I have not really gotten the fascination people have with Anderson Cooper. While he cuts an impressive figure with his gray hair and handsome face, I actually find him kind of boring when he reports the news. And he, like other CNN “reporters,” seems to give that news a left-wing spin.

Now, reader Peter Hughes e-mails me a link which confirms my impression of Cooper’s left-wing bias. In an interview with Hillary Clinton, he can’t seem to understand why private corporations and individuals (instead of the government) raised the funds for the Center for the Intrepid, “$50 million state of the art” rehabilitation facility “for wounded soldiers in San Antonio, Texas.”

He asked New York’s Junior Senator this leading question: “This center was $50 million in donations from corporations, and even individuals, school kids giving them dollars here and there. Why didn’t the government do it?” Instead of addressing this question to a frequent critic of the Bush administration and so politicize a center that appears to be doing great things for our heroes, if he really wanted to know why the facility raised funds from the private sector, he would have asked the individuals who organized the project.

Or perhaps, he could have just checked the web where he might have learned about the “public-private partnership to build” the center. Even his own network notes that the Army will administers this “privately funded facility.” Mr. Cooper doesn’t seem to understand the generous spirit which animates most Americans many of whom (including your humble bloggers) donate to a number of charitable organizations, including veterans’ organizations.

Mr. Cooper’s question betrays his inherent liberal sense that if there’s a major problem to be solved, only the government can do this. But, what this public-private partnership shows is that the private sector can succeed in raising the funds for such beneficial projects as this facility.

Look around the country, look around your own community, you’ll see hospitals built by churches, synagogues and other private groups. The Shriners build pediatric hospitals. The Jewish Federation sponsors a variety of social services. Catholic charities feed the hungry. And many of these do their good work without a dime of government money.

instead of wondering why the government didn’t fund the Center for the Intrepid, Mr. Cooper and Mrs. Clinton should marvel at the generosity of their fellow Americans, willing to dig deeply into their own pockets to help finance needed services for others less fortunate than themselves. They could even note the generosity of the corporations whom the leaders of Mrs. Clinton’s party frequently decry.

And for those GayPatriot readers who are so generous, you can support the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund (which raised the money for this facility) so it may “provide additional services to the patients who will be treated in the Center and their families” by clicking here”

I’m guessing many of the GayPatriot moonbat parade will have a lot of praise for this piece in the LA Times on Sunday.

Was 9/11 really that bad? – David Bell

Has the American reaction to the attacks in fact been a massive overreaction? Is the widespread belief that 9/11 plunged us into one of the deadliest struggles of our time simply wrong? If we did overreact, why did we do so? Does history provide any insight?

Certainly, if we look at nothing but our enemies’ objectives, it is hard to see any indication of an overreaction. The people who attacked us in 2001 are indeed hate-filled fanatics who would like nothing better than to destroy this country. But desire is not the same thing as capacity, and although Islamist extremists can certainly do huge amounts of harm around the world, it is quite different to suggest that they can threaten the existence of the United States.

Unfortunately, Bell suffers from terrorist-apologetic delusions (a disease afflicting many in the American Left).  Technology now allows a MUCH quicker bridge between “desire” and “capacity”.  Bell ignores that fact.  It is one of the many reasons Saddam had to go after 9/11, by the way.

Of course, the 9/11 attacks also conjured up the possibility of far deadlier attacks to come. But then, we were hardly ignorant of these threats before, as a glance at just about any thriller from the 1990s will testify. And despite the even more nightmarish fantasies of the post-9/11 era (e.g. the TV show “24′s” nuclear attack on Los Angeles), Islamist terrorists have not come close to deploying weapons other than knives, guns and conventional explosives. A war it may be, but does it really deserve comparison to World War II and its 50 million dead? Not every adversary is an apocalyptic threat.

No, but if the tyrants of our past had been stopped early on in their bloodthirsty careers instead of appeasing them, perhaps there never would have been 50 million dead in WWII.   That is the whole point of pre-emption by Western democracies (the Bush Doctrine).  Unfortunately, the “progressive liberals” have created moral equivalence between America and Islamic terror groups.  Just a rehash of the 1960s, of course.

There are some great comments at Dean’s World about this piece, too.

The comparison to the Soviet Union is unbelievably asinine. That same country had only years before killed millions of its own people in forced famines.  Sadly, this kind of idiocy is pretty much par for the course. Half the world sees 9/11 as our Reichstag fire.

The guy’s right: we should wait until we’ve racked up massive civilian casualties before we take action. That’s much better than proactively preventing casualties. Better to wait until our enemies can threaten us than to stop them before.  Sheesh. What a maroon…

So have at it, gang!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

I just got back from a discussion and signing of Self-Made Man: One Woman’s Journey into Manhood and Back, the wonderful book by Norah Vincent, a graduate, like yours truly of America’s finest small college. I had reviewed the book last February and still ***highly recommend*** it. In the book, Norah recounts her experiences living for eighteen months as a man and offers observations on what she learned in that guise.

Perhaps due to her excellent college education, Norah did not do a traditional reading where an author reads a select passage from her (or his) book to whet book-buyers’ appetite for the rest of her work. Instead, she led a discussion, more like a college seminar than anything else. And yours truly was truly, truly in his element, frequently chiming in, noting how lesbians seemed to get relationships right and defending the book’s fifth chapter — about her experiences in a monastery — as one of the best. Two men (one gay, the other straight) who otherwise enjoyed the book did not particularly like that section of the book.

I liked that chapter because it was there that she realized how women serve “communicators, the interlocutors between men and themselves, men and their children and even men and each other.” She became aware of the absence of intimacy in the all-male environment of the monastery.

What was interesting about the conversation tonight was that we (that is, those who came to hear Norah) basically agreed with those who commented to my recent post on Vulnerabilty that our difficulty relating to one another has more to do with our gender than our orientation. Women seem to “get” relationships better than men.

There was, however, disagreement on whether or not women could really “tame” (my word which I acknowledge is perhaps a bit too clunky) men and that we would always be driven to stray. I got into a heated discussion with a gay physician, disagreeing on the ability of men to settle down. I believed we are capable of that. He was dubious. And to show you how I differ from many gay men, I gave him my card not because he was my type, but because I enjoyed our exchange. It seemed one could have a great conversation with him.

The conversation tonight reminds me why I loved Norah’s book so much. That it’s one of those works which really gets at important matters — and does so in such away that invites a good discussion. And I loved that Borders Bookstore gave Norah Vincent the forum to promote her book and she used it to initiate a lively exchange. While those of there did not always agree, we did show great respect for the other fans of this wonderful book. And had the kind of civil discussion of which I wish we could see more of on this blog.