Bias Against Gay Conservatives in Web Coverage of Beauchamp’s lies
In an exhaustive post on l’affaire Beauchamp, my old friend from Washington, D.C., Rich Miniter who has spent a good deal of time talking to the key players, exploring why the editors and fact-checkers at The New Republic failed to uncover Beauchamp’s lies.
In his extensive research, Rich found that the “magazine was at least as consumed by finding the whistle-blower [Robert McGee] than in presenting a full accounting to its readers.” That is, they were as devoted (if not more so) to finding the person leaking some facts about Beauchamp’s relation to the magazine as they were to checking the facts of Beauchamp’s various pieces for their publication.
As if in an attempt to deflect attention from the discrediting of an article providing a perspective consistent with a liberal narrative, the Huffington Post‘s Max Blumenthal focuses on the story’s gay angle, including the revelation that McGee is gay. Liberals seem to be obsessed with the supposed hypocrisy of gay conservatives.
Thus, once McGee did something which questioned the agenda of the left, he experienced reactions similar to those that many of us have encountered when we question liberal ideas and/or assumptions and the left-wing gay orthodoxy. Out “since college, he:
noted that few on the Right had raised any issues about his interest in men. He sometimes openly mentioned it on posts on Little Green Footballs. “No one ever made a big deal out of it,” he says, until the Huffington Post did.
And while many on the left (including readers of this blog) call us hypocrites, equating being a gay Republican with being a Jewish Nazi or black Klansman, most of us have discovered that gays on the left–and not just gays–give us more grief for being conservative than conservatives give us for being gay.
Why, I wonder yet again, do they hate us so?
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I’ll tell you why they hate us, Dan – we are everything they aspire to be in terms of success and happiness, yet they cannot because they are congenital defeatists and professional victims.
And for the lower-casers who are reading this, ask yourselves: who can you name that is gay and liberal who is TRULY happy? And I’m not talking the Lexapro-induced type of happiness.
Ergo, the GayLibLeft despise us because they have no other choice.
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — August 20, 2007 @ 3:01 pm - August 20, 2007
Pete, do you think that’s the reason the left hates Christians, too? I mean, if you’re living a chemically-regulated life surrounded by people with varying degrees of dysfunction, what could be more frustrating than looking at well-adjusted, happy people who find their strength in God and the Savior?
Comment by V the K — August 20, 2007 @ 3:25 pm - August 20, 2007
The established “Left” seems to have been as chronically infected as the intransigent “Right” by extreme aggressive/defensive syndrome. It appears to be resistent to applications of reason, and manifest violent reactions to any strain of truth.
Comment by Shawmut — August 20, 2007 @ 3:44 pm - August 20, 2007
#2 – V, that is certainly an interesting theory to advance. And it seems as though the MSM is following that template:
Look at how CNN’s resident Islamist sympathizer, Christiane Amanpour (who has a Jewish extended family, BTW) reportedly compares Christian chastity advocates to the Taliban in the upcoming miniseries “God’s Warriors,” a CNN expose on religious fundamentalists.
Even the promos for the miniseries which have been running on CNN for the past few weeks demonstrate the probable “game plan” that Amanpour and CNN have in mind, grouping together pro-life Christian college students protesting in front of the Supreme Court, Jewish settlers on the West Bank, and Islamic radicals. (Hat tip to NewsBusters for this piece.)
I’m not sure which is more disturbing – the fact that they portray a fundamentalist Christian group encouraging chastity as evil as an Islamic extremist group; or the fact that an Islamic extremist group bent on murder and death is lumped in the same group as this Christian group.
Can someone say “moral equivalence in the MSM?”
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — August 20, 2007 @ 3:54 pm - August 20, 2007
Happiness?
Come on. How can you be happy? All you do is whine about not being liked by liberals.
You guys whine more than Fran Drescher
Comment by gil — August 20, 2007 @ 4:00 pm - August 20, 2007
And now you are saying Christians are persecuted in the USA?!?!?
Geez…
Comment by gil — August 20, 2007 @ 4:02 pm - August 20, 2007
Things worth repeating / pondering:
1) McGee doesn’t identify as conservative and told Miniter he was comfortable with TNR before l’affaire Beauchamp, with little ideological distance between him and the rest of TNR. He just wanted TNR to deal with the truth.
2) In firing McGee, TNR fired someone who told the truth… for telling the truth. They have yet to fire any accomplice of Beauchamp’s (witting or unwitting) for putting them in the position they’re in.
3) As Miniter stated one of Dan’s points: “Funny, how the anti-gay attacks now come from left field.”
lower-case slur on McGee coming in 4, 3, 2…
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — August 20, 2007 @ 4:11 pm - August 20, 2007
#5 – “All you do is whine about not being liked by liberals.”
I can’t speak for everyone on this board, gilda, but I sure as heck don’t give a rat’s rear end about what other people think. I define myself by my own standards and nobody else’s.
Frankly, the day a liberal start to like me is the day I get a gut check.
Deal with it.
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — August 20, 2007 @ 5:05 pm - August 20, 2007
All you do is whine about not being liked by liberals.
For mine own part, I care VERY little about who likes me and who doesn’t. I don’t think many here do either. And that comes from being happy with one’s self. I also think that nobody here “whines”, rather, they comment on why the gay left hates themselves and everybody else.
Seriously. The gay left are the champions of plopping down in the mud and chanting “nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I’ll go out in the garden and eat worms”. The kook libs are especially adept at carrying on about how people are out to get them.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — August 20, 2007 @ 5:15 pm - August 20, 2007
What an incredibly ignorant and vapid piece at HuffPo. Given their usual standards this is quite suprising I’m sure. That being said, Blumenthal does an interesting job of avoiding the issue at hand by tapping into bigotry on both sides by bringing up the alleged sexuality of some of those involved. Add to this the dismissive rhetoric about “neoconservative” publications and his laying upon Beauchamp the status of ‘victim’ not only by a vengeful military but “rightwing trolls” and this is piece is difficult to view as anything more than the usual partisan claptrap. The uncomfortable facts still remain that Beauchamp has yet to provide substantiation for his claims, let alone failed completely in his duty as a soldier to report them higher ups, and TNR looks worse than Reuters or CBS in their sloppy journalistic ethics. Deal with all that, Blumenthal, and then perhaps people may pay some attention to the conclusions you draw.
Comment by John — August 20, 2007 @ 5:28 pm - August 20, 2007
“And now you are saying Christians are persecuted in the USA?!?!?”
Let’s put it this way, gilda: when was the last time you saw the ACLU defending crosses and the Ten Commandments displayed in public? Or sought to keep Christmas trees in airports?
Now compare how often they get involved with Islamists, i.e. the (f)lying imams, alleged flushing of Korans in Gitmo [which was totally disproved], or racial profiling, despite the fact that most of the hijackers on 9/11 were named Mohammad.
Try again.
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — August 20, 2007 @ 5:41 pm - August 20, 2007
And just to set the record straight – it was easier for me to come out as gay to my conservative friends than it was for me to come out as conservative to my gay friends.
‘Nuff said.
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — August 20, 2007 @ 5:44 pm - August 20, 2007
Actually, Pete, gilda’s got it exactly 180 degrees off. One thing I have never seen is a Christian trolling a left-wing blog just to spew insults and invective at the participants.
Comment by V the K — August 20, 2007 @ 5:50 pm - August 20, 2007
Hmm. I have seen left-wingers pose as Christians on a conservative blog, hoping the pose gives them “credibility” with readers as they spew further invective. Oops, sorry, not what you meant.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — August 20, 2007 @ 6:02 pm - August 20, 2007
The ACLU will defend the right to BURN a cross in public before they defend the right to display one. The group’s founder, Roger Baldwin, was a devout socialist.
Comment by Attmay — August 20, 2007 @ 6:53 pm - August 20, 2007
I find liberals so interesting. The name liberal is so non descriptive of the true American liberal actions. I take pride in the fact that I’m a gay conservative. Liberals hear that and go nutts. They want and expect us to all march along and be 100% liberal. I think I’ve used my brain and thought about conservative principles and “chose” to be conservative. Liberals are stunned by the lack of vanilla uniformity and lock step. American liberalism is the most stogey, boring, unimaginative, political doctrine in the last 100 years. They are not about solving problems, only continuing failed bandaids. I get asked all the time…how can you be a gay conservative. Easy, I don’t want to be part of a boring, bitter rabble constantly blaming others for my problems.
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — August 20, 2007 @ 10:03 pm - August 20, 2007
American liberalism is the most stogey, boring, unimaginative, political doctrine in the last 100 years.
Not to mention that it doesn’t take any thought or guts to be a liberal. All you gotta do is bite on the pillow.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — August 20, 2007 @ 10:56 pm - August 20, 2007
The victim violin plays endlessly for you.
Comment by sean — August 20, 2007 @ 11:43 pm - August 20, 2007
1. Ergo, LMFAO.
Comment by sean — August 20, 2007 @ 11:45 pm - August 20, 2007
I don’t have the text in front of me, but check out Carlos Eire’s brilliant autobiography, “Waiting For Snow in Havana”. Eire speculates that the reason Castro really, really hates gays is that he can’t get ito their skulls and make him think the way he does.
Comment by C. Siegel — August 21, 2007 @ 1:25 am - August 21, 2007
Why do they hate us? Because people who live in fantasy worlds always hate it when their illusions are shattered. Lindsey Lohan didn’t want hear anybody telling her that if she kept taking drugs and breaking the law, she was going to destroy herself, so she surrounded herself with enablers who reinforce her bad behavior. In the same way, lefties don’t want to hear that socialism fails, that humans don’t control the climate, or that America is not the root cause of all the evil in the world.
In the case of Scott Beauchamp, his lies validated the left’s fantasy world — i.e., that the U.S. military is made up of thugs and barbarians, so it’s okay to spit on them. Then, conservatives had to come along and spoil their fantasy by proving Beauchamp was a liar. The lefties can’t hate Beauchamp any more than Lindsey Lohan can hate the person who says, “Sure, have another drink. After all, you’re a celebrity.” Lindsey Lohan will, however, hate the cop who pulls her over for doing 95 mph in a school zone while smashed out of her tiny little mind.
Comment by V the K — August 21, 2007 @ 7:27 am - August 21, 2007
Web Reconnaissance for 08/21/2007…
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often….
Trackback by The Thunder Run — August 21, 2007 @ 1:08 pm - August 21, 2007
“In the case of Scott Beauchamp, his lies validated the left’s fantasy world — i.e., that the U.S. military is made up of thugs and barbarians”
Wrong on all parts.
1st – his narratives showed that indeed soldiers are humans subject to the same frailties as anyone else. Which is all liberals want conservatives to acknowledge.
2nd- The Military does have “thugs and barbarians” along with Samaritans, and Angels
3rd – Righty speculation does not make his stories “lies” If the right condemns liberals for using speculation, the right should not do the same.
Further
I suggest you wait for the facts to come out. Perhaps he is not lieing at all. Then you will look just as foolish as you did over the Swift Boats, and Jamil Hussein
Comment by gil — August 21, 2007 @ 1:18 pm - August 21, 2007
Trackbacked by The Thunder Run – Web Reconnaissance for 08/21/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
Comment by David M — August 21, 2007 @ 1:19 pm - August 21, 2007
The facts are out Gilda. Beauchamp’s a liar. His tales have been soundly refuted by all but some imaginary sources TNR refuses to identify. Stuffing your fingers in your ears and screeching “It must be twoo” won’t change that.
Comment by V the K — August 21, 2007 @ 1:57 pm - August 21, 2007
Um, no, Gil.
First off, soldiers are NOT “humans subject to the same frailties as anyone else”. They are highly trained professionals who volunteered and have gone through an exhaustive program to develop and hone their skills, their capabilities, and their ability to deal with dangerous and hostile situations.
Moonbats like yourself do not recognize that. They paint our armed forces as little more than a rabble of stupid murderers and thugs (which unwittingly and amusingly reveals their racist and classist beliefs, inasmuch as they also insist that our armed forces are uniformly black and poor). Their argument is akin to insisting that, because the vast majority of people are not qualified or trained to perform surgery, that doctors are not either.
2nd- The Military does have “thugs and barbarians” along with Samaritans, and Angels
Well, duh; that’s population demographics.
But the military, unlike civilian life and especially unlike the anarchic and helpless academic world where leftists typically exist, has a very robust command and control structure that recognizes those far more quickly and acts to either control or purge them.
3rd – Righty speculation does not make his stories “lies” If the right condemns liberals for using speculation, the right should not do the same.
No; his own admittance that he made them up does.
Furthermore, it’s interesting that you mention Jamil Hussein; the controversy in question was both over whether or not Jamil Hussein existed in the first place AND whether or not the information he provided was accurate.
Turns out the former was true and the latter was not.
And Beauchamp is the same; leftists like you, Gil, think that the fact that Beauchamp exists validates everything he says. This is why you continue to blabber and spin that his stories are true, even though he himself has admitted that he fabricated his stories; you consider the fact that he exists, and not what he’s actually said.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — August 21, 2007 @ 2:08 pm - August 21, 2007
Glad I’m not the only one who finds Gilda’s arguments weird. For starters, she seems not to know the difference between speculation and evidence.
When lefty moonbats went crazy over Haditha, that was premature speculation. Why? Because the evidence for the Haditha allegations was visibly poor, and moreover was contradicted by other, good evidence.
When we all say Beauchamp is a fabulist, and that in certain known respects Beauchamp did lie, that isn’t speculation. Why? Because, again, the evidence for the Beauchamp allegations was visibly poor, and moreover was contradicted by other, good evidence.
Why can’t Gilda understand the basic difference between speculation and evidence? I don’t care to speculate. But, we have considerable evidence that she can’t.
I call baloney! I shall make the following demonstrative test. Gilda, I hereby explicitly acknowledge (as I have done many times before) that “indeed soldiers are humans subject to the same frailties as anyone else.”
Does that satisfy you? No, it doesn’t? Then it is NOT “all liberals want conservatives to acknowledge” – now is it?
And Beauchamp’s narratives didn’t show “soldiers are human” – they were a sick, ugly attempt to dehumanize soldiers. I’m going to quote the following from Paul McNellis, SJ one more time, in hopes that maybe this time the penny will drop for you:
OK? Get it, Gilda? It’s not that there are somehow no soldiers who go against U.S. rules and do bad things. It’s that, when someones really does support the troops, the truth matters.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — August 21, 2007 @ 2:39 pm - August 21, 2007
Wearing skulls on one’s head, running down dogs with (not very maneuverable) armored vehicles, and making fun of disfigured women are not the acts of humans with frailties, they are the fantasies of morally degenerate left-wing fabulists. Apparently, there are a lot of left-wing readers who want to cling to those sick fantasies, despite the overwhelming weight of evidence against them.
Comment by V the K — August 21, 2007 @ 2:46 pm - August 21, 2007
I think a basic difference between left-liberals and many conservatives is, their approach to truth.
For too many lefties, truth doesn’t matter. “Truthiness” is enough – which in practice means, telling them what they already THINK is true, and hence desire to hear. Feelings are enough – what I call the Star Wars Epistemology, “I feel it’s true, so it is”. Personal declaration is enough – “Truth is a point of view”, “I am speaking my truth”, etc. “Fake but accurate” is enough. Hollywood illusion, propaganda disguised as documentary, etc., are enough. Deconstructionism – “there is no truth, only power relations” – is enough.
For conservatives, in principle, truth always matters. You can find conservatives with blind spots, and you can find the occasional conservative who fails terribly in his or her commitment to the truth. But rarely indeed will you find deconstructionism, relativism, or the kind of excuse-making for “fake but accurate” that you’ll find with committed lefties.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — August 21, 2007 @ 3:00 pm - August 21, 2007
I believe that PJ O’Rourke said it best : “liberals just don’t like people”.
Their ideology is a failure wherever and whenever it is tried and so the only way they can obtain power is by herding groups into victim cultures.
Lefty gays get really pissed off when any of us dare to leave the socialist plantation.
Comment by The Thin Man — August 21, 2007 @ 3:49 pm - August 21, 2007
#25- ” The facts are out Gilda. Beauchamp’s a liar.”
No. The facts are not out. Your speculation and anonymous sources are just as valid as the TNR’s speculation and anonymous sources.
I am not sure who is right and who is wrong.
And you should not be either.
#26 Hmmm…so you say he has Admitted lying but wait a minute, only an anonymous source says he retracted….I thought you didn’t like anonymous sources
#27 – Thank you for acknowledging their humanity. But as you can see from #26 many of you rightists still participate in the harmful idol worship of US soldiers which only sets them up to fail. They are not the John Wayne you want them to be.
Further McNellis might have a point if STB was not a solider who was saying all of this. But it turns out was telling his story and TNR printed it.
If he would have wrote the John Wayne type narrative that the right wants to hear, TNR still would have printed it. They simply gave an outlet to him.
However, when his story was not the John Wayne Epic that you guys crave, the right went crazy, and now he can’t even defend himself.
Perhaps he made it up and TNR is lying about receiving corroboration.
But perhaps not.
Your rush to judgment made your fools before. It just might again.
PS “Gilda”…nice. I take that as a tribute to the genius of Gilda Radner
Comment by gil — August 21, 2007 @ 6:01 pm - August 21, 2007
#25- ” The facts are out Gilda. Beauchamp’s a liar.”
No. The facts are not out. Your speculation and anonymous sources are just as valid as the TNR’s speculation and anonymous sources.
I am not sure who is right and who is wrong.
And you should not be either.
Comment by gil — August 21, 2007 @ 6:02 pm - August 21, 2007
Something is up with the filter….
Comment by gil — August 21, 2007 @ 6:02 pm - August 21, 2007
Stuffing your fingers in your ears and screeching “It must be twoo” won’t change that.
What? Like Lilli Von Shtupp?
Comment by ThatGayConservative — August 21, 2007 @ 7:00 pm - August 21, 2007
Actually, gilda, if you bothered to read the PJ media story, you would know that the debunking of Beauchamp does not rely on anonymous sources.
Consistently denying the large body of evidence against Beauchamp leaves you clinging to a very thin thread, and demonstrates how desperately you need to preserve the fantasy that allows you to spit on the troops.
Comment by V the K — August 21, 2007 @ 7:04 pm - August 21, 2007
They are not the John Wayne you want them to be.
I’ve no idea what you’re talking about with this “idol worship” nonsense. We have pointed out the a**holes including Young, Kerry, Murtha etc. Yes it’s disappointing, but the reality is that not all of our soldiers are like that.
You and other liberals, however, want us to believe that they’re all a**holes. You hate them no matter how “human” or “frail” they are. If you did give a damn about them, you wouldn’t cheerlead for douchebags who try to use them as pawns in a political game and you wouldn’t molest yourself with casualty reports.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — August 21, 2007 @ 7:13 pm - August 21, 2007
But as you can see from #26 many of you rightists still participate in the harmful idol worship of US soldiers which only sets them up to fail. They are not the John Wayne you want them to be.
So this is “idol worship”.
They are highly trained professionals who volunteered and have gone through an exhaustive program to develop and hone their skills, their capabilities, and their ability to deal with dangerous and hostile situations.
The fact that you scream and whine about that statement demonstrates rather convincingly that this is not about you “humanizing” the military; it is about you denigrating them, their training, their organization, and their performance under the guise of “caring”.
Put bluntly, you are trying to drag them down to your pathetic level — even if you have to slander and lie about them to do it.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — August 21, 2007 @ 7:24 pm - August 21, 2007
Say Gil, how much is TNR paying you?
Comment by ThatGayConservative — August 22, 2007 @ 3:59 am - August 22, 2007
Off-Topic: Bob Filner, another beneficiary of the MSM’s “It’s okay for Democrats to act like spoiled brats” policy.
Comment by V the K — August 22, 2007 @ 8:48 am - August 22, 2007
– Captains Quarters
Comment by V the K — August 22, 2007 @ 10:27 am - August 22, 2007
#40 -
Disagree.
If he would have wrote only positive stories, TNR would have printed them.
And NDT, I have never degenerated the mil.
You charging that is proof yet again of your countless lies.
Why don’t you hold yourself to the same standard as you have held Beauchamp ?
Comment by gil — August 22, 2007 @ 10:51 am - August 22, 2007
People, I rest my case. Gilda had said:
I said, as I have said many times in the past, in different (or various) words:
Was Gilda satisfied? Was that, indeed, “all [that] liberals want conservatives to acknowledge”? No. That Gilda has a further and different agenda was obvious to most of us all along – and, should now be obvious to Gilda.
But of course, it still isn’t obvious to her. Gilda went on to claim with a straight face:
Iraq, at the moment, is overflowing with budding soldier-authors and soldier-journalists. Dozens, if not hundreds, of them have made names for themselves as honest, skilled and articulate non-fiction bloggers (i.e., samples of their work are readily available). Whether by design or mere sloth, TNR located and chose the one blogger who (we now know from astounding admissions on his own blog) had joined the military because he hated it, and wanted to be able to write more convincing anti-military fiction. And who had practiced what he would be saying in his “Iraq diaries” while he was still in Germany.
What a coincidence, that TNR found that one. Or, as respected milblogger John Noonan has said it better:
Anti-war veterans have no problem seeing through Beauchamp. As Richard Peters of Iraq Veterans Against the War has put it:
So Gilda, what’s your problem? Mmmm… sweet, sweet crazy.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — August 22, 2007 @ 12:10 pm - August 22, 2007
Separated at Birth?
gilduh’s increasingly shrill and desperate defense of Beauchamps’s smear
and
9-11 Twoofers’ (comments) Denouncing The History Channel’s Tear-Down of their insane conspiracy theories.
Comment by V the K — August 22, 2007 @ 12:18 pm - August 22, 2007
““Gilda”…nice. I take that as a tribute to the genius of Gilda Radner”
Actually, gilda (since I’m the one that coined your moniker), it is more like the reference to Veronica Lake’s movie of the same name. You are both blinded by your own vanity and can’t see past your own eyelids.
Checkmate.
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — August 22, 2007 @ 1:40 pm - August 22, 2007
Sorry – the name above should be “Rita Hayworth,” not Veronica Lake. Mea culpa. (That’s what I get for typing so fast during lunch.)
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — August 22, 2007 @ 2:40 pm - August 22, 2007
And what character was Gilda Radner best known for? Emily Litella,
That’s the tribute I had in mind, in picking up Peter’s invention. But I notice our Gilda lacks the courtesy, or rationality or something, to get as far as saying “…Never mind”
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — August 22, 2007 @ 4:22 pm - August 22, 2007
(quote from Wiki)
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — August 22, 2007 @ 4:23 pm - August 22, 2007
I believe it boils down to the simplicity that Gilda saw it in print so it has to be true. She’ll grab at any straw out there.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — August 22, 2007 @ 7:46 pm - August 22, 2007
#48 TGC — More like, it validated Gilduh’s reflexive hatred and anti-military bigotry, therefore, it had to be true.
Comment by V the K — August 23, 2007 @ 8:19 am - August 23, 2007
Gilda’s weird demands make sense if you understand the word “human” as Left code for “degraded”. When a committed lefty says “I want conservatives to admit our troops are human like everyone else”, they often mean “I want conservatives to admit our troops are at least as degraded as I am, or worse, making me right to shun them if not spit on them.”
I don’t understand the word “human” to mean “degraded”, so admitting our troops are “human” is easy for me – and does not convey quite the meaning Gilda may have wanted.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — August 23, 2007 @ 10:53 am - August 23, 2007
“Dishonorable” also works. Basically, the hippie-Left can’t understand military honor, having chosen to reject the concept of personal honor altogether, as Bowman explains here.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — August 23, 2007 @ 11:03 am - August 23, 2007