I hate to give credit to Andrew Sullivan, but he does make some valid points regarding Bush’s policies as laid out in last week’s State of the Union:

“But, more profound, the president revealed his deep suspicion of human freedom. Yes, he says he supports it. But in every instance–even charitable and religious institutions–he believes that government needs to get involved. He wants to maintain the Patriot Act intact; he wants to extend the war on drugs to steroids; he wants to prevent gay couples from having the ability to form their own families and be treated equally under the law. He suggests not a single government program to be cut. On social issues, he shifted to the hard right: abstinence programs rather than contraception; an assault on gay couples and families; and millions of dollars in order to subject children to mandatory drug testing in schools. This is not Reaganism. It isn’t Gingrichism. It’s Big Government Moral Conservatism: fiscally liberal and socially conservative. It will please the hard right and the base. And it will alienate libertarians and moderates. It struck me as a speech that comes out of a political cocoon, from a president who doesn’t grasp that he is in fact politically vulnerable, and who intends to run not on what he plans for the future but on what he has done in the past. That’s a high-risk strategy. We won’t know how high a risk until the Democrats produce a nominee. ”

Sullivan is puzzled that Bush’s domestic agenda is so anti-freedom when Bush’s foreign policy is devoted to spreading liberty worldwide. Of course, as Lew points out today, Bush is not exactly spreading liberty in Iraq. Aside from their useful idiots like Sullivan, the War Party’s commitment to global freedom is merely rhetorical.

Note that warmonger Sullivan criticizes the Patriot Act, while still supporting the neon crusade against evil without which Bush would lack a justification for his wholesale violations of civil liberties. When will the Liberventionists learn that you cannot support war and liberty?