{"id":1255,"date":"2006-07-03T16:51:28","date_gmt":"2006-07-03T14:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/07\/03\/andrew-sullivan-is-very-cool\/"},"modified":"2006-07-03T16:51:28","modified_gmt":"2006-07-03T14:51:28","slug":"andrew-sullivan-is-very-cool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/07\/03\/andrew-sullivan-is-very-cool\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Sullivan is very cool"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am not, and probably will never consider myself, a "conservative" – tho I know not what that means in today’s American climate. Still, as many Dems cower before the current administration, it has been the reasonable few, on "both sides" of the political spectrum, who speak volumes of truth. Here’s Andrew’s response to a Republican naysayer on his site (Andrew is and has always been a conservative, and former hero of the Republican party):<\/p>\n

I believe in an aggressive fight against our enemy. I would have sent twice the number of troops to Iraq. I’d add a war-tax to gasoline. I would have expended whatever resources needed to find and kill Osama bin Laden. I’m in favor of an aggressive, dynamic, enterprising war against these barbarians. But I believe that part of that long war is continuing to insist on humane treatment of prisoners of war. And I believe that the laws of warfare need to be written and, if necessary, adjusted, to fight this new war. So I’d be happy to see the 1978 FISA law amended to make it easier to wiretap genuine security threats. I have no problem with the Swift program. I’d be happy to see enemy combatants detained indefinitely as prisoners of war, if so proved under a fair process.<\/p>\n

Where I dissent is in the claim to grant the president extra-constitutional monarchical power to make this stuff up as he goes along, and to shred the Anglo-American principles of justice and war-making at the same time. I also believe that the United States must never torture any prisoner of war or enemy combatant, and must always treat them humanely. Real intelligence is gained by steady and long-term infiltration of terror networks, not crude torture of random individuals in dark cells. So let us fight by using our strengths – an executive whose errors are subject to checks from both judiciary and legislature and a free, robust press. That’s a democracy’s advantage in wartime over dictatorships – an openness to internal criticism and thereby correction. The results of one man deciding everything are already evident in the shambles of the Iraq invasion. We are better than that – and it befuddles me to see how little faith some "conservatives" now have in the procedures of constitutional democracy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read more from Andrew’s Daily Dish<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am not, and probably will never consider myself, a "conservative" – tho I know not what that means in today’s American climate. Still, as many Dems cower before the current administration, it has been the reasonable few, on "both sides" of the political spectrum, who speak volumes of truth. Here’s Andrew’s response to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,8,19,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-politics","category-re-blog-tidbits","category-stimulus","category-uncategorical"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9blZT-kf","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1561,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2007\/11\/25\/a-war-about-war\/","url_meta":{"origin":1255,"position":0},"title":"a war about war","author":"nathaniel","date":"25 November 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Although I sometimes cringe at his take on liberal things as I see them, I appreciate Andrew Sullivan's thought process and writing on most things political - he's a classic 'conservative' (not a neo-con) and has the insight to see that his species is endangered.... He has a great article\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news and politics"","block_context":{"text":"news and politics","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/news-and-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1074,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/02\/12\/do-bush-followers-have-a-political-ideology\/","url_meta":{"origin":1255,"position":1},"title":"Do Bush followers have a political ideology?","author":"nathaniel","date":"12 February 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Glenn Greenwald says, a lot better than I ever could, what I have been trying to say for years: there is nothing Conservative left in the Conservative party; it is based on fear and hate and the blind following of a 'Good Leader.' He's my new best friend. This is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news and politics"","block_context":{"text":"news and politics","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/news-and-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1664,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2008\/07\/27\/four-iowans-attempt-citizens-arrest-on-karl-rove-ahn-july-27-2008\/","url_meta":{"origin":1255,"position":2},"title":"Four Iowan’s Attempt Citizen’s Arrest On Karl Rove | AHN | July 27, 2008","author":"nathaniel","date":"27 July 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Four Iowan's Attempt Citizen's Arrest On Karl Rove | AHN | July 27, 2008 Des Moines, Iowa (AHN) -- Four people were arrested Friday for attempting to make a citizen's arrest on Karl Rove.The group of three Catholic workers and a retired Methodist minister and Peace and Justice Advocate were\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news and politics"","block_context":{"text":"news and politics","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/news-and-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1555,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2007\/11\/10\/call-waterboarding-torture\/","url_meta":{"origin":1255,"position":3},"title":"call waterboarding torture?","author":"nathaniel","date":"10 November 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Off-topic, but I have to put this out there. The constant Republican talking point on this topic is that if Democrats (and others) sincerely feel that waterboarding is torture, then they should explicitly state as such and make it illegal. Currently, the law reads \"acts of cruel, inhuman, or degrading\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news and politics"","block_context":{"text":"news and politics","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/news-and-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1125,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/03\/23\/the-new-american-myth\/","url_meta":{"origin":1255,"position":4},"title":"The New American Myth","author":"nathaniel","date":"23 March 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the greatest Myths propagated by the contemporary American neo-conservative powers that be is the idea that Democracy and Capitalism are one and the same, that the former cannot exist without the latter, and, most dangerously, that big company-led Capitalism Uber Alles actually leads to, promotes and protects what\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news and politics"","block_context":{"text":"news and politics","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/news-and-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1066,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/02\/08\/reagan-republican-serious-bush-bashing\/","url_meta":{"origin":1255,"position":5},"title":"Reagan Republican + serious Bush-bashing","author":"nathaniel","date":"08 February 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Claiming himself to have been bashed about from both sides during his career, Paul Craig Roberts, a Republican from the Reagan administration, is fed up with how Bush has placed himself, and his administration, \"firmly against the American people.\" Some key points: \u00a0 Bewitched by neoconservatives and lustful for power...\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news and politics"","block_context":{"text":"news and politics","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/news-and-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}