Author: Andrew Sullivan

Brent Bozell says I’m no “conservative.” Enjoy. Label debates are silly. But I should say, for the record, that I favor the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, have been horrified by the incompetence of the occupation, but have been trying to make constructive arguments for how to win for quite a while now. Yes, I oppose the torture and abuse of military detainees. I’m a little stunned that this is now something that now requires one to be seen as a “liberal.” I support almost all of Bush’s tax cuts (I support the estate tax) but also believe in balanced budgets and spending restraint (heretic!); I oppose affirmative action; I oppose hate crime laws; I respect John Kerry’s military service; I believe all abortion is morally wrong and that Roe vs Wade was dreadful constitutional law (but I do favor legal first trimester abortions); I support states’ rights, especially in social policy, such as marriage; I oppose the expansion of the welfare state, as in the Medicare prescription drug plan; I supported John Roberts’ nomination and Sam Alito’s; I believe in a firm separation of religion and politics, but I certainly take faith seriously and wrestle with my own. As regular readers know, I’m no fan of the far left. At some point, I have endorsed every single Republican president in my adult life. All of that makes me a “liberal.” Imagine what it now takes to be a “conservative” in Brent Bozell’s eyes.

READING IN THE JOHN: Ok, well maybe papers are going to die after all:

Your reader appears to make a strong point with his “pooper paper” argument, yet reveals himself as little more than a lavatory Luddite when he somehow neglects to consider the widespread impact of Blackberries and Sidekicks on media consumption and pooping patterns. Like you, I happily (well, sometimes more happily than others) read the Economist, the NY Times and the rest on the John, except that I’m on economist.com and nytimes.com and I’m reading them on my Sidekick. Not only that, but using the built-in AOL Instant Messenger, I can instantly communicate my views on the news to other tech-savvy bowel movers. The only paper I need in the bathroom is the TP itself. Except, I should note, when I’m trying to access AndrewSullivan.com – for some unknown reason (an abundance of etiquette on your part, let’s just say) the Daily Dish will not load onto my Sidekick.

There’s even data to back this up. When we move to Time.com, I’m sure you’ll be able to coordinate my political movements with your other ones. Until then …

Mark Levin has apparently not read any of the government reports about torture or the Red Cross reports. I have. They do indeed deal with Abu Ghraib, the worst of which we have yet to see, but they also cover the broader issue of how the abuse occurred, how techniques used at Guantanamo Bay “migrated” to Abu Ghraib, and how legal decisions made at the very top of this administration played a part in compounding a horrible problem. The Red Cross reports document horrifying abuse and torture in every theater of combat. Levin asks for more specifics. Has he ever heard of the “Salt Pit” in Afghanistan? The murder at Bagram? The CIA directives for “waterboarding,” now apparently authorized against eleven detainees, according to the Washington Post? Levin can read my now-dated summary here. Or he can read the excellent source for my review, Mark Danner’s compilation of all the Bush administration memos permitting torture, as well as the abundant reports of real cases. More published reading material can be found here. The press reports are too voluminous to compress here, but they show a consistent pattern of abuse and torture, followed by non-punishment or nominal investigation. Levin can read about a few of these incidents and cases here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. There’s much more, but I presume my own obligation to improve Levin’s access to the facts has been fulfilled. I recommend Google as well.

“I’m interested in the news, I’m not all that interested in the opinions,” – president Bush on what he reads (and doesn’t).

The Powerline partisans oppose McCain for the usual reasons. (And there are legit reasons to differ with McCain, and I’ve gotten into a few arguments with him myself). But they haven’t called him “pro-terrorist,” as an email from GOPUSA did. If you oppose torture, you are, of course, in favor of terrorism. Welcome to today’s Republican activists.

Here’s a reason submitted by a reader:

I agree with Don Graham’s assessment that news is moving online, but I’m going to degrade myself and defend the paper version for one simple reason: “the pooper paper”.
If and when all newspapers move to an online form, I’ll simply have to stop going to the bathroom. Every day, I get the news online, but I get detailed news in the bathroom. Every paper has editorials, special reports about local families, even bizarre classified ads from women who want to do things no other human wants. So, for the sake of humanity, there is always going to be a paper version of the news. I’ve tried reading a laptop in the bathroom and it’s just not the same.

Ah, yes, the bog-read. That’s where I absorb the NYT Book Review, Entertainment Weekly, Commonweal, and the Economist. Dead trees still have their uses. And in my recent case of what turned out to be food poisoning, I read a lot.

The fight continues. Background here.

FRYING RICE: Ivo Daalder tries to make sense of her latest op-ed.

Greg Djerejian, as so often, is on the case. Actually examining reality in Iraq, rather than massaging government p.r. is beyond some conservatives, alas. Not Greg. And not Kissinger. Djerejian is particularly withering about the delusional pro-Bush hacks at the Belmont Club.

A soldier encourages us to avoid depression about the painfully slow progress in Iraq. He’s right. Here’s some rank speculation. If the president understands that his ultimate legacy will indeed be Iraq, and that history will judge him primarily on that matter, then he needs a successor. This process will take real time and relentlessness. Who better than McCain? He can recast conservatism away from its intolerant, sectarian trend and back to the center. And he can bring to the war ferocity and humanity and trust. A McCain succession would not only be good for the country but for Bush as well. Especially if he anoints McCain himself.

I met Gene McCarthy a few times. He and TNR’s editor-in-chief, Marty Peretz, went back a very long way, and McCarthy would occasionally drop by the office and read a poem or two and ask gingerly if we’d publish them. Every now and again, we would. Others can better testify to his historic importance, but what was clearly admirable about him was his utter integrity to himself. And not an idealized version of himself: the flawed man, alone, in front of his God, doing what he believed was the right thing, even if it led nowhere, even if it was quixotic, even when he doubted it himself. That freedom of action is what will be recalled about him, and it was a freedom that almost by itself changed the fate of the Vietnam War, and of American history. McCarthy had the audacity to articulate in public his inside voice; and it pierced through the cacophony. The same, of course, can be said in a way of Richard Pryor. His own reinvention as a comic – the moment he withdrew and re-emerged as a radically new and hilarious voice – was a turning point in American popular culture. It was a watershed in how we think of race. It was a moment when a deeper truth emerged through a new comedy. Again: all that he needed was the courage to testify to his own life, and the voices he had heard around him, and to gamble everything on it. Every time you laugh at the early Eddie Murphy or Dave Chappelle, you are laughing somewhere at Richard Pryor. Both McCarthy and Pryor, of course, look a little tragic as well. Pryor’s life was a human car-wreck, with the last few years in slow motion. McCarthy separated from his wife and died in a nursing home, beloved more as an eccentric than as the bravest man in a dark hour. For me, they both represent America at its best: true to themselves, dedicated to freedom of expression, unapologetic about their uniqueness, often indifferent to what society thought of them. The great and too-often missed achievement of Western freedom is the way in which it allows true, eccentric, inspired individuals to rise. Pryor and McCarthy were giants in this, the most under-rated project of our way of life.

Are some coming around? They may have no choice. But the religious right and pro-torture hardliners will balk. For me, McCain was my candidate in 2000, and remains easily the best of the Republican field. People also forget how conservative he actually is: on spending, on winning the war, on abortion. I know it’s now conservative heresy to believe in balancing budgets, humane, competent warfare, and civil rights, but, hey, heretics sometimes turn out to be the real guardians of a lost tradition. But here’s what McCain really does. He brings back honor to the White House and trust to government. Some things can be priced. Others cannot.