Who's the Moral Relativist?

Standing alongside Pope Benedict at the White House yesterday, President Bush took a swipe at moral relativism.

"In a world where some no longer believe that we can distinguish between simple right and wrong, we need your message to reject this dictatorship of relativism," Bush said-- borrowing a line Benedict coined to underscore his commitment to Catholic orthodoxy, shortly before his election as pope.

Yet some of Bush's most defining decisions -- such as launching a war of choice against Iraq and his picking and choosing which laws actually apply to him -- suggest a highly subjective sense of right and wrong. Most notably, he defends the use of interrogation tactics that violate human dignity by arguing that the ends justify the means.

Readers noted this in the comments section of yesterday's column and in e-mails to me.

Graydon Forrer called Bush's disdain for moral relativism "kinda ironic, given our torture policies are the ultimate act of moral relativism."

Kevin O'Sullivan wrote: "W's clear admission that torture is okay if it is really, really necessary stands even the weakest argument of moral relativism on its head!"

It's a point that hasn't been entirely lost on the pundit crowd, either.

A. Barton Hinkle wrote in his Richmond Times-Dispatch opinion column in February: "U.S. policy . . . seems to be that waterboarding of Americans is torture, and waterboarding by Americans before 9/11 was torture, but waterboarding by Americans after 9/11 is not. This is known as moral relativism, which conservatives used to abhor."

Eric Mink wrote in his St. Louis Post-Dispatch opinion column in October: "What is most dangerous about the Bush administration's reckless disregard for law is that it is the very embodiment of moral relativism. Indeed, without the certain foundation of the rule of law, moral footing becomes exceedingly slippery."

Blogger Chris Edelson wrote yesterday: "Bush likes to invoke 'moral clarity', and apparently believes he shares this quality with the pope, but reality says otherwise. . . .

"In Bush's world, there are, of course, plenty of exceptions to the moral absolute of human life: the death penalty is one example, the invasion of Iraq is another. Bush likes to describe the world in black and white terms when he makes speeches, but his own actions recognize the world, even as he sees it, is more complicated.

"Bush's prim, sanctimonious invocation of moral absolutes is laughable."