This was the original, rather rambling Jonah Goldberg?s article on National Review about what John Walker's crossing the line and the media commentary on the subject says about the American society. It predictably took off on what he calls 'libertarians' and not so predictably took off on Andrew Sullivan too. I thought that it was rather well written and had some interesting, provocative ideas. It caused a predictable furore. Subsequently a lot of people including Andrew Sullivan (www.andrewsullivan.com) published rejoinders and Goldberg has been penning rebuttals ever since. I think what he wrote originally (including the NYT link the article points to) is worth reading. I havent bothered to read the subsequent articles

I rather like Jonah Goldberg's writing. At various points of time in my life, I have called myself a liberal or a centrist. I usually hate to declare myself - since you are then kind of expected to defend all sorts of orthodoxies associated with that position - that you may not agree with. And the label becomes a royal pain. Also I realize that my political and moral beliefs have evolved quite a bit over the last few years as I migrated across different cultural and gegraphical boundaries. If you are intellectually honest and lead an vibrant life where you are open to ideas - the absolute positions that you have taken in the past may in hindsight seem embarassing. Well, what I am trying to say here is - by Goldberg's definition, I would probably be considered a libertarian.