Yes, I know it's old news by now, but I was busy last week and so want to take just a few lines to discuss the controversy surrounding Senator Durbin's remarks and Karl Rove's speech. In particular, I would like to mention how Andrew Sullivan gets his analysis of the two events exactly wrong.
First, people were understandably outraged over Durbin's remarks. Sullivan, in what has become an utterly predictable reaction, was quick to issue a Ward Churchill-worthy distinction and argued that Durbin was not comparing the actions of US troops and interrogators to Nazis, but only asking us to imagine a hypothetical world, one in which we know only of the accounts, but had no knowledge of the identity of the guilty parties. Sullivan went even further by urging his readers to 'take the test', the implication being that in doing so we would recognize the sad profundity of Durbin's remarks, that we would realize the depth to which we had sunk and realize that the behavior of U.S. troops was on par with the types of behavior we would expect from Nazis or Islamo-fascist thugs.
Semantically, of course, there is a difference. Durbin never claimed that X is Y. He never baldly stated that US troops are 'acting like a bunch of Nazi thugs'. He simply invited the comparison; rhetorically, his speech was meant to imply that the impartial observer would lump the actions of our soldiers in with the Nazis.
The problem is that Durbin, like Sullivan, is taking the actions a fascist regime - one that systematically slaughtered six million humans - and slyly comparing them to the misdeeds of some U.S. soldiers. Sullivan (and others) would like to argue that the alleged abuse at Gitmo and in Iraq is far worse than isolated instances or 'misdeeds'. Sullivan, in fact, has argued that the problem is systemic. But Sullivan is making his point about the U.S. government amidst media scrutiny, investigations, trials, apologies, press conferences, and reforms. See the difference? In an open society, one where we can disagree on the scope of the abuses and whether they are systemic or the actions of a few, and one in which we can write openly and lobby for greater transparency and reforms, Senator Durbin is equivocating in the worst way, and simultaneously diluting the horror of what a real fascist regime is like. And Sullivan - his feelings hurt by an administration he feels let him down - decided to help.
Secondly, one has to consider that Durbin is either not very bright or that the speech was meant as a deliberate provocation. Words have impact. They carry weight (see this article on those who misuse words, like gulag). The confederate flag or the swastika, for example, may have, at one point in history, meant something less sinister - they may have carried a different cultural import. They may have stood for something quite innocuous (which I think the swastika pre-WWII did). Over time, however, their meaning is shaped by events and shifts with use. Words and symbols develop a new significance. It's the same with the words Durbin chose. Durbin's speech could have been just as (in)effective as a hypothetical without the Nazi reference. Durbin's speech could have contrasted the promise and moral compass of America with the allegations coming out of Gitmo and Iraq. But the use of Nazi imagery was deliberate and meant to compare and to provoke. Durbin must have know the weight his words would carry. It's cowardice to then coyly fall back on a semantic distinction as a defense once the rhetorical punch of one's speech has been delivered. I just would have expected a nimble mind like Sullivan to see through such sophistry.
Which brings us to the next point. Sullivan was eager to defend Durbin's reprehensible statements, but quick to lambaste a far more benign speech as delivered by Karl Rove. Sullivan blasted Rove for criticizing the 'liberal response' to 9/11, arguing that Rove should have added qualifiers throughout. The problem is that we were all there. Remember? We were all shocked by the liberal response. (It was Sullivan, in fact, that was at his most inspiring and lucid in arguing why this was an act of war and an attack on Western values.) But in arguing that the liberal response to the attack was to question what the US had done wrong or to urge moderation and restraint, or to offer therapy, Rove was not accusing liberals of being unpatriotic. In fact, there was nothing at all in his speech to even suggest as much. Rather, Rove was contrasting - in a rather flippant, non-analytical way - two distinct approaches to the war on terror.
Besides, it was a political speech to a political interest group - the sort of speech in which one might speak in generalizations - not professorial subtleties. If Rove had gone on to make more insidious suggestions - like comparing liberals to the Vichy of France or to accuse them of representing a fifth column - than his remarks would be unfortunate and misleading. And he would owe an apology. But they were not; there was enough truth in them to make them defensible. After all, remember all the surveys post 9/11 documenting different beliefs and approaches to the war on terror? Sullivan ought to remember at least that. It was Sullivan, after all, who proved so adept at distinguishing those that 'get it' from 'those who don't'. Remember? Sullivan was at his strongest in contrasting the two approaches to the war on terror. Think back to his many posts on the deep dissatisfaction felt by liberals over the way their party was failing to address the war and the threat of the Islamic radicals. It was Sullivan that so eloquently argued that the left failed to understand the import of the war on terror. And Sullivan was right to make the distinction. So too was Karl Rove. Which is why Sullivan is wrong to let his personal disappointment with this administration cloud his judgment as he attempts to rewrite history.
