freaked out by menstruation, but the ones who are straight had better get over it if they are going to have a successful intimate relationship with a post-pubescent female.

It is difficult to look into the future when you are going through what America is going through. All I can say about the atmosphere in the United States right now is that it feels as if the country is in the same room as a woman with her period waiting for a SWAT team to come take her out. The nausea is there; the vote is imminent; and the killing necessary. And yet it hasn’t happened yet. Americans are still staring at the bitch. And those who desperately want a change — as I do — have to wait.

[anonymous]

[from T.Bogg:]

And somehow, this:

Richard Perle: "Huge mistakes were made, and I want to be very clear on this: They were not made by neoconservatives, who had almost no voice in what happened, and certainly almost no voice in what happened after the downfall of the regime in Baghdad. I'm getting damn tired of being described as an architect of the war. I was in favor of bringing down Saddam. Nobody said, 'Go design the campaign to do that.' I had no responsibility for that."

...was taken out of context.

Presumably Perle added, "No. I'm kidding. I'm a big kidder. I joke. C'mon... pull my finger."

I guess keeping the lie alive about Iraq could have waited a few more days.

[Old Dad]

It is difficult to look into the future when your head is up your...no, I shouldn’t go there. All I can say about the atmosphere in the United States right now is that it feels mostly cloudy with a chance of rain. The draught is there; the vote is imminent; and the precipitation necessary. And yet it hasn’t happened yet. Americans are still staring at the sky with umbrellas in hand. And those who desperately want a change — as I do — continue to read this ridiculous blog while I prattle on, gob smacked by my own genius.

[anonymous]

[Buck up, Old Dad:]

Dick Morris predicts “GOP Massacre” - “Bloody Tuesday” for Republicans

By: Glenn Greenwald @ 5:26 AM - PST

GOP/Fox News shill and alleged polling guru Dick Morris uses his New York Post column today (along with his wife Eileen McGann) to warn: "The latest polls portend disaster for the Republican Party tomorrow. The House appears to be gone; the Senate is teetering on the brink."

Morris predicts that "2006 will go down in history as one of the worst years for the Republicans." After listing the standard reasons for what he says will be a "rout," Morris identifies the sleaze and corruption which pervades that party as the principal cause:

"It was corruption that did the GOP in. . . . Speaker Dennis Hastert's son left his music store in Illinois to move to Washington to become the lobbyist for Google. Hastert himself used his position to fund a highway project that had a lot to do with a big profit on a land deal nearby. Then-Majority Leader Tom Delay put his wife was on his PAC's payroll; she made $300,000. . . . First the Republicans lost their virtue; now they'll lose their majority, at least in the House."

[PeterUK]

Don't Glen Greewald and Andrew Sullivan share the same Crapper? Come to think of it,Gore Vidal shares the same porcelain perspective,could anonymous be one of the Boys From Brazil?

[windansea]

LOL

Morris has a Kossackian batting average

[clarice]

As for the VF fantasy report, Frum yesterday dared VF to make the full interview transcripts available and they have not.
Case closed.

No one will ever give them an interview again.

If I were more into time wasting, I'd pick thru the leavings of even the most sensible of the posters here, and show you what dishonest editing can achieve,

David Rose is finished, too, because of the perfidy of VF's editors.

[maryrose]

The country right now is on the verge of a huge snowstorm. The air temperature has dropped, the heavy snow clouds have gathered and there is a cold nip in the air. As the heavens open up the soft snowflakes will fall and we will wake up Wednesday morning with a 14 seat gain in the House for the dems and republicans still in full command of the Senate and a big sigh of relief now that we can get on with our lives again.

[clarice]

That's what's happening here..dark grey clouds just covered the sky.
GLGB (God loves George Bush).

[Daddy]

Please lets not be too hasty on dissing the benefits of vomiting, even though it was raised by this little puke Sullivan. Charles Darwin as you'll recall, was aflicted with continuous gastric intestinal problems, most probably as a result of Chagos disease, picked up during his Voyage on the Beagle. This malady caused Darwin to vomit frequently for much of the rest of his life. IIRC Darwin mentions in his "M" Notebook, how he used to observe his face in a mirror while retching, desperately searching his contorted facial physiology for clues to primate evolution. Thus did Mr Darwin demonstrate how while being almost a lifelong prisoner of his toilet an industrious Englishman of scientific mind can yet thrive so nobly, whilst Mr Sullivan conversely demonstrates how another Englishman of such immaculate education continuously plunks his head where his ass ought to go. At least when Oscar Wilde was rolling in the gutter he claimed he was looking up at the stars, whereas Andrew it seems to me is just ignobly searching for meaning in the skid marks of the "Crapper", (who by the way was also English).

[danking70]

Clarice,

Shouldn't David Rose be asked to comment?

[clarice]

If I knew where to find him, I would.

It's now the third day since rum dared VF to release the transcripts..and NADA>.

[clarice]

FRUM, not run....

[Terrye]

I heard Perle never said that, Vanity Fair is lying.

[danking70]

It probably wouldn't be difficult for Frum, Perle, Adelman, or Ledeen to get him to comment.

[topsecretk9]

--[from T.Bogg:]---

snort.

[SteveMG]

My favorite Sullivan disgorgement was when he explained that the nomination of Harriet Miers (remember that wonderful episode?) to the Court was part of Rove's election strategy to (once again) turn on gay Americans.

It seems that Miers was/is a member of a Dallas organization called "EXODUS", a religious group that helps unwed teenage mothers. There's also another group called "Exodus" that describes itself as a organization to help gay people "convert" to homosexuality.

Sullivan confused the latter with the former and weaved this grand tale of how Rove and Bush selected Miers to reward the anti-gay religious right. Once it was show that Miers belonged to a different group, Sullivan moved on to new smears.

The man is a thug.

SMG

[Terrye]

I wonder if Hugo Chavez will actually leave office if Manuel Rosales wins the election? They say Rosales is way ahead in most polls and that march the other day with what is reported to be millions of people does seem to lead one to believe that Rosales has a lot of supporters.

Maybe Jimmy Carter will have to go down there and help Chavez steal another election.

and anonymous, if not for the US it is highly unlikely there would be any elections in Nicaragua. In fact if Kerry had his way the Sadinistas could have just killed their way to power and stayed there. 70,000 people were killed down there.

[Other Tom]

Anonymous: Has the Bush administration done anything to either the government of Haiti or that of Venezuela that meets with your disapproval? If so, what?

Do you approve of the actions of those governments and their activities? And how about that of Iraq?

[Other Tom]

Would some courageous moonbat tell us what exactly was "the lie in Iraq?"

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Dick Morris predicts “GOP Massacre” - “Bloody Tuesday” for Republicans

Thank God. If he'd been talking about things going well, I'd have worried.

[clarice]

Oops, he just changed his mind..(The Hill)

"While the Republican Party leadership in the House seems doomed to move into a well deserved minority, the GOP shows increasing signs of being able to hang on to the Senate, although perhaps by the thinnest of margins. Running up a down escalator of sinking Republican fortunes, skillful GOP consultants and strategists have managed to hold the races in Missouri and Virginia to single-digit leads either way and to catch up to large Democratic leads in Montana and Rhode Island. "

More white noise.Irritating white noise.

[JM Hanes]

TM -- you should have Your People call My People who found this:

It is difficult to look into the future when you're Andrew Sullivan, and I am, after all, Andrew Sullivan, not Christopher ("Hitch") Hitchens, whose gorgeous feet I'd kiss if he'd let me, btw. What can I say about the atmospherics chez moi? Binging and purging may be gobstockingly vile, but it's what I do. I've fed on torture and vomited up Abu Ghraib more times than I can count, swallowed talking points whole and regurgitated them with a vengeance. Yet here I sit, brutalized and personally betrayed by the con artist formerly known as My President, staring into the porcelain that has become my world, with nothing left to flush, wondering ad nauseum why Instapundit doesn't even pretend to care. He's a hypocritical homophobe, btw. Read my anonymous email (from the most astute reader on the web), if you think I'm wrong. To those who desperately want a change -- as if, d'oh -- I say you'll just have to wait for it.

My People say this passage may actually exceed the fake but accurate standard.

[boris]

exceed the fake but accurate standard

Your people have outdone themselves, if that's even possible.

[Other Tom]

I'm hoping Anonymous is seeing the video I'm seeing of Danny Ortega, Man of the People, piloting his $200,000 Mercedes SUV through the streets of Managua. Say what you will about the fellow, he's renounced his earlier view that the Catholic church was the enemy of mankind, and he has certainly moved on from those $3,000 sunglasses he got in New York.

But if the people of Nicaragua want him, I'm sure the Bush administration will treat him appropriately. I'm waiting for evidence to the contrary.

[MayBee]

Awhile back Taranto was working through a theory which involved Sullivan's utterly freaked-out obsession with the US "torturing" terrorists with fake menstrual blood.

Saturday, September 30, 2006
The Closet

What the being out of the closet does to people - the hypocrisies it fosters, the pathologies it breeds - is brutal. There are many non-closeted gay men in D.C., and we are forced to denounce the creepieness of women and that useless vagina thing they have. How they live with themselves I do not fully understand. But I have learned you cannot judge someone's soul from outside, unless you look at their shopping cart during certain times of the month. If there are M&Ms and potato chips, a self-loving gay man would stay away, knowing there is a bleeding woman pushing that cart. You can also judge their soul by whether they are willing to touch their own or other's menstrual blood, and That I leave to them and their God, and their straight (or still in the closet) husbands, and their maid if she is lucky enough to have someone clean her bathroom for her. Most likely, the menstrual-blood cleaning maid is illegal, and that just speaks to the kind of people women are. Some I count as good friends and good people, even if they are dirty dirty bleeders.

[Daddy]

And who can forget Bill Murray as the stall attendant in the Roman Vomitorium back on Saturday Night Live. Little feather, little barf, and voila, back to the forum for dessert and even more political mischief. Maybe Andrew's just wistfully reliving a decadent past life in Imperial Rome.