Andrew Sullivan Visits the College

By Kevin Hudak and Jon Beilin | Tuesday, October 19, 2004

The Rockefeller Center's "Fall Lecture Series," which includes such luminaries as Senator Carol Mosely Braun, socialist U.S. Congressman Bernie Sanders, and Howard Dean—need we say more—almost opened up with a lump of black coal for Rockefeller Center regulars and Upper Valley residents in attendance. With an audience split evenly between elderly townies and Dartmouth students, Professor Andrew Samwick and the Rockefeller Center welcomed Andrew Sullivan as part of the Brooks Family Lecture program in a presentation entitled, "American Politics: The 2004 Election."

Former Editor-in-Chief of The New Republic, and a frequent contributor to Time magazine, Andrew Sullivan is perhaps best known for his online web-log, AndrewSullivan.com. Sullivan is startlingly more intimidating than the boyish tomcat advertised in the Rockefeller Center mailer; when he removed his jacket a wave of "Ooohs" and "Ahhhhs" spread across the crowd.

The affection for Sullivan quickly became outright contempt as he began speaking highly of President Bush, praising his economic policy and hard stance on terrorism early in his presidency. Sullivan is, after all, a conservative. Bush, he believed, knows that "Good and evil do exist," and Sullivan doesn't "believe him to be a liar or a traitor or any other vile epithet." Surely though, a majority of the crowd was recalling these epithets—as he finished explaining his endorsement of Bush in the 2000 elections, tension in the crowd was at its zenith.

A glance around Filene Auditorium revealed rickety local and student alike shaking their heads in disbelief at Mr. Sullivan's saddening assertions. Given the reception so far, it seemed as if the masses prefer their liberal ideologues straight, sans any conviction that might differ from the talking points on JohnKerry.com. Sullivan seemed to have predicted this and constantly mentioned all the hate mail he received for his views, and the masses of hate mail he would receive as a result of his professions for the rest of the program.

Starting anew with "I have a problem with George W. Bush," he began a lengthy dissection of the man as a sigh of relief swept through the audience. Raising his voice occasionally, Sullivan focused on the Iraq War. Convinced that President Bush's foreign policy saved Pakistan and admitting to have supported military action in Iraq, Sullivan claimed that Iraq is now "one of the most catastrophically bungled wars in United States history." "Bungling," according to Sullivan, was as prevalent in the Bush administration as in his speech, and he would later characterize it as "pig-headedness" and name it as a reason why we can "wave goodbye to social security" and "low taxes."

Narrowing his attack on the War in Iraq, Sullivan focused on the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal, claiming that it "besmirched the reputation of the United States forever." Citing incompetence and troop shortages, he stated that the "response from the top was dismissive," and the "contempt for the shame" people felt was "shocking." According to Sullivan, establishing a democracy in Iraq was bungled and "we have lost permanently legitimacy in the minds of the Iraqi people." Sullivan continued to admonish the Bush administration for allowing "thousands of jihadists" to cross unsealed borders into Iraq. He was shocked and couldn't believe that as "the greatest military power on Earth...We can't keep order in a few cities."

Addressing President Bush's domestic policies, Mr. Sullivan supported the No Child Left Behind legislation but disagreed with Bush's fiscal irresponsibility following the terrorist attacks of September 11th. With a different approach to stimulating the economy, Sullivan claimed that, "If the President had asked the people after 9/11, the American people would have sacrificed everything," though President Bush simply asked them to "go shopping."

Surely a portion of the audience came to listen to Mr. Sullivan's views on gay rights, of which he is a strong proponent. However, he delivered very little material on this topic, claiming that President Bush's attempt to limit gay rights at a federal level was "an absolute attack at the most fundamental" right of a minority. He went on to explain how Bush's policy moves are also fundamental attacks at the conservative tradition that individual states should be left to themselves. While later speaking about John Kerry, however, he would accuse the candidate of shifting positions on the issue of gay rights. Summing up his views on President Bush, he said, "We are still at war and we cannot afford to lose," characterized his domestic policies as a "disaster," and again mentioned all the e-mails he receives from readers.

After the scathing attacks on President Bush's performance in office, even the strongest anti-Bush students in the crowd needed a break, and the speaker's complexion was reddening. Starting his critique of the "dreadful" candidate Kerry, Sullivan jabbed, "He has shuffled advisors as many times as there are troops in Iraq." He accused Kerry of "incredible political ineptitude," claiming that he was "running a campaign which makes Michael Dukakis look like a genius." Although John Kerry "has never run anything but campaigns... He has run them terribly." Sullivan also refuted some of Senator Kerry's plans for Iraq, and affirmed that, "The notion that the French and Russians will send troops over as soon as Kerry is elected is ludicrous." An uncomfortable chuckle swept the crowd as he implied that John Kerry was a "wooly-headed" liberal and admitted that he planned to write-in Senators McCain and Lieberman come November 2nd. Order was restored, however, when he admitted that "I'm looking for someone to support rather than the President," in a battle of "the incompetent versus the irresolute."

Sullivan's comments were not limited to the two candidates, rather he focused on the two parties towards the end of the program. Asserting that the Republican party is essentially a fundamentalist Christian party, he also criticized Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe as a "vile human being." Blaming McAuliffe for the widespread, near-institutionalized support Michael Moore was receiving, including a lavish skybox at the Democratic National Convention, he evoked images of a gargantuan Michael Moore, fifty-foot sub in hand, trampling over an American city when he referred to Moore as a "corrupter of youth and a destroyer of civilization."

Before settling down next to Professor Samwick to watch the Presidential debate, Mr. Sullivan took questions for nearly a half-hour. Most notable was a student who asked him whether or not the United States was safer than it was before the invasion of Iraq. Mr. Sullivan answered, "The rise of jihadism may have been antagonized" but confessed that we may have hurt the "snake" that "hates our existence," though we have not "killed it."

Although Mr. Sullivan probably had many a blog to blog and better things to do than sit with the Rockefeller Center crowd and watch the debate, Professor Samwick invited him to observe with them and comment. Samwick took the liberty to suggest a few guest blog articles on the Rockefeller Center's web-log. The resolution of Sullivan's grand Dartmouth adventure will never be known, as these writers left early in the debate to the sounds of hissing, hemming, hawing, and the gnashing of teeth in reaction to President Bush on the Filene Auditorium big screen.

Andrew Sullivan Visits the College

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