Sullivan half-heartedly distances himself from Blumenthal’s hackery while also doing his best to promote it. Sullivan goes after George’s views on abortion—or rather, alleged views, since Sullivan does his usual lousy job of presenting his opponents’ views accurately. Sullivan professes shock that George “sees no moral difference between an abortion and the murder of an abortionist. Both are murders of fully-formed human beings, in his view.”

In reality, George does not deny that there can be and often are important moral differences between abortion and other forms of homicide, and he has suggested (in an essay I co-authored, as it happens) that the differences should be reflected in more lenient treatments of abortion in criminal law. But it is true that George believes that abortion has important features in common with other forms of homicide: features that make it unjust and that merit its legal proscription. In other words, Robby George, like the president, nearly half the Congress, and millions of other Americans, is pro-life. This comes as a shock to Andrew Sullivan?

Sullivan writes that George “clever[ly]” avoids condemning the murder of abortionists. Here is what George, in a speech to pro-life Christians, has actually said should be done about abortionists:

[W]e must, in obedience to the command of Christ himself, love our enemies. We must pray for those who have brought the abortion license upon our nation and for those who today protect and sustain it. We must also pray for those who perform and profit from abortions. Our love for them must be godly and ungrudging. We must never give up on its power to transform.

Sullivan suggests that we should all be concerned because George is “among the closest advisers of our current president on ethical and moral issues.” Can you imagine? The president listens to a man who thinks that the government should ban abortion and that pro-lifers should pray for abortionists. Scary, huh? Me, I’m more concerned that there are people who believe a word that Andrew Sullivan writes.