Andrew Sullivan has long been a staunch supporter of President Bush and the war in Iraq.
Lately, he’s had a lot of problems with Bush especially over Bush’s fiscal recklessness and his proposed Constitutional Amendment limiting marriage to a man and a woman.
He has now written a long-winded endorsement of John Kerry for president. He seems to be trying to justify many of his previous positions while at the same time condemning Bush for having the same positions but not giving them up.
We should at least be grateful to see an admission from him that he has gone overboard in his support for Bush at times and may share some responsibility for compounding the problem that we are in.
But, in every election, we decide on unknowables. When I read my endorsement of George W. Bush of four years ago, I see almost no inkling of what was about to happen and the kind of president Bush turned out to be. But we do the best we can in elections, with limited information and fallible judgment. I should reiterate: I do not hate this president. I admire him in many ways - his tenacity, his vision of democracy, his humor, his faith. I have supported him more than strongly in the last four years - and, perhaps, when the dangers seemed so grave, I went overboard and wilfully overlooked his faults because he was the president and the country was in danger. I was also guilty of minimizing the dangers of invading Iraq and placed too much faith, perhaps, in the powers of the American military machine and competence of the Bush administration. Writers bear some responsiblity too for making mistakes; and I take mine. But they bear a greater responsibility if they do not acknowledge them and learn. And it is simply foolish to ignore what we have found out this past year about Bush’s obvious limits, his glaring failures, his fundamental weakness as a leader. I fear he is out of his depth and exhausted. I simply do not have confidence in him to navigate the waters ahead skilfully enough to avoid or survive the darkening clouds on the horizon.
I share his concerns about John Kerry as president and agree with him when he notes that a Democratic president with a Republican Congress may help to keep the excesses of both parties in check, something that has not happened in the past four years.
Domestically, Kerry is clearly Bush’s fiscal superior. At least he acknowledges the existence of a fiscal problem, which this president cannot. In terms of the Supreme Court, I have far more confidence in Kerry’s picks than Bush’s. In 2000, Bush promised moderate, able judges; for the last four years, he has often selected rigid, ideological mediocrities. Obviously, Kerry’s stand against a constitutional amendment to target gay citizens is also a critical factor for me, as a gay man. But I hope it is also a factor for straight men and women, people who may even differ on the issue of marriage, but see the appalling damage a constitutional amendment would to to the social fabric, and the Constitution itself. Kerry will also almost certainly face a Republican House, curtailing his worst liberal tendencies, especially in fiscal matters. Perhaps it will take a Democratic president to ratchet the Republican party back to its fiscally responsible legacy. I’ll take what I can get.
Sullivan also makes an excellent point at the beginning of his article that I think is well-worth repeating.
The phrase “lesser of two evils” often comes up at this time every four years, but this November, I think, it’s too cynical a formula. Neither George W. Bush nor John F. Kerry can be credibly described as “evils”. They have their faults, some of which are glaring. They are both second-tier politicians, thrust into the spotlight at a time when we desperately need those in the first circle of talent and vision. But they are not evil. When the papers carry pictures of 50 Iraqi recruits gunned down in a serried row, as Stalin and Hitler did to their enemies, we need have no doubt where the true evil lies.
I believe that he contradicts himself when he goes on to point out the disaster of Abu Ghraib.
I would add one more thing: Abu Ghraib. In one gut-wrenching moment, the moral integrity of the war was delivered an almost fatal blow. To be involved in such a vital struggle and through a mixture of negligence and arrogance to have facilitated such a fantastic propaganda victory for the enemy is just unforgivable. In a matter of months, the Bush administration lost its casus belli and its moral authority. Could they have run a worse war?
He sees evil when 50 Iraqi recruits are gunned down, but in supporting the war he has not seen evil in the thousand of innocent civilians, many of them children, who were gunned down on Bush’s orders. He still can’t admit to this, even after admitting the Bush all the reasons why Bush took us to war in Iraq have been discredited.
I’m afraid you can’t have it both ways. If killing innocent people by one side is evil, it is also evil when done by the other side.
The only thing that changes that equation is faith and it only changes it in the mind of a true believer. A person can convince himself, he can believe that his killing of innocents is moral and justified when he sees his cause as morally superior to another’s.
Sullivan rightly notes many of Bush’s failures. There is unfortunately one that he left out. He doesn’t even mention that President George W. Bush has killed thousands more human beings that Osama bin Laden. He has taken all those human lives, without capturing bin Laden and by toppling Saddam Hussein he has left the country overrun with terrorists who were not there before. Stockpiles of weapons that were one point at least contained and controlled, are now in the hands of whoever looted them after Hussein was toppled.
Hussein is in jail but he is still alive and well-fed. Osama bin Laden is still a free man with hundreds of millions of dollars and a growing terrorest network that has been shown many pictures of dead Iraqi civilians and children (something the American networks rarely show). They will not be moved by the sight of 50 Iraqi recruits lying dead on the ground because those men had been recruited by the coalition that left their streets stained with the blood of innocents.
While I’m glad that Sullivan has finally seen that there is fundamentally wrong with Bush, he still faiths to see the evil that drives both sides and fuels his own misperceptions. That evil is mistaking one’s faith for truth. It is that evil that is creating the horrors of the world we live in today, as it has done throughout human history.
Both Bush and Kerry claim to be men of faith and while that does not make them evil, it shows that they are not above embracing the evil of faith as a substitute for truth. We can see where that has taken us in the past four years.
Sullivan says this election is about the lesser of two risks. Our lives are threatened by faith-based beliefs, just as sick people are more likely to be harmed by a witch doctor than one trained in science. Given that both Kerry and Bush claim faith as a driving force in their lives, we can expect the equivalent of superstition and voodoo to play a role in our government’s policies no matter who gets elected.
But it seems quite clear to me that Bush is much more sure of his faith than Kerry. For Bush faith and knowledge, faith and evidence are equivalents and that is why he is the greater risk.
Kerry has more doubts, which at times is bad, but after four years of a man who appears incapable of doubting his own faith no matter how strong the evidence to the contrary, that makes Kerry less of a risk.
Like Bush, Osama bin Laden has few if any doubts about his faith. Look at where it has gotten us.
