My guess is that, in the wake of Assistant Senate Democratic Leader Dick Durbin’s apology on Tuesday for his remarks comparing the alleged treatment of a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay to that of worst tyrannies of the last century, I expect the controversy to subside. The media will cover this less and less and only a few conservatives will continue to comment on it.

Two-and-a-half years ago, however, when another Senate leader made a similarly offensive comment, the controversy did not subside in the wake of his apology. At the one-hundredth birthday party of then-U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond, then-Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott said that our nation would have avoided “all these problems” had it followed the lead of his state (Mississippi) in voting for Thurmond for president in 1948. That year, the man from the Palmetto State had run as a segregationist on the Dixiecrat ticket. Mr. Lott’s comments thus suggested that desegregation had caused many of “these problems” in the ensuing years.

Eight days after making the remarks, Lott apologized. “A poor choice of words conveyed to some the impression that I embraced the discarded policies of the past. . . . Nothing could be further from the truth, and I apologize to anyone who was offended by my statement.” Later, he said, his words were “terrible” and stated that he rejected segregationist “policies of the past.” Yet, many believed Mr. Lott’s contrition was not enough. The NAACP thought he should resign his leadership position.

And it wasn’t just liberal organizations calling for him to step down. Conservative columnists thought he should relinquish his leadership post as well (here, for example). Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s ethic entity, agreed. A few days later, Oklahoma Senator Don Nickles, the then-second-raking Republican in the Senate, suggested that Lott be ousted as party leader. As the chorus of criticism increased, encouraged in large part by conservative bloggers, pressure on the Mississippi Senator to relinquish his leadership post continued to build and a few days later, he stepped down as the GOP leader in the United States Senate.
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Just learned (via Polipundit) that a great Republican Governor, Jodi Rell, will seek re-election in Connecticut. This good woman became the first governor to sign into a law a bill recognizing same-sex civil unions without being coerced by the courts. It goes without saying that this blog enthusiastically endorses her re-election and hopes that the good citizens of the Nutmeg State will enjoy her leadership for four more years.

Gotta give my pal Dirty Harry credit for scooping me on this one. Barely twenty-four hours after joining Bridget Johnson on GOP Vixen, he’s proud to be a Republican because Republicans (and conservative pundits) have been among the most savage critics of the recently-released book out trashing Hillary Clinton. As Dirty Harry puts it, “Conservatives don’t like it when it happens to us and we don’t like it when it happens to them. Even when it’s (gasp!) Hillary.”

While many on the left lavished praise on Kitty Kelley for her fall book trashing President Bush, while prominent Democrats flocked to see Michael Moore’s mean-spirited and deceptive propaganda piece, barely a handful of Republicans have praised a Kitty Kelley-type book on the former First Lady. Indeed, so offended am I (a strong critic of Mrs. Clinton) by what I have read about the book, I refuse to dignify it by providing its title (or naming its author) on this blog.

Peggy Noonan notes this morning that the book “has been heavily dumped on by conservatives.” Having read the book, this great columnist who embodies the qualities of the Greek goddess Athena writes that it’s “poorly written, poorly thought, poorly sourced and full of the kind of loaded language that is appropriate to a polemic but not an investigative work, concluding that the book is “too over the top. It seems hard to believe.” (As always with Peggy’s works, I recommend you read the whole thing.)
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Powerline links a poll that shows more Americans believe that the suspected terrorists held at Gitmo are being treated better than they deserve than those who think prisoners are treated too harshly. According to a Rasmussen survey, 36% of American thought prisoners are being treated better than they deserve while just 20% thought they were treated unfairly. 34% thought they were treated about right.

I think this is because, unlike some Democratic senators and a few bloggers, Americans see the alleged abuses in the context of how well our military treats prisoners, even those caught on the field of battle bearing arms, but not wearing a military uniform, those cretins who frequently target civilians, including those of their own religion.

Two months ago, I blogged on how the “stupid” comedy, Ruthless People changed my life. Today, in appreciation of funny flicks such as that one, I ask you to chime in with your favorite “stupid” comedy. Films such as Airplane! or The Naked Gun where you barely have time to breathe because you’re laughing so much.

I missed this Jonah Goldberg piece at The Corner earlier this week. (Hat tip: RelapsedBlog/Relapsed Catholic)

GAYS=JEWS — The Corner at NRO

Central to the anti-Semitic narrative is the Jews’ longevity as an intact people. There’s no enduring gay tribe, is there? Can you simply swap out the stereotype of Jews as financiers and predators of capital in favor of the stereotype of gays as interior decorators and hair-dressers and have anything similar to anti-Semitism? Is there a gay diaspora? I’ve heard the argument that homosexuality behaves like a religion, does this mean that Yglesias and Sullivan buy into it? Or do they want to claim all the benefits of playing this particularly powerful bigotry card without carrying any of the burdens of the analogy?

I’m anxious to hear your thoughts on this debate….

-Bruce (GayPatriot) – gaypatriot2004@aol.com

Why do liberals believe in Darwinism to the point of infringing on freedom of religious belief, yet want the Government to coddle everyone with every entitlement program known to man?

-Bruce (GayPatriot) — gaypatriot2004@aol.com

Dirty Harry, a longtime friend of this blog, has moved, joining the ever ebullient Bridget Johnson at GOP Vixen. Check him (and her) out here!

I share Dan’s sadness and frustration that Andrew Sullivan has taken on his blog and in his published writings. And I agree with one of our readers that Andrew seems to pick the contrarian position on nearly everything when the convention wisdom view has changed, or is muddied.

That isn’t the Reagan way.

Now, I must add in fairness that Andrew has been good to this blog and has stood with us on the issues of forced outings. For that I thank him.

But I note the utter irony of his Tuesday posting regarding HIV’s decline….

African-Americans are still most at risk. But this is good news in general, which is why you won’t read about it in the New York Times. They prefer to hyper-ventilate over one case, rather than a study based on 1,732,419 servicemembers.

Yet that is precisely what Sullivan and Durbin are doing with their exaggerated comparisons of one incident at Gitmo (holding foreign criminal terrorists with no right under the US Constitution) versus Nazi Germany (systematically murdering millions of civilians in their own nation).

-Bruce (GayPatriot) — gaypatriot2004@aol.com

It was a beautiful night in Philly…

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It seems that the only times I now read Andrew Sullivan’s blog are when conservative blogs link him to wonder at his excesses (as Hugh Hewitt did yesterday). Andrew’s was once the first blog I read (indeed, oftentimes the only blog I read everyday). I knew him when I lived in D.C. and even gave money to his site.

His fall is a sad one. He was the first gay writer/speaker (with a national platform) to challenge the left-wing orthodoxy that pervades the gay community. And now he seems to have become a spokesman for that orthodoxy.

I acknowledge that it is easier for me to speak out as a gay conservative because of the hits Andrew took when he first came out as a gay conservative in the late 1980s.

But, now his overblown rhetoric is appalling. Hugh cites a recent post which Andrew concludes “it’s people like Dick Durbin who prove that some can actually stand up against this stain on American honor and call it what it is. Good for him. Thank God for him.”

Andrew would be right if he merely called torture a “stain on American honor,” would be right to condemn torture when it occurs, but, he’s wrong to praise Senate’s Number Two Democrat for his latest comments. When Andrew (and others like him) so praise Mr. Durbin, Hugh writes, they are “buying into the Nazi/Stalinist/Pol Pot comparison, which simply takes them off the field of serious argument.”
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John Hawkins, of RightWingNews & ConservativeGrapevine and good friend to this blog, was generous in offering Dan and I a chance to participate in his “Right-of-Center” blog survey.

Right-Of-Center Bloggers Tell Us Who Is Screwing Up America – RightWingNews

We were asked to send a list up to 20 people of the folks we think are “screwing up America.” Forty-six other bloggers participated, and tied for first place…

My only complaint about the survey…. can’t I do anything without BoiFromTroy doing it too? *big friendly-competitive-rivalry grin*
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Once again, Senate Democrats blocked a final vote on the confirmation of John Bolton to be the United States Ambassador to the United Nations.

“They refuse to accept, because of their political ideology, that [President Bush] has actually done more than any American president for Africa. . . . But it’s empirically so.”
–Bob Geldof frontman for the Boomtown Rats & organizer of Live 8.

Here’s one entertainer who has put his compassion ahead of politics. A man who sees things as they are. Way to go, Bob! And to think that I listened to his band back when I was a young ‘un. I may have be onto something.

Hat tip: Captain Ed who has more.

I have the privilege of being in the great city of Philadelphia this week, as I’m attending the Biotechnology trade association’s annual meeting. I’ve brought the camera along so I can do some photoblogging around Center City in case something strikes my fancy.

Any guess on what I had for lunch today?

Here’s a true patriot… or a facsimile thereof. And yes, it is obvious that all I had was my camera-phone last night at the National Constitution Center. Visit it! Great museum.

Oh, yeah….. and this is me. I think I take terrible pics, but this one isn’t too bad. You can somewhat see me, yet it is still somewhat mysterious, eh? *grin* I’m going to use this on our “About GayPatriot” page….when we get one.

-Bruce (GayPatriot) — gaypatriot2004@aol.com

Despite what the liberals and Democrat Party want you to think, elections DO matter. And here’s an interesting report related to the last Presidential Election…you remember, the one that the President was re-elected by a majority of voters for the first time since 1988?

Loss of Middle Class a ‘crisis’ for Democrats – Washington Times

Although Mr. Bush’s popular-vote margin of victory over Sen. John Kerry in 2004 was less than three percentage points, the Massachusetts Democrat lost the middle class — defined by the report as voters living in households with incomes between $30,000 and $75,000 — by six percentage points. Among white middle-class voters, the gap was 22 percentage points.

Well, if Howard Dean keeps accusing all Republicans of being liars, bigots and criminals… I wonder how on earth the Democrat Party will ever begin winning national elections again since they’ve lost the middle class?

-Bruce (GayPatriot) — gaypatriot2004@aol.com

I might fall for this attempt at historic revisionism by the Senior Citizen Senator from West Virginia….

Byrd Laments KKK Connection – Associated Press (via AOL)

…if he hadn’t repeatedly used racial epithets in the recent past. (see: Senator Byrd’s N-word — John Derbyshire/National Review)

-Bruce (GayPatriot) – gaypatriot2004@aol.com

You’d think after “Gannongate,” that MSNBC wouldn’t be so blatant about announcing Norah O’Donnell’s apparent new job in the White House….

Hat tip: FishbowlDC

-Bruce (GayPatriot) — gaypatriot2004@aol.com

As Captain Ed puts it, the “media and the Leftists have had a field day with the Downing Street memos that they claim imply that the Bush administration lied about the intelligence on WMD in order to justify the attack on Iraq.” Yet now, the authenticity of the memos is in question. British reporter Michael Smith, who first obtained the memos, “told AP he protected the identity of the source he had obtained the documents from by typing copies of them on plain paper and destroying the originals.”

Destroyed the originals? Hmmm. . . . Powerline reports the Smith “either destroyed or returned the copies he had originally obtained.” Still, that conservative blog doubts “that the documents are fakes,” yet holds that the documents are “innocuous.” Captain Ed agrees, “Even if these memos could be authenticated, they’re still meaningless.”

Despite hearings and investigations held both in the U.S. and the United Kingdom showing that the Bush Administration did not “cook” intelligence on Iraq’s WMDs in order to strengthen its case to liberate Iraq, many administration critics remain committed to their “narrative” that the president lied to justify war. (You can download the Senate Intellitence Committee’s report here.)

These critics have recently based their case on memos of questionable authenticity which contain only a few sentences that could be interpreted to justify their narrative. These very memos also note British officials’ concerns that Saddam might use WMD in the event of an allied attack. Thus they prove that, prior to the liberation of Iraq, top British officials believed Saddam possessed WMDs.

Hat tip: Roger Simon.

UPDATE: Check out Right Side of the Rainbow’s post on the topic. He agrees that “the memos contain no smoking gun.”

As Batman Begins does gangbuster business this weekend at the box office, several of my friends (whom I trust for movie advice) rave about the flick. Thinking of the Caped Crusader (whose TV show your humble blogger enjoyed as a lad), I recalled Tim Burton‘s 1989 Batman flick and Jack Nicholson‘s whimsically maniacal portrayal of the Joker. In my mind, Nicholson’s Joker has always been one of the best movie villains of all time.

So, today’s open thread, which character, in your mind, is the best movie villain (or movie villains) of all time?

UPDATE: Just got in from the latest Batman flick. While Tim Burton’s had a better villain, this one has a better Batman. I’ve liked Christian Bale since I first saw him in Kenneth Branagh‘s Henry V. He seems to have found his niche in the movie which should become his first blockbuster.