On Torture: Can Andrew Sullivan move George W. Bush’s certain heart?
Ostensibly, Andrew Sullivan is trying to appeal to George W. Bush in the October Atlantic by flattering him. Or thinking like him. Or something. But what an ugly spectacle that is. Or, as another Bush offshoot once said, “What a waste it is to lose one’s mind.”
In an open letter to Bush, Sullivan tries to convince the former president to take responsibility for the torture he approved because “only you can fix the damage,” having forgotten, it seems, eight agonizing years that demonstrated Bush’s commitment to irresponsibility.
Some open letters are best left closed. Sullivan begins with this admission: “I guess I should start by saying I supported your presidential campaign in 2000…”
Guess again. Now that we’ve gotten rid of Bush and a ring of henchmen whose names–Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz–drip with menace, maybe we should confiscate the driver’s licenses of those Americans who voted for them in 2000. Because they must be as blind as Sullivan.
It was obvious in 2000 that George W. Bush was a bumbling menace, that he was, as the same issue of The Atlantic describes him a few pages away, “part scamp and part bumbler, a timeless fraternity boy and heedless cutup, a weekday gym rat and a weekend napster.” Not the sort, in other words, to take responsibility.
It was obvious that Bush was out to serve his own interests and those of his friends in oil and defense contracting.
It was obvious that he wanted to use America’s military-industrial complex to avenge Saddam Hussein’s plan to assassinate his father (“He tried to kill my dad.”) It was obvious that a President George W. Bush would attack Iraq, if he only found an excuse. Not only was it predictable in 2000, it was openly predicted, secretly planned, and mentioned in the Republican platform.
This is a man who, during a presidential debate in 2000, giggled about the death penalty.
Is it a surprise that he went on to torture? That he lied to start a war? That he killed tens of thousands of people? Should we be surprised that he failed to guard the physical and economic security of the United States? The attack on the World Trade Center enabled his misdeeds. Our economy is still paying for them.
Take full responsibility? He doesn’t care. He accomplished what he wanted to accomplish, America be damned.
Sullivan writes to Bush, “Your Sept. 20, 2001, address to Congress really was one of the finest in modern times.” And why does Sullivan think so? “Your immediate grasp of the import of 9/11–a declaration of war–was correct.” I can’t think of anyone on 9/20 who didn’t grasp the import of 9/11. Grasping the obvious may have been a personal accomplishment for Bush, but as presidents go, it doesn’t rank him among the finest. War had been declared decades earlier. Bush changed the date because he wanted to declare war–on the wrong country.
“Your core judgment,” Sullivan continues, “that religious fanaticism allied with weapons of mass destruction represents a unique and new threat to the West–was and is dead on.” Munich in 1972… the World Trade Center bombing in 1993… the only thing unique and new about 9/11 was the astonishing success of the attack, for which Bush also bears some responsibility.
Sullivan goes on to make many worthy points, which have been made before, about the harm of torture, but his open-letter strategy, which gives this article its reason for being, is deeply flawed. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he’s not as naive as he seems to be, that he’s trying to flatter his way into Bush’s certain heart: Does he think flattery will get him somewhere? That Bush will read his essay? Be swayed by it? In Bush’s black and white world, East Coast and European intellectuals like Sullivan are themselves part of the Axis of Evil.
And even if Bush were swayed by Sullivan, would it matter? Would verbal responsibility give back what was taken from those who were tortured? Or would it restore Ali Ismael Abbas’s arms, legs, or family?
Sullivan considers his letter “conciliatory,” but some crimes can’t be reconciled. No one can fix the damage. We should admit as much, look forward, and never let it happen again.
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Mr. McMahon,
I seriously doubt that Mr. Bush even knows how to spell the word remorse much less use it in a sentence. In his hermetically sealed mind, he is always the hero.
Lick-spittle Sullivan grovels again. I doubt his scree is seriously written for Bush. More like he’s had one eye on re-ingratiating himself with moderate conservatives as he wrote this. Every line checked and parsed for that one purpose. Sullivan is a shapeless malaise and it’s time he got a real job, like bagging groceries.
I think you’ve hit an important point, Hidfleck. It is a question of audience, and surely an open letter has an indirect one. I often admire Andrew Sullivan’s work but in this case perhaps he is, as you suggest, going after those blind motorists.
You’re a fairer man than I, Jeff. I was being a little hard on Mr. Sully because his subject irked me a bit (full-blown Bush Derangement Syndrome). He does turn in good copy on occasion…
In response to another comment. See in context »Actually I think Sullivan has been quite level headed about Bush, after seeing the ex-president’s response to 9/11 it was Sullivan who wrote about the opportunities that were squandered worldwide. He wrote of terrible flaws when Bush had high numbers, certainly not patronizing his conservative audience. I do agree that the party of personal responsibility never displays any such thing but perhaps Sullivan subscribes to the bungler who was manipulated because of Bush’s late rejection of Chaney and thinks that maybe under the bluster there might be a decent man.
Jeff,
Dialogue has to start somewhere. The culture wars have cost us very dearly. Where would you start a dialogue with any of the likes of Cheney, Bush, Rove, Limbaugh, Huckabee? I’d talk about the New Covenant. If you can’t talk their talk you will never be able to get them to walk your walk. The only person to have done this is Bill Moyers, bless his soul. The sole voice of Christian humanism over the last three decades.
Last week he made the best comment in all the health care debate: Americans have to starting thinking “health is a condition, not a commodity.”
Damn fine comments all. Libtree, that rumor about Bush being decent down deep got this country into a heck of a mess. I don’t see any reason to believe he was ever decent. To me it’s one of those things you have to shut your eyes to believe. Bob, I adore Bill Moyers and always find it interesting when and where he pops up. Love that quote, too, which is right on. But is Moyers really the sole voice of Christian humanism?
I take it you agree to start with Christianity (rather than xtianity). Any other starters? Constitution? Nah. Comparative sociology? Nah.
In response to another comment. See in context »I don’t know if Moyers is the sole voice of Christian humanist, but he’s the only one I see in the mass media. Plenty of secular humanists now: Maddow, Olbermann, Maher, Stewart, Colbert. Too many “Christian” fundamentalists: Beck, O’Reilley, Limbaugh, Huckabee. But Moyers could get them talking.
You know if you quietly get some pro-choicers in a room, you’ll quietly find that they have their doubts about abortion. Sssssh. Jimmy Carter had it right: since abortion is not a good thing we’re going to do everything we can do to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Wisdom of Solomon.
Jeff,
I do not subscribe to the rumor of Bush’s decency but find him morally obvious. My theory is Sullivan might think differently because he considers himself among the Christian humanists.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] This rankles me as much as a crazy email about the Eid stamp. To be an atheist is to be, by definition, closed to the idea of god. That thinking is not free, it’s limited. It’s the opposite of open-mindedness. It doesn’t matter how much evidence you have. What matters is that your mind is made up–closed, not open. The one quality you share with theists is certainty (and what a devil is certainty). [...]
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