Let Us Now Praise Andrew Sullivan

Against the dreadful, spirit-lowering acid rain of what we call our politics, and the leaden grey dross of what passes for political commentary, two things have stood out for me as hopeful in the past distressed decade-and-a-half since 9/11—the popularity of Christopher Hitchens, and the success of Andrew Sullivan’s blog “The Daily Dish.” Hitchens left us three years ago, having given everyone the experience of a seriously radical thinker and political pugilist who might just as convincingly have forged a reputation as a literary critic. The nominally “intellectual” political writers he leaves behind are, with an exception or two, little better than cheerleaders (Go left wing! Go right wing!).
   And now Andrew Sullivan—Sully—is closing up shop.  My first reaction, I confess, was confusion—Andrew told us he was worn out from blogging and no one could blame him, particularly the way he blogged, at a high pitch of serious concern. But why did the blog itself have to go, especially now that The Dish had grown into a lot more than a one-man show? Well, appears a lot of other readers have the same thought, and hope, that The Dish should continue.
   So perhaps the Dish will live on, Sully-less. But in the meantime let us now praise him for creating something entirely new in the blogosphere. What The Dish is today is something like a variety magazine: politics, poetry, humor, religion and spirituality, art and artists, photography, whimsy, sexuality, literature, beards. I wonder what I am leaving out. And when he began offering the full text of his blog to subscribers who could choose their own subscription rate, he opened up a new business model for writers.
   I think his eclecticism accounts for what attracted me to Sullivan in the first place. Sullivan is a political junkie who seems to know that politics is secondary (this used to be a conservative theme)--subordinate to literature, poetry, manners, fun, faith and spirituality, sex, family and marriage. Like Hitchens (with whom he was bosom friends) he is not a team player—and in Sullivan’s case the team he spurns day-after-day is contemporary American conservativism. An admirer of Margaret Thatcher and of Ronald Reagan, Sullivan is a conservative who insists that it is American conservativism that has gone off the grid. In The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How We Can Get It Back, he lays out his case—but I'm bound to say that its not as good a read as his blog. The immediacy of blogging—sometimes I think you could hear him hyperventilating through the page—is an animating force for Sullivan.
   The mainstream conservative thinkers, writers and media outlets have mostly ignored him, it seems. One could point to his militancy about gay rights, or to his tendency to emotionality bordering on hysteria, or to the fact that he has recently taken up criticizing the Israelis. But the real reason I think is that he doesn’t play the game, he won’t be a cheerleader—so they don’t know what to make of him.
   A gay rights activist, yet a devout Catholic who writes seriously and thoughtfully about atheism and skepticism, a conservative critical of American conservatives, a writer and thinker who is not afraid to publish sharp criticism from his readers, a political junkie who can think and write about something other politics—Sullivan plays for no team, but the team of true writers and thinkers who make us think. Whether The Dish continues or not, I'm going to miss Andrew Sullivan and I think American politics and culture will be the poorer for his leaving.