..."Sullivan", of course, being Andrew Sullivan, who did a full 180° spin (I was going to say pirouette, but that would be a little too much) on Bush when Bush announced his support for the detestable Family Marriage Amendment. Suddenly, Bush could do no right, and Sullivan had to, um, adjust a few of his positions to fit his new worldview. Sullivan's site started looking more like a slightly more coherent Eschaton (without comments).
This month's contestant is John Cole. For him, the trigger was the Terri Schiavo case. Cole has always been willing to criticize the GOP's excesses (he has had a post category entitled "Republican Stupidity" for quite some time), but his sudden hatred of Republicans has endeared him to a whole new set of commenters from Daily Kos, who rejoice in what they consider to be a "Rational Right-winger". Since April 1st, Balloon Juice has been wall-to-wall Republican bashing; in just the last week he has trained his sights on Delay, Frist, Sensenbrenner, Lugar, religious conservatives in general, Sean Hannity, and bloggers Hugh Hewitt, John Hinderaker, Bryan Preston and Misha. The only non-Republican bashing posts were a snipe at Robin Givhan and a post about GM's woes.
John has not really changed any of his views, other than allowing his religious apathy to veer towards antipathy, and (in his most recent post) a desire to have the government dictate to business what they are required to stock (pharmacies and "Morning After" Pills). He certainly has altered the tenor and focus of his posts, however, to reflect his new focus. I hope he snaps out of his funk, because I tend to agree with much of what he says, just not his tenor or his emphasis. He's even taken pains to bash Republicans over the Schiavo memo, while totally ignoring Howard Dean's identical politicization of the issue.
(As an odd aside, I moved Balloon Juice into my "All the Time" blogs when I dropped Andrew Sullivan out of that position. Is there a curse on my blogroll?)
posted on April 19, 2005 08:32 PM
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