The best thing about Hugh Hewitt is that he gets the blogosphere and that his crossover style of talk radio and web is revolutionary. The second best thing about him is that he's a lawyer and has a very good background in making arguments that are stellar for radio and way better than anything on television. The third best thing and also the worst thing about him is that he's an unabashed conservative Republican partisan, but only to the extent that tail wags the dogs of the first two qualities. When he's at his best, he can skewer his guests and callers Perry Mason-like. When he's at his worst, he sounds just like the other hacks on Right radio.
In his 'interview' with Andrew Sullivan, it was a very frustrating experience which made Sullivan look a lot worse than he is, and took Hewitt off his game. I think the entire thing was flubby.
Sullivan came off as very defensive and accusatory, dealing with Hewitt as if he were dealing with the head of the Gestapo. It was something I was entirely unprepared for - turning out to be a battle of ideological and theological (almost) dimensions instead of anything really resembling a book review. From the very first question, Sullivan was dodgy, sounding almost like Moussaui questioning the validity of American courts.
I think Sullivan came off best talking about the nature of Christianity and the tension between Paul and Jesus and the interpretation of that for Christians. He also presented a stellar bit about the tripartite bases of morality in Catholicism. Unfortunately, it's impossible to tell if much of this was just him off the cuff or actually something that was covered in the book.
Hewitt played then to his strengths in revealing his intention of snapping Sullivan to the grid of the matters of faith for Thomas Jefferson and the Founders, which did make Sullivan look rather silly for being wary. He also nailed Sullivan rather nicely on matter of Constitutional interpretation. But Sullivan would have none of it and was rather determined to call Hewitt a Pharisee. A good reversal, but really not Sully's place as a guest.
On the whole it was a distasteful affair and I found it emblematic of the kind of arrogance many conservative pundits have in their intimations that they do indeed have the last word on True Conservatism. Both men did themselves damage, neither willing to delineate for the radio audience what legitimate differences might be found between them in order for us to figure out how such a gap might be bridged or sides intelligently chosen.
Sullivan asserts without a doubt that Habeas Corpus has been destroyed and that Christian Fundamentalists have, without precedent or restraint, blasphemed and abused their faith by their politics - using several times as an example Ann Coulter's 'Godless'. If he weren't so strident to make a point, he might have made a point. But I've stopped reading him long ago (I forget the reason) and am unaccustomed to his tone. Surely he could have thought of a more significant or subtle example of this insidious plague. Everybody hates and discounts Coulter, what's new in that? Sullivan acts like a petty blogger and is completely outclassed by Hewitt, but only by default. There are lots of ways to get around Hewitt's bloviation and plenty of interviewees have done it, but clearly there was a lot of fear and loathing going on.
In the end, I ordered Frame's translation of Montaigne instead of Sullivan's book.
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