Blogads, the savior of blogdom, is running a survey on blog readers. Please take it. It will help all of us. For question 16, which asks which blog you read, write “andrew” or “sullivan” if you want to represent this site. Cheers.
EMAIL OF THE DAY: “I’ve been a devoted reader of your blog since its inception five or six years ago. I’m a stalwart Democrat, and I disagreed with you for quite a bit of time – particularly the years immediately after 9/11 – yet I continued reading. I was studying in Cairo for 9/11, and the sentiments you called upon seemed completely alien to me, as your assessment of Bush seemed ridiculous; when you declared that you couldn’t have imagined a competent Gore response to 9/11, I couldn’t have disagreed more.
However, I suddenly feel a similar sentiment. I’m currently in Damascus, and I’ve been following the events in neighboring Lebanon quite closely. And all I see are Bush administration successes, from Ukraine to Iraq to Lebanon to Egypt. The transitions to democracy in all of these countries is hardly a fait accompli – both Iraq and Lebanon could still descend into sectarian civil war, and Egypt has hardly begun – but they are immensely heartening. And it’s hard not to credit Bush. More worryingly (for me at least), it’s hard to imagine a Kerry responding to Hariri’s assassination as perfectly. This may be unfair – I’m a big fan of Joe Biden – but I have to confess that Bush’s radical liberalism feels quite justified by current events. I’m waiting for a Democratic foreign policy that’s not only competent – and I’m still convinced that the Democratic foreign policy establishment has many more competent than, say, Rumsfeld – but also idealistic. Idealism is powerful, and this is something Bush realized and I didn’t. But the people of the Middle East certainly do understand this, and hopefully the Democratic foreign policy establishment will follow suit.”
The Dish 