One need have only the slightest awareness of the worldwide web’s developmentally hyper-accelerated nature to appreciate how remarkable it is for any web site to have remained in place for a decade. Still more remarkable is for that site to be a blog, one which speaks in the same voice on the same subjects as it did ten years ago. Yet while Sullivan’s voice maintains its distinctive tone and timbre, the spirit it expresses is in no way immoderate.

Andrew Sullivan
Photo: Flickr/Geoff Livingston

Although he self-identifies as a conservative, the generally positive regard that people like me have for Andrew Sullivan is one reason the capital-“c” Conservative Movement in the U.S. consider him a capital-“l” Liberal. Other reasons include his wholehearted endorsement of Barack Obama, his equally wholehearted opposition to Sarah Palin, his despair at the United States’ embrace of torture as an interrogation tactic¹, and, most fundamentally, his status as an out, proud gay man and tireless fighter for marriage equality and the repeal of DADT. The classical conservative bona fides he cites (which, naturally, oblige me to disagree with him a respectable portion of the time) are things like his opposition to progressive taxation, his support for free market health care and pharmaceuticals (grrr…) and his opposition to hate crimes laws.

Points of agreement or disagreement aside, there is no doubt that Sullivan’s words issue from a formidable well of expertise and experience. This alone could be reason enough to read his blog, but in fact it ain’t the half of it. What separates him from the pack of beige half-measurers, strident blowhards and other lesser voices is his exercising the wisdom of reconsideration. As long as I’ve read the Dish, he has never failed to give ample time to opposing viewpoints — be they posts by other bloggers or emailed “Dissent of the Day” notes (of which there are often more than one per day). Moreover, it is the sturdy honor with which Sullivan has owned up to past errors that vaults his judgment beyond most others in my esteem. Contrast this with the foolish consistency of small-minded punditiots who jackhammer away at the same patch of ideological ground year after year. Or, even more distressingly, superimpose Sullivan’s capacity for self-critique upon today’s politicians, who live in fear of doing anything that could possibly cause them to be called a flip-flopper.²

All of this is on display in Sullivan’s post “The View from My Window 2000 – 2010,” which I highly recommend. In quoting from it, I’ll try to indicate its worth without transplanting it wholesale.

My greatest failure by far in these ten years… was giving in to my legitimate but far-too-powerful emotions after 9/11 and cheerleading for a war in Iraq that remains one of the most disgraceful, disastrous and murderous episodes in the history of American foreign policy. I was wrong – but more than wrong, I was dismissive of those who turned out to be right… All I can say is that the great virtue of this blog is that it gave me nowhere to hide.

I remain very proud of a few things: …the part this blog has played in pioneering the equality of gay people in marriage and military service; of being among the first to recognize the potential of Barack Obama and being an integral and early part of his viral rise to the presidency, and to elaborating the core conservative and reformist rationales for his pragmatic presidency. I am also proud to have been among the first to see the deeply dangerous phoniness and authoritarianism behind the Palin cult, and to insist that her constant lies be exposed and that the core symbol of appeal to the base – the disgusting political abuse of a child with Down Syndrome – be subject to the same media skepticism that should be applied to every other aspect of her fraudulent and farcical candidacy for vice-president and now president. I remain proud that I did not flinch in exposing and writing about the hideous crimes of the Vatican hierarchy and my own church in the rape and abuse of countless children, and the refusal again of anyone truly to take responsibility and be accountable.

This all sounds very serious. We have lived in serious times. But I’d be remiss if I did not also say how much fun we have had as well. From ’80s music video contests to our now constant Mental Health Breaks… the wonder of that simple idea – The View From Your Window – that then became a weekly puzzle; the Poseur Alerts; the randomness of bear culture, beard disasters, straight anal sex, South Park out-takes, Hathos Red Alerts, baby panda sneezes … we’ve created an institution here that remains alive because we really don’t know what the fuck we are going to do next. And yes, I used the word “fuck”. Because I fucking well can, if I want to.

Fuckin’-A right, Andrew. Happy ten years, and keep on doing what you’re doing.

The news was broken to the blogosphere in a comment posted to his blog by his mother:

I don’t know how else to tell you all who love this blog. I am Jon Swift’s Mom and I guess I’m going to OUT him. He was Al Weisel, my beloved son. Al was on his way to his father’s funeral in VA when he suffered 2 aortic aneurysms, a leaky aortic valve and an aortic artery dissection from his heart to his pelvis. He had 3 major surgeries within 24 hours and sometime during those surgeries also suffered a severe stroke. We, his 2 sisters, his brother, his partner and his best friend since he was 9 years old were with him as he took his last breath. We have all lost a shining star who warmed our hearts, tormented us and made us laugh as he giggled at our pulling something over on us. He passed away on February 27, 2010. My beloved child will live on in so many hearts. I miss him more than I can say. If you are on Facebook, go to organizations and join “Friends of Al Weisel, Unite!” It will give you just a taste of how special he was. Farewell, Jon (Al)

I’m a late arrival to the outpouring of tributes to Al/Jon, and since I didn’t know him personally I have little to add. Little, but not nothing.

Jon Swift was the first high-ranking blog to include C&B in its blogroll. Why would he do me that favor? As he put it:

Although this is a conservative blog I have a liberal blogrolling policy. I will add anyone to my blogroll who adds me to theirs, whether conservative, liberal, moderate, libertarian or Albigensian, with the exception of spam or porn blogs or anything else your mother would be embarrassed to read.

His intention in doing this was the same one that spurred him to create Blogroll Amnesty Day — he believed in bloggers helping each other out and promoting each other. I see this as strong evidence of the kind of person he must have been.

Others can say far more from their own experience of knowing Al, beginning with the moving remembrance by his friend Jason Chervokas. An impromptu Blogroll Amnesty Day is taking place at Sadly, No! in his honor, for those who’d like to see and/or post links to good and little-known blogs. Lastly, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo seems to have become the de facto hub for all things related to Al’s passing.

As Jill effectively says over at Brilliant at Breakfast, those of us who didn’t know Al Weisel personally but only appreciated him are nevertheless affected by his death. His is one of the precious few blogs that stood as incontrovertible refutation to those who say there is nothing of substance or quality in the blogosphere. His passing is a loss to all of us who do this with any dedication. The man made a difference.

At least for now, his blog remains in place. At least as long as it does, it will also remain in my blogroll.

Over at Dissenting Justice, Darren Hutchinson makes a clear-eyed case that the current charges racism in the political health care clusterfuck are acting as a smoke screen:

I am a law professor who teaches Constitutional Law, Civil Rights, Race and the Law and other areas related to equality. I have spent nearly two decades researching and writing about race relations and public policy. With respect to the rightwing attacks on President Obama, however, I find the issue of race largely uninteresting.

…The issue of race has become the latest nonpolicy distraction for the media. Earlier, the media covered violence and mayhem at healthcare town hall discussions — rather than the substance of reform. It then covered the conflicts between moderate and liberal Democrats (rather than the substance of reform). Now, it is exploring whether the opposition to Obama is racist (rather than the substance of reform).

Here’s a thought: Analyze the substance of reform — rather than the subjective emotions that shape its opposition.

If only, huh? The problem with the MSM is that they are constantly seeking new angles to use in their coverage of the health care debate. This plays into the agenda of the anti-reform troglodytes, who have long since resorted to wild, unhinged bullshittery in order to divert focus from actual policy questions. Now it seems that Jimmy Carter, Maureen Dowd and others who have pointed out the implicit racism in the rabid condemnation of all things Obama may have played into the opposition’s diversionary hands.

The anti-Obama political coalition’s opposition to health care reform is indefensible in terms of good governance, hence their unleashing outrageous cries of Marxism, totalitarianism, socialism, Nazism, death panels, child brainwashing, and ostensibly, cooties. Never mind that their position denies cootie spray to all who can’t afford the non-formulary co-payment rate.

A young woman, shot by the Basij, dies in the streets of Tehran

Needless to say, there’s nothing at all cheeky or blustery about this. So why do I post it? Because here on the web is the only place these events can be relayed as they happen. And attention must be paid.

I couldn’t bring myself to embed the actual videos, hence the still images. The source videos on YouTube are here and here. (Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)

This morning brought a pitch-perfect jibe of a post by Anil Dash, a veteran tech blogger. He goes on just slightly too long, but does nevertheless hit the humorous bullseye. A sampling:

The whole worldA small number of super-geeky obsessives is abuzz over the upcoming launch of Facebook Usernames, an exciting new feature that will let you put some parts of your name into a web address.

Since its announcement yesterday, there’s been a lot of excited discussion of the feature, but in a dashes.com exclusive I can exclusively report this exclusive look at the future of the feature…

June 13, 12:01am: Facebook launches Facebook Usernames. The gold rush is on!

June 13, 12:01:45am: The first completely irrational, highly unlikely theory about how Google indexes Facebook Usernames is emitted from the ass-end of the SEO industry. …

June 13, 12:06am: The Facebook username system starts getting overloaded with new registrations, but their tech team clears it up in 20 or 30 minutes, for a total period of slowness of about 35 minutes.

June 13, 12:15am: A first wave of “It’s alive! Go get your name!” posts go up on various technology blogs, noting that the service is running a little bit slow. None of these posts mention that you can also register a real domain name that you can own, instead of just having another URL on Facebook.

June 13, 12:45am: TechCrunch discovers that one of its writers can’t get his preferred spelling for his name, and notices that registrations in the system are running a bit slow. A Twitter search reveals four other people discussing the same problems, and one person that can’t get to the feature at all. The phrase “The Facebook Username debacle” is first used, and becomes the preferred sobriquet for the feature forevermore. 70% of commenters mention that “Facebook Username” can be abbreviated “FU”, and each thinks he is the first to think of it. …

That’s probably more than I should excerpt, so check out the entire post over on Anil’s blog.

(Hat tip: Brooke Van Natta)