Things of which I am officially sick:
1) The health care debate.
As if "debate" was even what is happening in the country today. If the colossally ill-informed people of white middle-America want to live out the remainder of their days in fear of what a family medical emergency might do to them and their finances; fine. If they have forgotten every horror story they ever heard from the next door neighbor about Aunt Harriet who was diagnosed with whatever and couldn't get Aetna or Blue Cross to cover the treatment; great. If they imagine that a government run health plan will be any more odious than the private, for-profit insurance companies currently conspiring to deny coverage for any specious reason; terrific. After a year of patiently explaining the facts of health care to these mopes, I'm done. If we pass it; great. If we don't; fine. Let Max Baccus and Chuck Grassley explain to their constituents why bankruptcy and welfare are viable alternatives to the public option.
I'm done.
2) The reintroduction of Michael Vick into pro football.
Please! If Michael Vick were a steamfitter would anyone care of he went back to his job after a term as a guest of the federal penal system? It's not as though he was a child molester applying for his old teaching job at the local grammar school. I mean how many dogs is he likely to encounter on your average gridiron? The man did his time (and a lot of time it was). Let him play.
3) Steroids in baseball.
We are attacking this from the wrong angle. We should permit, even encourage, professional athletes to take as many performance enhancing drugs as their swollen bodies will tolerate. Admit it. We all want to see baseballs fly over the walls. Is there anyone in America who, having seen Sammy Sosa balloon from a skinny Dominican (fifteen homers in his first year in the Bigs) to a bulky, uniform-tearing killer who bashed 60 home runs for three consecutive years, didn't know he was juicing? Did anyone care? If these guys want to destroy their bodies and shrivel their johnsons for the chance to make a few million in pro ball, let 'em. Athletes believe they are immortal so why not give them a chance to test the theory? Wrestlers do it all the time and no one bats an eye. I say, bring out the juice and if one of our diamond heroes should explode while rounding second base, the ground crew is more than capable of dealing with the clean-up.
Play ball.
4) The bizarre arrest of Roman Polanski in Switzerland.
Well, I guess now that the guardians of liberty in the federal government have arrested Najibullah Zazi and his band of merry bomb-makers, they are free to apprehend some real criminals. In a deal worked out with the Swiss, who apparently also have a lot of law-enforcement time on their hands, Polanski was arrested last Saturday in Zurich while traveling to a film festival. Yes, Polanski is a bit of a sleaze and he did have sex with a thirteen year-old (statutory not forcible) but seriously, the original arrest warrant was issued in 1978. It has more dust on it than George Bush's copy of the Constitution. Polanski is 76. He has lived through Nazi Germany and the horrific murder of his wife and unborn son. His exile from the United States has deprived him of the joy of Netflix, drive-through liquor stores and the rapturous excitement of voting for George W. Bush...twice. The man has suffered enough!
5) Anything to do with the death of Michael Jackson.
Given that the 24 hour news cycle requires constant nourishment, one can sympathize with the media's need to cover every story as if it were WWII. Nevertheless, Michael Jackson wasn't Gandhi, Kennedy or John Paul II. His death, while tragic, was not historically significant. His final resting place is grist for an obit, not the front page of the Washington Post. The investigation of his death should be followed on Entertainment Tonight not Meet The Press. The headline "I Had Michael Jackson's Third Child" should remain in supermarket checkout lines and never, ever show up in the Magazine section of the New York Times. Dignity, people!
6) All things revealed to Oprah.
Hey, Oprah's OK. She's non-confrontational and mildly entertaining. (Not that I would ever watch the show.) However, sleeping with your father (Mackenzie Phillips), abuse as a child (Rosie O'Donnell), or how you crack-smoked away a flourishing career (Whitney Houston) should never be more than one day stories. Celebrities screwing up their lives is about as novel as politicians cheating on their wives. Of course, if the politician is a family-values, anti-gay Republican I fully anticipate and applaud the miscreant's wife flogging her new tell-all book...on Oprah.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
...or were we a little hasty in letting all of the Southern States back in the Union?
Pardon my indelicate phraseology but, WTF is wrong with South Carolina? For a state whose primary contribution to society is South of the Border and a few pretty good golf courses, South Carolina has been nothing but trouble. Hell, even the coach of the university's football team is a jerk.
In the debates at the Continental Congress it was South Carolina's Edward Rutledge, then the youngest delegate, who insisted on removing the clause from the Declaration of Independence that condemned slavery. Throughout the first fifty years of the Republic, Congressmen and Senators from the Palmetto State did all they could to disrupt the Federal Government. Most notable among the troublemakers was John C. Calhoun. As a senator and twice vice president, Calhoun forced his brand of states' rights, including every man's right to own other men, on a country conflicted. SC has been a carbuncle on the behind of the body politic since 1861 when it was the first state to secede from the Union. We should have let it go.
To judge by the conduct of South Carolina politicians since 1865, you might be confused as to who finished second in the War Between the States. SC has sent a bellicose if unremarkable succession of nullifiers and obstructionists to both Houses of Congress. Most recently we had Strom Thurman, a man so determined to deny civil rights to African Americans that he changed parties rather than support Johnson's Civil Rights Act of 1964. Thurmond was quoted in 1948 saying "There's not enough troops in the army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigra race into our theaters..." Naturally, the people of South Carolina continued to send Senator Thurmond back to Congress every six years in spite of his failing mental health. I guess it was hard to tell.
Now we have Jim DeMint and Joe Wilson. DeMint has been in the Senate since 2005 and although still in his first term, has managed to piss on every good-government campfire since he arrived. DeMint carries a full bag of Rightwing Conservative claptrap. He's opposed to abortion, hates gays, blah blah blah. He was one of only two Senators to oppose Hillary Clinton's appointment to be Secretary of State. (The other was David "I have all my hookers on speed dial" Vetter.)
Then we come to the primary reason for this screed, Joe Wilson. Wilson earned his white sheet while working as an aide to Strom Thurmond in the early 60's. His unremarkable rise to pseudo prominence in South Carolina politics has been...unremarkable. The only impression he is likely to leave on the legislative process is the stain he left last night. Achieving a new high in low, Rep. Wilson proved that there is a species in South Carolina even farther down the food chain than Mark Sanford. By interrupting the President of The United States with the cat-call "you lie", Wilson proved that the Republican response to the President's leadership on healthcare is nothing more than bad manners. FYI, the President's assertion that the healthcare bill makes no provision for illegals has been fully vetted by factcheck.org. One can only be reminded of the quote by Joseph Welsh during the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954, "Have you no sense of decency sir?"
Happily, no one thus far has rushed to defend Joe Wilson. (No doubt Fox News will find a silver lining.) John McCain called the outburst "totally disrespectful". Wilson has apologized but it's too early to know how sorry he may actually be. He won his district in 2008 by the slimmest margin so far and last night's performance has already fattened the war-chest of his opponent in 2010.
Tragically, Wilson although despicable, is more a symptom than a disease. The visceral reaction of southerners to a black liberal in the White House is leaking all over American politics. It seems that any breech of etiquette, any secession of civility, any deplorable conduct is to be understood because "that guy" is in the White House. Barack Obama is far from sainthood (although he can see it from where he's standing) but he is The President. Regardless of the damage done to the office by the Bush/Cheney cabal, we still expect our elected leaders to shut up and let the man talk.
Anyway one can't help feeling sorry for South Carolina. When all anyone remembers about a visit to your state is the cheese grits in Charleston, or the 12th hole at Tradition Golf Club, we can feel your pain. However let this be a warning: we of the other 49 will only tolerate your boorishness for so long. Shape up! Toss out your unzipped governor and start electing people who don't eat with their fingers. If you don't fix yourselves, we might just trade you back to Great Britain for Monserrat and an island to be named later. You'll have no one but Joe Wilson to blame.
In the debates at the Continental Congress it was South Carolina's Edward Rutledge, then the youngest delegate, who insisted on removing the clause from the Declaration of Independence that condemned slavery. Throughout the first fifty years of the Republic, Congressmen and Senators from the Palmetto State did all they could to disrupt the Federal Government. Most notable among the troublemakers was John C. Calhoun. As a senator and twice vice president, Calhoun forced his brand of states' rights, including every man's right to own other men, on a country conflicted. SC has been a carbuncle on the behind of the body politic since 1861 when it was the first state to secede from the Union. We should have let it go.
To judge by the conduct of South Carolina politicians since 1865, you might be confused as to who finished second in the War Between the States. SC has sent a bellicose if unremarkable succession of nullifiers and obstructionists to both Houses of Congress. Most recently we had Strom Thurman, a man so determined to deny civil rights to African Americans that he changed parties rather than support Johnson's Civil Rights Act of 1964. Thurmond was quoted in 1948 saying "There's not enough troops in the army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigra race into our theaters..." Naturally, the people of South Carolina continued to send Senator Thurmond back to Congress every six years in spite of his failing mental health. I guess it was hard to tell.
Now we have Jim DeMint and Joe Wilson. DeMint has been in the Senate since 2005 and although still in his first term, has managed to piss on every good-government campfire since he arrived. DeMint carries a full bag of Rightwing Conservative claptrap. He's opposed to abortion, hates gays, blah blah blah. He was one of only two Senators to oppose Hillary Clinton's appointment to be Secretary of State. (The other was David "I have all my hookers on speed dial" Vetter.)
Then we come to the primary reason for this screed, Joe Wilson. Wilson earned his white sheet while working as an aide to Strom Thurmond in the early 60's. His unremarkable rise to pseudo prominence in South Carolina politics has been...unremarkable. The only impression he is likely to leave on the legislative process is the stain he left last night. Achieving a new high in low, Rep. Wilson proved that there is a species in South Carolina even farther down the food chain than Mark Sanford. By interrupting the President of The United States with the cat-call "you lie", Wilson proved that the Republican response to the President's leadership on healthcare is nothing more than bad manners. FYI, the President's assertion that the healthcare bill makes no provision for illegals has been fully vetted by factcheck.org. One can only be reminded of the quote by Joseph Welsh during the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954, "Have you no sense of decency sir?"
Happily, no one thus far has rushed to defend Joe Wilson. (No doubt Fox News will find a silver lining.) John McCain called the outburst "totally disrespectful". Wilson has apologized but it's too early to know how sorry he may actually be. He won his district in 2008 by the slimmest margin so far and last night's performance has already fattened the war-chest of his opponent in 2010.
Tragically, Wilson although despicable, is more a symptom than a disease. The visceral reaction of southerners to a black liberal in the White House is leaking all over American politics. It seems that any breech of etiquette, any secession of civility, any deplorable conduct is to be understood because "that guy" is in the White House. Barack Obama is far from sainthood (although he can see it from where he's standing) but he is The President. Regardless of the damage done to the office by the Bush/Cheney cabal, we still expect our elected leaders to shut up and let the man talk.
Anyway one can't help feeling sorry for South Carolina. When all anyone remembers about a visit to your state is the cheese grits in Charleston, or the 12th hole at Tradition Golf Club, we can feel your pain. However let this be a warning: we of the other 49 will only tolerate your boorishness for so long. Shape up! Toss out your unzipped governor and start electing people who don't eat with their fingers. If you don't fix yourselves, we might just trade you back to Great Britain for Monserrat and an island to be named later. You'll have no one but Joe Wilson to blame.
Sunday, September 06, 2009
...or are optimists just people who disconnected their cable TV?
Item
Another election in Afghanistan. Another recount. Both sides declare victory. Rumors of voter fraud.
All among you who care which of these thieves wins this politics-in-a-petri-dish, lab experiment, stand over there. As I suspected...no one.
Why the United States insists on fostering these travesty elections in countries that aren't ready, is a mystery. People in places like Iraq and Afghanistan are focused on more primal concerns like where their next meal is coming from or will their marketplace blow up while they are there.. Which one of their leaders gets elected to share in the opium profits is not among their primary concerns.
No other country has the hubris to proclaim their governing system is perfect and everyone should want to be like them. Actually, having watched the absurd events of this last August in the U.S., most third-world countries would prefer a good dictatorship any day. At least they wouldn't be forced to listen to Chuck Grassley and Max Baccus. Anyway, most third-world citizens may not have democracy but they already have health care.
____________________________________________________________________
Item
Please raise your hand if you knew that prostitution was legal in Rhode Island. Seriously, we all knew about Nevada but Rhode Island? True fact! It seems that way back in 1980 legislators were rushing to finish a bill to improve prosecutions. In their haste they inadvertently omitted the section that addressed the actual act of prostitution. In 2003 the loophole was discovered and, as long as the transaction takes place indoors (a virtual certainly in chilly Providence), the sex trade is legal.
As expected, several Republican state legislators are working day and night to close the loophole...and the brothels. (Republicans prefer to do their boinking outdoors, say on the Appalachian Trail.) New Englanders, reluctant to part with any freedoms, are resisting the attempt. Between the ACLU, civil libertarians and presumably the sailors from Newport Naval Station, opposition is stiff. (Sorry!)
The moral of the story is that legislators should read what they vote to approve or prohibit. But wait! Didn't we already learn that lesson with the Patriot Act? The paranoid fear that produced that perversion of the legislative process was also concerned with the loss of freedom and the screwing of the American people ...and it didn't even have to be indoors.
____________________________________________________________________
Item
The President of the United States addressed the students of America yesterday and the world as we know it did not come to an end. Honestly, how much misinformation and outright bullshit will the old, white Republican right tolerate before they begin to think for themselves?
Folks, let's handle your issues one at a time: Barack Obama was born in America. If you think otherwise, you're an idiot. He isn't trying to indoctrinate America's youth under the guise of a "stay in school" message. If you imagine otherwise, you're a tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy nut. And, if you believe he's going to take your government sponsored Medicare by replacing it with another government sponsored health plan well, actually, he is and everyone except the shareholders of healthcare companies will benefit.
He is black and he is your President. Please...go find something else to do beside rave at your legislators at town hall meetings. You look stupid and ill informed. If you must protest, go do it at Rush Limbaugh's recording studio. He's the one making you look like clueless sheep.
Another election in Afghanistan. Another recount. Both sides declare victory. Rumors of voter fraud.
All among you who care which of these thieves wins this politics-in-a-petri-dish, lab experiment, stand over there. As I suspected...no one.
Why the United States insists on fostering these travesty elections in countries that aren't ready, is a mystery. People in places like Iraq and Afghanistan are focused on more primal concerns like where their next meal is coming from or will their marketplace blow up while they are there.. Which one of their leaders gets elected to share in the opium profits is not among their primary concerns.
No other country has the hubris to proclaim their governing system is perfect and everyone should want to be like them. Actually, having watched the absurd events of this last August in the U.S., most third-world countries would prefer a good dictatorship any day. At least they wouldn't be forced to listen to Chuck Grassley and Max Baccus. Anyway, most third-world citizens may not have democracy but they already have health care.
____________________________________________________________________
Item
Please raise your hand if you knew that prostitution was legal in Rhode Island. Seriously, we all knew about Nevada but Rhode Island? True fact! It seems that way back in 1980 legislators were rushing to finish a bill to improve prosecutions. In their haste they inadvertently omitted the section that addressed the actual act of prostitution. In 2003 the loophole was discovered and, as long as the transaction takes place indoors (a virtual certainly in chilly Providence), the sex trade is legal.
As expected, several Republican state legislators are working day and night to close the loophole...and the brothels. (Republicans prefer to do their boinking outdoors, say on the Appalachian Trail.) New Englanders, reluctant to part with any freedoms, are resisting the attempt. Between the ACLU, civil libertarians and presumably the sailors from Newport Naval Station, opposition is stiff. (Sorry!)
The moral of the story is that legislators should read what they vote to approve or prohibit. But wait! Didn't we already learn that lesson with the Patriot Act? The paranoid fear that produced that perversion of the legislative process was also concerned with the loss of freedom and the screwing of the American people ...and it didn't even have to be indoors.
____________________________________________________________________
Item
The President of the United States addressed the students of America yesterday and the world as we know it did not come to an end. Honestly, how much misinformation and outright bullshit will the old, white Republican right tolerate before they begin to think for themselves?
Folks, let's handle your issues one at a time: Barack Obama was born in America. If you think otherwise, you're an idiot. He isn't trying to indoctrinate America's youth under the guise of a "stay in school" message. If you imagine otherwise, you're a tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy nut. And, if you believe he's going to take your government sponsored Medicare by replacing it with another government sponsored health plan well, actually, he is and everyone except the shareholders of healthcare companies will benefit.
He is black and he is your President. Please...go find something else to do beside rave at your legislators at town hall meetings. You look stupid and ill informed. If you must protest, go do it at Rush Limbaugh's recording studio. He's the one making you look like clueless sheep.
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
...or will Virginia vote to return to the good old days...say 1700?
Politically, there is no state in the Union more interesting than Virginia. Since the founding of the Republic, Virginians have always thought of themselves as a cut above. After all, when you have given the country such national treasures as Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Patrick Henry and Robert Edward Lee, (not to mention Sam Snead, Arthur Ashe and Fran Tarkenton) you have a right to feel superior. Politics in the state has always been a dignified affair. Although a late and reluctant addition to the Confederacy, Virginia contributed many of the South's generals and of course its capital city.
For most of the last hundred years Virginia has been a reliable member of the league of southern gentlemen. Virginia went Democratic when Democrats favored a separation of the races and turned Republican when state's rights became the vogue. Lately however, Virginia has seen a noticeable shift toward a more independent line of thought. The election of two Democratic Senators and two consecutive Democratic governors is considerably more significant in Virginia than in states with large urban centers.
In the election that put a black candidate in the White House, Virginia went 52% to 48% for Obama. The influx of dreaded liberals in the D.C. suburbs is unquestionably a factor but it doesn't tell the entire story. Pockets of Democrats inhabit several areas along the East Coast. Much of President Obama's support originated in the center of the state.
This bit of history is interesting for two reasons: 1) Virginia has had a non-succession law for its governors on the books since 1971. 2) America is watching the upcoming election in Virginia for signs of a chink in the Obama armour. Unfortunately, the election in Virginia will tell us almost nothing about the National mood. The guy who said "all politics is local" (I think it was Cain just before he negated his brother's vote) knew what he was talking about. The governor's race in Virginia will not be the first referendum on the Obama administration. It will be, as it ever was, a race about all the moronic social issues that Americans have been fretting over since Reagan.
The candidates, just in case you're not a political wonk, are: in the blue corner, Creigh (rhymes with flea) Deeds and, wearing the red trunks, Robert "Bob" McDonnell. Mr. Deeds won an impressive primary fight in June against the better known better funded Terry McAuliffe. McDonnell got the nomination because, well, nobody else wanted it.
Although Deeds impressed everyone with his come-from-nowhere victory in the primary, his return to nowhere has surprised and concerned Democrats throughout the state. As of last week Mr. McDonnell had a 15% lead in the polls and appeared to be pulling away. Ah, but not so fast Bob. Just like George Allen saw his senatorial (and presidential) hopes disappear in the blink of an eye, (please YouTube "George Allen, Macaca") Bob McDonnell is about to see his soaring lead over Mr. Deeds return to earth.
The Washington Post has had the poor manners to unearth Mr. McDonnell's graduate thesis, written in 1989 (not 1789) when Bob was a grad student at Regent University. Let's forget for the moment that Regent University was formerly known as Christian Broadcasting Network University and was founded by that progressive thinker Pat Robertson. Let's also forget that Regent U. ranks somewhere near Ted's On-line Divinity School and Used Car Sales as a seat of higher learning.
In his treatise, Mr. McDonnell expresses a vision of society (the paper is called The Republican Party's Vision for the family) that would have been a blueprint for a family home in Salem Mass. in 1700. He opposes women in the workplace as detrimental to family values. Daycare, because it encourages women to work, is also criticized. He opposes the Supreme Court decision (Griswold v. Connecticut) to invalidate the ban on contraception counselling for married couples because it "promotes a view of liberty based on radical individualism". (Those of you who didn't know that counselling on contraception was ever against the law, line up behind me.)
Mr. McDonnell's screed on modernism would have made a wonderful resume-stuffer had he been applying for headmaster of a Dickensian boarding school, but for a governor of a blueish state in 2009, not so much. His views oppose homosexuality, cohabitators and fornicators (Yes, Virginia, he actually used the word "fornicators").
These are not just personal opinions or religiously held beliefs. Old Bob advises that we incorporate his views into public policy. "Every level of government should statutorily and procedurally prefer married couples..." "The cost of sin should fall on the sinner not on the taxpayer." Praise Jesus! This guy makes Ozzie and Harriet look positively ribald. (I never thought I'd ever get to use fornicator and ribald in the same piece.)
Naturally, McDonnell says that this is all just a big mistake. He has matured since 1989...when he was 34. In twenty years he has, he says, zoomed from the days of whale-bone corsets and floor-length skirts to a more enlightened world view. Having a daughter who served in Iraq will do that for you. Even an evangelical is slow to argue against equal pay for equal work with a lady packing an AK-47.
The beautiful irony in this story is the Republican claim that all this talk of antiquated social policy is distracting from the "real" issues of the campaign. Ha! The party that spent the last thirty years yelling about homos, free condoms in schools, family values and the godless scourge of liberalism now decries those issues as irrelevant. In 2000, Bob McDonnell would have been proud to describe feminism as "one of the real enemies of the traditional family". Now he's doing an Usain Bolt running away.
The election is still two months away and it will take more than an evangelical wet dream to sink Bob McDonnell. The Virginia economy is still sketchy and Democrats are still feared and hated in many parts of the state. Recent successful candidates have danced away from third-rail issues like gun control and the death penalty. Nevertheless, it's encouraging to see a Republican, running in a Southern State, disavowing right-wing social policy. If you're looking for a national trend, hopefully this is it. Glory Hallelujah and can I get an Amen!
For most of the last hundred years Virginia has been a reliable member of the league of southern gentlemen. Virginia went Democratic when Democrats favored a separation of the races and turned Republican when state's rights became the vogue. Lately however, Virginia has seen a noticeable shift toward a more independent line of thought. The election of two Democratic Senators and two consecutive Democratic governors is considerably more significant in Virginia than in states with large urban centers.
In the election that put a black candidate in the White House, Virginia went 52% to 48% for Obama. The influx of dreaded liberals in the D.C. suburbs is unquestionably a factor but it doesn't tell the entire story. Pockets of Democrats inhabit several areas along the East Coast. Much of President Obama's support originated in the center of the state.
This bit of history is interesting for two reasons: 1) Virginia has had a non-succession law for its governors on the books since 1971. 2) America is watching the upcoming election in Virginia for signs of a chink in the Obama armour. Unfortunately, the election in Virginia will tell us almost nothing about the National mood. The guy who said "all politics is local" (I think it was Cain just before he negated his brother's vote) knew what he was talking about. The governor's race in Virginia will not be the first referendum on the Obama administration. It will be, as it ever was, a race about all the moronic social issues that Americans have been fretting over since Reagan.
The candidates, just in case you're not a political wonk, are: in the blue corner, Creigh (rhymes with flea) Deeds and, wearing the red trunks, Robert "Bob" McDonnell. Mr. Deeds won an impressive primary fight in June against the better known better funded Terry McAuliffe. McDonnell got the nomination because, well, nobody else wanted it.
Although Deeds impressed everyone with his come-from-nowhere victory in the primary, his return to nowhere has surprised and concerned Democrats throughout the state. As of last week Mr. McDonnell had a 15% lead in the polls and appeared to be pulling away. Ah, but not so fast Bob. Just like George Allen saw his senatorial (and presidential) hopes disappear in the blink of an eye, (please YouTube "George Allen, Macaca") Bob McDonnell is about to see his soaring lead over Mr. Deeds return to earth.
The Washington Post has had the poor manners to unearth Mr. McDonnell's graduate thesis, written in 1989 (not 1789) when Bob was a grad student at Regent University. Let's forget for the moment that Regent University was formerly known as Christian Broadcasting Network University and was founded by that progressive thinker Pat Robertson. Let's also forget that Regent U. ranks somewhere near Ted's On-line Divinity School and Used Car Sales as a seat of higher learning.
In his treatise, Mr. McDonnell expresses a vision of society (the paper is called The Republican Party's Vision for the family) that would have been a blueprint for a family home in Salem Mass. in 1700. He opposes women in the workplace as detrimental to family values. Daycare, because it encourages women to work, is also criticized. He opposes the Supreme Court decision (Griswold v. Connecticut) to invalidate the ban on contraception counselling for married couples because it "promotes a view of liberty based on radical individualism". (Those of you who didn't know that counselling on contraception was ever against the law, line up behind me.)
Mr. McDonnell's screed on modernism would have made a wonderful resume-stuffer had he been applying for headmaster of a Dickensian boarding school, but for a governor of a blueish state in 2009, not so much. His views oppose homosexuality, cohabitators and fornicators (Yes, Virginia, he actually used the word "fornicators").
These are not just personal opinions or religiously held beliefs. Old Bob advises that we incorporate his views into public policy. "Every level of government should statutorily and procedurally prefer married couples..." "The cost of sin should fall on the sinner not on the taxpayer." Praise Jesus! This guy makes Ozzie and Harriet look positively ribald. (I never thought I'd ever get to use fornicator and ribald in the same piece.)
Naturally, McDonnell says that this is all just a big mistake. He has matured since 1989...when he was 34. In twenty years he has, he says, zoomed from the days of whale-bone corsets and floor-length skirts to a more enlightened world view. Having a daughter who served in Iraq will do that for you. Even an evangelical is slow to argue against equal pay for equal work with a lady packing an AK-47.
The beautiful irony in this story is the Republican claim that all this talk of antiquated social policy is distracting from the "real" issues of the campaign. Ha! The party that spent the last thirty years yelling about homos, free condoms in schools, family values and the godless scourge of liberalism now decries those issues as irrelevant. In 2000, Bob McDonnell would have been proud to describe feminism as "one of the real enemies of the traditional family". Now he's doing an Usain Bolt running away.
The election is still two months away and it will take more than an evangelical wet dream to sink Bob McDonnell. The Virginia economy is still sketchy and Democrats are still feared and hated in many parts of the state. Recent successful candidates have danced away from third-rail issues like gun control and the death penalty. Nevertheless, it's encouraging to see a Republican, running in a Southern State, disavowing right-wing social policy. If you're looking for a national trend, hopefully this is it. Glory Hallelujah and can I get an Amen!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)