Conservatives should punish the Republican Party at the polls for hypocrisy, said author and blogger Andrew Sullivan on MSNBC.
"They say that they are anti-gay and want to stop gay people from having any lives," Sullivan remarked, "yet they actually seem to be protecting someone who's not just gay, but he's actually abusing pages in his care.
"That kind of hypocrisy speaks to a level of corruption that requires us to -- as conservatives -- to say, 'enough's enough, you guys need to be punished.'"
A transcript of the MSNBC interview with Sullivan follows the video.
TRANSCRIPT
MS. O'DONNELL:
MR. SULLIVAN:
MS. O'DONNELL: If Democrats win control of Congress they may have Mark Foley to thank. 29 days until the election and the Foley fallout seems to be the October surprise. A sex scandal that has captured the nations attention and put the most powerful Republican in the House on the hot seat. Joining me now is Andrew Sullivan, author of the new book "The Conservative Soul." He's a columnist and blogger for Time Magazine and former editor of The New Republic. Andrew, great to see you.
MR. SULLIVAN: Nice to see you, too, Nora.
MS. O'DONNELL: Let me ask you. You spoken a lot about the Foley scandal was a prime example of how "the Party's chickens have come home to roost." What do you mean by that?
MR. SULLIVAN: I mean there is a big discrepancy between what they say they believe in and what they've done. They said they believe in limited government but they have exploded the size of government. They said they believe in individual liberties but they have removed basic Constitutional liberties like habeas corpus. They say that they want to keep religious people in politics but don't turn politics into religion and, yet, they are running on explicit religious messages and they say that they are anti-gay and want to stop gay people from having any lives, yet, they actually seem to be protecting someone who's not just gay but he's actually abusing pages in his care. That kind of hypocrisy speaks to a level of corruption that requires us to -- as conservatives -- to say, "enough's enough, you guys need to be punished."
MS. O'DONNELL: You also write for Time Magazine and, of course, they have a new poll out that shows that a majority of Americans do believe there has been cover up. A third of those are Republicans who thing their own party is covering this up. I have to ask you, Andrew, about the new news today. This bombshell on the front page of the Washington Post that Congressman Jim Colby who is an openly gay member of Congress who is a Republican may have know in 2000 that Foley was sending these inappropriate emails.
MR. SULLIVAN: Apparently, I mean, I'm just reading the papers like you are. He confronted Foley about it. I hope he confronted people higher up about it too. My fear is that these people were not full cognisant of how bad this was and didn't do enough to stop it. Again, it's one rule for them in private and another rule for everybody else in public. There is a gap here. One thing I will also point out, the conservative have always favored fiscal responsibility. Bush inherited a debt of $20 trillion. In five years, he's increased it to $43 trillion. Conservatives used to believe in prudence in foreign policy. You're not prudent if you invade a country with no plan as to what to do once you get to the capital. These people are not conservative and it's time conservatives stood up and took back their party from these people by punishing them at the polls.
MS. O'DONNELL: Well, is there any indication that may happen. I mean, we heard from a number of social conservative leaders who think that there voters are going to stay home, at the polls, in part because of the Foley scandal. Is there any indication that conservatives are so fed up that they will do that?
MR. SULLIVAN: There are different kinds of conservatives.
MS. O'DONNELL: Yep.
MR. SULLIVAN: There are social conservative who may be fed up with this. There are fiscal conservative, like me, who are absolutely aghast at how much spending these people have been doing. There are "live and let live" libertarian cconservatives who are extremely angry at the way these people have entered our bedrooms, and telling us what we can do with our lives as consenting adults, and the influence of the religious right. I think this coalition that has been creaking for a while now, may be breaking up, finally. And the rage is coming, not so much from Democrats anymore, it's from Republicans. I mean, we have people like Bill Buckley saying that George Bush is not a conservative. We have people like George Will saying that the conservatives need to resist these people in power. And I think that conservatives believe in checks and balances, too, and we need to put a check on this out-of-control Republican Party.
MS. O'DONNELL: Let me get your prediction, Andrew, because this is going to be a very pivotal week in the Congressional page scandal. Because, of course, the ethics committee up in Congress is beginning their investigation and there is going to be testimony, not only by Kirk Forham(?), the former Chief of Staff who says, yes, he did tell Hastert's office a long time ago, several years ago. We have Jeff Trandal(?), the former Clerk of The House, who also indicates that he told Hastert's office about this. What do you predict, by the end of this week, that we will know more about how much Hastert's office knew and for how long?
MR. SULLIVAN: Look, Nora, I can't predict because these are complicated things that happen. Everybody has to put their timeline on the table to understand. But, I will say one thing. It seems to be that we know already that it Dennis Hastert did not know, he should have known. What I call responsibility is instead of blaming your staff, as this president always does, as other people always does, is that you say, "look, I may not have been told but that meant that I ran my office in a way that bad news didn't reach me and that's my responsibility."
