You have to give Andrew Sullivan credit for coming on Hugh Hewitt’s show, though in the end he provided little more than comic relief. At the outset of the interview, Sullivan objected to being asked whether he’s a Catholic, suggesting that the question threatened to convert the interview into an inquisition. However, I’ve seen Sullivan willingly answer questions about his faith during other interviews. I guess it’s fine to ask Sullivan about his Catholicism if he can use it to establish his credentials through softball questioning, but unfair if the questioner is a critic who actually knows much about Catholicism. Notice also the quick resort to name-calling (“inquisition”) which his become Sullivan’s trademark and often his only form of argument.
In his book “The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How To Get It Back,” Sullivan writes:
A conservative will also eschew any grand notions of history or great crusades. He would never state that his goal is to end tyranny on earth or other such utopian fantasies.
Compare Sullivan’s pronouncement with the following statements by Ronald Reagan:
While we must be cautious about forcing the pace of change, we must not hesitate to declare our ultimate objectives and to take concrete actions to move toward them. We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few, but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings… What I am describing now is a plan and a hope for the long term — the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash-heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people. … Let us be shy no longer. Let us go to our strength. Let us offer hope. Let us tell the world that a new age is not only possible but probable
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