Shameless Grovelling

Just in case people think I've turned around on Andrew Sullivan, allow me to mock him for this foolishness:

Something a little embarrassing has been happening to George W Bush and Dick Cheney lately. They’ve been rumbled as closet softies. On two groups not exactly dear to the Republican base — illegal Hispanic immigrants and gay couples — the president and vice-president are quietly, privately tolerant, even sympathetic. And this news could prove devastating to their electoral fortunes....

Does their personal tolerance make their policies less or more distasteful? I’d say more distasteful, since they know better. A man with a gay daughter in a loving relationship should not be campaigning on the idea that such relationships destroy the family. Whose family? Cheney’s?...

But in this there is also, perhaps, an emerging possibility. If the Democrats win back all or half the Congress this November Bush will have to deal with them. Can we say triangulation? He’ll have new allies to pass an immigration measure he can live with and take credit for; and more cover when the anti-gay forces recede.

We may get a kinder, gentler Bush yet. It’s there underneath. It’s just that it might take a Democratic Congress to bring it out of the closet.

Here Sullivan has made a very simple mistake - he's confused Bush's personal feelings towards individuals (tolerance, even respect) with Bush's feelings towards the group (which could tamely be called repressive.) Bush isn't supporting awful policies just because he thinks he'll win a few congressional votes (though that certainly factors in.) Bush actually thinks that gay marriage will ruin the American family - a stupid and homophobic belief, but an honestly-held one.

Anyone with a brain can see the contradiction between Bush's personal beliefs and his politics, its true. But this is not an uncommon dichotomy for bigots to hold in their heads. I'm sure most southern whites got along just fine with the blacks they knew, so long as they didn't talk politics.

Sullivan would like to believe that, unencumbered by the party he leads, Bush would turn in to a nicer guy. What evidence is there of this? I know for the Bush fans hope springs eternal (at this point hope is all they have) but really, this is just sad, desperate pleading from the disillusioned. Sullivan - when he wasn't smearing the left as treasonous dogs - always hoped that Bush could end the gay-bashing and racism in the GOP. Bush will have had 8 years by the time he's done, and I think we can safely predict the GOP will still be as racist and homophobic in 2008 as it was in 1999.

Then there's that last nugget at the end - that if a Democratic congress pushes Bush to be more gay-friendly, he should take credit for it. I actually worry that this is how Bush will redeem himself: by taking credit for the actions of the post-2006 Congress. I propose that, to guard against this, Democrats start calling all their proposed laws things like the "Laura Bush Murdered her ex-boyfriend Act, 2007" or "The Bush Daughters are Drunken Trollopes Act of 2008." I think Bush might even whip out the veto pen for that.