Think about this.
What happened on Meet the Press on Sunday between David Gregory and Joe Biden wasn't circumstantial. It was very contrived and very deliberate. Gregory knew his man, and he knew what the response would be. Joe Biden's loquaciousness combined with his propensity to speak off-the-cuff started everything rolling.
Two days before a referendum on gay marriage in North Carolina - not only a swing state, but also the site of the Democratic National Convention - and just days after a high-profiled gay consultant on foreign affairs for the Romney campaign jumped before he was pushed by influential religious Rightwing homophobes who appear to call the shots in the Republican party, this was as perfect a Rovian move as much as if it were choreographed by Fred Astaire.
Follow-up the next day onDiarrhea Joe Morning Joe, with a gotcha question about same-sex marriage to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and the die is cast for another poke-the-Presidentfest courtesy of the Professional Left, culminating in an ex-DNC Chairman and former governor of Pennsylvania (another swing state) calling for the President to "man up" (shades of Sharon Angle) on national television.
No respect at all for this President and no acknowledgement of any of his achievements, often in the face of stringent adversity, on behalf of the LGBT community.
This was what it was, the same old same old carried over from 2004: a diversion that would not fail to drive home to the wavering public how divided the Democratic party was, how far to the Left certain demographics wanted to take it, and how much more those nice Republicans represented traditional, family values. It was a ruse to get one reluctant political base behind a weak, vacillating Presidential candidate about whom most of them were unsure and unsupporting. It was a ruse to enrage another political base and initiate yet another round of backbiting, sniping and subtle racial innuendos directed against the leader of their own party.
Either way, Republicans won.
Yet another non-issue to deflect any discussion about the economy, unemployment, wage inequality, healthcare or the continuing wind-down of the war in Afghanistan.
But now it's all been resolved. The President said the words the EmoProgs wanted to hear. He gave them their unicorn which farted glitter, but not without a temper tantrum from the spoiled brats. And for some of them, it wasn't the way they wanted it.
Sorority-girl pundit Alex Wagner, MSNBC's own version of Cher from Clueless, tweeted today:-
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Like, yeah, he supports gay marriage, but ... always conditional. Wagner, who thinks all guns in the US should be banned and who's so totally ... well, clueless about the geography and demographics of this country that she doesn't realise that there are still people who hunt to eat, is whining because the President thinks this issue should be left up to the states to decide.
Well, newsflash to the NewsBimbo ... that's the way marriage has always been. Marital laws vary from state to state - until they're deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
Ne'mind. The Professional Left will take all the credit and whine more about the President having to be pushed to make this statement, when the truth be known he probably thought this all along, but had his reasons for wanting actions to speak louder than words. Still, some people are so obtuse that messages have to be spelled out for them in words of one syllable or less to aid understanding - even if that might mean swinging an election the opposite way from which we'd like to see it go.
Because, surprising as it may seem to people on the Left Coast or in the Northeast or to those resident in the Professional Left's designer bubble, same-sex marriage isn't playing too well as a wedge issue in the swing states.
I am not proud of the fact that Virginia has legislated against it, particularly since my best and oldest friend is a lesbian. But I know that for some demographics - certain of whom vote Democratic - this is something to which they are opposed. We know what happened Tuesday in North Carolina. We know what happened Tuesday night, as well, in Colorado. We also know that Virginia Democratic Senate candidate Tim Kaine was pressed to make a similar statement by the media. I've no doubt Kaine supports same-sex marriage, but an open statement in the middle of a closely-fought Senate battle with a roaring racist Luddite like Macaca Allen would be nothing short of political suicide.
This could work either way for Barack Obama, but rest assured Rove and Frank Luntz will make political hay of this and won't just do so when the sun is shining.
Already, the Republicans are biting back:-
The most annoying aspect about this entire non-issue hasn't just been the way the Professional Left has ensured it's dominated the proceedings in the news media, even to the extent that The Guardian is printing opinion pieces about the way this misperceived event has been played out according to their agenda, it's the way this has been focused entirely on the President, as if he's the only person left in the Democratic party who hasn't or hadn't yet opined publically about same-sex marriage.
Because he isn't.
As Dan Amira points out in an article in the latest issue of New York Magazine, no less than ex-Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter and ex-Presidential candidates Al Gore, John Kerry and Howard Dean have all come out in favour of same-sex marriage - but after they'd either left office or after their chance at the Oval Office was kaput.
However, it's mete to remember that DADT and DOMA became legislation under Bill Clinton's watch. People conveniently choose to forget that in their relentless search for a stick with which to beat the first African-American President.
But then, there are a few "significant others."
I know the Professional Left will say otherwise, but this is a courageous move by the President. I also know that if it backfires, and the dark side are triumphant, then I know he'll get the blame for the Democrats' defeat, from the very people and the Professional Left who helped, unwittingly and otherwise, orchestrate this event.
What happened on Meet the Press on Sunday between David Gregory and Joe Biden wasn't circumstantial. It was very contrived and very deliberate. Gregory knew his man, and he knew what the response would be. Joe Biden's loquaciousness combined with his propensity to speak off-the-cuff started everything rolling.
Two days before a referendum on gay marriage in North Carolina - not only a swing state, but also the site of the Democratic National Convention - and just days after a high-profiled gay consultant on foreign affairs for the Romney campaign jumped before he was pushed by influential religious Rightwing homophobes who appear to call the shots in the Republican party, this was as perfect a Rovian move as much as if it were choreographed by Fred Astaire.
Follow-up the next day on
No respect at all for this President and no acknowledgement of any of his achievements, often in the face of stringent adversity, on behalf of the LGBT community.
This was what it was, the same old same old carried over from 2004: a diversion that would not fail to drive home to the wavering public how divided the Democratic party was, how far to the Left certain demographics wanted to take it, and how much more those nice Republicans represented traditional, family values. It was a ruse to get one reluctant political base behind a weak, vacillating Presidential candidate about whom most of them were unsure and unsupporting. It was a ruse to enrage another political base and initiate yet another round of backbiting, sniping and subtle racial innuendos directed against the leader of their own party.
Either way, Republicans won.
Yet another non-issue to deflect any discussion about the economy, unemployment, wage inequality, healthcare or the continuing wind-down of the war in Afghanistan.
But now it's all been resolved. The President said the words the EmoProgs wanted to hear. He gave them their unicorn which farted glitter, but not without a temper tantrum from the spoiled brats. And for some of them, it wasn't the way they wanted it.
Sorority-girl pundit Alex Wagner, MSNBC's own version of Cher from Clueless, tweeted today:-
+on+Twitter.png)
Like, yeah, he supports gay marriage, but ... always conditional. Wagner, who thinks all guns in the US should be banned and who's so totally ... well, clueless about the geography and demographics of this country that she doesn't realise that there are still people who hunt to eat, is whining because the President thinks this issue should be left up to the states to decide.
Well, newsflash to the NewsBimbo ... that's the way marriage has always been. Marital laws vary from state to state - until they're deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
Ne'mind. The Professional Left will take all the credit and whine more about the President having to be pushed to make this statement, when the truth be known he probably thought this all along, but had his reasons for wanting actions to speak louder than words. Still, some people are so obtuse that messages have to be spelled out for them in words of one syllable or less to aid understanding - even if that might mean swinging an election the opposite way from which we'd like to see it go.
Because, surprising as it may seem to people on the Left Coast or in the Northeast or to those resident in the Professional Left's designer bubble, same-sex marriage isn't playing too well as a wedge issue in the swing states.
I am not proud of the fact that Virginia has legislated against it, particularly since my best and oldest friend is a lesbian. But I know that for some demographics - certain of whom vote Democratic - this is something to which they are opposed. We know what happened Tuesday in North Carolina. We know what happened Tuesday night, as well, in Colorado. We also know that Virginia Democratic Senate candidate Tim Kaine was pressed to make a similar statement by the media. I've no doubt Kaine supports same-sex marriage, but an open statement in the middle of a closely-fought Senate battle with a roaring racist Luddite like Macaca Allen would be nothing short of political suicide.
This could work either way for Barack Obama, but rest assured Rove and Frank Luntz will make political hay of this and won't just do so when the sun is shining.
Already, the Republicans are biting back:-
In an election that is all but certain to turn on the slowly recovering economy and its persistently high jobless rate, Mr. Obama’s stand nonetheless injects a volatile social issue into the campaign debate and puts him at even sharper odds with his presumptive Republican rival, Mitt Romney, who opposes same-sex marriage and favors an amendment to the United States Constitution to forbid it.
Hours before the president’s announcement, Mr. Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, restated his opposition to same-sex marriage in an interview with KDVR-TV, a Fox News affiliate in Colorado.
“When these issues were raised in my state of Massachusetts, I indicated my view, which is I do not favor marriage between people of the same gender, and I do not favor civil unions if they are identical to marriage other than by name,” Mr. Romeny said. “My view is the domestic partnership benefits, hospital visitation rights and the like are appropriate, but that the others are not.”
The most annoying aspect about this entire non-issue hasn't just been the way the Professional Left has ensured it's dominated the proceedings in the news media, even to the extent that The Guardian is printing opinion pieces about the way this misperceived event has been played out according to their agenda, it's the way this has been focused entirely on the President, as if he's the only person left in the Democratic party who hasn't or hadn't yet opined publically about same-sex marriage.
Because he isn't.
As Dan Amira points out in an article in the latest issue of New York Magazine, no less than ex-Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter and ex-Presidential candidates Al Gore, John Kerry and Howard Dean have all come out in favour of same-sex marriage - but after they'd either left office or after their chance at the Oval Office was kaput.
However, it's mete to remember that DADT and DOMA became legislation under Bill Clinton's watch. People conveniently choose to forget that in their relentless search for a stick with which to beat the first African-American President.
But then, there are a few "significant others."
Hillary Clinton, the nation's most popular politician, Democrat or otherwise, and a rumored 2016 candidate for president, hasn't quite endorsed gay marriage, despite applauding the passage of marriage equality in New York last year. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid doesn't support gay marriage either — his spokesman said in 2009 that Reid "agrees with his church that marriage is between a man and a woman." Senate President Pro Tempore Daniel Inouye of Hawaii — who, owing to one of the Constitution's hilarious quirks, is third in line for the presidency — also favors "domestic unions," according to his website. Then there's the curious case of the House of Representatives' second- and third-ranking Democrats, Maryland's Steny Hoyer and South Carolina's James Clyburn.
In 1996, Hoyer, now the House minority whip, voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, and in 2004, he said on the House floor that he supports "the traditional definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman." But that was eight years ago. Does he still? We tried to find out, but it appears as if Hoyer's office wants to keep his beliefs vague. His communications director, Katie Grant, e-mailed us two quotes: The first was from a press conference this week, in which Hoyer says, "My own view is that we ought to treat everybody fairly and equally." Which is hardly enlightening; that description could apply to civil unions as well as gay marriages. The other quote was from an MSNBC interview in February, in which Hoyer posits that President Obama would applaud Maryland's passage of a marriage equality law. Again, doesn't tell us much about where Hoyer stands. We pressed Grant for clarification on whether Hoyer supports gay marriage, and she declined.
The office of James Clyburn, the third-ranking member of the House Democrats, was even less forthcoming. Over the course of three days, we left numerous e-mail and voice messages for Clyburn's spokesman, asking for Clyburn's position on gay marriage. We never heard back.The Democratic party has always been a big tent. Sometimes the inhabitants don't sit too comfortably in the presence of each other, which means we've always been that much more pragmatic than the dark side.
I know the Professional Left will say otherwise, but this is a courageous move by the President. I also know that if it backfires, and the dark side are triumphant, then I know he'll get the blame for the Democrats' defeat, from the very people and the Professional Left who helped, unwittingly and otherwise, orchestrate this event.
Thank you so much for this.
ReplyDeleteThe sad truth is that President Obama, by his actions--has shown himself to be the President who has done more for the LGBT community than all of his predecessors. From the repeal of "Don't Ask Don't Tell" to the Matthew Shepard act to so many others, his deeds have spoken louder than his words.
"Deeds, not words". We always hear the EmoProgs screaming about how nothing's happened, there's no action. The President has been about getting things done, and STILL that is not enough. And even when he speaks and just confirms what his deeds have already shown him to be, the EmoProgs will still gripe and whine.
You know what? Screw them. Because the truth is, a Romney presidency will be a major setback. And if they think their "hero" Ron Paul will be a better man than President Obama, they're in for a harsh shock.