Andrew Sullivan’s story is inherently implausible, Johann Hari notes:
How did an HIV-positive gay Catholic conservative from the poky English town of East Grinstead end up as one of the most powerful writers in America?
That’s a good question. Before blogging, he made his name at the New Republic:
He began interning in his summers for the New Republic, the leading liberal magazine in America, which was slowly shifting rightwards under a new owner, Marty Peretz. Sullivan was talent-spotted and mentored by Leon Wieseltier, the stern, vigorously heterosexual scholar of medieval Judaism who edited the books pages with an increasingly neoconservative eye. Sullivan became his deputy—and within a year Peretz made the startling decision to fire the left-leaning editor, Hendrik Hertzberg, and replace him with Sullivan.“It was crazy,” he says now. “Daunted isn’t the word, I was terrified. I was 26 years old and overnight I was weekending in Hyannisport with Bobby Kennedy’s son and meeting Barbra Streisand and being photographed by Annie Leibovitz for a Gap advert.”
But he didn’t choose a cautious path. He instantly fired one of the liberal stalwarts of the magazine, Morton Kondracke, and made the magazine spikier. He drew in writers like Camille Paglia and Douglas Coupland. Advertising revenues soared by 76% during his editorship, but Sullivan’s innovations were itching powder to its traditional liberal readership. He championed welfare reform and helped destroy Hillary Clinton’s plans for universal health care.
At some point, the elders of the magazine turned on Sullivan, and Wieseltier’s support turned to hate.
The turning point came when he featured Charles Murray’s Bell Curve. That was unforgivable.