One of the great things about an “Instalanche” is not just the new readers we get, but also the comments they offer, sometimes quite succinctly summarizing the point of my post (oftentimes better than I could do).

When Glenn linked my post* on the hatred of the (gay) left, we got one such comment from another blogger, GeekwithA.45 (he might like my writings on gays and guns).  This clever blogger offers a great image to describe the projections some on the left cast on conservatives:

This is typical of my experience with the Left on gun issues: they project their own insecurities like mad.

They also love to set up truly vile straw conservatives to shun, and joyfully rope the rest of onto the strawman they set aflame.

With commentary like that, his blog has got to be good. Check it out!
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*Another great irony of this link is that of the eight pieces I penned, er pixeled, yesterday, this was the one to which I devoted the least effort, basically just writing it out on a whim when I had a brainstorm while reviewing comments caught in our spam filter.

In his campaign for the White House, Barack Obama did talk at great length about the need to fix our economy, but he did not make a multi-hundred billion dollar “stimulus” the centerpiece of his economic plan.  With the federal government having just shelled out $700 billion in the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), the bailout, one would think that responsible stewards of the federal Treasury would not seek an even greater amount in additional government spending.

But, they are, even as the federal deficit reaches record levels, both in dollar terms and a a percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP). The stimulus bill the president says “is still on track.”

Megan McArdle wonders why some on the left opposed to TARP are indifferent the size of the “stimulus:”

How come progressives opposed to TARP II are very, very worried about the cost to the taxpayer, but not worried at all by the cost to the taxpayer of a massive fiscal stimulus, a lot of which is nearly guaranteed to be wasted by virtue of the speed with which the money must fly out the Treasury’s door?

Good question.

Meanwhile, Stpehen Chapman thinks additional spending is not the solution to the problem, but the problem itself:

We all know how we got into this economic mess. We spent too much, borrowed with abandon, and acted like the bills would never come due. So what’s the prescription for getting out? Spending more, borrowing more, and acting like the bills will never come due.

When something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. This alleged cure deserves special scrutiny because it invites our policymakers to redouble the very policies that caused the crisis. Congress and the new administration are all too eager to abandon restraint so that we can overcome the consequences of excess.

As Glenn said in linking that post, “Yeah, that’ll work.”

The Democrats must be crazy, or blind to fiscal reality. I agree we need to do something to improve our economy. Real deregulation and budget cuts might help. While a vast increase in spending may provide a short-term boost to the economy, in the long run, it will only exacerbate our economic problems.

So, I suggest the majority party try a different tack, based on policies which work in the real world and not just on the “drawing boards” of liberal think tanks and universities campuses.

One of the things I find most annoying about the coverage of President Obama’s inauguration was how certain Democrats compared the good will shown and national unity expressed to the previous two inaugurals, both of George W. Bush.

It’s as if that Republican created the contention of those two ceremonies,  But, the then-president wasn’t the one organizing the protests against his swearing-in.  Those who make that comparison, while meaning to slight the former president, unwittingly end up slighting his attackers.

It just seems that some people, a class of people given a pass (if not outright or tacit support) by the media, can’t accept that a Republican could win election to the highest office in the land.

But, we Republicans and conservatives, well most of us least, are a different breed. As Robert Stacy McCain puts it “conservatives aren’t going through anything like the grief/angst/outrage that Democrats went through after the 2000 and 2004 elections” (Via Glenn).

To be sure, the former President, after the 2002 elections, could have done more to unite the nation, especially by better defending his own policies and by better challenging those on the far left (and their media enablers) who sought to slander him.  But, he would not have been as polarizing a figure as he would become had others not sought relentlessly to undermine him.

In my previous post, I promised to offer a little more on the hold Senator John Cornyn placed Tuesday on Hillary’s Clinton’s nomination (since confirmed) for Secretary of State.

The Texas Repubican had raised concerns about foreign donations to her husband’s charitable foundation, but was “swayed by a private conversation with Clinton” (I’m assuming this was Bill).

While I have said Mrs. Clinton could be a “great Secretary of State,” I do have concerns about her family’s ethical troubles. In this AP article on her confirmation, we see a typical Clinton response to a potential ethical problem:

Sen. Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, proposed that former President Bill Clinton’s foundation reject foreign contributions. But Hillary Clinton rejected Lugar’s proposal, contending that the foundation’s plan to disclose annually its list of donors and a range of its contributions already exceeds legal requirements.

Once again, we see the Clintons pointing out that what they are doing meets “legal requirements,” that is suggesting that as long as something is legal, it is also ethical.

Shouldn’t they also be concerned about conflicts of interest in this unique situation where the husband of a Secretary of State (Bill Clinton is the first such husband; of the two previous female Secretaries of State, one was single, the other divorced).  Had the wives of their predecessors run foundations that regularly sought large donations from international sources?

I’m concerned that his foundation plans to disclose the donors annually rather than upon receipt, which would better serve President Obama’s commitment to transparency.  We would be alerted right away to any foreign governments or interests who might be trying to influence US foreign policy (through our Secretary of State).  Actually, I believe it would be in this nation’s interest if the husband of the Secretary of State refused to seek or except any contributions from foreign sources as long as his wife is in office.

Both Cornyn and Lugar eventually voted to confirm Mrs. Clinton, but the latter “ssaid he hoped Clinton would re-examine her position.” I do too.  So should we all.

Yes, Bush-hatred is mostly psychological, quite possibly pathological, but only partially political.  Last night, the first full day of the Obama Administration, when George W. Bush was in Texas far from reins of power in Washington, D.C., Keith Olbermann devoted a significant portion of his show to bashing the former president.  You’d think the guy would have something else to do now that his nemesis has left town.

But no, it seems people like him have some kind of need to attack Republicans, particularly Bush.

One of the best things about Obama’s victory is that we can confirm just how obsessed these people really are, proving points we first made during their early rantings against Bush.

While I pedaled away on the elliptical trainer (is that the verb I wanted?), I watched Olbermann pitch a fit at how Senator John Cornyn (more on that in my next post) had placed a hold on the nomination of former First Lady Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State (more on that in my next post).  He called the Texas Republican obstructionist.  In similar terms, he faulted Republicans on the Judiciary Committee for putting a one-week hold on the nomination of Eric Holder for Attorney General.

The editors at the Washington Post seem to share the sentiments of this angry announcer.  Eight years ago,  when then-President Bush tapped John Ashcroft for Attorney General, Democrats on the Judiciary Commitee also placed a hold on his nomination.  The Post then called the nomination “highly contentious,” headlining the article, “Vote On Ashcroft Is Delayed A Week; Democrats Cite Need for More Review.”  Today, the headline reads “Republicans Obstruct Holder’s Path to Justice Dept.”

Here’s my challenge to Keith Olbermann and his supporters.  At any time, in the last eight years, did he (or the editors at the Post for that matter) call Democrats obstructionist for thwarting Administration policies and placing holds on President Bush’s appointees?  Which they did on more than one occasion.

Remember, when Republicans play the same hardball politics the Democrats play, it’s called, “obstruction,” but when Democrats do the same thing, the actions are, by definition, noble, just and right.

Given the eagerness with which gay activists supported Barack Obama’s presidential bid, let us hope they take heed of one of his first initiatives as president.  He has promised greater transparency in government, committing to making “his administration the most open and transparent in history.”

Now, months after reporters tried to find out who was serving on the “No on 8″ campaign’s executive committee, intrepid and persistent blogger Michael Petrelis “found and published” the names of the the 16 ‘principal officers’ on that committee.  It doesn’t seem to include any Republicans* and reads like a Who’s Who of the gay left.

They kept this list under wraps for the duration of the campaign. Can you imagine the outcry if a political candidate kept secret the names of his campaign team?

By hiding the names, they made it much more difficult for us to hold them to account for failing to defeat Prop 8.  Par for the course with these guys who would rather attack their adversaries than engage in introspection and figure out what went wrong with their campaign.  Seeing Lorri Jean, chief executive of the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center, on the list, the LA Weekly‘s Patrick Range McDonald reminds us that she:

was incredibly quick to divert all attention away from the failures of the “No on 8″ campaign — which were many — and point the finger at the Mormon church. Jean, if you remember, first started the Mormon backlash on Wednesday, November 5 at a rally in West Hollywood, whipping people up and announcing a demonstration at the Los Angeles Mormon Temple on Thursday, November 6. She continued with her anti-Mormon rant for the next several days whenever she could grab a microphone.

Guess these people would rather attack their adversaries than admit their mistakes or promote their cause.

* (more…)

Welcome Instapundit Readers!  While you’re here, you may want to check out my latest on the president’s stimulus package, The Democrats Must be Crazy, or my post contending that the former president was not polarizing, but his election was because some on the left (including many in the MSM) refuse to accept that the American people could elect a Republican chief executive.

Something just occurred to me as I was going through the comments in our spam filter.  Oftentimes, I find “hate” comments, ad hominem attacks on us, trapped amidst the sex ads.  To be sure I also find legitimate commentary from critics as well as supporters in that file.*

By a margin of at least 19-1, those hate comments come from angry leftists calling us “self-hating,” delusional or whatnot, mean-spirited attacks on us, our party, its leaders or gay Republicans in general.  To be sure, occasionally, I have found mean-spirited missives from anti-gay social conservatives (the 1 (or smaller) in the ratio above).

And that’s what struck me.   We get linked far more often by conservative sites (as we did from Instapundit today) than we do by gay (or liberal) ones.  And yet we get more hate comments from the left, particularly the gay left, a left which constantly derides Republican and their social conservative allies as “haters.”  Indeed, some of them call the GOP the “Party of Hate.”

If conservatives were truly the part of hate, shouldn’t we then get more hate comments from anti-gay social conservatives.

But, maybe they’re just not as mean-spirited as the left contends.

Perhaps, those angry voices on the left call us haters for the same reason they so regularly profess that we venerate George W. Bush while they soon over his successor.  They draw the notion of our hatred from their own psyches, seeing in our behavior what they actually feel, though, of course, they direct their feelings toward different “targets.”

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When the US Senate confirmed then-Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano as Secretary of Homeland Security, she resigned as chief executive of the Grand Canyon State, yielding that job to the state’s then-Secretary of State, Jan Brewer. Just as a Republican woman succeed Napolitano, so did a Republican woman, Jane Dee Hull, precede Napolitano.

I believe that when Napolitano succeeded Hull in 2003, she was the first woman to succeed another woman as governor of a state.  And now it’s happened again.  No state has ever had three consecutive female governors. 

Indeed, I would daresay that no state has even had three female governors.*  Governor Brewer is Arizona’s fourth (Rose Mofford held office from 1988 to 1991).  In the past twenty years, Fife Symington is the only man to serve as Arizona Governor.

Brewer joins other Republican women as chief executives of their states, Linda Lingle of Hawai’i, Jodi Rell of Connecticut and Sarah Palin in Alaska.  Let’s hope Mrs. Brewer governs in the spirit of that great lady from the Last Frontier.

—

*Connecticut, Texas and Washington State have had two.

Last week, when when I blogged on the failure of President Obama’s nominee for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to pay taxes, I quoted blogress Jennifer Rubin to note that a Republican nominee in similar circumstances would be “toast.”

Well, it doesn’t look like this Democratic nominee will be toast. “The Senate Finance Committee on Thursday cleared the nomination of Timothy Geithner as treasury secretary despite unhappiness over his mistakes in paying his taxes.”

The vote was 18-5, with all five of the “no” coming “from Republicans, including the top GOP member of the panel, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.” Kudos to those guys for doing the right thing. As Wyoming Republican Mike Enzi put it, “I am disappointed that we are even voting on this. . . . In previous years, nominees who made less serious errors in their taxes than this nominee have been forced to withdraw.

Some may say that, given the times we’re in, we need a Treasury Secretary in place as soon as possible.  And by all accounts, Geithner is more than qualified for the job.  But, it sets a poor example to have a man who failed to pay taxes as the guy in charge of the IRS.

To be sure, Geithner apologized for what he called his “careless mistakes.”  But, even in 2006, after he learned of his tax liability in 2001 and 2002, he failed to pay his back  taxes.  He only paid them when the Obama team was vetting his nomination. (more…)

It’s always refreshing when a blogger, or, in this case, a blogress diva, you respect echoes a point I’ve made in a previous post.  Even if she didn’t read the post (& I highly doubt she did), it’s nice to know a smart pundit has a view similar to your own.

Just a few moments ago, when I discovered Glenn had just linked a post I had written on Monday, I followed another link in his post to learn that Ann Althouse echoed something I had written last week about former President Bush.

“Taking his popularity for granted in the wake of 9/11” I contended that Bush “didn’t work hard enough to burnish his image and defend his policies in the wake of unrelenting attacks on his character and motives.”  Today Ann Althouse reaches a similar conclusion:

Any glorification of [Bush] was a consequence of those events [attacks of 9/11] and not through a conscious campaign to inspire a cult of personality. . . .  When the love subsided, he and his people did little — too little — to pump us up again.

Exactly.

Ann, however, explores this issue of image with far greater depth than I did, comparing Bush team’s failure to build up their guy’s image with the Obama team’s dedication to that task:

By contrast, the entire plan to bring Obama into office depended on the glorification of the man, whose actual experience was so bizarrely limited that it took some nerve to claim to be ready. Magic was required. The cult grew up not as he held power and needed to respond to a crisis. The cult was the campaign to bring him into power.  It depended on our projecting all sorts of hopes and dreams onto him, and he knew it.

Read the whole thing. And bear in mind that these are not the rantings of an angry Obama opponent, but the thoughts of a woman who voted for the Democratic nominee last fall.  Indeed, Ann hopes that now that he’s in office, “he’ll do the job that must be done.”  I hope she’s right.

Related:  Why Leftists Assume Conservative Bloggers Revere Bush.

Apparently, love for Obama clouds your judgment and changes history as well…..

From National Review’s The Corner:

Jonah, the Garrison Keillor comment you cite is really an astonishing display of ignorance and puppy love, of the sort I suppose we should now expect from the cult of Obama. Obama is “our first genuine author-president”? He has written two books about himself, the second of which was a campaign book of the sort that lots of office seekers churn out. Have we grown so postmodern that an autobiography makes you a genuine author but an enduring work of political thought and history, or a five-volume history of the American people, or a biography of George Washington, or a four-volume retelling of the conquest of the West, or a renowned history of the war of 1812, or a biography of Gouverneur Morris, or reflections on American individualism somehow don’t? There are LOTS of examples of pre-presidential books by men who would be presidents, and some are truly excellent and lasting books. Obama’s first autobiography is an interesting and well written book worth reading, but it is very far from a first.

I suppose for the Obama cultists, today’s real date is Day Two, A.O. (After Obama).

[RELATED: An Uneasy Feeling - Victor Davis Hanson, Pajamas Media]

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Given that I found the president’s inaugural address kind of boring, I’m probably not the one to offer an extended exegesis. While I had sat in my futon for more than an hour following the festivities, rising only to refill my cup of coffee, I started fidgeting about three minutes into his speech, finally getting up to check my e-mail, this blog and other web-sites.

I still listened after I logged on, but did not focus as I had for the first parts of the address.  The president seemed to shout the first part of the address, his tone modulating as he moved into the middle, then become more impassioned toward the end.  The speech seemed rather pedestrian, neither uplifting nor inspiring. Just before a conservative friend was to pick me up to take me to Disneyland, I checked Stephen Green’s drunkblogging. That smart conservative pundit found the president sounded “the most conservative, sometimes even neoconnish, on issues of substance.”

In contrast to Steve who found neo-conservative themes in the speech, my friend had heard socialist overtones, slights against the outgoing president and threats against any who would dare oppose his initiatives.

When I returned home after a delightful day at Disney, I decided read what other bloggers had written about the speech rather than read it in its entirey, given that an Obama speech on paper (or via pixel) is much different than one as delivered.

Blogger Jay Nordlinger seemed to echo my friend’s thoughts, finding in the speech “repeated digs at Bush, his team, and those of us who supported that administration.”   In a similar vein, blogress Ann Althouse found the president “rather harsh toward John McCain,” seeming to call “the previous administration childish.”

Three other bloggers (Lowry, Novak, Ponnuru) concurred with my initial evaluation that the speech was “pedestrian.” While Nordlinger and Althouse saw slaps at Bush and McCain, others thought it was a speech that could have been delivered by Bush or McCain or even Reagan.

One conservative found it “excellent” while another found it “at times petty.”

Former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan agreed with those who thought a Republican could have delivered the address:

It was a moderate speech both in tone and content, a serious and solid speech. The young Democrat often used language with which traditional Republicans would be thoroughly at home. . . .

It was not a joyous, audacious document, not a call to arms, but a reasoned statement by a Young Sobersides.

(more…)

Something tells me that as President Obama’s staff settles into their offices in the West Wing and Old Executive Office Building, they will find their computer keyboards intact.

Just another (comparative) reminder of the grace former President Bush’s Republican staffers showed to their Democratic succesors.

To the ardent Lefties out there… how does seeing that date blared in your face feel to you?

How does it feel to you knowing that someone is already counting down the days until Barack Obama leaves office?

Not pleasant, is it?

The faux Liberal patriotism I saw yesterday on television was gross and disgusting.  Your true colors were evident and bled through your facade.

One does not love their country based on which political party rules.  Yet for American Liberals, that is exactly what they have been doing since Richard Nixon was elected.

Democrat = Good and True; Republican = evil and illegitimate.

Thomas Paine sums up my feelings quite well at yesterday’s display:

THESE are the times that try men’s souls.  The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

How fitting that it was bright and sunny on the National Mall yesterday.

I wholeheartedly agree with Andrew Breitbart:  Good luck, President Obama.  The rest of you can go to hell.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Be part of the Loyal Gay Opposition!  Order your bumper sticker today!

Liberals always wanted us to question authority, right?  Well, now THEY are the “authority”.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Eight years ago, about the time George W. Bush was sworn in, I recall telling a friend in my old synagogue that while I thought Bush would be a good president, I was concerned how he would be on Israel. His father, after all, had been quite a disappointment, appointing officials to the State Department who harbored a deep animus against the Jewish State.

But, as Bill Kristol points out in his latest New York Times column, the former president did not harbor such animus, indeed, proved to be a good friend of this democracy in the Middle East.

Bush stood with Israel when he had no political incentive to do so and received no political benefit from doing so. He was criticized by much of the world. He did it because he thought it the right thing to do.

It wasn’t just Israel where Bush showed courage, even when it gained him no political benefit. Kristol calls winning the war in Iraq “Bush’s most impressive achievement:”

. . . in particular, his refusal to accept defeat when so many counseled him to do so in late 2006. His ordering the surge of troops to Iraq in January 2007 was an act of personal courage and of presidential leadership. The results have benefited both Iraq and the United States. And the outcome in Iraq is a remarkable gift to the incoming president, who now only has to sustain success, rather than trying to deal with the consequences in the region and around the world of a humiliating withdrawal and a devastating defeat.

President Obama would do well to recall his predecessor’s courage in these endeavors. Sometimes leaders have to buck popular opinion and eschew political gain to do the right thing.

(H/t Instapundit)

While Democrats were celebrating in Washington, I spent the day with three friends at Disneyland.  It was perhaps the perfect place to spend the day.  To be sure, we saw a handful of Obama T-shirts, but they were few and far between.  Most people were just having a good time, not focused so much on the transfer of power in Washington.

Well, they were all visiting the “happiest place on earth.”  And politics doesn’t always make us happy.  To be sure, Mr. Jefferson thought that governments were “instituted among Men” to secure our right to pursue happiness.  He didn’t say they were instituted to secure our happiness.  Perhaps, that’s because governments don’t do a good job of providing our happiness.   We must remember that they just protect our right to pursue it on our own.

And that’s where private organizations like Disneyland come in.

Every time I go to Disneyland is how little attention I pay to my watch when I’m wearing one.  All too often, it seems I’m constantly watching the clock, trying to get my reading/research done for my dissertation, to finish reading the blogs and otherwise checking the news in term to blog informatively.

But, at Disneyland, I’m just in the moment.  We all need such places.  Maybe that’s why it is the happiest place on earth.

Every night before bed, I’ve been reading a few pages of Brian Kellow’s biography of the Republican most loved by gay men.  On the last night of the Bush Administration, I read this anecdote:

Once when featured player [in Annie Get Your Gun] Danny Nagrin announced that he was going to march in the Communist Parade with his wife, choreographer Helen Tamiris, Ethel exploded.

“You march in that parade, and you’ll never get a job anywhere else I work. I don’t care what you do anywhere else. But not in my show. I’m an American citizen, and I’m proud of it. . . . .”

Nagrin didn’t march in the parade, and Ethel’s strong feelings on the subject never changed. On April 29, 1950, she would serve as Queen of the Loyalty Day Parade down Fifth Avenue, which she did as a way of undermining the Communist Parade.

How the entertainment industry has changed since Ethel’s heyday.  Then, she could get a man fired for marching in a Communist parade.  But, had a Danny Nagrin today announced his intention to march in a Republican parade, the announcement alone would cost him his job.

(more…)

At Disneyland, only one person, a woman working one of the rides, took note of my Ronald Reagan t-shirt.  (Well, at least she was the only one who acknowledged to me that she had taken note of it.)  She made an approving comment about the great man I chose to honor on this day.

I asked if she had backed the guy who lost the chance to take office today.  No, “we needed a change,” she said, but shared my warm feelings for the Gipper.

I found it hard to believe that someone who supported a man who faced a financial crisis by holding the line on federal spending could back a candidate who favors a vast increase in such spending, but there it was.

Yet, another sign that in a relatively ideology-free election, our new president had the right campaign slogan. People wanted change.  Let’s hope he delivers the right kind of change.

As Barack Obama takes the oath of office as the President of the United States, he becomes my president.  I did not vote him and would rather another man were taking office today, but a majority of my fellow citizens and the electors from the various states voted otherwise.

Unlike some who helped elect the president, I don’t feel proud of my country merely when my candidate wins election to the highest office in the land.  By the same token, I don’t love my country any less because the man I opposed won that very office.  Indeed, I love it more that a man whose race would have earned him opprobrium in many parts of this country the year he was born could become our chief executive.

As former Vice President Cheney put it:

I have the same feeling that I think many Americans have, that it’s really remarkable that — what we’re going to . . .  swear in the first African American president of the United States. When I came to town in 1968, we’d had the Martin Luther King assassination, Bobby Kennedy assassination, riots in the cities, major, major disturbances, a lot of it racially motivated around the country.

And in fact, things have changed so dramatically that we’re now about to swear in Barack Obama as president of the United States. That’s really a remarkable story and I think a record of tremendous success and progress for the United States.

Obama’s election is a sign of the greatness of this country, that we can correct our faults as a nation, helping forge a more perfect union.

While we herald his achievement and honor the office he now holds, we will criticize, when appropriate, his policies.  We will not be like those who spent the last eight years (or significant portions thereof) in a constant state of animosity to the President of the United States.  Claiming he is not our president, as many did in the preceding eight years, would mean denying our American citizenship.

Barack Obama is now our president.  That doesn’t mean he should be immune from our criticism.  No President should

Ever since this blog was launched, we found ourselves more often than not defending the president, particularly when he was unfairly attacked.  Now, we have a new role, that of the loyal gay opposition.