Let's be honest about something. Andrew Sullivan hates two things with a passion -- American conservatives and orthodox Christians. The death of Jesse Helms (which this conservative chooses not to mark at all, having never been a particular fan) allowed him one last opportunity to hit at a man who in Sullivan's self-important mind represented both. So be it -- I shan't condemn him for it when by his own admission he recognizes that his doing so is wrong. I therefore feel that no chastisement is needed. Hopefully it will gnaw at his conscience until he repents -- but I somehow doubt it will.

But that isn't what is striking about his post, which is actually quite mild compared to the vitriol spilled by Leftists around the internet. What strikes me is a rather arrogant claim on his part regarding something he alleges Jesse Helms took away from him:

... [Helms] was personally responsible for removing my right to become an American...

Excuse me?

I don't know how to break it too you, Andy, but you have no right to become an American citizen. No foreigner does. Some are, indeed, granted the privilege of American citizenship -- but there is nothing that a so-called "libertarian conservative" like yourself could coherently claim constitutes a "right" for any non-American to become a citizen of this great country. Indeed, sir, you really don't even have a right to remain in this country -- the privilege of being present here is one which may legitimately be revoked for an alien like yourself. So while you are welcome to hate Jesse Helms and rhetorically desecrate his corpse, please have the decency and integrity to recognize that your claim is false -- for you never had what you claim was taken from you.

UPDATE: As noted below in comments, Andrew Sullivan has changed the wording of his post to remove the claim that he had a right to be an American citizen. Too bad he didn't have the integrity to acknowledge that I had made the point -- or to allow my trackback to post at his site. I guess being called out on the point hurt his feelings.

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