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Announcing! Andrew Sullivan Award

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The Andrew!I'm simultaneously tweaking and making tribute to Andrew Sullivan's various awards.  The first award for which we will be taking nominations is the Andrew Sullivan award. This award will go to commentary that is overwhelmed by a tangential trip into the personal obsessions of the writer. This is a tricky category as some commentators specialize in certain subjects and therefore give their "take" on a story. One must distinguish carefully between an author's specialty where their expertise obliges them - and their obsessions.   Please send in your examples as they come.  More awards will be announced in the future and we welcome suggestions for more awards.
Posted on 1/30/2006 02:53 PM by Registered CommenterMichael Brendan Dougherty in | Comments6 Comments
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Reader Comments (6)

It would be hard to pick anybody for the initial Andrew Sullivan award other than Andrew and his obsession with the topic of torture. It's similar to the late Michel Foucault's obsession with prisons and bondage.



1/30/2006 10:25 PM | Unregistered CommenterSteve Sailer
Still, I think that an argument could be made that Sullivan has been turning his fascination with torture toward good ends, just as boys who are obsessed with fires, and have arsonist tendencies, often become firemen and make a noble career out of putting out fires.
1/30/2006 10:29 PM | Unregistered CommenterSteve Sailer
It is funny because I had you, Steve, in mind when I qualified the award by saying it can't be given to someone who is known for covering a certain "angle" on things. I was also thinking of Andrew Sullivan's obession with homosexual equality - which of course was the first thing he mentioned after scanning the Pope's first encyclical.
1/30/2006 11:29 PM | Registered CommenterMichael Brendan Dougherty
Sullivan obviously should win the award. Not only does he regularly obsess over homosexuality, his gayness regularly influences the rest of his writing. An example of this is his evolving attitude toward George Bush, which went from giddy, schoolboy crush in 2000 to the rage of a spurned lover in 2004, largely as a result of Bush's making some tepid comments in favor of protecting marriage. I am sure that other issues also played a role, but I have no doubt that, had Bush forthrightly supported "gay marriage," or at least forthrightly advocated leaving the issue to the states, Sullivan would have remained a Bush enthusiast, all the other issues notwithstanding.
1/31/2006 08:45 AM | Unregistered CommenterTom Piatak
Perhaps I should restrict the nominations to Andrew Sullivan.

I think I will keep a page on this site for the award and let people nominate the best examples.

I asked Steve this question but I will pose it to the public. After whom should I name the award for commentary best exhibiting the glee of victory immediately preceeding defeat. My example is the Joker laughing and monologuing just before his plans, his hopes and dreams are undone - as we knew they would be.

I think there will be a Ralph Peters award for most inexplicably hostile and wrongheaded commentary relating to allied or neutral countries.
1/31/2006 09:33 AM | Registered CommenterMichael Brendan Dougherty
"I think there will be a Ralph Peters award for most inexplicably hostile and wrongheaded commentary relating to allied or neutral countries."

And you could offer the Michael Ledeen Award for most explicably hostile and wrongheaded commentary.
1/31/2006 09:40 PM | Unregistered CommenterSteve Sailer

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