Speaking truth to the deluded

Andrew Sullivan, not exactly a model of principled consistency, writes this: I certainly think we have to remember the climate of terror and fear of the unknown that followed the 9/11 attacks, a climate that dragged all of us, including this blogger, to places we now wish we hadn't gone.

That bold up there would be my addition.

Sullivan is instinctively smug. Sullivan has too much to lose internally were he to admit that some of us did not lose our collective minds after 9/11 - scary as the weeks and months that followed were. Some of us applied our minds - then rationally opposed the invasion of Iraq on both moral and policy grounds. We thought it was a mistake, a waste of blood and treasure, an attack against the wrong enemy, badly planned (even in the run up it was clear Rumsfeld was mistaken to some of us), probably illegal, self evidently not about protecting us from those who had attacked us, and was - also self evidently - about another agenda all together. Millions of us thought the invasion of Afghanistan was a just war and Iraq disintegrated because Bush took his eye off the ball.

(Iraq may end up being a "victory" but only because W finally opted to fight the war...well...as if it was a war - years after the fact- and all invaded countries, over time, "settle down". What can't be ignored is the possibility that Bush's Iraq invasion was the moment the United States began the long downward slope that all great nations eventually ride. It was a moment of overreach. I am willing to bet the invasion will be seen by historians as a major the turning point in the life of America as a superpower. )

Sullivan got swept up by W's talking points about Iraq after 9/11. But we ALL didn't. He has since recanted forcefully - nevertheless he briefly rewrites history for all of us - to justify his mistake. Until the war began almost half the population opposed it. Millions took to the streets in the United States to oppose it. I was one. Phil Donahue was booted off MSNBC because he would not tow the line. "All" is a big word, Andrew.

Sullivan's use of the world "all" is hardly devious historical revisionism. He most likely did not even notice it as he typed. But it gets to his syncophantic heart. However sturdy the persona, those of his ilk always place personality before policy in the end. His obsession with Sarah Palin is a classic case of a writer informing us much more about himself than his subject. He continues to willy nilly degrade the Tea Parties with the word "tea bagging". He is a gold medalist in the Smug Olympics. (I do wonder what the psychology of gay men, like Anderson Cooper and Sullivan is when it comes to using "tea bagging" as a pejorative.)

One of those "life lessons" that being opposed to Obama throughout last year taught so clearly is this: People's egos, especially when their inner narrative is confronted with facts, will construct an alternate reality which supports whatever lies they are telling themselves - dismissing any and all information that confronts and rebuts their chosen narrative. Like so many bloggers who swooned for Obama, he cannot fully confront the reality of Obama. Even now. Sullivan's shifts are not evolutions based on new information. They are zig zags based on personality. Bush went from a moral man to someone he "misjudged". Andrew, you did not "misjudge" Bush. You never bothered to look at him in the first place.

Sullivan is now in the process of trying to save his self serving view of Obama.

Recently Sullivan has conjured a theory of "Obama's long game" - a justification he uses to excuse BHO's delay in coming to a decision about the releasing the torture memos. The point of the post being that Obama is smarter than you and me and therefore must trusted. He'll do the right thing "in the long run." This type of excuse comes right after "give him a chance" and right before "well, at least he's black."

The post linked at the top threads the most recent needle Obama has laid before his fawners. "Look how brave and transparent our guy is...sure he won't pursue the logical next step...but isn't he grand for releasing the documents." To be fair, Sullivan is clear in his opposition to torture of any kind. Still, one has to wonder at what point Sullivan's brain will connect the most obvious dots. By not prosecuting torturers Obama has become a party to what Sullivan rails against. As with A New Way Forward's pathetic "protests" about the banks - there is a refusal to see that the President IS the problem.

There is nothing brave about releasing the documents if the only result is to whip up fury against Bush and the CIA. What Obama did was actually cowardly. He flinched before both the Left and the Right - then got the hell out of Dodge...again.

Let me state without reservation: I think the documents should have been released - had to be released - and I believe prosecutions are in order. HOWEVER, (This is a big "however") if prosecutions are untenable - for whatever reason - then they should have remained secret. There is simply no reason to announce there may be criminals in our midst and, in the same breath, insist we will do nothing about it. This is cowardice, dressed up to look like decisiveness.

The result here is to open a wound and sit back and watch it bleed. If I were in the CIA I would be disgusted. Our intelligence community is now being raked over hot coals for apparent misdeeds. We do not get the catharsis of reaffirming our values by punishing those who crossed the line, and those who serve us honorably in the intelligence community don't either.

The same drama is aching along with the banks. The crooks are called out and then NOT punished. Meanwhile every decent person in the financial world gets slimed - because Obama and Holder refuse to punish those who committed the crimes. At some point one has to admit that the game of playing both sides off the middle serves to benefit the wrong doers. Since Obama does this with ease - one has to conclude he intends to benefit them.

He's an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks....

Eventually people like Sullivan will come to terms with Obama. Being smart and deluded are not mutually exclusive. Sullivan is smart. Denying some one's lack of principles by wildly insisting for a year- with no proof whatsoever - that he is a man with sublime wisdom based on principles is hard to recover from. It takes time. Egos are tender things. Meanwhile, bashing Trig Palin passes the time.

The some of us who did not check reality at the door last year, who knew all along that Obama was all hat and no cowboy, must keep speaking truth to the deluded.