Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 2746

The Gays and the Jews

by David Frum

I'm late getting to this WSJ oped by Jamie Kirchick, but it has important truths about subjects of intense interest to AndrewSullivan.com readers:

Earlier this month Madrid celebrated its annual gay pride festival, reputed to be the largest in Europe. ...

The municipality of Tel Aviv had originally planned to sponsor a float in the Madrid parade. But Spain's Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Transgenders and Bisexuals revoked the invitation following Israel's raid on the Gaza...

South Park Macho, Ctd

by Patrick Appel

Ambinder provides more evidence of the military's fondness for Trey Parker and Matt Stone:

Not only is Hastings' vignette [during his profile of McChrystal:] true, but the "collection" of people who
identified themselves with Team America had a special patch made for
their service. (It was created for them by a small company somewhere
in  Missouri.)   Here, for the first time, is an image of the patch
that cemented the camaraderie of Team McChrystal.

Trey...

How Politically Toxic Is Cutting Spending?

A reader writes:

The single best thing you can do to reduce federal spending is
refuse to link to articles that claim it would be easy
politically easy that don't actually specify any specific cuts
almost 50 years, we've heard exactly the same thing, we can
spending by cutting unspecified waste, fraud and abuse, it will
easy and we'll get to it when we get into
For 50 years, you've gotten no cuts in spending at all.

Politicians really do have a good sense of...

Chart Of The Day, Ctd

by Patrick Appel

A reader writes:

I'm not bisexual, but the logic of this statement seems faulty:

"This suggests that bisexuality is often either a hedge for gay people or a label adopted by straights to appear more sexually adventurous to their (straight) matches. "

What the chart suggests is that a bisexual person often is searching for a relationship with one particular sex. That is all. It does not say that the person is not attracted to the another sex. This is a subtlety that I think...

The Daily Wrap

Today on the Dish, BP finally stopped the leak and Argentina became the tenth nation to legalize same-sex marriage. Sharron Angle showed her cards on her media strategy, Jean Howard-Hill called out the GOP for blank-checking the Tea Party, and TNC sided with the NAACP.  Patrick compared two new polls on Palin, Litbrit rebutted Weigel over Trig, readers piled on, and Chris Rovzar saw everything work out for Bristol.

Weigel examined the comparison between militias and the New Black Panthers,

What's the Mission? A Bleg

by David Frum

Andrew last week generously linked to an article of mine explaining the evolution of my political thinking.

But the thing I'd most like to discuss in this week of cross-posting at Andrew's site is: where do we go from here? What's the mission?

And – maybe even more urgently – how do we express that mission in the clearest and direct way?

Here's my own elevator pitch describing what I'm trying to develop in my writing and political work:

"A reality-based, culturally modern, socially...

Dueling Polls

by Patrick Appel

Time says I don't need to worry about a Palin presidency:

Obama clobbered Palin, 55%-34%, in a hypothetical 2012 matchup that should have Democrats salivating.

PPP on the other hand:

Obama's numbers in our monthly look ahead to the 2012 Presidential race
are their worst ever this month. He trails Mitt Romney 46-43, Mike
Huckabee 47-45, Newt Gingrich 46-45, and is even tied with Sarah Palin
at 46.

So Obama is either tied with Palin or leading by 21 points. Glad we cleared that...

The Exaggerated Power Of Nudges

by Patrick Appel

This NYT op-ed by George Loewenstein and Peter Ubel argues behavioral economics is no panacea. Erik Voeten helpfully summarizes:

The policy implications from many behavioral economics studies areoften relatively pain-free from a political perspective. For example,they suggest that simply giving consumers a bit more information canencourage them to eat healthier, save energy, and make better healthcare choices. The problem, Loewenstein and Ubel assert, is that thesesolutions...

Face Of The Day

by Chris Bodenner

First lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden greet guestsan event about the Affordable Care Act at George Washington UniversityHospital on July 14. Hospital employees alsoattended this event, including Inger Mobley, left, Clinical Manager ofthe Breast Care Center. Obama pointed out new regulations in theAffordable Care Act that will require new health plans to cover thecost of preventive screenings for diabetes, high cholesterol and highblood pressure.  By Leslie E...

BP Stops The Leak?

by Patrick Appel

This is great news. In not so great news, Bradford Plumer looks at the damage done:

This doesn't mean the oil-spill disaster is over. There's a lot ofcrude bobbing along in the Gulf right now: Scientists estimate thatbetween 92 million and 182 million gallons have gushed out into theocean since the Deepwater Horizon platform first blew up back in April. BP is still using dispersantsto break up the oil and send it down to the sea floor, even though noone quite knows how the...