Wednesday IBR Recap
Feb. 15th, 2007 08:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daddytoddA dozen early IBR arrivals wound up eating at a Chinese place a couple blocks from the hotel last night; Carousel Gourmet, I believe it was called. It was cheap, and not bad. Oh, and did I mention it was cheap?
Sat in the lobby before dinner and talked at length with Stevo Harris of "A Bear's Life" magazine. He told me about his interview with Andrew Sullivan, which will be in the next issue (out in a couple weeks.) He said Sullivan was genuinely contrite about having carried water for the Bush Regime, and honestly sorry... that Sullivan became quite emotional talking about it. I asked if Sullivan seemed sincere, or if he was just doing bullshit damage control to salvage a wrecked reputation with the LGBT community. Stevo believes Sullivan to be sincere in his regrets. I'm not yet convinced; I'd need to ask Andrew my own set of questions before I believed his repentance, but I did start to get a sense of Sullivan as a man, and not as PURE EVIL, which is, quite frankly, how I have perceived him since 1999 or so, when I first became aware of him.
So I said to Stevo, "Please, don't humanize Andrew Sullivan! I don't want my villains humanized. I don't want to know that Hannibal Lecter is just a misunderstood little boy, or that Darth Vader was an adorable moppet!" But alas, I fear I might have to approach Sullivan as a flawed (deeply flawed, from my perspective) human being, and not as the essence of quisling backstabber, willing to sacrifice his LGBT brothers and sisters for a tiny shred of political glory and financial gain.
Hmmm, not sure I'm ready to abandon that last bit. It's gonna take some time before I can see Andrew Sullivan as anything but "a deeply flawed, though human, quisling backstabber willing to sacrifice his LGBT brothers and sisters for a tiny shred of political glory and financial gain." Yeah, that works!
I hadn't intended to talk so much about politics.
So, after dinner, we went over to the Lone Star for a couple hours. It was slow at first, but got busier by 11pm or so. John was having a great time, getting all kinds of attention from handsome daddies and bears. Yay John!
Sat in the lobby before dinner and talked at length with Stevo Harris of "A Bear's Life" magazine. He told me about his interview with Andrew Sullivan, which will be in the next issue (out in a couple weeks.) He said Sullivan was genuinely contrite about having carried water for the Bush Regime, and honestly sorry... that Sullivan became quite emotional talking about it. I asked if Sullivan seemed sincere, or if he was just doing bullshit damage control to salvage a wrecked reputation with the LGBT community. Stevo believes Sullivan to be sincere in his regrets. I'm not yet convinced; I'd need to ask Andrew my own set of questions before I believed his repentance, but I did start to get a sense of Sullivan as a man, and not as PURE EVIL, which is, quite frankly, how I have perceived him since 1999 or so, when I first became aware of him.
So I said to Stevo, "Please, don't humanize Andrew Sullivan! I don't want my villains humanized. I don't want to know that Hannibal Lecter is just a misunderstood little boy, or that Darth Vader was an adorable moppet!" But alas, I fear I might have to approach Sullivan as a flawed (deeply flawed, from my perspective) human being, and not as the essence of quisling backstabber, willing to sacrifice his LGBT brothers and sisters for a tiny shred of political glory and financial gain.
Hmmm, not sure I'm ready to abandon that last bit. It's gonna take some time before I can see Andrew Sullivan as anything but "a deeply flawed, though human, quisling backstabber willing to sacrifice his LGBT brothers and sisters for a tiny shred of political glory and financial gain." Yeah, that works!
I hadn't intended to talk so much about politics.
So, after dinner, we went over to the Lone Star for a couple hours. It was slow at first, but got busier by 11pm or so. John was having a great time, getting all kinds of attention from handsome daddies and bears. Yay John!
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no subject
Date: 2007-02-16 03:00 am (UTC)I remember it like yesterday, and had a serious discussion with my partner about what he said. My gut reaction was, Powell is a reasonable guy and if he's laying it out like that, it's probably true. It took about a week for the "but wait a minute..." thoughts to become more apparent. Sullivan had a much closer view, but from what I think I understand of this administration, I can't call that mistake the result of blindness.
I was myself an agnostic. I found the arguments in favor of war significant, but not compelling enough to cast a vote in support of it. If Sullivan was 70% in favor of the war, I was only 35% in favor. But I can easily imagine where an extra 35% might have come from.
I also wonder if my attitude towards him is affected by having never seen him on television.