Andrew Sullivan: A Very Full Sack of It

[womzilla]

Josh Marshall--my favorite pundit--has an essay in The New Yorker about the question of America and empire.

Andrew Sullivan, not even in the running for my least favorite pundit because he's so transparent, lied about the essay on his website:

SPOT THE MISSING PIECE: Josh Marshall has written an engaging and artful essay about the notion of an American empire for the liberal New Yorker magazine. I read it yesterday and then re-read it. Josh manages to write about the Clinton era "soft-imperialism" and the Bush era "hard imperialism" with nary a mention of a certain even that occurred on September 11, 2001.

He somehow missed this:

After September 11th, a left-wing accusation became a right-wing aspiration: conservatives increasingly began to espouse a world view that was unapologetically imperialist. You could watch this happening in Washington’s think tanks. Over their lunchroom tables, in their seminar rooms, on the covers of their small magazines, the idea of empire got a thorough airing--particularly among ideologues close to the policymakers planning the war on terror.

Last week, Sully (as he's unaffectionately known) appeared on NPR with leftie blogger Atrios and went out of his way to accuse Atrios of lying. Sully was lying then, too.

It's called "projection"--accuse your enemies of the crimes you are committing or planning to commit. It's one of the cornerstones of right-wing discourse in the US. Don't let it go unnoticed.