If It Could Happen to Churchill... [Andrew Sullivan contemplates a Bush loss in '04]

Time Magazine ^ | Monday, March 8, 2004 | Andrew Sullivan

[longtermmemmory]

seems like he realy is desperate to hurt Bush after that whole marriage is one man one woman thing.

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

bondjamesbond: Should Andrew Sullivan reject all of your arguments out-of-hand just because you are a heterosexual? ADDENDUM: That would assume, of course, that you are actually making an argument, rather than just yelling "POOFTER!" and leaving it at that.

mosel-saar-ruwer: I think the difference is that I don't give a rat's ass [no pun intended] what Andrew Sullivan does, or thinks, or feels, or cares about, or pre-occupies himself with, or what legal contracts Andrew Sullivan does or does not want to enter into, i.e: I'm not trying to shove an agenda down Andrew Sullivan's throat [again, no pun intended].

bondjamesbond: But what does that have to do with Winston Churchill?

mosel-saar-ruwer: Huh?

[bondjamesbond]

Sullivan has been edging away from Bush over out-of-contol government spending for at least six months. True the gay marriage thing pushed him over the edge, but who does not form political opinions based on a wide variety of issues? This particular issue just happens to be of great importance to Andrew Sullivan.

At the end of the day, I suspect that Sullivan will fall back into line and support Bush. The stakes are just too high. Far better to be homosexual with the Republicans in charge than with the Mullahs in charge.

As far as the lack of parallels between Winston Churchill and George W. Bush go, I take no comfort in the fact that the battle is still raging. I think there are a lot of people who just want to ignore the War on Terror and hope it goes away. These people resent The President, and will vote against him as a vote against war in general. Sad but true.

Whether or not this is enough to swing the election is debatable.

[bondjamesbond]

The posted article was about Winston Churchill.

Though I do apologize for lumping you in with the hysterical anti-Sullivan camp early on. In my mind I mistakenly attributed a reply to you as a post by you, and was reacting to that. Sorry.

[jordan8]

The "war", will have no positive effect for Bush. Not the war on terrorism and especially not Iraq. It is just not an issue for the vast majority of people. The real comparison is not Churchill but his own father. GHWB got no boost from Iraq I and GWB will get less from Iraq II. The biggest war issue will be the money spent on Iraq (they'll throw in the lives lost, but the money is the thing). The biggest issue will probably be the deficit. Beyond that, Bush has the same problem his old man had: the vision thing. He is essentially a non-ideological individual who believes he should rule because he is from the right class of people. He's the CEO with the MBA who doesn't care whether the company he runs makes widgets or computer chips, he doesn't know or care about widgets or computer chips, he's just interested in being a success, in not being a failure, and in a bright quarterly statement for those who count.

So will he win? Hard to say. American politics have become difficult to predict. 25 years ago it would have been an easy call, he would have won in a landslide against an Uberliberal like Kerry, who's a bigger stiff than Dukakis was. But externally the Republicans had communism then (and internally a larger cultural base). The hope many people put in the boosting effect of the war on terror or in Irag is in inverse proportion to their inability to compete on the domestic front. No matter how hard people try to pump up the "War On Terror" as the new Soviets it just isn't going to fly, barring any spectacular repeat of 9-1-1.

[NYCVirago]

It's more like charishing his elite status with NY Manhattanites, and east coast snobs. Like all of the Presidents so-called "friends" in "journalism" and Bush's so called "base", he jumps out of the foxhole, when the fight gets tough.

Sullivan was pretty much blackballed from American newspapers and magazines (the NYTimes in particular) when he was supporting Bush and the War on Terror. Now that he's a Bush-basher, he magically is getting all these high-profile writing gigs again. Shocker!

[NYCVirago]

One other thing Sullivan doesn't mention -- the British electorate of 1945 are still perceived as ingrates, to put it kindly, for throwing out Churchill.

[walden]

"It's getting to be routine on FR lately, that if some don't like the message, they start trashing the messenger. It really demeans all of us."

I agree, but I don't think Sullivan is worth listening to anymore-- I am fast becoming convinced that he is no true conservative and will eventually turn on Bush and the Republicans.

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

Sullivan was pretty much blackballed from American newspapers and magazines (the NYTimes in particular) when he was supporting Bush and the War on Terror. Now that he's a Bush-basher, he magically is getting all these high-profile writing gigs again. Shocker!

Mel Gibson is about to experience the same thing.

If he ever wants to see any Hollywood money again, Gibson will have to make a movie about how poor ol' Caiaphas was abused by his evil patriarchal dead-white-male homophobic father [and shouldn't we all just feel his pain?].

[NYCVirago]

At the end of the day, I suspect that Sullivan will fall back into line and support Bush. The stakes are just too high. Far better to be homosexual with the Republicans in charge than with the Mullahs in charge.

No, he's already said that it's more important to "defend the Constitution" against attempts to ban gay marriage than it is to win the War on Terror. Sad but true.