June 23, 2009
Andrew Sullivan, the Autopsy:Sullivan frequently employs a rhetorical trick that would seem pale, shabby, cheap, stupid, weak, and obvious in the hands of a less skillful writer, but that in his hands is a gorgeous case of knowing irony, shared with the reader. He publishes “letters” or “emails” from “readers” – blurbs that echo exactly his point of the day, week, or tedious lifetime, always perfectly in tune with the song sheet from which he is singing, always obviously written by Sullivan or one of his assistants – with the full understanding that no one is fooled, and no one could be. To add to the post-modern bouquet in these posts, Sullivan frequently offers “letters” that are laced with historical inaccuracy and flaws of logic so great that one would imagine their writers to be suffering from some particularly insidious form of dementia. Obviously, these only work if the writer and the audience know everyone’s in on the game; otherwise, it seems like a weak prop from an increasingly enfeebled mind incapable of even the barest sense of shame. -- Through the Looking Glass With Andrew Sullivan by Christopher Badeaux | The New Ledger
Posted by Vanderleun at June 23, 2009 9:47 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.