populist.org column on Sullivan and Judicial Nominations

Nathan Newman nathan at newman.org
Wed Jun 6 20:47:35 PDT 2001


----- Original Message ----- From: "kelley" <kelley at interpactinc.com>
>it was gratuitous use of the issue. not once did you even take up the
>complicated issues involved and couldn't be bothered to get much of it
>right. furthermore, i'm not debating personal lives in the least. this
>isn't about gossip but about the rhetorical use of naturalized sex and
>sexuality and it was, when i raised the barebacking issue, an attempt to
>have an adult conversation about sex panic politics and safer sex
>campaigns. there was no attempt to talk about some one person's private
>life, nathan.

Sure it was an attempt to talk about Sullivan's private life. You could have done posts at any time about sex panic politics, but you "gratuitously" used discussion of Sullivan to make your points. That's exactly the element of sexual McCarthyism- using the attack on one person's personal life to score political points.

As for "getting it right", unless you are a mind reader and can prove Sullivan's intentions are different than those stated in his response, there is no proof of what was really going on - which is the problem with debating personal lives. Proof is rarely clear at all where subjectivity dominates and intentions are rarely clear, even to many of the participants. I didn't talk about the "complicated issues" because to do so would have been exactly the personal gossip involved. Yep, launch a personal invasion, then demand a full debate on the details.


>now, could you explain to me why you 1. seem to think that signorelle is a
>civil libertarian and 2. where he expressed glee? or, do you frequently
>write opinion pieces full of fabricated claims?

I wasn't talking about Signorelle.. I was talking about those who passed on the story, including the media and those on LBO who took so much pleasure in exposing Sullivan's behavior.

-- Nathan



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