Andrew Sullivan

Remember back in 2008 when Michelle Obama said, "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country?"

The Daily Beast's Andrew Sullivan made a similar remark on this weekend's syndicated Chris Matthews Show when he said of Barack Obama's flipflop on same-sex marriage, "I never understood the power of a president's words till today, till that day" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Bill Clinton was the first black president. And now, according to Newsweek, we have the first gay president.

Yes, all the speculation over what cover Tina Brown would choose for Newsweek is over. Despite several suggestions from The New Republic on this crucial subject, Brown refrained from taking their kindly advice and chose a picture of President Obama with a rainbow halo over his head.

As NewsBusters reported last week, eleven out of twelve regular contributors to the syndicated Chris Matthews Show thought Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney won't be able to take control and drive the political debate in the next six months leading to Election Day.

On this weekend's program, only one of the twelve regulars thought President Obama's recent flipflop on same-sex marriage hurts him politically (video follows with transcript and commentary):

National Public Radio did a classic pirouette of one-sidedness on All Things Considered Wednesday night. For comment on Obama' s "evolution" on gay marriage, NPR invited only a "leading advocate of same-sex marriage," gay activist-pundit Andrew Sullivan, now writing for Newsweek/The Daily Beast. There is no time for the social conservatives, just the gays.

Sullivan oozed about Obama: "I think he let go of fear today, the fear that somehow by embracing this natural, obvious and I would say conservative development he was sometimes -- somehow embracing political calamity. He wasn't, he isn't, he won't." NPR anchor Audie Cornish asked him if this was about fundraising, but he just praised Obama's (and America's) evolution:

You want a clear picture of just how in the tank America's media are for Barack Obama?

On Sunday, Chris Matthews revealed that eleven out of twelve regulars on the syndicated program bearing his name say Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney won't take control and drive the political debate in the next six months leading to Election Day (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Newsweek's Andrew Sullivan got a much-needed education about religion and politics from not one but two evangelical leaders Sunday.

The first came from Dr. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention who in the midst of a heated debate on CBS's Face the Nation told Sullivan, "Any fusion between evangelicalism and Republicanism pales in comparison to the point of anemia compared to the black church and the Democratic Party" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

When ABC’s Jake Tapper held up Andrew’s Sullivan’s “Forget the Church, Follow Jesus” Newsweek cover story on how, as Tapper described Sullivan’s premise, “American Christianity is in a ‘crisis,’ it’s too focused on politics and policy, too little on spirituality,” Pastor Rick Warren took the opportunity to air “a little personal gripe.”

He contended: “I think it’s disingenuous that magazines like Newsweek know that their circulation goes up at Christmas and Easter if they put a spiritual issue on the cover, but it’s always bait and switch. They never tell the stories, never tell the stories of what good the church is doing.”

The Daily Beast's Andrew Sullivan this weekend called Mitt Romney "the most dreadful candidate since John Kerry."

Appearing on the syndicated Chris Matthews Show, Sullivan must have forgotten that in 2004 he endorsed Kerry over George W. Bush (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters reported Sunday, Andrew Sullivan in his most recent Newsweek column claimed, "Obama Set a Contraception Trap for the Right."

Two days later when Sullivan, appearing on MSNBC's Hardball, flipflopped saying, "I think a lot of this was ginned up by the Bishops. They were the ones that set a trap for Obama," host Chris Matthews was seen on the screen doing a facepalm (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Newsweek's Andrew Sullivan published another gooey, sycophantic article about Barack Obama Sunday this one claiming the object of his affection intentionally inflamed today's contraception controversy to trap his opponents on the right.

When the subject was raised on NBC's Meet the Press, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough quickly set the record straight calling Sullivan's piece "preposterous" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The more one listens to Newsweek’s Andrew Sullivan, the more one has to conclude that he either knows absolutely nothing about the economy or he’s lying through his teeth.

Appearing on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 Wednesday evening, Sullivan actually said tax “revenues currently are at 50 year lows” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

As NewsBusters reported Tuesday, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin was quite displeased to find out that Trig Truther Andrew Sullivan actually had an article published on the cover of Newsweek with the headline "Why Are Obama's Critics So Dumb?"

During an online chat about the piece Tuesday, Sullivan told participants that he had an orgasm when he saw Palin's tweet (vulgarity warning):

The pushback concerning Newsweek's decision to publish a cover story asking "Why Are Obama's Critics So Dumb?" continues.

On Tuesday, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin weighed in on Twitter saying, "@Newsweek: know what's truly 'dumb'? Giving a cover story to the TrigTruther conspiracy kook writer who thinks I didn't give birth to my son":

As NewsBusters reported Sunday, Newsweek's most recent cover astonishingly asked, "Why Are Obama's Critics So Dumb?"

This critic of the President analyzed the contents of so-called conservative Andrew Sullivan's piece and has come to the conclusion that it is he and the unashamedly liberal magazine he writes for that are lacking in intellectual capacity and/or integrity.

All one needs is read the following from Sullivan's third paragraph to understand the absurdity on display:

It seems almost impossible to believe, but the upcoming issue of Newsweek has a cover story entitled "Why Are Obama's Critics So Dumb?"

If you think we're kidding, the following picture was tweeted by @Newsweek three hours ago:

You want to talk about hoaxes?

On Sunday's Reliable Sources, CNN and host Howard Kurtz actually promoted the Obama-loving Andrew Sullivan as a "conservative" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Bill Maher spent the bulk of his final program of the season Friday disgracefully attacking any Republican he could think of.

Early in the panel segment of HBO's Real Time, the host went into a tirade about the former governor of Utah saying, "Jon Huntsman can suck my c--k" (video follows with transcript and commentary, strong vulgarity warning):

Rachel Rose Hartman's Tuesday item for Yahoo! News's "The Ticket" blog carried a misleading headline ("Audience at tea party debate cheers leaving uninsured to die") implying that the majority, if not all, of the audience at Monday's GOP presidential debate thought that the critically injured who are uninsured should be left to die. In reality, only a handful cheered and/or laughed in response to Wolf Blitzer's question.

Despite this headline, Hartman did acknowledge in her lede that "if you're uninsured and on the brink of death, that's apparently a laughing matter to some audience members at last night's tea party [sic] Republican presidential debate." She then recounted how Blitzer, who moderated the joint debate with the Tea Party Express organization, turned to Rep. Ron Paul and "asked a hypothetical question...about how society should respond if a healthy 30-year-old man who decided against buying health insurance suddenly goes into a coma and requires intensive care for six months."

The Justice Department is expected to indict former Senator John Edwards as early as Wednesday for violating federal campaign finance laws.

On this weekend's "Chris Matthews Show," the host along with Time magazine's Joe Klein and the Daily Beast's Andrew Sullivan said the DOJ should leave Edwards alone (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Andrew Sullivan this weekend seemed to shock Chris Matthews when he said that former Alaska governor Sarah Palin could actually beat President Obama in next year's elections running as the "principled candidate" representing "this grassroots movement of cutting government down to size."

Maybe even more surprising, Time's Joe Klein seemed to agree telling the host of "The Chris Matthews Show," "You were around in ’79 and ’80 as I was. Did you see many people in the Carter administration think that Ronald Reagan could beat Jimmy Carter?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

You've heard the paranoid, anti-Semitic claim that Jews control the press in this country?

Well, the Daily Beast's Andrew Sullivan believes the Israelis got United States media representatives to spin President Obama's Middle East speech as an attack on the Jewish state:

There was a marvelous moment on this weekend's "Chris Matthews Show" when the host literally stuck his foot in his mouth claiming in front of four British journalists that former Prime Minister Tony Blair "was much closer emotionally and politically to Bill Clinton" than George W. Bush.

Guest's Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Beast and Gillian Tett of the Financial Times both immediately shook their heads as the BBC's Katty Kay and Matt Frei said "No" and "Wrong" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters reported Thursday, the liberal website Wonkette has lost a significant number of advertisers following its disgraceful article about former Alaska governor Sarah Palin's handicapped son Trig.

The Daily Beast's Andrew Sullivan, who for years has claimed like so many Trig Truthers that Bristol Palin is the child's real mother, expressed disappointment Saturday that companies pulled their ads as a result of this piece:

As NewsBusters has been reporting, since President Obama once again proposed letting the Bush tax cuts expire for the highest earning Americans, the media have been supporting it almost 24 hours a day.

Doing his part this weekend was Chris Matthews who after the introduction of the syndicated program bearing his name actually began the show, "Why is taxing the rich so hard?" (video follows with transcript and lots of commentary):

Liberal media members better learn that if they step onto a set with CNBC's Becky Quick, they better bring their "A" game when talking about business and finance or they'll end up looking foolish.

Such was the case on this weekend's "The Chris Matthews Show" when Andrew Sullivan called Wall Street a "parasite class...producing nothing" only to be forcibly corrected by Quick (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Bill Maher and Eliot Spitzer on Friday's "Real Time" not surprisingly attacked Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) for his 2012 budget proposal.

Showing glimpses of the conservative that used to occupy his body many years ago, the Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan not only defended the Republican as deserving a lot of credit for his bold plan, but also exposed Maher and Spitzer as ignorant hypocrites when it comes to the nation's fiscal policy (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):

The far-left in America are having a collective conniption fit over President Obama's decision to attack Libya.

Included in the wolf pack is the Atlantic magazine's Andrew Sullivan who despite his preposterous claims of being a conservative appeared on "The Chris Matthews Show" this weekend and said, "I don’t know why anybody voted for Obama in the primaries...[now] we have this politicized Clintonian mess" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The March 7 Newsweek (NewsBeast) features an article titled "David Brooks Wants to Be Friends," but there's more bridge-burning than friend-making in this interview with James Atlas. Of course, he came up in Washington through conservative opinion journalism from the National Review, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and The Weekly Standard, but "something has changed." Conservatives are now more uncivil. Well, either that -- or his paychecks are now signed by PBS, NPR, and The New York Times:

But Brooks insists that something has changed in the past decade. Political discourse had grown coarse, he laments. Gone is the civilized era when “you had liberals and conservatives instead of Republicans and Democrats,” a time “before the parties devolved into teams,” each espousing its own “values” in voices grown increasingly shrill. For a high-profile journalist, he seems eager to keep his head down—it’s not a posture easy to maintain when he’s on TV every Friday night and his byline appears twice a week on the op-ed page of The New York Times.

“One of the toughest things about being a columnist is that people hate you,” he said. Hate is perhaps too strong a word; it’s not a sentiment Brooks tends to evoke in people. On the contrary, his balanced views are seen as strengths, not weaknesses.