The Excedrin post
: Andrew Sullivan, the crown prince of weblog triumphalism, performs a doozie of a rhetorical doubleflip off the ideological high-dive in his analysis of the letter allegedly sent from bin Laden.
As I read that letter, I kept thinking that I was looking at this millenium's sand-soaked Mein Kampf. The more we learn about this guy and his anti-semitism and sexual ticklish spots and love of mass murder as a dark science, the more he looks like Hitler.
Sullivan makes a Mein Kamp reference, too. Great minds think alike, eh?
But then I had to laugh when the letter went on a Sullivan-like attack against Bill Clinton and own sexual ticklish spots; I thought that bin Laden and Sullivan sounded a lot alike right then; I thought Sullivan might be embarrassed at the similarity today; I thought he might even say that anybody's who's an enemy of bin Laden's is a friend of his; all's forgiven, Bill.
But no, not our Sully.
Here's what bin Laden allegedly said:
You are a nation that permits acts of immorality, and you consider them to be pillars of personal freedom. You have continued to sink down this abyss from level to level until incest has spread amongst you, in the face of which neither your sense of honour nor your laws object.
Who can forget your President Clinton's immoral acts committed in the official Oval office? After that you did not even bring him to account, other than that he 'made a mistake', after which everything passed with no punishment. Is there a worse kind of event for which your name will go down in history and remembered by nations?...
And here is what
Sullivan said in response:
If a domestic member of the Christian right had said this, the Left would be all over them. But when Islamists say it, we look the other way.
What the hell? Look the other way? Who says anybody's looking the other way? We're too busy laughing.
This is nothing but the stock Sullivan response: Bubaplate.
Ah, there's no better form of parody than unaware self-parody.
: Here, on the other hand, is Glenn Reynolds' direct response to the letter.
