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 ad could have been a milestone of unintentional comedy were it not for the fact that so many Americans actually buy its central falsehood that same-sex marriage could impose anything whatsoever onto heterosexual marriages and families. Needless to say, the ad’s overblown, portentous bigotry practically begged to be parodied. I made calls to a few filmmaker friends with a mind toward producing one myself, but to do it right ended up being logistically impossible.

Fortunately, the popular comedy site Funny or Die soon rolled out their version, which more than filled the comedic void. Entitled “A Gaythering Storm,” it comes in at number six on my list of the top ten videos of 2009.

Quite a cast, huh? As a fan of Scrubs, I knew Sarah Chalke was funny. Conversely, I was caught off-guard by Jason Lewis, the the super-good-looking guy in the dark sweater, who connected squarely on the kind of punchlines that weren’t in the offing for his role as Smith, Samantha’s lover on Sex and the City. I got a kick out of George Takei’s just-campy-enough riff on his old Sulu-style declaiming, and I don’t recall seeing Alicia Silverstone be this funny (or indeed, even in a comedic role) since Clueless, the role that made her a star all the way back in 1996. But what really made the whole thing for me was the hilariously cloying “there is hope” conclusion delivered by one of my favorite comic actors, Jane Lynch.

Jane Lynch

My earliest recollection of Lynch is in Christopher Guest’s 2000 dog show mockumentary Best in Show. Since then, her unaffected comic élan has laid me out laughing in A Mighty Wind, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, and the first season of Party Down, a little-seen comedy series on the U.S. pay-cable Starz network (and in Canada on Super Channel) which I recommend.¹ Now Lynch appears to have broken through to a new, well-deserved level of fame as the overly-intense cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester on Fox’s hit series Glee: earlier this week her performance in the role earned her a Golden Globe nomination as Best Supporting Actress. Go Jane!

THIS WEEK’S QUESTION:
Name your seven favorite late-night talk show hosts.

Heh heh… not exactly a matter of earth-shattering importance, is it? Of course, there are plenty of earth-shattering things going on in the news right now without me bringing down the room even more. So here we go:

My Favorite Late-Night Talk Show Hosts

Johnny Carson. It feels a little odd to be putting him on this list of “favorites,” because there were a few things about Johnny that put me off a little. For example, sometimes with the “regular folks” guests (a bird-calling champion, a 90-year-old postmaster, a guy who’d had the hiccups for 30 years, etc) he would make jokes at their expense – just little asides or takes to the audience that struck me as cheap and mean-spirited. That said, there’s no denying the influence The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson had upon television, and the whole entertainment industry. It was the gold standard among late-night talk and variety shows. It was the show to be on, and stop number one for big-name stars with new movies coming out. A Tonight Show booking was the big shot every stand-up comedian hoped for. Indeed, the comedy boom of the 1980′s was composed largely of performers whose names were made when they cracked up Johnny Carson – Jerry Seinfeld, Garry Shandling, Roseanne Barr, Steven Wright, Ellen DeGeneres, and Drew Carey, to name just a few. It was entertaining and tremendously popular show, and the credit is due mainly to Johnny Carson. Plus, he had the grace to get out while he was still in good form; the same cannot be said of his successor Jay Leno, no matter if he is still ahead of Letterman in the ratings nor how many gazillions of dollars NBC pays him for continuing to suck.

David Letterman. I was a solid fan of Letterman beginning well back in his 12:30AM-after-The-Tonight-Show years. I always cottoned to Dave’s un-slick and un-polished, self-effacing kind of humor. Letterman was a little riskier at 12:30AM than he can be these days in the competitive 11:30PM slot. Back in the day there wasn’t always a top ten list – sometimes they’d instead do an inventively silly segment like “What Object Would You Like to See Dropped Off a Ten-Story Tower?” (As I recall, when viewed from above a load of watermelons look like fireworks going off as they hit the pavement, whereas bowling balls go about 3 stories back upward on the first bounce). I also treasure the memory of Dave looking out a Rockefeller Center window at Bryant Gumbel and Jane Pauley taping a live program in the plaza below, and then picking up a bullhorn to call out, “Citizens of New York! I am Larry Grossman, president of NBC News. This outdoor broadcast was my idea – and I’m not wearing pants!” I still like Dave, and although I don’t see his show too often anymore, I would credit his show for forming a lot of my comic sensibility when I was a kid.

Conan O’Brien. I’ll further admit that I see Conan’s show even less often than I see Letterman these days. Over the years, I have appreciated the unique flavor of humor his show has established. I don’t know about Conan being a great interviewer or anything, but I imagine he’s more concerned with entertaining his audience than being compared to Barbara Walters. Conan’s show has given the world the comedic masterpiece known as Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, which alone would be a worthy legacy. But beyond it all, Conan earned my eternal respect and admiration by having balls enough to tape an entire episode of his show before a live studio audience composed entirely of six-year-olds.

Bill Maher. Speaking of balls… I’m glad that Bill Maher has found the right TV home for himself at HBO. I’ve long been a fan of his comedy, especially because of its challenging and topical nature. Likewise, his show is consistently both substantive via its panel discussions, and funny via its set-piece segments. The odd thing is that even though I mainly agree with Maher politically and philosophically, I’ve become slightly weary of a few of his main beefs. I want to say, “OK, Bill: I get it. I may not necessarily share some your opinions, or share them only to an extent, but I certainly respect them. It’s just… does it really help the situation to mock religious people, married people, or people with children so bitterly?” There absolutely are issues there worth talking about, and worth joking about (of course). But Bill Maher occasionally crosses the line into demagoguery, and the world definitely doesn’t need more of that.

Jon Stewart. I could sit a very long time trying for an original combination of words to praise the brilliance of Jon Stewart and The Daily Show. I think if the past five or so years of TV have proven anything, it’s that the satire is mightier than the shout (even in the case of Stephen Colbert’s shouted satire). Aside from how penetratingly funny Jon Stewart routinely is, he can also be more just plain penetrating as an interviewer than anyone on I can think of on TV. I could struggle further to describe what I mean, but it wouldn’t be half as effective as simply posting this clip:

Stephen Colbert. I see Colbert as a separate category because The Colbert Repot really isn’t a talk show as such. The show does always have a guest, but Colbert upends the usual talk-show conceit by interviewing guests in character, the same way he is during the rest of the show. Most guests end up serving mainly as comic foils. Their “interviews” often don’t reveal much about them or their work, but they are quite often hilarious. If anything is consistently revealed by the interviews, it is how the subject reacts to a ludicrous moron who is nonetheless very sure of himself. As a conservative pundit in the O’Reilly/Hannity mold, the Colbert character’s unflagging ideological passion is fueled by pure “truthiness,” the term he famously coined on the first episode. “I love the truth,” he later explained to a guest, “but I hate facts.” The latest challenge for Colbert, it would seem, is to avoid becoming a victim of his own success. By now, almost all of his guests come in knowing what to expect from him and play along. Colbert is a sharp enough improviser to provide a lively exchange anyhow, but it’s hard to escape nostalgia for the days of his sit-downs with congressmen unaware of what they were in for:

Is that still only six? Aw, screw it – I’m going carpal tunnel from how long this post became anyhow.

Therefore, what out of this abundance of profound current events is it that has finally dragged me back to the blogging pad?

This past weekend, my previously blogged-upon fantasy football team, the E.J. Junior Sr. Junior High Grumpy Hippos, ended a dismal 2008 season out of the league playoffs.  In the two coming weekends of playoff games between the four qualifying teams, we remaining six losers have the option of playing each other in meaningless “grudge matches” if we want.

I emailed such a challenge to fellow playoff outcast Heath, our league’s commissioner, owner of the Opa Locka Bowlsnappers.  I reasoned that he would be smarting from his playoff exclusion more than anyone else, because it represents the end of his stunning streak of four consecutive league championships. What’s worse than missing the playoffs after a Snap da Bowl four-peat? Losing a grudge match to the league’s last-place team, i.e., mine.

Heath emailed me back a little while ago to accept my challenge. He did, however, ask me one question that I wasn’t immediately ready for: “What do you want to call the game?”

Having now spent a not-too-long but nevertheless indefensible amount of time considering possible answers, I turn now to you, the reader who somehow is here despite my not having posted in ages, to resolve this hugely significant matter. Please consult your deepest moral fiber, and vote.