Andrew Sullivan, perhaps the most hypocritical of all liberal bloggers, a role that has made him a frequent guest on liberal broadcast and cable news shows, exposes his remarkable hypocrisy by expressing diametrically opposed points of view on advertising boycotts.
Here’s how he expressed his opinion of the advertiser boycott of Glenn Beck on Sep 30, 2010:
As you probably know, Fox host Glenn Beck has been losing lots of advertisers — about 20 so far, including Wal-Mart, CVS and GEICO — for calling Barack Obama a “racist” with a “deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.” I clicked around to see what people on the right were saying about the donnybrook, and found this page from RedState.org, which appears to be organizing a counter boycott, or is at least offering the sinister warning that “there will be repercussions from our side if [these companies] are so willing to become pawns of the left.”
… And yet I cannot help but think there is a crucial difference between GEICO’s decision to drop Glenn Beck and RedState’s decision to drop GEICO. The difference is this: Wal-Mart has a good reason to boycott Beck, because Beck actually did something idiotic and indefensible.
So there you have it. If someone says something idiotic and indefensible, they deserve to be boycotted by advertisers. Unless, of course, the target of a boycott is liberal, in which case Sullivan effortlessly switches to the opposite position.
As you may be aware, the liberal website Wonkette is now experiencing its own advertiser boycott after running a remarkably offensive article last week about Sarah Palin’s handicapped son Trig. That caused Sullivan, who is obsessed with the belief that Bristol Palin is Trig’s real mother, to experience a sudden change of heart.
Here’s his reaction to an advertiser boycott of Wonkette:
I feel as queasy about this flexing of Palinite muscle as I do about the original, disgusting, asinine story. In some ways, I see a legitimate come-uppance for a tacky site that published a simply inexcusable piece of mean-spirited dreck using a child who cannot defend himself, treating him as if he were subhuman, which he most definitely isn’t. But I also recoil from mob action like this, for the impact it has on fearless free speech and the chilling effect it will have on an already cowed and defensive MSM when covering the truly tough stuff about Palin.
Please allow us to summarize Sullivan’s highly nuanced position as we understand it:
Boycotts of conservatives, good. Boycotts of liberals, bad.
Source: TheAtlantic.com, NewsBusters.org
