Give Me Those Old Time Family Values...First Reprise

Ah, yes! Larry Craig of Idaho. The poster child for the "I'm not gay, but what are you doing after you finish in that stall?" movement.

Neither he nor Ted Haggard are gay, pretty much in the same sense that neither Truman Capote nor Liberace were gay, except that they were "bachelors".

Let's get something out of the way here. There is nothing wrong with being in love with someone of the same sex. It's not my style, but I must say that when I run into gay couples, whether male or female, who clearly care for one another my first reaction is that they are lucky and I wish that I had a relationship as wonderful.

But there is definitely something wrong with vicious hypocrisy. There is something definitely wrong with the kind of hypocrisy that allows Larry Craig to support the discriminatory Federal Marriage Amendment to outlaw same-sex marriage and to support a filibuster of Federal legislation to declare gay bashing a hate crime and yet to have credible reports that he's been cruising for gay sex since college and throughout most of his career in Washington.

One of the red herrings that right-wing fanatics constantly toss at those who oppose them is that their opponents are "self-hating". Taken in the context of Larry Craig's gay bashing, that sounds a lot like what's called "projection" in psychiatry, doesn't it?

A Diablo, Alberto!

The Garden of Ironic Delights

So Alberto Gonzales, Dubya's legal minion, has announced his resignation from a post for which his sole qualification was his toadying eagerness to torture people and the U. S. Constitution into any contortion that pleased his neo-fascist puppetmasters. As of September 17, 2007, the Constitution will be slightly better protected than it has been since January 20, 2001.

But that's not exactly the most striking statement of the day relative to this bit of news.

In responding to his minion's resignation, Dubya stated, "It is sad that we live in a time when a talented and honorable person like Alberto Gonzales is impeded from doing important work because his good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons."

Don't you just LOVE irony?

Those words in the mouth of the entitled scum who attacked all and sundry to steal the 2000 election in Florida, who suggested that Ann Richards was a lesbian to get elected governor of Texas, who intimated that John McCain had an illegitimate black child to win the South Carolina primary in 2000, and who suborned the Swift Boat Veterans' scurrilous attacks on John Kerry are obscene despite the fact that Dubya is just plain too dumb to understand that he was being ironic.

I am reminded of Richard Nixon's speech accepting the resignation of 2(?), 278(?) "of the finest public servants it has ever been my privilege to know" when Haldeman and Ehrlichman departed the White House. The problem with the Republican Party is that they honestly believe that Alberto Gonzales is "a talented and honorable person" and that the criminals H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman were "the finest public servants". For America's neo-fascist party no crime no matter how petty or how vicious is beyond ignoring as long as the perpetrator is of their ideology. They also believe that no crime, no matter how petty or specious is beyond magnification if it will reflect badly on the political opposition. It is one of the reasons that we should be honest and declare the Republican Party to be the criminal conspiracy that it is instead of pretending that it is simply an American political institution.

RIP: Weekly World News

Fun with...ah...journalism?

Last week there was much ado about the demise of the ultimate screwball tabloid, the Weekly World News. I for one will be sorry to see it go. Though I never owned a copy, it was a source of great entertainment at the supermarket check out counters. It never failed to confirm my worst suspicions about my fellow men and women.

I remember one particular instance when I was on the express line at the Demoulas' Market Basket in the Mystic Mall in Chelsea, Massachusetts some 20 years ago. There were 6 or 7 people in front of me on line at a "7 Items or Less" express register. Every one of them had from 8 to 63 items (well, the 63 might be a slight exaggeration but you get the idea) and I, holding 3 items, was there on break from work and in a hurry to get back. As I was fuming about the delays caused by the mathematically challenged I noticed the Weekly World News with its huge, blaring headline, "SPACE ALIENS LIVE AMONG US NOW!" It instantly changed my mood and I began to quietly chuckle. My stifled laughs didn't go unnoticed. The characters on line ahead of me turned around to look. At that point I realized that at least 4 of the people on line ahead of me were probably those space aliens, accounting for their misunderstanding of the sign. Several looked the part.

Who says the New York Times is "the newspaper of record"?

An Open Letter to Speaker Pelosi

Madam Speaker:

I am a Democrat. I have been a Democrat since I was able to register to vote and I will remain a Democrat for the foreseeable future because I see no actual or potential alternative that respects the basic principles of our nation. However, tonight, for the first time that I can remember, I am ashamed to be a Democrat. That the House of Representatives should pass the amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act demanded by the Bush Administration appalls me. Placing unlimited power, even in a time limited amendment, in the hands of those who have no respect for law, let alone the U.S. Constitution is an unconscionable abdication of your responsibility to the American people.

While the president is quick to make specious arguments about national security we have seen that neither he nor his minion, Alberto Gonzales, can be trusted for a moment yet you have handed them carte blanche to spy on any party whose privacy they feel the need to invade.

Madam Speaker, when you were elected I was very proud of my party for choosing you but your acquiescence in this unwarranted grab for power leaves me wondering whether you are in line to replace Tony Blair as Dubya's latest pet poodle.

I am outraged at this legislation because, time limit or not, it sets a precedent for the future so that future presidents may arrogate to themselves powers prohibited by our Constitution and Bill of Rights. But worse still, it constitutes a perfect example why our party loses election after election. It's not bullying by Republican poll watchers, a packed Supreme Court or yet even Diebold. It is the repeated, consistent failure of Democrats to draw a line and take a stand. While Republican ideologues staunchly defend their bankrupt policies, our party flexes, retreats and caves in at the first hint of entrenched opposition.

We have spent 28 of the last 40 years suffering under Republican misrule and I fear, Madam Speaker, that we will suffer under it longer because you and Representative Hoyer either cannot or will not stand up for the laws and principles of this nation. If you will not stand against such incursions into American's rights, you deserve to be marginalized, stripped of actual power and relegated to figurehead status under an imperial presidency. The most horrible fact about that is that though you may deserve such a fate, neither I nor the many millions of Americans looking to you for defense of our rights deserve that fate to which your faintness of heart condemns us.