Close readers of Andrew Sullivan will be familiar with some of his less endearing habits: his promiscuity in handing out misleading labels to those with whom he disagrees , his tendency to shift ground in the middle of a debate, his apparent lack of interest in describing his opponents' views accurately

National Review, March 27, 2006

Close readers of Andrew Sullivan will be familiar with some of his less endearing habits: his promiscuity in handing out misleading labels to those with whom he disagrees ("Christianist" is his way of comparing conservative Christians to al-Qaeda), his tendency to shift ground in the middle of a debate, his apparent lack of interest in describing his opponents' views accurately.

Sullivan set a new standard the other day when he insinuated that Robert P. George of Princeton had no great objection to killing abortionists. In follow-up posts, he alternately denied that he had insinuated any such thing and repeated the insinuation. NR's Ramesh Ponnuru pointed out that George had said that Christians should pray for abortionists, love them ungrudgingly, and never give up hope that love would transform them. Sullivan maintained, absurdly, that these admonitions were compatible with wanting to kill abortionists. He then accused Ponnuru of favoring laws against masturbation, because that's the sort of thing Christianists believe. When Ponnuru denied holding that view, Sullivan responded that he was lying--that being, again, another well-known trait of the Christianist. Sullivan then posted an anonymous e-mail from someone who had gone to college with Ponnuru, portraying him as an ideological chameleon who poses as a liberal or a conservative depending on the needs of the moment. Keep in mind that Ponnuru has worked for NR his entire adult life, while Sullivan is the only self-described "conservative" in America who endorsed John Kerry for president. You can see why Mickey Kaus calls him "excitable Andrew." But excitability is no excuse for libel.