Andrew Sullivan can get under your skin every now and then if you’re a progressive like me, but he’s important and right on quite a bit of the time. He’s particularly insightful in his analysis of how America’s (somewhat behind-the-scenes but more and more a part of the public debate) acceptance of Torture in its response to terrorist attacks is destroying much of what we stand for.
For instance, read his analysis on Guy Fawkes Day, with this money quote:
From revulsion against torture, liberal democracy was born. And by acquiescing in torture, liberal democracy will die.
Spot on…
I certainly don’t consider myself progressive in the sense of liberal, but I’m glad to see Sullivan get his due. People who obsess over his former support for the war or whatever other issues are missing the point. Precisely because they haven’t abandoned their claim to conservatism, it’s stronger when someone like Sullivan or John Cole points out that the Republicans are lost at sea. I’m not saying that liberals or Democrats don’t have equal voice to criticize, of course — just that it’s easier for the pseudocons to write off such criticism.
I see that you write on issues of Christianity. The silence of US evangelicals on torture will echo to our shame for centuries, not unlike that of German Christians during the Third Reich. I tried to get my own church, which I thought was not particularly Republican, to engage the issue — but why talk about such trifles when we could be debating theological minutiae?