joining the ex-President club in 2004

I used to read and respect Andrew Sullivan, because I thought he was a principled critic of Clinton. When Bush was elected, he showed that he was just a partisan hack. I think Sullivan is the most hypocritical pundit in the blogsphere. So it didn't surprise me that when former President Jimmy Carter made a principled and moral argument about when war is justified, Sullivan immediately climbed upon a high horse, demanding to know:

...has there ever been a case when a former president has actually publicly undermined a sitting president at a critical time in U.N. diplomacy, essentially advising critical foreign governments to balk at America's requests on the eve of a war? If someone knows of a precedent for Jimmy Carter's op-ed, please let me know.

(link via InstaPundit)

Sullivan will of course ignore the fact that another former president has "publicly undermined a sitting president at a critical time in UN diplomacy" (note the implicit and unintentional acknowledgement that UN diplomacy is relevant). That former President is George Bush:

THE first President Bush has told his son that hopes of peace in the Middle East would be ruined if a war with Iraq were not backed by international unity.

Drawing on his own experiences before and after the 1991 Gulf War, Mr Bush Sr said that the brief flowering of hope for Arab-Israeli relations a decade ago would never have happened if America had ignored the will of the United Nations.

He also urged the President to resist his tendency to bear grudges, advising his son to bridge the rift between the United States, France and Germany.

(link via Daily Kos)

Given that the US and UK have extended the deadlines, suddenly I think that war might not be inevitable after all. I wonder what SDB has to say about it..