Katha Pollitt and Andrew Sullivan

Katha,

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It's a very good question. Many times I have tried to figure out what it is about the man that truly offends me. As you point out, I'm quite happy with many of the results of his policies--the expansion of free trade, the reform of welfare, the reduction of the deficit, the acquiescence to the rollback of reverse racial discrimination. Yes, I'm not so happy about his support of the death penalty, his signing of the Defense of Marriage Act, his Bosnia debacle, his civil-liberties record, his anti-smoking crusade. But then I'm not a lock-step conservative, as you know. And you can't have everything. So what is it?

For my part, it's not sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll. Believe me. Some of my best friends are sex-crazed stoners. I think, ultimately, it's because of his moral vacuity on a more profound level. Bosnia was the clincher for me. He said it was a holocaust, then did nothing to stop it, then claimed credit for ending it, then apologized for the holocaust. Anyone who can use such a grave moral issue so glibly and cynically is pretty close to being evil. Ditto his complete lack of substance on civil rights. Here is a man who says he is against discrimination, then fires more gay people from the military than George Bush, signs DOMA (then boasts about it, then apologizes for it), signs a bill to expel HIV-positive people from the military (then says he didn't mean it), signs a bill barring HIV-positive immigrants from entering the country, and asks for less money on AIDS research than the Republican Congress. It's not the end result that gets me so much. A Republican might have been worse on both Bosnia and civil rights. It's his refusal to take moral responsibility for anything, or take credit for things he opposed, or evade blame where blame is genuinely deserved. When someone like that is at the head of the country, it is truly corrosive of our morality in the real sense of that word. Because it is truly corrosive of any sense of personal responsibility. He has the super-ego of a seven-year-old.

Sometimes, I really think he is evil.

Best,
Andrew

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