Thomas Friedman is flat

panthera,

Let me refresh your memory -- or perhaps let me inform you for the very first time -- that no one was more "blind" (as you put it) in his support for the key mistake made by the American government the past eight years than your friend Sullivan was -- your friend Sullivan who was every bit as bellicose and every bit as given to ape-like beating of his chest in the call for war in Iraq as was Christopher Hitchens or any number of Republican "hawks" (to mix metaphors).

Go back and read Sullivan's archives from 2001 through at least the election of 2004, if not well beyond.

Doing so will open your eyes.

Bear in mind also that the Iraq war was not, in fact, as you allege, completely and totally Republicans' fault.

Regime change in Iraq was a policy of Democrats from the Clinton administrations forward.

And indeed as many Democrats -- as many liberals, as many progressives -- supported the Iraq war as opposed it, including many if not most of those who occupy positions of privilege near Barack Obama: Hilary Clinton, Joe Biden, et al.

Obama himself had not originally intended -- in his days as an Illinois state senator -- to come out against the war.

He had wanted to take a more equivocal stance, but was forced off the fence by financial backers who threatened to withhold campaign contributions in the next election cycle.

it's also worth noting -- since you emphasize gay issues as much as you do -- that Obama does not support gay marriage.

Privately, he no doubt does, but publicly, politically, he won't put himself out on a limb in any substantive way for the gay community.

No doubt he will attempt to fill the courts with those who will do by non-democratic means what Obama himself is loathe to do by democratic means.

But the fact remains that the man is no "profile in courage" on the issue you care about most.

All of this is by way of asking why you single out conservatives, Republicans, etc for such special opprobrium, when liberals, progressives, Democrats, etc are guilty of so many of what, for you, are the most grievous political "sins."

And it is also by way of asking how you can maintain your integrity in lauding Andrew Sullivan -- who did as much as anyone did to boost, to promote, to sell the war in Iraq -- while at the same time lacerating those who did much less of that than Sullivan did, simply because they disagree with you about gay concerns.

The answer, of course, is that you can't maintain your integrity -- not that that will (probably) stop you, anymore than it has stopped Andrew Sullivan himself.

panthera,

Clearly it has escaped your attention, but I have never characterized myself as a "conservative" -- I am *not* one -- nor have I ever stated that I ever voted for George W. Bush -- I did *not.*

I am not now nor have I ever been a member of the Republican -- or any other -- political party and I did not support the war in Iraq.

As for infringements of civil rights post 9-11, most of the measures Bush took -- like them or not, and I tend not to like them -- merely brought American standards closer to European norms, which is usually what "progressives" (like you, I'm assuming) want more than anything else.

It's also worth noting that Barack Obama has been in no great hurry to reverse the civil rights abridgments that Bush and his administration made.

Finally, to note that you lack integrity in your stance toward Andrew Sullivan is not a "personal attack," but merely an observation of the shaky argumentative posture you have chosen to adopt.

Sullivan was among the biggest boosters of all of the Bush administration policies with which you disagree.

But that seems not to bother you a whit, in his case, whereas you are absolutely vitrolic and even libelous toward others -- your dreaded "Christianists" or "conservative Christians" -- who had much less to do, in most cases, with boosting those policies than Sullivan did.

In most cases, the "Christianists" whom you so hysterically libel as wanting to murder homosexuals (and others?) did no more to boost Bush's policies than simply to cast their vote for who they deemed to be the the lesser of two evils -- Bush as opposed to Gore and then to Kerry -- in a couple of elections.

Whereas Sullivan used every rancid means in the demagogic lexicon to drum up support for the war and for how Bush waged it -- support from Republicans, Democrats, and independents.

That is, until it was unfashionable to do so, at which point Sullivan abruptly shifted gears from being a Republican flack who demonizes Muslims to being a Democratic flack who demonizes Christians.

If that strikes you as integrity -- so be it.

But I beg to disagree, and I have a right to say so.

Likewise if support for the likes of Sullivan, alongside libel or innocent people who have done nothing wrong, strikes you as integrity -- so be it.

But (again) I beg to disagree, and (again) I have the right to say so.

panthera,

Actually, *you* are the one who always makes it "all about me."

If you would simply refrain from address my posts -- which you seem unable to do in a civil and respectful way -- than we would not have this problem.

I would never in a million years have dreamed of even reading -- let alone responding to -- any of your posts, except that you began using some of them to misrepresent me and to engage in ad hominem attacks against who you take me -- incorrectly -- to be.

I've asked you more than a half dozen times just to go your own way, so I can go mine.

Count this as one more time that I'm asking you to do that.

I assure you that I have not the slightest desire to converse with you further.

But so long as you keep on smearing me, and (much more importantly) as long as you keep on casting blood-libel of murderous hatred on innocent people who have done nothing wrong, I will keep on replying to you