GayPatriot

The Internet home for American gay conservatives.

Archives for September 2005

Why I luv my Guv (Ahnuld, that is)

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Immediately after President Bush indicated his support for the Federal Marriage Amendment in February 2004, I decided not to make a planned contribution to his campaign and decided as well not to give to the Republcan National Committee or any other GOP outfit. But, as the year progressed and the Democratic (and media) attacks became ever more shrill, especially with the release (and box office success) of Michael Moore‘s festival of deceits in June, I changed my mind and ended up giving money to my party and to various candidates. I thought my side needed resources to defend itself against mean-spirited and dishonest attacks.

My finances being tighter this year, I thought I couldn’t afford to contribute to Governor Schwarzenegger’s “California Recovery Team,” an effort to raise money to support four reform initiatives on this fall’s state ballot. But, it seemed that whenever I worked out at my gym and looked up at the TVs, I saw another commercial from some left-wing interest group attacking not only those proposed reforms but the Governor himself. The commercials were dishonest as well as mean. I wanted to support my governor’s efforts to clean up Sacramento.

When Log Cabin e-mailed me an invite to a fundraiser with that good man (which I will be heading right after I post this), I looked through my finances and found the means to make a donation. I may have to cut back in a few areas, but that seems entirely fitting since one of the propositions on the ballot, Prop. 76, would place a limit on state spending.

His political opponents decry the governor as a movie star who isn’t very bright, using similar terms to those Democrats and their media allies used to attack Ronald Reagan a generation ago, another California governor with an ambitious reform agenda. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s record shows both a man with command of the issues (and problems) facing the Golden State and a real commitment to reform. While George Will, a keen observer of politics observed that our Governor does not completely understand his own political problems, “he does understand a large part of the state’s.”
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With DeLay Indicted, will 2006 Resemble 1994 — or 1998?

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In the wake of Tom DeLay’s indictment on one count of criminal conspiracy, Democrats are crowing. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sees a “culture of corruption” in the GOP while even some conservatives fear that the current Republican Congress resembles the Democratic Congress of 1993-94, the last one where Ms. Pelosi’s party had a majority in the House.

Some Democrats (and even a few Republicans) believe that they can use the corruption charge against the GOP and so regain the majority they had enjoyed for all but four of the sixty-two years prior to 1994. That year, Republicans ran against the Democrats’ liberal and spendthrift policies, their corruption and abuse of power and put forward a positive reform agenda, The Contract with America. They won a majority in the House (and the Senate) and have had uninterrupted control (of the House) ever since.

While I’m no fan of Tom DeLay, I believe the charges that Travis County (TX) District Attorney Ronnie Earle leveled against him are baseless, a political vendetta by a prosecutor who routinely indicts his political adversaries. Earle’s political indictments rarely result in conviction. But, the focus on DeLay should remind us how far House Republicans, under his leadership, have strayed from the conservative reform agenda which brought them to power just over a decade ago. Ankle Biting Pundits observes:

Clearly the Congressional GOP has lost much of its bearings, and is turning into the 1992-1993 version of the Congressional Democrats. And the question arises, what’s the point of having a majority if that majority doesn’t stand for anything useful? If the result is more of the same spending binges, nonchalance on the issue of illegal immigration, an expansion of the welfare state (i.e. Medicare Modernization Act), and the lack of backbone when it comes to cutting taxes permanently and reforming Social Security, then what have we really won?

(HT: Instapundit & Polipundit‘s Lorie Byrd.) Unlike that last Democratic Congress, however, there is already grumbling within the majority ranks. Under the leadership of Indiana Republican Mike Pence, the House Republican Study Committee [RSC] has “proposed “budget options” that would cut spending by as much as $102 billion in one year.”
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Welcoming Tammy Bruce to the Blogosphere

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According to Pajamas Media (of which this blog is a member), one of my favorite talk show hosts, the author of two smart books (The Death of Right and Wrong & The New Thought Police) and a third on the way, Tammy Bruce, a lesbian and former president of the National Organization for Women’s L.A. chapter, officially launched her blog today. While she remains a pro-choice liberal, she frequently finds herself at odds with the left today because of what she calls its “malignant narcissism.”

I enjoy listening to Tammy’s show Saturday afternoons on Talk Radio 790 KABC and welcome her voice to the growing chorus of gay & lesbian bloggers challenging the left-wing orthodoxy which all too often defines our community.

I’ll be keeping an eye on her blog and encourage all GayPatriot readers to do the same.

-Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com

TV’s Teletubbies Wrapped Up In Cocaine Bust

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Jerry Falwell must be thinking “I told you so!” today…

Teletubbies In Cocaine Bust – The Smoking Gun

When federal officials in New York yesterday announced the arrest of 22 members of an international drug cartel, they revealed that cocaine shipments seized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were labeled with a sweet portrait of the colorful cartoon quartet.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Peggy’s Wisdom on Katrina — and our Shifting Attitudes Toward Government

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In her column today, Peggy Noonan once again shows the stuff that has made her my Athena. In a particularly wise piece, Peggy not only faults big media for its coverage of Katrina, but she also expresses concern about something which Katrina revealed “a change in the relation of the individual and those who would govern him.”

While Peggy finds American nature “in the story of Jeremiah Johnson,” the mountain man who “didn’t like authority [and] wanted to be left alone,” today it seems we “hunger for someone to take responsibility.” Emblematic of this shift in attitude is a story out of Galveston the day before Rita hit land. Peggy saw two cops arrest a “fat Texas guy” for swimming in the crashing waves. While acknowledging that this guy was probably crazy, Peggy laments that “in the America where I grew up, you were allowed to be crazy.”

Instead of government just maintaining the peace in times of disaster, it is taking more and more authority onto itself, often with little dissent from the people. Peggy fears that if we “lose the right to be crazy, we’ll lose the right to be sane.” Thus, we need to make clear that, even in disasters, government’s role should be limited:

It is the government’s job to warn and inform. That’s what we have the National Weather Service for. It is not government’s job to command and control and make microdecisions about the lives of people who want to do it their own way.

I have only begun to explore the ideas in this wise piece. Peggy also does a great job of evaluating “the media’s part in this.” While she finds that “[r]eporters on the ground in New Orleans deserve great credit,” she also noted that “media have trouble distinguishing between the helpful reporting of facts and the whipping up of fear.” Since I can’t do justice to this wise piece in my poor post, just read the whole thing!

-Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com

UPDATE: Just got an e-mail update from Barnes & Noble that Peggy’s next book, John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father, will be released on George Eliot’s birthday. I delight in that serendipity. Not only is Peggy like Athena, but she also has much in common with Eliot (whose real name was Mary Ann Evans).

NGLTF Outraged at Roberts’ Confirmation, Favors a Nominee like Clarence Thomas

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It seems that the folks over at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force are easily outraged. While exactly half of the Senate’s Democratic caucus (including such “blue state” liberals as Vermont’s Patrick Leahy and Connecticut’s Christopher Dodd) voted to confirm John Roberts as Chief Justice, the Task Force calls his “confirmation ‘beyond disappointing — outrageous’”

In a release filled with more vitriol than sense, Eleanor D. Acheson, NGLTF’s Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs faulted the Senate for failing to “stand up to the administration and effectively relinquished its constitutional ‘advise and consent’ responsibilities.” It seems she believes that “advice and consent” means delay and obstruct as she subsequently takes the Senate to task for “not holding Roberts’ nomination until he fully answered all the questions asked.” I wonder if she’s also upset that the Senate confirmed Ruth Bader Ginsburg (with a higher percentage of Republicans supporting that one-time ACLU activist) even though she had failed to fully answer all the questions asked. Or maybe it’s just that she interprets the Senate’s “advise and consent” role differently when a Republican is in the White House.

In the penultimate paragraph of her statement, she seems to be asking the president to follow his father’s lead and appoint another justice in the mold of Clarence Thomas. She demands that “The next nominee must be a person whose life experience includes some real exposure to and understanding of the disadvantaged and marginalized in our society and of the diversity of our population in myriad respects.”
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Pataki Nixes “Freedom Center” at Ground Zero

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Perhaps the tide is beginning to shift in favor of pro-American views in our country, as Dan suggests below happened in Hollywood in 1985. Pataki’s decision to scrap the “International Freedom Center” may be the first sign that Americans are fed up with the political correctness of the War on Terror and the symbols associated with it.

GayPatriot Blog Ally Robert Shurbet announced the news. Robert’s efforts at TakeBackTheMemorial were started by the op-ed column from Debra Burlingame, the sister of Charles F. “Chic” Burlingame III, pilot of American Airlines fight 77, which was crashed at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. (As you may recall, one of my closest friends was also on board AA Flight 77 that morning.)

Pataki’s statement:

FOR RELEASE: IMMEDIATE, Wednesday September 28, 2005
STATEMENT FROM GOVERNOR GEORGE E. PATAKI

I strongly believe in this nation’s core principle of freedom and I personally believe that the celebration of freedom is not inconsistent with the goals of memorializing our nearly 3,000 lost heroes. The creation of an institution that would show the world our unity and our resolve to preserve freedom in the wake of the horrific attacks is a noble pursuit.

But freedom should unify us. This Center has not.

Since June, we have offered the International Freedom Center (IFC) the time they needed to clarify their intentions and work with stakeholders to reach a consensus. Today there remains too much opposition, too much controversy over the programming of the IFC and we must move forward with our first priority, the creation of an inspiring memorial to pay tribute to our lost loved ones and tell their stories to the world.

Therefore, the IFC cannot be located on the Memorial quadrant. I have asked the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) to work with the IFC to explore other locations for the Center. In addition, I am directing the LMDC to continue its efforts to identify programming for the Memorial quadrant that will tell the story of September 11th.

I would also ask all parties to now join together and unite behind fulfilling our solemn obligation to the families of those we lost. We must reclaim the spirit that we saw the days and weeks after September 11th, a spirit of unity, resolution and purpose and we must come together to build a lasting memorial for the generations to come.

Michelle Malkin has a more complete roundup of reaction.

This grassroots American effort to keep the integrity of Ground Zero is proof to the power of the blogosphere and its impact. Robert, thanks for your help. You were there for me when I needed your support…. and now you have done a great service to the memory of those who perished on September 11. This nation should be truly grateful for your tireless work over the past several months.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

A Screenwriter’s Solution to Hollywood’s Slump

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Looking at the Hollywood box office slump of 2005, my friend Craig Titley (quite possibly the funniest screenwriter in Hollywood who is also intelligent) finds similarities to the slump twenty years ago, back in 1985 when Back to the Future topped the box office charts.

Craig notes how both slumps followed the re-election of presidents who were “despised by the coasts, the media, and Bruce Springsteen.” He finds cultural similarities as well; both years saw a growth in home entertainment. And contends:

The questions Hollywood needs to be asking is not what caused the slump, but what will end it? What brought audiences back to the movies in ‘85? And what is it audiences now want that Hollywood 2005 isn’t delivering? The movies tell the tale.

By offering a detailed analysis of the successful movies (of 1985), Craig finds that they were largely pro-American flics:

these films were optimistic in a time of fear, and they didn’t endlessly bag on their own country or send a negative message to the world implying that America is full of corrupt, greedy, selfish, dishonest, Capitalist pigs and that the Russians have every right to hate us and nuke us. On the contrary, these films wore the flag proudly, celebrated American valor and the American spirit, and used the real world villains as the reel world villains.

There’s more great stuff like that in Craig’s piece so rather than having me give it you second-hand, just read the whole thing. Not only is it wise, but it’s witty as well, a real delight to read–and you’ll learn something along the way. And you’ll be reminded of what this town can accomplish when moviemakers promote what is best in this nation — and in all of us.

-Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com

Commander-In-Chief Geena Davis

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As Doc Brown said in the Back to the Future movies when told Ronald Reagan was President in the future…. “Ha! What next, Jack Benny for Secretary of the Treasury?” With Geena Davis as President, do we get Susan Sarandon as Secretary of State?

Chad at Cake or Death has a spot-on review of the new ABC TV drama.

Against my better judgment, I also watched the show knowing full well that one of the writers/consultants is none other than Satan’s sister, Eleanor “Screech” Clift. Since I’m lazy, I’m glad Chad captured many of the thoughts I would have written this morning.

The issue here isn’t really the fact that a chick is running the show, it’s how she got the job. A Republican candidate with a 40% approval rating chooses an “independent” female as a running mate to up his poll numbers. Not based on merit. Not based on experience. She’s got a pair of fun-pillows and a hoo-ha. He then makes the mistake of having a brain aneurysm and dies.

Okay, I doubt I would have used the word “hoo-ha.”

Anyway, I really *wanted* to like the show. Otherwise I wouldn’t have wasted an hour of my time last night. Or I would have watched “House” on FOX, a much better drama.

‘Commander’ just stretched the realm of believeability from start to finish. Not that a woman would be President. I actually believe it will happen in the next two or three election cycles, in fact. But every other part of the show was just eye-rollingly ridiculous. An ‘independent’ former Member of Congress-then Chancellor of a university has a right-wing…. teenage daughter? The nasty (but great character) right-wing Speaker of the House winkingly shuts down Geena’s TelePrompter during her first speech to Congress? Come on.

“The West Wing” is also not exactly a bastion of conservative values on television. But it has been at times very well written, and most importantly, believeable.

I hate to make predictions because I’m pretty bad at it. But I don’t think Geena will be in the Oval Office for long.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Mary Mapes: MSM’s Poster Child

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There seems to be some serendipity in the upcoming release of former CBS News Producer Mary Mapes’ book and media acknowledgment of its own biased coverage of Hurricane Katrina. Indeed, in the past two days, at least two leading conservative bloggers (Hugh Hewitt and Powerline) have commented on both topics. Just as the MSM tailored its reporting of the hurricane to fit the story it wanted to tell–that the slow recovery was all Bush’s fault–so did Ms. Mapes tailor her reporting of the president’s National Guard service to fit the conclusion she had reached long before she obtained memos which supposedly confirmed her theory.

Mary Mapes, as you many recall, had been pursuing the story of the president’s National Guard service for five years. Like many on the left, she believed the president’s father pulled strings to get his son a National Guard post so he wouldn’t have to serve in Vietnam and that once there, the future president shirked his duty. But, she could come up with no hard evidence to prove her case until a man she called an “unimpeachable source” came up with documents which confirmed that theory.

Alas (for her), bloggers quickly determined the memos to be forgeries, largely based on the typeface (CBS claimed the memos were from the early 1970s, yet they used proportional spacing typical of computer word-processing programs). The bloggers’ case was strengthened when CBS revealed that the “unimpeachable source” was Bill Burkett, a man with a long history of hating George W. Bush.

Ms. Mapes let her bias, her own belief that Bush had to have shirked his duty, cloud her judgment just as the MSM did in pinning the blame on president Bush for failures in the relief effort in the aftermath of Katrina. Though Dan Rather, Ms. Mapes comrade-in-arms in the Memogate scandal, called the MSM’s coverage of the Hurricane, “one of television news’ finest moments,” in the past couple of days, even the LA Times, an MSM mainstay, has found that coverage to be distorted.
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