Andrew Sullivan on Bush

I mention this for two reasons. I think Andrew Sullivan is right in many ways here. But most importantly, he defends his right as a blogger to be as painstakingly objective (and unpopular with his right-wing audience) as he can. Politics really doesn't have to be a contact sport like rugby -- you don't have to be on one team or another and spend most of the time bullying and tackling the other team -- you can use your wisdom, brains and experience to have an opinion that many people may not agree with.

Some of you have queried me for making criticisms of the president with regard to Iraq. I think I've earned a certain amount of credibility on this one. I'm a big admirer of the both the aims and methods of this administration in the war on terror. But that doesn't mean they haven't made some real mistakes. They got the WMD question wrong. The intelligence was faulty and they failed to be sufficiently skeptical about it. They did have elaborate plans for post-war Iraq, as Jim Fallows details in the current Atlantic, but largely ignored them, perhaps dismissing such details as cover for an anti-war agenda. This insouciance led to debacles like the disbanding of the Iraqi army in the middle of last year. I don't think it would kill the administration to fess up to this. They were human errors, compounded by a certain ideological fervor. I think, given the overall achievement, that they were entirely forgivable. And I guess the White House has learned to concede nothing, because when they do, it backfires (remember uranium from Niger?). But people did screw up. One consequence of that screw-up is that almost any future argument for pre-emption based on intelligence will be extremely hard to win. Ditto, the view that deficits don't matter could well lead to an inability to take military action in the future, since the country will be unable to afford it. In that sense, the Bush administration's errors have undermined the crux of their own foreign policy. That's a loss. And, with a little more modesty and skepticism, it was preventable.

(The BOLD ITALICS are my editorial additions.]

Of course the real story of his moments of anti-administration sentiment may find roots in this post. It can't be east to be a gay, HIV+, conservative Brit living in America writing a right-wingish blog. He reminds us that all are lives are complicated and can't be reduced into one easy political viewpoint.

I have no objection to and much support for the president's proposal to encourage marriage, especially for low income people. As long as the government isn't indoctrinating or imposing itself, helping marriages prosper and last helps all of us: the couples, the potential or actual kids, and society itself, because such families are more able to take care of themselves. Marriage matters. And government has some responsibility to help foster it. But, of course, it begs the question. If marriage is so good for straights, why is the government so intent on preventing it for gays? Don't gay men, in particular, face all sorts of problems and issues that the responsibility of marriage helps ameliorate? And then you realize: for this administration, gay and lesbian citizens are regarded as beneath responsibility. There is no need for a social policy toward them, since they have no human needs or aspirations. If gays try to build responsible lives, and families, the important thing is not to help or encourage or reach out to them, but to prevent their relationships at all costs and in any way possible - even if we have to amend the constitution to keep them excluded from families and society. Above all: don't ever mention them in public. It might lead to some sort of social policy that could help them. They can pay taxes, but the government has no interest in helping them construct relationships that last. That's roughly it, isn't it?