… matters of national security are to other matters of national security, I guess.
What Andrew fails to understand is that, as Dan Koffler has explained in considerable detail, his bizarre fixation with every last detail of Sarah Palin’s pregnancy-or-lack-thereof is something that has consistently distracted attention away from her obvious unreadiness for the Vice Presidency, not to mention the matters of substance on which a McCain-Palin administration would be horribly, dangerously wrong, and has made it that much easier for his critics to dismiss him as a blindly partisan hack. If pointing out some of the manifold ways in which Andrew’s very public “vetting” of Governor Palin has gone off the rails and descended into a run of outright smears and gross distortions counts as an attempt at “intimidation”, then the rules of this game are a strange lot indeed.
[UPDATE: This blogger gets it:
Right. Sarah Palin's decision to have amniocentesis is the moral equivalent of the Bush administration's deceit over WMD in Iraq. It's ludicrous. Palin's private reproductive health isn't a matter of public concern, it isn't the decision to go to war, and there's nothing like the pre-war press environment right now. Palin faces a mostly skeptical press, which has no qualms about attacking McCain/Palin. It's not at all like the environment prior to the Iraq War where the mainstream pro-war consensus silenced the voices of dissent. By seizing on this inconsequential nit of an issue, Sullivan cartoonishly inflates his importance. By fighting over this non-issue, Sullivan takes on the pose of a real hero.
And that's why I can't get enough of him. I love kooks, and I love this kind of reply, "You may laugh at me, but don't you know they laughed at EINSTEIN too!" It's the cry of the true internet kook, that public disapproval is a sign of virtue. Sullivan's not crazy, it's the world that's gone mad!
Count me among the lunatics, please.]
Filed under: media/culture, politics
The false equivalency of Sully’s explanation (amnio:torture/WMD’s::national security:national security) was blindingly obvious to me, as well. That Sully, whose work I once regarded as the gold standard of humility and true conservatism, does not see this is deeply saddening. That he does not see how it distracts from the real problems with Palin is simply befuddling.
At the risk of concern-trolling, I am worried that Sully’s descent into extreme partisanship will have lasting effects that will hinder his past “conservatism of doubt” if Obama is elected.
I think that’s a really legitimate concern. So far he’s shown himself to be almost completely unwilling to criticize Obama, even when it comes to things like the FISA bill and his “off of foreign oil in 10 years” nonsense.
I don’t think Sullivan’s partisan shrillness will damage the conservatism of doubt, because there’s not much there to damage.
If you ask the question “What’s gone wrong with modern conservatism?” and proceed to answer the question by looking at the set of conservatives who are wrong on the big questions of the day then of course you’re going to conclude that they are too sure of themselves and it would be better if they were less certain that they are right. (Being too certain that they are right is one thing that people who are wrong are bound to have in common).
So a view that ostensibly praises intellectual modesty turns out to be an all-too-easy way of diagnosing and dismissing opposing views. It’s like the vulgar Marxist use of the notion of ideology as a convenient and self-flattering way of dismissing one’s opponents.
The thing that you would have to add to the conservatism of doubt for it to stand a chance of being a useful and interesting idea is some principle distinguishing those issues on which intellectual modesty is called for and those issues on which unwavering conviction is right and proper. Presumably Sullivan doesn’t think he’d be a better conservative or a better person if he lost sleep at nights wondering whether his position on torture (or gay marriage) is correct. So what exactly is it that differentiates Sullivan’s convictions from his opponents’, other than the fact that Sullivan holds them?
I’m not saying that someone couldn’t succeed in coming up with a principled way of distinguishing questions on which certainty is laudable from issues on which it is a sign of dangerous hubris. I’m just saying that in the absence of such a principle there’s not much to the conservatism of doubt to get excited about.
If Obama is elected Sullivan will be to President Obama what Hugh Hewitt was to Mitt Romney: Regarded by friend and foe as a sycophantic laughingstock. His conflation of Palin’s transgressions with the run-up to the Iraq war so stretches credulity that he is actually going to end up giving Palin cover. The most distressing part is that Sullivan is not thinking anymore at all. He is just emoting.