What is the deal with Andrew Sullivan? At some point during the campaign, this staunch conservative (no matter how many times he proclaims to be independent), had switched sides, like many conservatives with a soul, and decided that the anti-gay, and anti-reality policies of the Bush administration were too high a price to pay for his reelection. Since Election Day, however, Sullivan has jumped right back in with these guys as though he had never left. In any case, his email of the day is from one of the Christian freaks out there who have the cognitive dissonance bug; those who are somehow able to separate Bush's hate from the Bush policies that they like. Let's pick it apart, shall we?

"You are wrong. Gays were NOT the issue. I'm a born again Christian, (raised Baptist, then Pentecostal!) Morals were my deciding factor also. Not anything to do with "gay" I live next door to San Francisco and have gay family and dear friends since 1976. BEFORE it was cool. BEFORE it accepted like it is today, I have had 4 friends die of AIDS."

- OK, fine. You have gay friends. Then Bush hates your friends. Bush thinks that gays are second class citizens unworthy of even the most basic of human rights. Like it or not, gays were a major issue for many people.

"The morals I cared about? A president who meant what he said."

- Like when he said he'd get bin Laden "dead or alive?" Like when he said there are WMD in Iraq? Like when he said there would be no casualties in Iraq?

"A man who is faithful to his wife."

- Did I miss a memo? Was John Kerry cheating on Teresa?

"A man who doesn't pander to Hollywood."

- What does this even mean? Who's pandering to Hollywood? How does one pander to Hollywood? "I support further violence in cinema. Your right to film hot man-on-man action will never be challenged as long as I'm in the White House." And in any case, have we forgotten that one of the more violent action stars sits in the Governor's office in California representing good Republican American values?

"A man who is not ashamed to say he prays and give credit to a higher power, who helps him."

- A man who is not ashamed to pray to *your* god, who helps him. He's not my god. And in any case, I'd much rather have a president who worships facts and reason as opposed to a mythical ghost who lives in the clouds and tells him what to do, (to paraphrase the gifted George Carlin). I've said it before, and I'll say it again, when I was a kid (going to Catholic school, by the way), we had a word for people who hear god talk to them - crazy.

"A man who doesn't try to please all the people all the time."

- Tariffs on steel. No tariffs on steel. Against a 9/11 investigation. For a 9/11 investigation. Osama dead or alive. Osama just isn't that important anymore. I'm against nation building. Let's build Iraq from scratch. Gay marriage is for the states to decide. Gay marriage should be outlawed in the Constitution. Shall I go on?

"A man who shares my deeply held belief about freedom and what a GREAT country America is,"

- Boy, I really must have stopped reading the news at some point. When did Kerry say that America sucked? And that begs the question, why did he fight and spend millions of dollars to try to run a country he thought was lousy?

"and someone who knew Saddam Hussein has murdered 400,000 innocent men, women and children."

- This one always touches a nerve with me. Bush has killed 100,000 innocent men, women and children in 18 months, compared to the 400,000 that Saddam killed in what, 30 years? I'm not saying that Saddam wasn't brutal; 400,000 dead is horribly tragic. But today, Bush is killing at a faster rate than Saddam ever did. Isn't that a little bit like cleaning your apartment by burning down the whole building? Oh, and don't forget that those 400,000 people were slaughtered with the tacit approval of the United States government (Reagan, Bush I), many with weapons that WE supplied.

"I did not care if there were weapons of mass destruction, Saddam himself was a weapon of mass destruction."

- But I care if the president lies to me. I'm weird like that. And please, right-wingers, stop saying that Saddam is a weapon of mass destruction. The phrase WMD is specifically used in reference to something physical and tangible that can be supplied to a terrorist to bring to the US, and kill us. Saddam wasn't going to be packed in a suitcase and let loose in Times Square.

"We are better off today, with this man gone from power, who can argue that?"

- I'll assume you meant to say, who can argue with that, and my response is - I can. In fact, how can you argue that we're better off today? Some might argue that the Iraqi people are better of today, but shit, I won't even accept that. Iraqis are dying at a much faster rate now than before. Saddam wasn't going anywhere, he wasn't invading anyone. He didn't have any weapons, he was kept in check by the sanctions. Now, we've stirred up a hornet's nest of terrorists plotting, controlling entire regions of Iraq. We have the entire Arab world galvanized against us, joining terrorist cells, praying to Allah that they can give their lives to take out a few Americans. Constantly repeating the mantra, we're better off, doesn't make it true.

Attacking Iraq was a colossal mistake, one from which the world won't recover in generations. Bush is eventually going to pull out and leave the terrorists in control of a gigantic pile of oil to sell and fund their evil plans. When we have a 9/11 every six months, will you still think we're better off?

In any case, the point I'm making is that Bush doesn't represent your values. The only value he represents is getting more power for himself and his cabal of cronies. He doesn't value life. He doesn't value the democratic process. He doesn't value civil or human rights. He likes to tell you otherwise, and you know what? He's lying.