Amy Sullivan

Time's Sullivan to Nancy Pelosi: Stop Spooking the Pro-Life House Dems!
By Ken Shepherd | March 4, 2010 | 5:36 PM EST

Nancy Pelosi is her own worst enemy and Time's Amy Sullivan hopes to get that message across in her March 4 Swampland blog post, "Is This An Abortion Whip Count?"

Sullivan did some number crunching and found that, due to concerns about a lack of a restriction on abortion spending in the Senate bill, Pelosi may end up being a few votes shy of the threshold to pass the legislation.

Sullivan's advice to the Speaker? She just needs to moderate her testy tone to dupe enough pro-life Democrats to voting for a bill that lacks the Stupak amendment which was passed in the House version of the bill (emphasis mine):

Time's Sullivan Slams 'Flyover Country' Nebraska Dem for Pro-life Amendment
By Ken Shepherd | December 8, 2009 | 12:17 PM EST

<p>Time's Amy Sullivan has little use for moderate Senate Democrats throwing up any semblance of a road block, nay, even a speed bump, to ObamaCare, especially if it entails pro-life measures which would keep abortion from being covered by the taxpayer-subsidized government option. </p><p>&quot;What is it about those Nebraska governors-turned-senators?&quot; Sullivan huffed in the beginning of her <a href="http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/12/08/the-health-reform-abortion-wa... target="_blank">December 8 Swampland blog post</a>. &quot;Did they not get enough attention as children? Do they chafe at being told they hail from a 'flyover' state? Does that unicameral legislature leave too few adoring supporters?&quot;</p><p>Sullivan's ire was directed at Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson (D), who along with Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) has offered a pro-life amendment to the Democratic health care reform bill that Sullivan insists is all but doomed to fail and which is not likely a deal-breaker for either Sens. Nelson nor Casey when it comes to final passage:</p><blockquote>

Time's Sullivan Laments That Catholic Bishops Aren't Onboard ObamaCare Push
By Ken Shepherd | October 6, 2009 | 4:24 PM EDT

Time magazine senior editor and Harvard Divinity School alumna Amy Sullivan took to passive-aggressively chastising the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) for "moving the goalposts" on support for ObamaCare in a blog post at the magazine's Swampland blog today:

Last week the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sent a letter to U.S. Senators about current health reform legislation. The USCCB has supported the goal of universal health coverage for decades, but the letter made clear that they do not yet support the Senate Finance Committee's bill because of concerns about affordability, coverage for immigrants, and financing for abortion. I'd like to focus on that last point, because I think it's here that the bishops may be moving the goalposts on what they can and cannot accept.

Sullivan lamented that the bishops are not accepting the word of the Obama administration as the gospel truth when it comes to abortion:

Time: Conservative Bible Project 'Insane' but 'Green Bible' Evangelical-friendly
By Ken Shepherd | October 5, 2009 | 3:54 PM EDT

<p>A year ago Time magazine's David Van Biema wrote up <a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1842268,00.html" target="_blank">a short, favorable take</a> on the so-called Green Bible, an edition based on the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) that placed &quot;green references&quot; in &quot;a pleasant shade of forest green, much as red-letter editions of the Bible encrimson the words of Jesus.&quot; But wait, there's more, The Green Bible also includes &quot;supplementary writings&quot; several of which &quot;cite the Genesis verse in which God gives humanity 'dominion' over the earth&quot; and &quot;Others [which] assert that eco-neglect violates Jesus' call to care for the least among us: it is the poor who inhabit the floodplains.&quot;</p><p>Even though The Green Bible is risible both from a commercial standpoint as a marketing ploy and theologically as a bastardization of the real heart of Christian doctrine, neither charge was entertained as a valid criticism by the Time staffer. Van Biema even hinted that evangelicals, 54 percent of whom &quot;agreed that 'stricter environmental laws and regulations are worth the cost'&quot; might embrace the translation despite strong reservations from conservative theologians. </p><p>Yet the same reverent treatment was spared the online  <a href="http://conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible_Project" target="_blank">&quot;Conservative Bible Project&quot;</a> spearheaded by some folks at Conservapedia. Time's Amy Sullivan slammed the project as &quot;insane&quot; in her <a href="http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/10/05/coming-soon-the-new-internati... target="_blank">October 5 Swampland blog post</a>:</p><blockquote>

Time's Sullivan: Abstinence Ed 'Not the End of the World' Under a Democratic Administration
By Ken Shepherd | October 2, 2009 | 12:40 PM EDT

<p>One sign your news magazine might be out of touch with average Americans is when you take a look at abstinence-only sex ed guidelines and declare that, in the Obama administration's hands, it's &quot;<a href="http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/10/01/why-restoring-abstinence-fund... target="_blank">not the end of the world</a>.&quot;</p><p> Time's Amy Sullivan, however, aims to reassure skittish liberals weary of the Bush administration's socially conservative tack on sex ed funding:</p><blockquote>

Time's Amy Sullivan Plays Up Teddy's Catholicism, Utterly Ignores His 100-Percent Record on Abortion, Gays
By Tim Graham | August 28, 2009 | 8:15 AM EDT

Time’s Amy Sullivan seems to have a special assignment to try and play up the religiosity of liberal Democrats despite their libertine policy stands, from Barack Obama to Ted Kennedy. On Thursday, Sullivan underlined "Ted Kennedy’s Quiet Catholic Faith." How does that match with his ultraliberal political record on abortion and homosexuality, his perfect 100-percent scores with NARAL or the Human Rights Campaign? Sullivan simply ignores that obvious problem.

Time: Obama Decides to Declare No D.C. Church Home
By Tim Graham | June 29, 2009 | 8:24 AM EDT

Time’s Amy Sullivan, who worked tirelessly to sell Barack Obama as an acceptable choice for Bible-toting Evangelicals -- a choice that most evangelicals didn't accept -- reported Obama has refused to pick a D.C. church as his religious home. In his latest move copying George W. Bush, he’s going to designate the Evergreen Chapel at Camp David as his official church. Now go away, she insists to people still disturbed by his longtime pastor Jeremiah Wright.

Time's Amy Sullivan Snarks About Those 'Furious' Pro-Life Catholics
By Matthew Balan | May 21, 2009 | 2:49 PM EDT
Amy Sullivan, Time magazine | NewsBusters.orgTime magazine’s senior editor Amy Sullivan, who, like most of her peers in the mainstream media, is an amateur when it comes to religion, twice implied in May that the pro-life Catholics in the U.S. who are upset about President Obama’s recent commencement address at Notre Dame are more Catholic than Pope Benedict XVI. In a May 16, 2009 article on Time.com, Sullivan, the former aide to Democrat Tom Daschle, and the author of an entire book on how Democrats could appeal to Christians, snarked that the Pope “may find his next trip to the U.S. dogged by airplanes overhead trailing banners with images of aborted fetuses,” due to his purported silence on the matter.

Less than a week later on May 21, after outlining on Time’s “Swampland” blog that the semi-official Vatican news has been “calm” and “fairly positive” towards the Democratic president, “in stark contrast to the furious reaction of many conservative Catholics here,” the editor quipped, “Uh, oh. It sounds like the Vatican newspaper ‘doesn’t understand what it means to be Catholic.’” Sullivan, like the rest of the media, was also selective in the articles she chose to emphasize from the newspaper.
Amy Sullivan: Not Even the Vatican Cares About Obama's Notre Dame Speech
By Ken Shepherd | May 1, 2009 | 5:04 PM EDT

Dear religious pro-life Catholics, get over yourselves. Signed, Amy Sullivan.

Okay, I'm paraphrasing, but the Time magazine staffer practically expressed those sentiments in two April 30 Swampland blog posts wherein she suggests that even the pope wouldn't mind hanging out with Obama on stage at Notre Dame when he accepts his honorary doctorate later this month.

"The Vatican apparently needs to get on-message--its newpaper gives Obama's first 100 days a tentative thumbs-up," Sullivan snarkily noted in a an April 30 post entitled "The Phantom Menace," referring to the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), which Sullivan considers a virtually non-existent pro-life movement bogeyman:

[Ed Henry's press conference] question is a misstatement of Obama's campaign pledge to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund that "the first thing I'd do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act." Of course, before Obama could sign the bill, Congress would have to first pass it. And he's never expressed the hope that Congress drop what it's doing and prioritize FOCA.

Less than an hour later, Sullivan sought to marginalize conservative Catholics who are disturbed by Notre Dame honoring the very pro-choice President Obama:

Time's Sullivan Uses Berlusconi Gaffe to Bash Bush, Over Hurricane Katrina
By Ken Shepherd | April 8, 2009 | 6:04 PM EDT

George W. Bush has said nothing negative about his media-worshiped successor in the Oval Office. Yet that doesn't stop the liberal mainstream media for mocking the former president out of the blue -- while ignoring Obama gaffes -- for events that happened on his watch years ago.The latest example, Time's Amy Sullivan, on the magazine's Swampland blog today entitled, "Quote of the Day":

Time’s Amy Sullivan Misrepresents FOCA Battle, Obama's Abortion Support
By Matthew Balan | February 19, 2009 | 7:21 PM EST

Amy Sullivan, Time Magazine Senior Editor | NewsBusters.orgAmy Sullivan’s article on Time.com on Thursday, “The Catholic Crusade Against a Mythical Abortion Bill,” tried to downplay President Obama’s past and current support for abortion, and tried to use a technicality to “prove” that there is no chance of passage for the staunchly pro-abortion Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA): “...FOCA has also provided ammunition for those on the right who want to paint Obama as ‘the most pro-abortion president ever.’ It’s been less than a month since he took office, but so far the President has given social conservatives little evidence to back up that charge. He did repeal the Mexico City policy banning federal funds to foreign family planning organizations that provide abortion referrals or services — but so did Bill Clinton.” In reality, the Obama adminstration’s record on the issue consists of much more than merely support for legislative proposals and signing executive orders.

Time's Sullivan Impatient That 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Not Overturned Yet
By Ken Shepherd | February 11, 2009 | 1:19 PM EST

Hat-tipping gay blogger Andrew Sullivan, Time's Amy Sullivan (no relation) expressed impatience at the Obama administration for not moving yet on ending the ban on openly gay personnel serving in the U.S. Armed Forces.

Sullivan is chagrined that a Kansas National Guardsman was reportedly discharged after Army brass discovered her MySpace page in which she declared she is a lesbian.

Here's the February 11 Swampland blog post in full, entitled, "They Didn't Ask, She Didn't Tell, and Yet...":