I am a great admirer of Andrew Sullivan’s writing. Immediately following 9/11 there was probably not a better voice articulating the war civilized society would face in the new post-9/11 world against Islamic Radicalism. And though it is not exactly news that Sullivan has undergone a transformation these last 18 months, his recent attacks on the Bush administration and their prosecution of the war increasingly sound like the tired demagoguery of the left.

Sullivan’s column in the Sunday Times, for example, could just as easily have been written by Jonathan Alter or Maureen Dowd. It is one thing for baby-boomer liberals pining for the good old days of anti-Vietnam protests and Watergate to spin stories about how Bush is the reincarnation of Nixon. But I expect this type of hyperventilating from Alterman, Down, Herbert and Rich -- not Sullivan.

NRO’s Mark Levin, who has battled with Sullivan over the torture issue, comments:

I think Andrew Sullivan can now be dismissed as just another shrill voice. Fresh from regurgitating the leftist spin about American forces torturing detainees (and misusing report after report which he clearly had not read), he's now doing the same with NSA intercepts of al-Qaeda communications. Has he read the Constitution? Has he read any of the relevant cases? Has he examined U.S. war-time history and the conduct of past presidents? Does it matter? I guess not.

In his Sunday Times article Sullivan starts by flatly stating that:

We now know the president was not telling the truth. It turns out the president has authorized thousands of wiretaps of American citizens’ phones without any court order for the past four years, clearly violating a 1978 law that set up a special court to monitor and approve such taps.

The problem is that it is NOT clear that the President broke the law. Sullivan should have the intellectual honesty to acknowledge that reasonable, decent, intelligent people disagree on whether the President overstepped his legal authority. Instead he descends into the demagoguery of the left where the President is simply a liar and a systemic violator of civil liberties, ala Richard Nixon.

The bigger issue here is not Andrew Sullivan, but the relentless and unprecedented assault on the Bush administration while it is trying to lead the country in a war. Our enemies know their path to victory is not on the battlefield against our troops, but rather in the minds of the American public. Their goal is to demoralize the American people via a naïve and misguided press which in turn will erode public support and force a retreat before we can achieve victory. It is on this battlefield where the war will be won or lost.

Tony Blankley spells it out:

As we enter another year of extreme international danger, the one threat that solely is within America's power to reduce or eliminate is our lack of national unity.

There may be no more agonizing weakness for a nation than major internal division during a time of war, because, unlike the conduct of foreign nations or forces, a lack of internal unity is exclusively our own collective fault…..

If we had national unity, government employees and the major media would not think it their patriotic duty to leak or publish classified war secrets. (Only traitors or the careless would be releasing such information, as opposed to today's perhaps subjectively well-intentioned, if objectively misguided releasers of such information.)

Most damaging of all, America's loud, nasty and publicly displayed disunity heartens our enemies around the world -- as well it should. Whether the enemy is a terrorist operative in Fallujah, Frankfurt or Falls Church, Va., he knows that defeating our will is the supreme strategic goal. Once we are more concerned with defeating our domestic opponents than our foreign enemies, the downside potential for America is almost unlimited. The enemy now lives in justifiable hope -- as we slip into increasingly justifiable despair.

Blankley’s point and, mine as well, is not meant to be an argument against dissent. Dissent is the fundamental right of every American and can often be a constructive part of getting to the correct strategies and/or tactics that will lead to victory.  The key, however, is that everyone has to be on the same team. The problem we have is there is a huge block on the left who hate Bush and hate this war. Their attitude is that Bush got us into this mess, it’s his problem, and - let’s be honest - many of these people are pulling for a Vietnam type quagmire. (Just to be clear, I'm not lumping Sullivan in this group.)

Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Joe Lieberman have all been critical of the Bush administration’s prosecution of the war. Despite their dissent, however, no one can question their commitment to win. Unfortunately, that is not true of large factions in the Democratic Party, including its Chairman.

President Bush is going to be Commander in Chief for the next three years. Relentless demagoguery, comparisons to Nixon and talk of impeachment do a disservice to our fight against Islamic Radicalism. The country needs to find a way to honestly debate legitimate security vs. civil liberty issues, as well as other tactics in this war while making it clear to our enemies that though we may have disagreements in approach, there is total unity when it comes to their ultimate defeat.