Andrew Sullivan on Sarah Palin: for the love of God make him stop!

Just what the hell got into Andrew Sullivan this year?  His blog was one of the first I read, and I stayed sympathetic as he went from a standard conservative commentator to an increasingly anti-Republican one.  Hell, it must have been nearly impossible to be both a Republican and a vociferous gay-rights proponent.  But during the election he just got weird.  It wasn’t just the slavishly pro-Obama attitude, although that did make reading either his blog or his Sunday Times column more-or-less pointless.  It was more his shrilly furious reaction to Sarah Palin.

Now, there was a lot to oppose about Sarah Palin.  There was the inexperience (although it would be odd for such an Obama supporter) and the useless interviews and so on and so on.  But what Sullivan really hammered at was her pregnancy with her fifth child.  More than anyone else, Sullivan hammered on, and on and on, at the grubby little lie that “the real mother” was Bristol Palin, demanding that her high school attendance records be released, and that obstetricians give eye-witness reports of Sarah Palin giving birth.  Pausing for a second – what the hell gives Sullivan the right to demand that?  It’s grotesque.

When it was proved pretty conclusively that Bristol Palin couldn’t have been the mother – what with her being pregnant herself and all – Sullivan went off an a tangent – insisting that Sarah Palin was a hypocrite and a bad mother because she had amniocentesis.  Given that she is over 40, there was obviously a high risk of Down’s Syndrome, which in the event turned out to be the case.  In those circumstances, doctors will always put pressure on a mother to have an amnio.  And it’s entirely understandable that, even for a staunchly anti-abortion person, the certainty offered by an amnio is desirable.  But what the fuck is any of this to do with Sullivan?  Why does it matter to him?

Now you might think that this is all old news now.  The election’s over, Sullivan’s guy won and everybody’s happy.  Nope.

The McCain camp is now trying to dump Palin. But they picked her. And defended her. And we do not yet have full accountability. I won't relent till we do.

Give us the proof of Trig's maternity now!

He’s gone mad.  It’s like he has some peculiar fixation with someone, insists they spend all their time lying, stretching the definition while he does so and just won’t stop doing it well past the point where it’s become tedious and counter-productive and turns people away from his blog.  Good job that would never happen in the British blogosphere eh?