the boy who cried theocrat

A lot has happened during the two weeks that I've allowed this blog to lie fallow—including, notably, the annunciation of a new Pope: a spectacle that brought me just a little closer to embracing the Roman Church as my own.

I'm not there yet; too many doctrinal issues stand in the way. But if I ever do become a Catholic, I hope that by that time Andrew Sullivan will have just shut the hell up.

And so the Catholic church accelerates its turn toward authoritarianism, hostility to modernity, assertion of papal supremacy and quashing of internal debate and dissent. We are back to the nineteenth century. Maybe this is a necessary moment. Maybe pressing this movement to its logical conclusion will clarify things. But those of us who are struggling against what our Church is becoming, and the repressive priorities it is embracing, can only contemplate a form of despair. The Grand Inquisitor, who has essentially run the Church for the last few years, is now the public face. John Paul II will soon be seen as a liberal. The hard right has now cemented its complete control of the Catholic church. And so … to prayer. What else do we now have?

Presumably, Sullivan believes that the hand of God moves in human affairs, else the call to prayer rings a wee bit odd. So very telling, then, that he cannot countenance the possibility that the elevation of Cardinal Ratzinger was maybe—just maybe—God's will.

Stephen Bainbridge, who unlike me actually is Catholic, responded to Sullivan's hysterics with the provocatively titled Andrew Sullivan is an Ass. And the good professor makes a strong case.

But not strong enough for Reihan Salam, writing at The American Scene (scroll down to the end of his otherwise entertaining post).

About that Ratzinger, let me only say that whether or not you disagree with him, Andrew Sullivan - my captain for many years at what remains to my mind the greatest blog of all - is a force to be reckoned with. To caricature his views, as Stephen Bainbridge does, is to do yourself - not to mention an unusually sharp, generous, thoughtful man who knows his stuff - a disservice.

If anyone is “caricaturing”, it's Sullivan—or, perhaps, the crack about the “The Grand Inquisitor” is what passes for deep insight these days at AS.com. Salam has reason to defend the man with the deep blue website, though, as he not only knows Sullivan personally, but worked for some time as his letters editor. But last week I was feeling rather cranky and couldn't allow that bit about the “greatest blog of all” to pass unchallenged. Hence this.

Reihan,

Given your extensive personal and professional relationship with Sullivan, it is quite understandable that you would rise to his defense. Yet in his role as public intellectual over the past two years he has revealed himself to be just what Bainbridge describes.

Consider, first, his bipolarity over the Iraq war, which served only to reinforce the stereotype that gay men have the emotional makeup of junior high girls. The behavior of what Mark Steyn has called “moulting hawks” has been despicable over the past two years, and Sullivan has been the poster child for that sad, but overly influential, lot.

His litany of charges against the Administration over the war's aftermath displays a gobsmacking ignorance of both recent history and the reality of war. (Exhibit A is this piece from last July's Times, which I dissected here.) Sullivan was a groundbreaking blogger, but like so many others he has succumbed to the belief that just because he has an opinion, it must therefore be well-informed. To which the best response might be: What the f**k does an Oakeshott specialist know about ideal troop concentrations? Or the pragmatics of military occupation? Or of logistics and supply chains?

Not that Sullivan's cultural commentary has been any better of late. I'm not sure what is more infuriating: his solipsistic habit of defining the heart of true conservatism as coinciding with his own belief set, or his tarring of anyone who objects to unrestrained sexual libertinism as a bigoted theocrat.

Anyways. Perhaps I ought to quit caricaturing in your space and get back to doing it on my own blog.

All modesty (and the self-deprecating closer) aside, that is one quality diss. (Too bad that the impact was diluted by my inadvertently posting it three times.) Reihan's response is here; judging the winner is left as an exercise for the reader.

I was planning on taking this further tonight. Really, though, there's no point: when even arch-theocrat Glenn Reynolds [cough] is taking Andrew to the woodshed, there just isn't much sport in it any more.