Redstate

By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in 2008 | Featured Stories — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Andrew Sullivan is a Ron Paul fan, as any cursory examination of his website will tell you. Between Paul and John McCain, Sullivan believes that he has found the perfect Republican Presidential nominee. That's his right and it would certainly be interesting to read Sullivan's detailed thoughts on the issue. Unfortunately, whenever someone deliberately or inadvertently tries to engage Sullivan in debate, whatever analytical prowess he possesses shuts down and he simply resorts to snark.

Exhibit A for my proposition could be found in this post where Sullivan notes a RedState post written by a former staffer to Ron Paul who says that he will run for the Congressman's seat. Sullivan notes that this is an example of "the GOP establishment" plotting to "destroy" the "upstart" that is Ron Paul.

A few notes below the fold . . .

1. Paul is a ten-term Congressman. In the event that Sullivan takes the time to do the math, it means that he has been in Congress for twenty years. As one of my fellow RedState contributors wrote in an e-mail, calling him an "upstart" is more than a little bizarre. Calling his former staffer part of the "establishment" is just Sullivan's way of setting up a David vs. Goliath battle where curiously enough, Goliath is not the 20-year veteran Congressman ensconced and cushioned by the luxuries of incumbency, but rather the unknown staffer challenging him. Perhaps, Sullivan means to say that RedState is the "establishment," which is also more than a little bizarre because RedState is currently busy challenging the GOP establishment, in the event that Sullivan did not notice.

2. Sullivan does precisely nothing to take on the arguments that are made against Paul by his former staffer. To be sure, he makes arguments on behalf of Paul elsewhere in his blog, but they are not specific to the arguments made on RedState. Oh, I know, all of us bloggers have had the throwaway post where all we've written is a throwaway line but in this case, Sullivan's brevity is a tool to mislead as well. As referenced above, Sullivan makes the anti-Paul argument written on RedState appear to be a case of the Great, Big, Giant GOP Establishment working to beat down and destroy the Little Guy Who Dares To Speak Truth To Power. Alas, when it comes to the RedState post, it's not quite like that, however convenient the narrative may be for Sullivan to propagate.

3. Insofar as we are actually discussing the substance of Paul's "blowback" remarks concerning acts of terrorism and its invitation via American policy, Sullivan quite clearly knows very little concerning bin Laden's complaints against the United States. Sure, he knows the part about how bin Laden complained about the American troop presence in the Middle East, but as I have written in the past, bin Laden has also made clear that he is willing to wage war against America (a) for the fact that the American Constitution does not proceed along the lines dictated by Islamic law; (b) because Americans permit "usury"; (c) because America "permits the production, trading and usage of intoxicants" and (d) because America permits acts of immorality, and you consider them to be pillars of personal freedom." Furthermore, Sullivan fails to note that bin Laden has called upon upon the United States "to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and trading with interest." Now, maybe I am missing something here, but it seems to me that even if we adopted Ron Paul's foreign policy, it would seem that in bin Laden's warped mindset, there is more than enough reason for al Qaeda to wage war against the United States. If Sullivan would have acknowledged this and noted that Paul did not present the full bill of particulars bin Laden has against the United States, and if he would have critiqued Paul for the incomplete view of history the Congressman presented during the debate on Tuesday night, his pro-Paul cheerleading would be more honest and more intellectually accurate in its tone. Alas, Sullivan either doesn't know the complete bill of particulars bin Laden has drawn up against the United States or won't present it to his readers because it would ruin his narrative regarding how the Great, Big, Giant GOP Establishment is working to beat down and destroy the Little Guy Who Dares To Speak Truth To Power. Take your pick.

4. In addition to not knowing--or not caring to divulge--the nature of bin Laden's bill of particulars against the United States, Sullivan also either does not know--or does not care to divulge--the degree to which Paul either deliberately or inadvertently misrepresented the nature of traditional Republican foreign policy in last night's debate. As Jonah Goldberg observed:

. . . Declaring in 2007 that we should adopt [the late Senate Republican Leader] Robert Taft's foreign policy is flatly childish and absurd. But it's intellectually safe because it forces the opposition to prove a negative.

By invoking the memory of Taft, Paul snatches Mr. Republican out of history and holds him up like a false god. And the key word here is "false." Sure, Taft was a "non-interventionist" -- though that term had a very different resonance back then -- and yeah, he probably would have opposed the Iraq war. But Paul's argument from authority amounts to a classic neo-isolationist gambit because he knows nobody is going to get into an argument over WWTD? (What Would Taft Do?)

So, for the record: Taft believed the Soviets presented "a menace greater than we have faced before in our history." Taft supported the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. It's true he voted against NATO (and let the record show Taft was very, very wrong about that; William F. Buckley -- presumably an authentic conservative -- called Taft's foreign policies "otherworldly"). But Taft voted for the U.N. charter. In fact, his rationale for opposing the North Atlantic Treaty was that it violated the "theory" of the U.N. charter. He favored "one hundred percent support for the Chinese National Government on Formosa." And he was adamant that America do whatever it takes, even send U.S. troops, to protect the Suez. He favored "occasional extensions . . . into Europe, Asia and Africa," and favored keeping six divisions in Europe until the Europeans could defend themselves. Oh, and while he disagreed with Ike about sending troops to Korea, once they were committed, Taft's view was that they had to be supported.

Goldberg could, of course, have gone further. He could have noted that Dwight Eisenhower--who Paul noted, was elected to bring an end to the Korean War--was quite the interventionist himself. Consider:

1953 - Eisenhower threatens China to force an end to Korean War on terms acceptable to U.S.

[. . .]

1954 - Eisenhower's Secretary of State Dulles offers French three tactical nuclear weapons to break the siege at Dienbienphu, Vietnam. Supported by Nixon's public trial balloons.

1954 - Eisenhower used nuclear armed SAC bombers to reinforce CIA-backed coup in Guatemala.

[. . .]

1958 - Eisenhower orders Joint Chiefs of Staff to prepare to use nuclear weapons against Iraq, if necessary to prevent extension of revolution into Kuwait.

1958 - Eisenhower orders Joint Chiefs of Staff to prepare to use nuclear weapons against China if they invade the island of Quemoy.

Um . . . wow, that's quite a lot of interventionism--nuclear-armed interventionism at that--from the supposedly "non-interventionist" Eisenhower, who Paul represents as having advocated and pursued some kind of bygone Paulian foreign policy. And of course, let's not get into the Linebacker I and Linebacker II campaigns that Richard Nixon--who Paul cited as being elected to end the Vietnam War and who Paul also held up as an advocate of a bygone Paulian foreign policy--engaged in during his time as President.

Did Paul know about any of this? Does Sullivan? If not, their advocacy is ill-informed. If so, it is dishonest. Sullivan might want to read Goldberg's article in depth as well in order to confront himself with the question of why, as Goldberg puts it, Osama bin Laden is the "authentic expression of the entire Middle East," and why, even if Ron Paul was right about the nature of Taftian foreign policy, we need a Robert A. Taft for our times and challenges. I know, I know, Goldberg is part of NRO and therefore a "Christianist," whatever that means. I probably will be dubbed one too if Sullivan reads my post (for the record, I am a Reform Jew) but intellectually honest people will recognize that such namecalling doesn't take away from the arguments made against Paul, and by extension, against Sullivan.

We're heading into quite the consequential election. There are going to be a great many opinions flying about and it's likely that the argument will get heated. That's fine; I rather like heated arguments, so long as they produce some semblance of light in order to help us guide our way. I once admired and respected Andrew Sullivan for being luminous in his writing. To be sure, he still remains capable of generating a great deal of light with his words.

It's too bad, therefore, that he's content to generate only heat with his dismissive attitude of people who take a viewpoint opposite of his. It is even worse that so often, he doesn't even bother to engage them, no matter how serious the anti-Sullivan viewpoint may be.

Then again, I guess writing snarky one-line posts must be attractive for the ease with which they can be generated. Nowadays, Andrew Sullivan doesn't appear to be much into intellectual heavy labor.