Andrew Sullivan And The Liberal Straw Man

It's hard to credit blogger Andrew Sullivan for much, when he cluelessly gets things backwards (note: I'm not talking here about DMTC drummer Andy Sullivan - if Andy gets things backwards, everyone knows it instantly, including himself).

Andrew Sullivan makes lazy references to 'Kossers' - the people who read and support The Daily Kos, a leading liberal blog - and how it would drive them crazy to support Supreme Court Justice nominee Harriet Miers, because she is the probably the best nominee liberals can expect from George Bush. Sullivan teases the Democrats to support Miers, and states:

That, of course, would drive the Kossers up the wall. But the Kossers are a central reason for Republican dominance of the polity. The Miers nomination is therefore a golden opportunity for a potential Democratic presidential candidate to take on the far-left base. C'mon, Senator Bayh. He needs two core messages: he deeply values Miers' religious faith and personal integrity and believes there should be an up-or-down vote in the whole Senate. Out-Bush Bush, vote for Miers, and then sit back and enjoy watching Sam Brownback squirm. In general, I have always given presidents the benefit of the doubt on judicial nominees. I do again here - but want to see how Miers performs in the hearings. If she's really incompetent, we'll find out and she should be cashiered. But if she's just a meticulous nit-picker who believes that courts should intervene in politics as little as possible, why not vote for her? It's not as if she'd be the first mediocre crony in the court's history. For Dems, she'd be a lot better than most of the alternatives. And by her mere ascension to the court, as another reader points out, "these deep cleavages we are now seeing on the Right will be frozen in place, like a prehistoric fly trapped in amber." Wedge away, Dems.

So, what do they say over at The Daily Kos? Something rather similar!

We filibuster Miers, which might be successful with possible Republican defections, and then what? We got Janice Brown? Priscilla Owens? We filbuster them, then what? What's being accomplished? What's the end game? To drive home that Miers is the product of Bush cronyism? The Republicans are already doing that. That she's a tool of Big Business? Sure, let's make the point. But to try and filibuster a candidate who is not an extremist, as far as we know, does little to advance the Democratic agenda. And even if successful, we'd likely end up with something far worse.

It's early, and information may arise that makes Miers unacceptable, but that hasn't happened. Not yet. Crying "filibuster" at this point, merely because she was nominated by Bush, makes little practical sense.

Ask tough questions, definitely. Highlight the cronyism, corporatism that pervades everything Bush touches, sure. But knee-jerk opposition without regards to the facts on the ground is not healthy. Let's enjoy the Republicans eating their own for now. And if information arises that places her in the extremes of American jurisprudence, then we open up.

So, why is it that Andrew Sullivan can't be bothered to read what people write before he criticizes them? What is it with Sullivan's liberal straw man?