Hewitt vs a Heretic

Hugh Hewitt has published a transcript of his "interview" with me yesterday. Here are some of his questions:

"Are you a Christian?"

"Do you believe Jesus Christ rose from the dead?"

"Do you consider yourself under the authority of Benedict, or before him, John Paul II?"

You can read my answers in the transcript. This was not an interview. It was an inquisition. I was having none of it, and refused to acquiesce in his attempt to hijack an interview. But when I tried to challenge him back, he wouldn't answer. Money quote:

AS: How are you, as a Christian, able to support torture, Hugh?

HH: Now I want to go back ... again ...

AS: Again, you're not answering.

HH: We'll have ... I'm not going to be interviewed ... I'm interviewing you, because I did a lot of work to get ready for this interview, not to debate you. I want to know about your book.

AS: You can't answer. You refuse to answer these questions.

HH: Has any...you are a proponent.

AS: How do you support the abrogation of habeas corpus, and the imposition of torture in America? That's a very profound question. And why are you ducking it?

HH: Well, actually, as Justice Marshall said, it’s a very important question, and it's also not a very difficult one. I don't do either of those things. So that's the end of it.

Really? This is what he wrote today:

The left hates Bush for a variety of reasons, chief among them that it is easy in this age when nothing is easy. It is safe to scream "torture" in an era when threats that boggle the mind are in fact pressing.

So it would appear that Hewitt does believe the use of torture is justified because of the stakes, but he refuses to say it outright because he knows that a true Christian could never say such a thing, without being exposed as someone who is actually the enemy of the teachings of Jesus. Or he has the exquisite moral position of a Glenn Reynolds who is simply anti-anti-torture - but, boy, is he opposed to one crank blogger's "outing" of Republicans. Torture is a minor issue compared with that.

Then there are Hewitt's readers and listeners. On Townhall.com, where he blogs, I have now been called a "Commiequeerbigocrap" and "homosexual sexual pervert". I just got an email from one of his listeners that wrote the following:

Your refusal to accept the Bible as the inspired Word of God, and your suggestion (from ignorance?) that our Lord's death was not part of His plan have convinced my wife and I - who sat through the whole wetched hour - to vote a straight Republican ticket.

To clarify, I simply stated that the Gospels tell us that on the cross itself, as Jesus' last words, he cried out "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" His last words were of doubt, doubt that God was not there - the doubt these fanatics want to expunge from true faith. But notice that they are voting Republican entirely on religious fundamentalist grounds. They prove the whole point of my book of how true conservatism has been subverted and destroyed by religious fanaticism, enabled by apparatchiks like Hewitt. And then, of course, what they really think. From an email from a Hewitt fan today:

Why were you so obnoxious on Hugh Hewitt?
Is it because you're gay and dying of AIDS?

Read the transcript. It speaks volumes.