“What’s the main difference between George Bush and Al Gore?” asked journalist Andrew Sullivan when he took the podium at the start of Tuesday night’s convocation speech. “George Bush speaks English as though it were his second language. But Al Gore speaks English as though it were your second language.”

This opening joke is characteristic of the humor that ran all through Sullivan’s talk. If audience members came to the lecture with a preconceived notion of how the advertised conservative might be expected to treat political figures, these stereotypes were set aside. Sullivan’s talk aimed to challenge the popular conception of conservatism, particularly as expounded by the Bush administration.

Sullivan, longstanding editor at The New Republic and TIME.com blogger, noted to his Oberlin audience members that they might find his conservatism, in many ways, to resemble their own liberalism. He was alluding to his own political and social struggle as a gay, Catholic immigrant; traits that challenge today’s popular notion of a “conservative.”

Sullivan contrasted the conservative principles he says are the roots of America to conservatism in the context of today’s administration. The first kind of conservatism is grounded in doubt, he said. The administration’s conservatism, on the other hand, has done the opposite of doubt — it claims a monopoly on the truth.

“The paradox is that [conservatism’s] truth is doubt,” said Sullivan. “A person knows what he does not know.”

America’s founding fathers realized that doing things right in the practical world is difficult, said Sullivan. They recognized human imperfection and fallibility, he explained, and built a government based on the doubt that a society can be run by a select few according to a set of rules.

“The closer you are to the actual thing itself,” emphasized Sullivan, “the more likely you are to get it right.”

Sullivan said that the free market is an example of a fundamentally American system in which individuals are allowed the freedom to practice things until they get them right — a system glued together with doubt.

He added that the founding fathers created a government that embodied this sense of freedom and doubt by setting it “deliberately at war with itself” through separation of powers, states’ and individual rights.

One might ask why you would want a government that is designed to fight itself? “So that nothing could get done,” Sullivan answered. “That’s America’s genius. Nothing gets done. If you’re lucky.”

He explained that this balanced system prevents any one person from imposing his or her idea of what is true or right on another.

Sullivan said that many governments today — including ours — are imposing truths on society. In particular, he passionately spoke against Congress’ recent abridgement of habeas corpus.

“I repeat: Our Congress abridged the right of habeas corpus,” said Sullivan. “[This is] the DNA strain that creates America [and protects individuals from] being told what they can and cannot do.”

Sullivan denounced the torture that government officials today have defended. He urged the audience to do what they could  “to correct it, to stop it, to stanch this evil.”

Sullivan addressed what he considered the Bible’s inappropriate role in American government today. He said that another way that the government can abuse its power is by governing (in this case, literally) “by the book.”

“Religious certainty is real blasphemy, real arrogance,” said Sullivan. “When you say you know what God thinks, you should beware.

“And when you apply this certainty to the capital gains tax, same-sex marriage and feeding tubes,” he continued, “you’re only proving that you don’t know. That you’re truly afraid…That you’re grasping with white knuckles because you lack the confidence to let go.

“Faith is not the enemy of doubt, and doubt is not the enemy of faith,” said Sullivan, pointing out that Jesus is the embodiment of doubt.

Sullivan advocated a government that would “do less and do better.” The government needs to close the book, he said. “That’s when they really start to govern and see the world the way it really is.”