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October 30, 2007
Andrew Sullivan's Crusade Against HRC
One reason is because I've come to depend on a regular post in which Mr. Sullivan finds some reason to trash Hillary Clinton. It's getting to the point, from all appearances, that Mr. Sullivan is going bonkers over the possibility that she may be the next Defender of the United States. [George Bush has made the constitutional term "President of the United States" in Art. II, Sec. 1 so trite . . . the way he's made the principle that we live under the rule of law so pre-21st century.]
Take Mr. Sullivan's post today called "Clinton and Mukasey". He complains about HRC's "crapola" in refusing, through a spokesman, to say that she'll oppose Mukasey's nomination for Attorney General unless he states clearly he opposes torture by toca (waterboarding).
I'm not saying Mr. Sullivan, if he wasn't so obsessed with Clinton, wouldn't have a point. He would. I agree that she should vote against Mukasey on this ground and because he has advocated a theory of executive power that, as Mr. Sullivan has said in other posts, promotes a presidential protectorate instead of what our Constitution provides.
What I'm saying is that his relentless attention to all things *She-Who-Is-Inevitable*, as Mr. Sullivan likes to call her, makes me wonder just exactly how he would have spoken of President Eisenhower's handling of the Communist Question in America -- particularly red-baiter supreme, Senator Joe McCarthy.
Eisenhower, as I understand history, remained publicly silent about McCarthy's activities -- even when he was attacking the Army. About all Eisenhower ever said came in response to McCarthy's attacks on Edward R. Murrow. Eisenhower, when asked about the attacks, said something like, "I consider Mr. Murrow a friend." But Eisenhower, it is said, worked out of the public's view to defang McCarthy.
I get the clear impression that Eisenhower's tack would not have been good enough for Mr. Sullivan. He would have written that Eisenhower was a no-good, triangulating, self-centered, it's-all-about-me politician lacking the most basic moral compass on the biggest issue of our time.
Eisenhower's good deeds during, as he called it, America's Crusade in Europe notwithstanding.
Posted by shertaugh at October 30, 2007 3:16 PM