Andrew Sullivan on 2003 SOTU

andrewsullivan.com ^ | 01/28/03 | Andrew Sullivan

[Pokey78]

AMBITION:I've been thinking in the few minutes before I sat down to write how to temper my admiration for the speech I just heard. So to get it out of the way: the domestic ambitions of this president strike me as immensely expensive and clearly liable to sadddle us with at least another decade of deficit spending.

But then I found myself - an unabashed small government supporter - putting some of those concerns aside.

Why? Because Bush is tapping into American ambition again, which is no small achievement. And because his domestic concerns seem to me motivated by a decency and a compassion I cannot but respect.

As someone with HIV, I listened to his words about AIDS and found my throat catching.

This is a Republican president, and yet he sees the extraordinary pain and anguish and death that this disease has caused and is still causing.

He made me question again my more pragmatic concerns about the feasibility of HIV treatment and prevention in Africa and shamed me into realizing I should be far more optimistic in the attempt to tackle this issue.

And when he spoke about addiction - a problem I also see all around me - I also felt a genuineness in his words that surprised me.

I shouldn't be surprised, of course. Bush was an addict. And he came this close to saying it.

But this aspect of the drug problem is one too many have either spoken about glibly or not spoken about at all. If we cannot end the idiotic "drug-war", we can at least expand treatment and care for the addicted.

I was also gratified and relieved by his proactive moves on the environment. A pro-growth, technologically-driven environmentalism should be a central plank of modern conservatism.

Bush went some way toward establishing that. He needs to do more.

But there was something else here - the glimmers of a real core of compassionate conservatism.

By mentioning the lonely elderly, or the AIDS orphan, and calling on us to get involved person by person, I felt morally led by a president in ways that I cannot recall in my lifetime.

I was particularly struck by the president's defense of the newly or prematurely born, and their right to be treated with dignity and compassion rather than with brutality.

So sue me for being moved. I was.

KENNEDY, REVIVED:And then the extraordinary transition to foreign affairs.

It was a brilliant rhetorical flourish to begin so quietly, almost intimately, and then to build resolve out of compassion.

He laid out the distinctions between the various despotisms in the axis of evil, calmly, clearly and persuasively. He did not strike me as in any sense eager for war.

But the case against Saddam is so overwhelming, so morally right, so strategically essential that the need for war, if necessary, was, to my mind, irrefutable.

So too was the attempt to show that, in these terrifying and bewildering times, we can still control our own destiny.

I respect those who worry about the unintended consequences of a war with Iraq. I understand those who are concerned about the precedent of a pre-emptive strike. I admire those who want clear empirical data before the grave decision of war.

But it seemed to me that the president effectively answered each of those worries. He should have mentioned the allies who are already on board - the Brits and Italians and Australians and Spaniards. But if his goal was to show resilience, patience and a moral grasp of America's current responsibility, then he accomplished it.

In many ways, this was a Kennedy-like speech, a speech a Democratic president could have made, if the Democratic Party hadn't fallen into such moral and strategic confusion.

Self-confident, convinced, as he should be, of the benign nature of America's role in the world, ambitious, and warm, it was a tour de force of big government conservatism, mixed with Cold War liberalism.

"THAT THAT DAY NEVER COMES":My highlights?

When Bush directly addressed the poor people of Iraq, he destroyed the media cant that mistakes a butcher for a people.

When he declared of the evil men of al Qaeda, that "one by one the terrorists are learning the meaning of American justice," his message must have rung in the ears of those still longing, as I am, for the perpetrators of 9/11 to be captured or killed.

But his best passage was when he outlined the irrefutable logic that connects 9/11 with Saddam:

Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans, this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known.

That's it, in a nutshell. It is not paranoid to fear this. It is responsible. And it is the president's job to be responsible.

He seemed to me to show the calm of someone with real faith - both in the justice of his cause and America's ability to see it through. Everything else is minor compared to this.

Everything.

[Pokey78]

Pinging the Sullivan list.

[nutmeg]

bttt

[goldstategop]

Andrew Sullivan is gay which is why he would identify with parts of the President's speech most of us don't like. True compassion is measured in deeds not in pretty rhetoric. We should seek to nor try to compete with the Democrats in the area of pulling at people's heartstrings since somehow they always do it better than we do.

[Kevin Curry]

Andrew Sullivan is gay . . .

And his obsession with it mars his otherwise considerable talent.

When he resists the urge to insinuate a gay theme into every topic from chalk to nuts, his commentary is engrossing, intelligent, and compelling. He should place his sexual perversions and practices back in the closet and keep a tight focus on the grand issues.

[Torie]

Speak for yourself. I liked almost everything Bush said, and that included the "compassionate" parts of his speech. Bush was speaking for Bush, and from his heart, and if some are not comfortable with his fundamental beliefs, that is fine with me. Bush has that ability to separate the wheat from the chaff, and I am proud to join those who think he is on the right course, whatever the political outcome.

[dfwgator]

I considered myself a cynic about Africa's dealings with AIDS, but I have to admit that Bush was very moving and powerful with his speech in regards to AIDS. There are no easy answers to the problem, but I think Bush did more to raise awareness about what truly is happening, than Slick Willy or any Rat could have.

[Torie]

What make Sullivan compelling, beyond his prose talent, is precisely his backgound, and ability to put his particular passions in a larger context. Many of his here discern that, and appreciate that. He is trying to fashion a new coalition frankly, and a coalition that will be a majority coalition, and withstand the test of time. He is a creative agent IMO, and that is high praise indeed from me.

[the_doc]

As a matter of fact, some of us conservatives who aren't homosexual didn't object to anything the POTUS said.

Budgeting it all will be difficult--and the deficit will go up for a while--but we should be able to fund all of it if the economy expands in the way it did with Reagan's economic stimulus. It's all a question of timing.

[Nick Danger]

He should have mentioned the allies who are already on board - the Brits and Italians and Australians and Spaniards. But if his goal was to show resilience, patience and a moral grasp of America's current responsibility, then he accomplished it.

I'm certain that he did not mention them by design. One of his points -- and he made it quite explicitly later -- is that "...the course of this nation does not depend on the decisions of others. Whatever action is required, whenever action is necessary, I will defend the freedom and security of the American people."

Yes, we will talk to the UN. Yes, we will consult. We welcome allies. But at the end of the day, the President of the United States cannot allow foreigners or UN bureaucrats to get between him and his oath of office.

There's a fairly loud minority running around out there who want to subordinate U.S. soverignty to "international law," but on this issue -- as on so many others like the International Court and Kyoto -- Bush is having none of it.

[goldstategop]

Well I am in agreement with Stephen Goldsmith's article on the subject in today's Wall Street Journal. There is a place for government to assist people to help themselves. If we're just going to spend more money on AIDS or on prescription drugs, that's not going to work. What we need is to let people decide how to avoid getting AIDS in the first place or choose the benefit plan that works best for them. Social services shouldn't be run by know it all government bureaucrats in Washington D.C. I take issue with the modifier compassion for to me the best form of compassion is more acceptance of personal responsibility in individuals' lives. In other words, let's use government to wean people away from being dependent upon it and allowing them to lead their own lives. That to me is what conservatism is and ought to be, all about.

[dixiechick2000]

I agree with your very well stated post.

"Bush was speaking for Bush, and from his heart..."

This is why it is so compelling...most dems (heck, most politicians) don't seem to be able to do this.

[jwalsh07]

I'm a social conservative and I agree with President Bush, informed by his Christianity, helping ease the suffering from the HIV on the African Continent.

It is of such a scale that only a major intervetnion by the US government has any hope of easing it. I would fund it by withdrawing troops from Germany.

[Kevin Curry]

his particular passions in a larger context.

Putting his "particular passions in a larger context" is like parading him through town square naked except for his "particular underwear." It doesn't lend greatness to the event; it doesn't improve the view. It's tawdry, it's tacky, and it's inappropriate.

[Consort]

Andrew Sullivan is gay . . .

A homogenius.

[goldstategop]

I want to make it clear we can have compassion for dying people without endorsing the kinds of values that caused them to contract AIDS in the first place. Namely sleeping around and unsafe sex with their partners. Whatever you want to call it, whether its compassionate conservatism or something else, it should never just be a la Ted Kennedy, let's just throw money at the problem and hope it will get better.

[dfwgator]

Funny how our First "Black President" never did anything about trying to help the AIDS problem in Africa.

[goldstategop]

Yeah our last President slept around so no wonder he never seriously addressed AIDS in Africa. While money is needed by itself its not enough. Changing the values of the people there would go a long way towards containing and eventually eradicating this pandemic than all the money in the world ever will accomplish.

[jwalsh07]

He didn't do anything about the slaughter in Rwanda either. Reports of his blackness and humanity are greatly exagerrated.

[Gracey]

A homogenius.......

I LOVE it. And I just LOVE Andrew Sullivan's writing style and content. He has SOUL.