Objective

I've come to the conclusion that when a conservative (and I don't mean the rabid right-wing thugs, I mean any conservative) uses the term "objectively," it means "in their opinion, which may or may not have any basis."

Take this comment by Andrew Sullivan:

As for my later comments about opponents of the Iraq war being "objectively pro-Saddam," that seems to me to be indisputable. If they'd had their way, he'd still be in power.

Sorry -- does not compute. I opposed the war in Iraq going in, while recognizing that Saddam Hussein, like a number of other heads of state, is a blot on the face of humanity. My stance was simply that we had no business invading Iraq, particularly on the basis of questionable intelligence (and there were enough questions about it then that I think opposition was more than justified). When facing something as serious as armed conflict with another country, I'm not going to be persuaded by the rationale du jour, particularly when there is a new rationale every few days. Obviously someone was flailing around until they found something that worked, and at that point, it's not about Saddam at all -- it's about wondering what the hell my own government is up to and what its motivations are.

Sullivan seems to be blind to the fact that Saddam's regime was, I think for most of us who opposed the war, irrelevant to opposition to the invasion. Frankly, if we had to take him down, there are other, more subtle ways of doing it, even short of assassination. I had hoped that Sullivan was more skeptical of a testosterone-fueld foreign policy, but on this issue at least, he seems to have lost the ability to think raionally. (Not that his logic is the strongest in general, but he's usually better than this.)

Sullivan does himself no favors by espousing viewpoints like this -- it's so obviously flawed that even he should be able to see it. As it stands, he's lining himself up with the likes of Michelle Malkin, Hugh Hewitt and Jonah Goldberg, which is a triumvirate to make any rational human being shiver.

And please note that Sullivan conveniently ignores all the strictures of international law. In those terms, we are, quite simply, the aggressor. Objectively.