Claremont Independent

Andrew Sullivan, popular blogger and author, came to speak at the Athenaeum on January 29. Sullivan, who maintains he’s still a conservative, wasted no time getting into the meat of his speech: the Bush presidency. He began by summing up how he viewed, “in a sense,” the Bush administration’s legacy. He talked about how Bush’s career as a president pre 9-11 contrasted with his career as a president post 9-11.

He, like Christopher Hitchens who spoke at Pitzer College last semester, agreed that the World Trade Center Attacks of that day were the turning point in Bush’s presidency. President Bush, he argued, went from being a simple man to a tough-minded war president, along the way leading to an “unprecedented” increase in executive power. He implied that Bush used 9-11 to unconstitutionally increase executive power and prosecute the war on terror.“

As he put it, this is a war the president was going to fight.” Sullivan seemed infuriated that the president would usurp such power away from Congress, ignoring the fact that, at any time, Congress could have reasserted their power by cutting off funding for the war.  Yet Sullivan noted that even he had supported the president during these times, believing such drastic measures to be necessary in order to defeat the amorphous enemy. Yet he asserted that the turning point came when “Dick Cheney took over the Executive Branch,” and said that Bush forgot that he swore an oath to “defend the Constitution, not territory of the United States.”

Here is where the wheels started to come off. Had Sullivan read the Constitution’s preamble, he would have noticed that it was ordained to provide for the “common defense.” And just who would be overseeing that duty? Why, Article 2 of the Constitution says that the President “shall be Commander in Chief.” Sullivan never answered the question he all but proposed. What good is the Constitution if there is no territory to put it into effect?

Sullivan further went on to distinguish the repressive acts of the Bush administration from those committed, by previous presidents, such as Abraham Lincoln and the suspension of habeas corpus, by saying that the previous American wars had well defined, finite enemies, and that once these enemies were defeated, “constitutional order,” as Sullivan put it, could be “restored.” (Indeed he called the election of Obama as something of that kind of “restoration.”) This current case, he said was different, because this war is not being fought against countries, but rather against, fractured, nebulous, but nevertheless dangerous enemies, who could never surrender en masse as say, the Confederate South did. Therefore, the logical conclusion is that this if the war has no defined end, the suspension of certain civil liberties like habeas corpus would likewise continue indefinitely. Sullivan seemed to indicate that this was unacceptable. Yet he disappointed by not following his logic to its end. Just because the idea of fighting an unending war is unpalatable, doesn’t mean it is unnecessary. The Constitution says nothing about wars having an expiration date.

Sullivan’s second major problem with the Bush administration was its use of torture. He spoke at length about practices used at Guantanamo and in rendition, even going so far as to compare them with those used by the Nazis. Yet one cannot help but wonder if in this case Sullivan’s argument relied too much on emotion, for after all, he was willing to accept the inevitable innocent civilian casualties caused by the bombardment of Iraq, which he initially supported.

Why does he then not accept the death and torture of Iraqi soldiers, who are much less likely to be innocent? Sullivan’s view of torture would seem self-serving, dodging as it does the question of efficacy altogether. While claiming on the one hand that torture doesn’t work because it leads to false confessions, he suggests, incredulously, that it is widespread. But why would it be so widespread if it were so ineffective? Unlike the Nazis, who used the torture for sham trials, Americans use it to get actionable intelligence to save the lives of civilians, American and foreign.

Sullivan suggested that there could be another way and pointed to Sir Winston Churchill, who despite “nearly a 9/11 a day” never detained a citizen indefinitely and that no Nazi was ever tortured by the British. But here, too, Sullivan is wrong. Churchill’s government has its own secret prison, dubbed “The London Cage,” where Nazis were tortured. Britain detained the utterly harmless British fascist, Sir Oswald Mosley and his wife, without charges, indefinitely. Of course they were eventually released, just as many of the detainees at Gitmo have been. Unlike the Mosleys, however, some of the Gitmo detainees have been picked up fighting American troops in Iraq.

Not all of Sullivan’s talk dealt with the foreign policy of the Bush Administration. At one point after the talk, a student asked him what he thought about the fact that gay rights had taken such a giant leap back in America following the passage of California’s Proposition 8 and other similar marriage amendments. She no doubt expected him to commiserate with her, and decry the supposed oppression of gays. Yet instead, Sullivan disagreed with her stated premise entirely, stating that gay rights are better now in America than they had ever been before, showing off his own wedding ring, provided by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as an example.

He even further went on to suggest that the gay rights movement itself was to blame for the setbacks caused by the success of measures like prop 8 by refusing to use the word “gay” in its materials. He stated that it was ridiculous to expect people to go against something that they’ve been indoctrinated with since they were children, and that it was necessary for the gay rights movement to “please chill a little.”

To the greater audience, what was most compelling about Sullivan’s talk was the emotion that he showed when discussing the issue of torture. Yet ultimately, it was this reliance on emotion that seems to impair Sullivan’s judgement the most.  He regretted that the emotional impact of 9-11 caused him to place too much trust and faith in the president to prosecute the war, yet now that it is easier to take American security for granted, he is once again falling into the same trap, feeling guilty about the sacrifices that are necessary to obtain this security.

Now that President Bush has done what Sullivan even acknowledges may have been necessary to protect America, Sullivan supports Obama’s airy promises as a way of assuaging his own guilt. This is not a trend that is unique to Sullivan, but it seems to be overtaking American politics as well. Hopefully, as the Obama administration progresses, Sullivan will be able to separate the pathos of emotion from the pragmatism of politics, and exhort the President to make necessary decisions, not just ones that make us feel better about ourselves.

Bryce Gerard CMC ‘11 is a staff writer for the Claremont Independent.

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