Talk About Boggling the Mind

One has to wonder what Andrew Sullivan believes conservative positions to be:

Let's list a few: the WMD intelligence debacle - the worst blow to the credibility of the U.S. in a generation; Abu Ghraib - a devastating wound to to America's moral standing in the world; the post-war chaos and incompetence in Iraq; an explosion in federal spending with no end in sight; no entitlement reform; a huge addition to fiscal insolvency with the Medicare drug entitlement; support for a constitutional amendment, shredding states' rights; crusades against victimless crimes, like smoking pot and watching porn; the creeping fusion of religion and politics; the erosion of some critical civil liberties in the Patriot Act. I could go on. Is there any point at which a conservative might consider not voting for Bush?

It looks like he thinks "conservative" means "small-government liberal"; as with his morphing of Ronald Reagan into his own image, rather than trace the intellectual processes whereby people with whom he shares some opinions branch away from him, he ignores the division. More significant, however, are the first few in his bill of accusations. Here, it isn't that conservatives aren't concerned about faulty intelligence, America's moral standing, or setbacks in war, but that they don't buy the anti-Bush spin that Sullivan has been so keen to promote of late. Consider his subsequent post, in response to a New York Times piece about a single captured terrorist who apparently slipped through the cracks for a few months in Iraq:

Besides, the reason that the suspect was regarded as so important, apparently, was because he "possessed significant information about Ansar al Islam's leadership structure, training and locations." And yet - here's the mind-blowing part - he was only interviewed once in "one cursory arrival interrogation"! Here's a military desperately trying to get information on the insurgency; they go to extraordinary lengths to sequester a key informant; they do something that is "deceptive, contrary to Army doctrine, and in violation of international law," according to the Taguba report; both Tenet and Rumsfeld sign off on this shady business; and then ... nothing! It boggles the mind. Here we have two features of the Iraq occupation that we have slowly come to see close-up: the violation of settled military ethics and international law, authorized by the highest authorities, and complete incompetence.

Actually, this is spin on top of spin. Apart from whatever twists the Times put on the story — and I love the reporters' concern that a terrorist who would otherwise be actively attacking our troops is "still languishing at the prison" — Sullivan ignores the timeline, exaggerates the implications, and diminishes the role of the CIA in order to get more directly at Rumsfeld.

A quick review: the prisoner was captured in July 2003, and CIA officials interrogated him in "an undisclosed location outside of Iraq" until October. At that time, George Tenet requested that Rumsfeld hold the prisoner in military detention in Iraq, and Rumsfeld agreed to do so, with lawyers signing off on the decision at every step down the chain of command. In January, the CIA asked about the prisoner (whether as routine procedure or with the intention to interrogate him [again], we don't know), but his location wasn't immediately available. Either before or after this point, the military police sent requests up the chain of command for guidance, which presumably would have ultimately come from the CIA, and by the end of May/beginning of June, Rumsfeld's top intelligence aide, Stephen Cambone, personally contacted the CIA "to request that the agency deal with the suspect or else have him go into the prison's regular reporting system."

In summary, a terrorist who had been interrogated for about four months fell into the gap between the military and the CIA for a few months thereafter. Only a person whose standards for military efficiency, while actively fighting insurgents and rebuilding a distant country, are impossibly high for ulterior reasons would hyperventilate over this single incident. Of course, Sullivan would suggest that this incident is representative, but with a news media actively seeking out any and every lapse, oversight, or extreme act, any endeavor, let alone one as massive as a war and occupation, could be painted with similar hues of incompetence.

The interested observer can only opine that Sullivan would not wish his own professional activities to be treated with the same degree of scrutiny and inflation. Indeed, he lashes out with arrogant defensiveness when it's suggested that he's been working around "an extremely significant silence":

Pace Jonah, I have been quite clear in this blog that, in my judgment, no self-respecting gay person could vote for Bush; and I consider myself a self-respecting gay person. In my first response to the FMA, I wrote that "[t]his president has now made the Republican party an emblem of exclusion and division and intolerance. Gay people will now regard it as their enemy for generations - and rightly so." I wrote in a fit of hyperbole on March 3 that Kerry "will get every gay vote and every vote from their families and friends." Get the drift?

He hasn't been so clear, apparently, as to prevent Glenn Reynolds, who is closer to Sullivan than to Goldberg on same-sex marriage, from being surprised at the news that Sullivan "rejected Bush's candidacy last month." I guess the fact that Reynolds wasn't aware of Sullivan's piece in the Advocate indicates a condescension that is "insulting to gay people," as well.

Of course, Goldberg's comments were entirely from the point of view of "readers of Sullivan's site," and as Sullivan admits, his "pieces are written for a specific audience." The question that Goldberg is not alone in having, in light of the Advocate piece, is why Sullivan has allowed his blog's audience to believe that his mind wasn't made up about "who's the better candidate for the next four years." Personally, I'm inclined to agree with a comment by Sage to my post on this topic last night:

I am of the opinion that Sully has kept his game of hokey-pokey going for so long because the Daily Dish is such a cash cow for him. It remains so only so long as he gets to play the enigmatic "conservative." The moment he is recognized as just another gay advocate, he loses his status as the maverick, the non-partisan, the invincibly honest intellect.

So, Andrew, do we get the drift, yet?