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by graeme 4152 days ago
What year did Sullivan say that? I recall thinking, circa 2004-6, "gosh, Andrew Sullivan is wrong about Iraq. How does he not see how wrong he is?"

But the thing was, he changed. Gradually, he came to notice that the modern Republican party was doing lots of bad things.

Certainly, this puts him nowhere near writers like Daniel Davies and James Fallows, who clearly saw the war was going to be a disaster, before it happened.

But at least Sullivan was able to change his mind. Though maybe he didn't fully recant Iraq. I can't recall the details now. I just recall my impression of the time that, whatever he was, he wasn't a zealot. He genuinely seemed to be thinking through and considering his opinions.

But yeah, far more a fan of Greenwald. Or Ioz, if anyone remembers him.

Anyway, the point of my reply is that I don't think the Sullivan of today would agree with that quote, and I suspect he wrote that not long after the invasion. That doesn't make it a smart thing to have been written, but simply quoting that gives an inaccurate view of Sullivan. Unless I'm wrong on the details of when he said it and what he changed his mind about.
1 comments
firebones 4152 days ago
I ran across this the other night. Pointing you to it because it seems to offer a complementary counterpoint to your benefit of the doubt point of view.

http://pando.com/2015/01/28/andrew-sullivan-is-not-the-futur...

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graeme 4152 days ago
That piece doesn't address Sullivan's change circa 2006-08. IIRC, he Began to oppose the Iraq war, and the republican party, where he had been a strong supporter previously.

I never shared Sullivan's views. I could be misremembering how much he shifted in that period, since I didn't follow him closely. But the article doesn't address those years, only earlier times. (which sound pretty bad, if the characterization is accurate)

Edit: here is a piece that comments on Ames and Sullivan. It's how I remember his later writing. No moral hero, but a man clearly aware that he made an enormous error on iraq.

http://thedailybanter.com/2013/01/andrew-sullivans-political...

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