Sociopaths live, and we are surrounded by them. Here’s Sullivan awarding Thoreau with a Moore Award for rhetoric showing insufficient deference to the state and to the post Osama bloodlust. The offending quote:
So many awful things have happened in the battles to find this man, so many awful things have been “justified” in the name of responding to his attacks, that killing him won’t fix a damn thing. There is no justice here. He started it, but our leaders have continued it, and it will not stop.
Oh, the vapors! Pointing out we’ve done horrible things is so Un-American and such a downer. Hush, you! I’m on a bloodlust high!
Here is Sullivan, a few hours later, discussing the political benefits for Obama of killing bin Laden. And for fun, here is Sullivan quoting Frum, both exuberant that this finally will show the doubters:
David Frum hopes “we have at last seen the end of this ugly insinuation that there is something less than fully American about the black president with the exotic name:
President Obama has performed the first job of an American president: he has used the power of the nation well to defeat the nation’s enemies and defend the nation’s people. After an interval for celebration of yesterday’s accomplishment, it will be back to politics as usual. But let’s hope that this time, the usual will have this difference: that the administration can be criticized as “liberal” without being libeled as “alien.”
Because, as we all know, there is nothing more American than killing foreigners! Look, I hated Osama too, and I am glad the man is dead and buried where no one can ever build a tomb or monument to his evil, but there is something sick about someone who tries to shut down speech as mild and tepid as what Thoreau wrote and then going on and cheering the political and other benefits. I know which one of the above quotes I find repulsive.