Fisking Sully
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James Joyner | Monday, July 26, 2004 |
Stephen Green delivers an excellent fisking of Andrew Sullivan’s endorsement of John Kerry. Excerpting line-by-line analysis of excerpts seems pointless, so go read it yourself.
I would add two things to Stephen’s analysis.
First, Andrew is being disengenous about his primary motivation, which he hardly mentions: Bush’s lukewarm endorsement of a constitutional amendment to maintain the traditional definition of “marriage.” My strong guess is that, had Bush not done that, the other things Andrew cites would not be enough to make Andrew endorse a liberal Democrat.
Second, Andrew contends that Bush isn’t really a conservative and therefore doesn’t deserve the support of conservatives. That’s an obviously silly argument, however, in the world of practical politics. Ronald Reagan is no longer with us. In reality, conservatives have two choices: George W. Bush and John F. Kerry. Period. No candidate more conservative than Bush is an option for 2004. Period.
On none of the issues Andrew mentions, save gay marriage, is Kerry closer to his preferances than Bush. Given that the effort to amend the Constitution on this issue have already failed and the momentum on the issue is moving entirely in Andrew’s favor–and that Kerry is only barely closer to his position than is Bush even on this one–it hardly seems worth electing a candidate who will nominate pro abortion judges to the Supreme Court and pursue even more of the expensive social programs that have Andrew in an uproar.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.
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