|
unique visitors since July 27, 2005 |
When newly minted Philadelphia Eagle and one of the hottest men in creation, Jeremy Bloom, doesn't actually stab the President during a photo opportunity, there is much wailing and gnashing of queer teeth.
"Gay Erectile Dysfunction - When the guy who makes your pee pee stand at attention doesn't hate Bush as much as you do." - Tom, Commenting at Towleroad
DNC Chairman Howard Dean sauntered into the friendly confines of "The Daily Show" last night. The audience dutifully applauded references to President Bush's low standing in the polls, as well as Dean's predictions of Democratic takeover of the House and/or Senate.
But then host Jon Stewart had the temerity to ask just exactly how the Democrats were going to manage not to blow the opportunity before them.
Dean's plan: Let's put, say, four people in every state who will knock on as many as 5 to 6 million doors over the next few years.
"So the Dems are now as powerful as the Jehovah's Witnesses," Stewart said.
No, no, no! See, this is where the plan gets brilliant. If they're not home, then you hang this nifty little door-hanger on the doorknob!
But Stewart was having none of it. When he pressed Dean for an actual message, it was essentially, "We'll be less grafty than the other guy."
Then Dean actually angled the Democrats to the left of President Bush's centrist immigration policy.
Stewart neatly summed things up for Dean: "You are so not taking back the House and the Senate."
(Incidentally, no reference whatsoever was made to Dean's recent, humongous gaffes regarding gays.)
[Watch video – 7:38, WMV format, high bandwidth]
[Watch video – 7:38, WMV format, low bandwidth]
In other "Daily Show" news, Stewart took a cold, hard look at the reports of NSA-related phone shenanigans.
Hot on the heels of Administration denials of surveillance of domestic phone calls came a USA Today story last week stating that the National Security Agency has indeed kept a massive database regarding billions of domestic phone calls.
The government explanation has been that the database analyzes only call patterns, and not the content of all the calls themselves, to spot potential terrorists.
As Stewart points out, it's probably cold comfort to those of us whose call patterns are suspicious for any number of other reasons.
[Watch video – 6:22, WMV format, high bandwidth]
[Watch video – 6:22, WMV format, low bandwidth]
The latest: 29 percent.
George Bush sure has been taking a drubbing lately, and no one has drubbed quite as mightily as the "journalists" from Reuterville. So now that Bush's poll numbers have tanked, does that mean Reuters is going softer on him now?
Take this photo from an event today, showing the "caring" side of the President:
|
Perhaps they are making up for this:
|
Or other past media sins like this from USA Today:
|
Or this from "NBC Nightly News":
|
Although I suppose that last one could have just been NBC's secret shout-out to tennis fans.
Cashing in on a nation's and GLBT folks' curiosity, vice-presidential daughter Mary Cheney appeared on Primetime Live last night to promote her new book, Now It's My Turn
During the course of her chat with Diane Sawyer, Cheney describes coming out to her parents, her fourteen year relationship with partner Heather Poe, why she remains loyal to the Republican Party, her disagreements with right-wing orthodoxy, her reaction to her lesbianism-as-Democratic-demagoguery during the debates, and the careful balancing act of existing between a vitriolic gay left and the venemous religious right.
It's remarkable how poised and likeable Mary comes off in this interview. By virtue of her middling position on the political divide, it's safe to say she's subjected to a great deal of unfair attacks from opponents on the Right and Left. Lesbian Traitor and Unrepentant Sinner, Mary Cheney seems to take it all in stride.
[Watch video – 14:10, WMV format, high bandwidth]
[Watch video – 14:10, WMV format, low bandwidth]
Update: Mary Cheney took live viewer questions today with Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America. Somehwat related, John Aravosis reacts to Rosen and Birch's recent op-ed. His commenters are not quite as charitable. Andrew Sullivan pens an article on the closet tolerance of the president and vice-president. Though I feel he utterly mischaracterizes Dick Cheney's public statements and opposition to the Federal Amendment (not to mention the equating with Darth Vader shtick), there are some good points offered, especially about the potential effects of the November elections on gay rights.
[Watch video – 5:45, WMV format, high bandwidth]
[Watch video – 5:45, WMV format, low bandwidth]
Rarely do I find myself in agreement with Richard Cohen – that is, when I'm not so put off by his usual solipsism and general Leftishness that I will actually read him.
But today, in his column on Stephen Colbert's turn at the White House Correspondents Association dinner, he "speaks truth to power" about one of the Left's favorite bromides de jour:
Why are you wasting my time with Colbert, I hear you ask. Because he is representative of what too often passes for political courage, not to mention wit, in this country. His defenders -- and they are all over the blogosphere -- will tell you he spoke truth to power. This is a tired phrase, as we all know, but when it was fresh and meaningful it suggested repercussions, consequences -- maybe even death in some countries. When you spoke truth to power you took the distinct chance that power would smite you, toss you into a dungeon or -- if you're at work -- take away your office.
But in this country, anyone can insult the president of the United States. Colbert just did it, and he will not suffer any consequence at all. He knew that going in. He also knew that Bush would have to sit there and pretend to laugh at Colbert's lame and insulting jokes. Bush himself plays off his reputation as a dunce and his penchant for mangling English. Self-mockery can be funny. Mockery that is insulting is not. The sort of stuff that would get you punched in a bar can be said on a dais with impunity. This is why Colbert was more than rude. He was a bully.
[snip]
He had a chance to tell the president and much of important (and self-important) Washington things it would have been good for them to hear. But he was, like much of the blogosphere itself, telling like-minded people what they already know and alienating all the others. In this sense, he was a man for our times.
He also wasn't funny.
And if another person cites that Jefferson-quote-that-Jefferson-never-said, "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism," I will throttle them.
[h/t OpinionJournal]
Looks like we're about to get five more years of theocratic rule at the FCC:
The President intends to nominate Kevin J. Martin, of North Carolina, to be a Commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, for an additional five-year term expiring June 30, 2011. Upon appointment, he will be redesignated Chairman. Mr. Martin currently serves as Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
Helpful blogger Jordy sends along a little money-grubbing missive from the most inept politician in recent history (with the possible exception of John Kerry), Al Gore.
You remember him, right? The guy who took the strongest economy ever and was still unable to ride it to the White House? (As a pre-emptive measure, I recommend that any comments about "stolen elections" save me the trouble by appending the standard line "This commenter is an idiot" yourselves.)
Even though Gore is politically clueless, I will assume that he at least had sense enough to send this only the howlingest of the moonbat base. Because if he thinks that his message holds even the slightest appeal for a moderate/libertarian American like me, he missed the target by several furlongs.
Al. Sweetie. Baby. Repeat after me: Bush hatred in not an agenda. Rove-mongering is not an agenda. A little line buried at the bottom about stem cells and "global warming" is not an agenda. And until your party develops an actual agenda, something more compelling than livid, spittle-flecked rage, you will remain deservedly in the minority. But I'm rooting for you, Al, because I believe that genuine electoral alternatives are critical to the democratic process. You're just not providing one right now.
Letter after the jump ...
Bushies talking to Tony Snow as possible WH press secretary replacement.
Now Scott will have to listen to that old bat Helen Thomas only in his nightmares.
As we bang the drum about Cynthia McKinney or any of our other various pet interests, a hearty, partisan few have surfaced asking: "Where is The Malcontent on President Bush's scandalous leaking of details from the National Intelligence Estimate"?
Let me explain a couple of things:
Setting another great example of a prominent social conservative who tells everyone how to live but who has a car-wreck of a life himself, a former top Bush aide who was arrested for theft has a history of making anti-gay slurs while on the taxpayers' dime.
Could it impact the White House aspirations of George Allen, who appointed Claude Allen (no relation) to state government and has praised his "principles"?
Everyone seems a bit up in arms about the recent appointment by President Bush of the Rev. Herbert H. Lusk II to a position on the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. Whereas the other appointments to the panel seem almost uncharacteristically appropriate, I thought I'd poke and prod around a bit to figure out who the minister with close ties to Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council is. Upfront, the man is fairly hostile to us mo's. However, gay media are once again being brutally dishonest to their readers.
|
|
Alert blogger EgOiStE pointed me to this story that seems to be getting far too little play among those who should care.
Two weeks ago, the Anti-Family Research Council sent out a bulletin trumpeting more gay-hating inroads they had made within the Bush Administration.
A website within the Department of Health and Human Services had been providing information on a range of GLBT issues, such as health and homophobia. Undoubtedly, Tony Perkins and his pliant ogres pricked up their ears at now-pedestrian buzzwords such as "pride" and "diversity."
The dogs were sicced on HHS, the unnamed contractor who created the website was sacked and the rest is history.
The Rude Pundit pointed out that whoever pulled down the information was either hasty or careless, leaving behind much of what was there previously. But since that writing, the oversight has been corrected, and gays and related information have been purged from the site in a brilliant Stalinesque move. (If you follow the link above, however, you will see that it's all still held in Google caches.)
As Mr. Perkins admonished his members:
"(Officials) did not explain how HHS became involved in promoting the unhealthy homosexual lifestyle in the first place.
"What this episode shows us is that even under a friendly, pro-family administration, the bureaucracy can run amok."
What it really shows us is that, when it comes to the way gays are treated by their government, it is not the government that is calling the tune.
This is not the first web-related kerfuffle that has sprung forth from the Bush Administration. Last year, another HHS-related website drew fire for its treatment of GLBT issues. 4parents.gov is intended to present a variety of behavioral and mental-health information to parents. But it deals with "sexual orientation" on its "abstinence" page, discussing the issue in what many would feel is a loaded manner, to say the least. (Among its advice is to point families to "counselors and other health professionals," as if being gay is intrinsically disordered.)
The previous year, the Administration's new Special Counsel, a previously obscure position, re-interpreted a 1978 law in a way that appeared to strip employment-discrimination protections from GLBT employees, having already deleted references to those protections from the Special Counsel's website.
UPDATE: "Good As You" is at least one site that has been on top of this for a few weeks.
GayPatriotWest chronicles Andrew Sullivan's accelerating slide into hysterical irrelevance. The crux is Andrew's self-pitying posting of this quote by Glenn Greenwald:
Now, in order to be considered a “liberal,” only one thing is required – a failure to pledge blind loyalty to George W. Bush. The minute one criticizes him is the minute that one becomes a “liberal,” regardless of the ground on which the criticism is based.
Money quote from GPW:
It seems, however, that since 02/24/04 (the day the president announced his support for the Federal Marriage Amendment) Andrew has been bending over backwards to appease those who once reviled him.
I'm a frequent critic of President Bush and many of his policies and philosophies, yet my critiques of Sullivan's sorry decline have drawn from him the same kind of one-dimensional criticism of "blind loyalty" that now seems to color his own opposition.
Pity, that.
(Completely off-topic private note to Robbie: Someone needs to lay off the caffeine!)
While the inward American Left still shudders from occasional paroxysms of apoplexy over Hitlerian, jack-booted thugs removing t-shirts from the Capitol on Tuesday night, the rest of the western world turns its eyes further east this week as one of the core foundations of liberal democracy comes under orchestrated attack by Islamic nation states and the real, tangible shadows of fascism.
When a Danish newspaper published editorial cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad, a firestorm erupted in the Muslim world. Artistic likenessess of the founding father of the religion are strictly verboten. Islamic governments and culture at large reacted with characteristic aplomb, attacking embassies, threatening to kidnap and execute foreigners, demanding apologies and groveling from European governments, and generally being their peaceful selves. Egypt dispensed with formalities and addressed the controversy with a bit of straight-forward Euro-speak. While the politicians fell over themselves apologizing for freedom of expression, European publications are standing firm.
In a somewhat related story, Richard J. Rosendall of the Independent Gay Forum recently wrote a piece wondering what on earth gay people and organizations are doing supporting Palestinians over a liberal democracy. Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism have called for a boycott of World Pride 2006 scheduled to be held in Jerusalem. The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission characteristically picked Leftist politics over gay rights, supporting a violently homophobic Palestinian culture that would kill them over a liberal Israel that protects gay rights. As the author notes, wrapping this decision in human rights rhetoric counts not at all considering the IGLHRC attended rallies in Beijing and Havana.
Given the first story in this post, I am beginning to doubt many of these queer organizations are, in fact, liberal. Supporting cultures that would squelch free expression while persecuting gays seems like more "solidarity in oppression" agitprop.
Last, but definitely not least, I decided to toss up one of the editorial cartoons depicting Mohammed, because, well, fuck 'em. Free expression must always trump offense and the cult of victimology, even if Islamic culture has unravelled the code speak our own radical queers use when siding with far left-wing causes that would reduce freedoms under the guise of gay and human rights.
The President's State of the Union Address last night showed one reason why many gay Americans continue to be of two minds on George Bush.
The man who has been criticized by some for focusing too much of his AIDS agenda overseas talked about an important expansion of domestic HIV/AIDS efforts.
But not before he took another gratuitous shot at gays who feel that equal treatment for our committed relationships isn't too much to ask, lumping gay marriage in with actual threats such as corruption in government, Hurricane Katrina and deadly diseases. A sense of proportion, please, Mr. President.
[Watch video – 2:17, WMV format, high bandwidth]
[Watch video – 2:17, WMV format, high bandwidth]
Do you think Pam Spaulding sees the irony when she talks of the "truth" of George Bush's supposed exploitation of homophobia in the black community?
She links to the comments of professional race-hustler Al Sharpton, who said that Bush "focused on same-sex marriage and traditional fears of gays among Blacks to get re-elected in 2004." (Homophobia in the black community: IT'S BUSH'S FAULT!!!!!!!) Actually, delete those quotation marks, because the 365gay.com story she links to strangely includes no direct quotations whatsoever.
So here we have Spaulding praising a politician who has made identity politics his bread-and-butter for bashing another politician who was supposedly practicing ... identity politics.
But typically, Spaulding and Sharpton have created a boogeyman where none exists: All of that alleged "exploitation" won the President a hefty 11 percent among African-Americans in 2004.
African-Americans comprised about 12 percent of the popular vote in 2004, so roughly 1.6 million blacks voted for Bush. Assuming for a moment that the reason every single one of them voted for Bush was their homophobia, this still accounts for only about half of his 3-million-vote margin of victory.
Robbie beat me with his link to the Taranto piece "Sullivan vs. Sullivan." I urge anyone, especially those who think I am making up or imagining the basis for my critique of Andrew Sullivan (or merely flakking for the President), to read it.
When President Bush announced his (again, idiotic) support for the FMA, Sullivan explicitly talked about how he had supported the President ... in the War on Terror. (Non sequitur says what?)
Yet now Sullivan flatly denies that the FMA has anything to with his total inability to find a single redeeming quality in George W. Bush – a flawed man by all means, but not the cad of Sullivan's fevered imagination.
Taranto's post lends further credence to the connection between Sullivan's break on the Iraq War and President Bush's support of the FMA. At the least, Sullivan's previous repeated criticism from the right of the President's leadership in the war belies his insistence that he has been consistent voice from the start.
One may honorably oppose the Iraq war or U.S. prosecution of it, and one is even obviously free to change their views on the war if they don't like Bush's stance on gays. But it is the disingenuousness of the denials that irks the most. [HT also to GPW]
It seems the White House has stirred from its long political slumber, fighting back against Democrats who hope and pray the American people have the shortest memories in human history. Given Americans generally have the political attention span of a ferret in a disco ball factory, it's understandable why Democrats thought the gamble might be worth it. Unfortunately for them, the White House has decided to use their own words against them to devastating effect.
I have no problem with people who opposed the war on principle. There are many different forms of patriotic dissent, and there are plenty of people out there who have perfectly valid and thoughtful reasons to oppose the war.
If the recent Supreme Court vacancies have taught us anything, it is that Senate Democrats are run by a tiny constituency who demand that all Bush nominees must be blocked at all costs, even if the rationale to do so must be created from whole cloth. (See: "Groups, gay rights.") But aspiring court justices are not the only ones who face such a churlish reception.
Take the case of Roland Arnall, the nominee for ambassador to The Netherlands, as pointed out by Boi From Troy. Arnall's company (from which he has now severed his ties), Ameriquest, makes home loans to those who might not otherwise qualify as unacceptable credit risks. His nomination has thus far been stymied by Democrats and their permanent grievance lobby who apparently aren't clear on the elementary concept that those with poor credit ratings generally pay higher interest rates.
(Meanwhile, the Dutch are practically begging us to put a new ambassador in place.)
So let me see if I am clear on this: Arnall is being criticized as "predatory" for making the American Dream possible to people who would not otherwise have such an opportunity. If there were an argument any more circular than this, it could be used to calculate the value of pi.
I don't know if the aim of Democrats is free housing for all of their voters, but regardless, Ameriquest is playing ball with the state attorneys-general who want to shake the company down. So perhaps there is still hope for Arnall. (Methinks the factor that is truly animating the Dems might have something to do with Arnalls' choices regarding their political contributions.)
If this predatory-lending strawman fails the Democrats, they can always fall back on the more direct anti-Semitic smear campaign waged, as is so often the source of such things these days, by the left. (Search the linked page for "Shylock," "greedy" and other related epithets.)
No wonder Harry Truman got a dog.
