I have yet to weigh in on the media-generated controversy about Rush Limbaugh’s speech last week to CPAC.  It seems the controversy lies in the power and effectiveness of this conservative discourse.  Before commenting, I wanted to first read to discover (if I could) the same anger, mockery, bullying and contempt that CNN’s Bill Schneider found in the address.

Yeah, there was some mockery there and even a few expressions of contempt, but there was no anger.  Indeed, whenever I listen to Rush or read his stuff (as is more likely the case nowadays), I don’t find much anger in his words, a lot of humor, a good deal of mockery, but anger, no, not much.

It seems that his critics in the media are eager to portray him to fit their narrative of outspoken of conservatives as uneducated, unrestrained rubes.  He thus becomes a better target for their scorn as well, to borrow a a few works from Schneider, their mockery and contempt.

After watching part of it and reading the whole thing, I pretty much share Hugh’s assessment, disagreeing only about its seminal nature.

What has struck me the most about the speech is not just its quality, but the media’s reaction.  Following the Administration’s playbook, they have been relentless in their attacks, seeking to shift the story from Rush’s uplifting message to his controversial nature.  Despite Rush’s succinct articulation of conservative principles, it did include a handful of over-the-top flourishes that a more judicious orator would have excluded.

But, if Rush were more judicious, he would be less entertaining.

(more…)

The President had a chance to show he was serious about fiscal responsibility, but he didn’t take it.  Jake Tapper reports that he’ll sign the pork-laden omnibus spending bill.

UPDATE:  Even the AP notice that in signing the bill, “Obama beats early retreat on promise to fight pork.”

UP-UPDATE: Glenn notes that even Maureen Dowd finds Obama’s passivity on earmarks appalling.

As I work on a piece on gay marriage in anticipation of Thurday’s California Supreme Court hearing, I’m struck by the contrast between Andrew Sullivan’s 1989 essay, “Here Comes the Groom: a Conservative Case for Gay Marriage” and his 2008 Atlantic piece, “Big Fat Straight (sic) Wedding.”  In the first piece, he makes a fresh and conservative case for state recognition of same-sex marriage. In the second, he offers little more than a plaintive liberal whine for state validation of his relationship.

Witnessing the degeneration of Andrew’s argument, I wondered if he was suffering from a kind of Stockholm Syndrome.

When I consider the criticism (often ad hominem) we’ve received since setting up this blog and compare it to the insults and attacks Andrew has suffered over the years, it’s like comparing the taunts of a schoolyard bully to the might of a world-class military.

Yeah, we’ve taken our knocks, but in the great scheme of things, they’ve been relatively benign. Andrew, by contrast, has been assaulted in public bars, had his personal life made public and until 2004 (and even since), endured a level of vitriol from the gay left that had previously been reserved only for elected Republicans and charismatic preachers.

And now, he mimics the arguments of those who once vilified him, while rushing to adore their anointed one.

Isn’t that kind of like Stockholm Syndrome when a hostage shows signs of sympathy, loyalty even, to his captors?

To those of you still recovering from the interminable 2008 presidential campaign, that title may seem a bit anachronistic, but we are having municipal elections today in Los Angeles County. It seemed the campaign signs starting sprouting up as soon as the Obama signs were taken down.

And judging by my conversations with peers, no one seems to be paying much attention. Turnout at my precinct was sparse. Even so, the poll workers seemed overwhelmed. I stood waiting even though there was no line. I have no clue what the poll worker was doing. He seemed to be trying to whispering something to his colleague

Then, one man who was ferrying voters to the polls, barreled in, and asked a question of him. Now, he was paying attention. I realized my error, so I said in a loud voice, “Excuse me, but I’m in line here.” (“In line?” I was the line.)

That got the poll worker’s attention. I gave him my name, then voted against the incumbents on West Hollywood City Council, largely to protest their bone-headed decision to put time limits on parking meters in “downtown WeHo.” That strategy all rules out meeting friends there for lunch–unless you delight in continually getting up from the table to feed the meter.

It’s not just that. They have this fetish for public-private development partnerships, often after only perfunctory consultation with neighborhood groups. They’re basically using government money to increase congestion in an already congested area.

Oh, and then, there’s the big race in the City of Los Angeles. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is running for a second term and no one seems to be paying much attention. When he first won four years ago, I was concerned he might fire the city’s law-and-order Police Chief, William J. Bratton, who has done a great job keeping the city’s streets safe.

Shortly after his victory, the then-Mayor elect met with Bratton, signaling his intention to keep that good man on. This year, Bratton appeared in TV commercials endorsing the Mayor’s reelection. Those very commercials touted the Mayor’s anti-crime record.

For those of us who don’t live in the City of Los Angeles, but “travel” there on a regular basis for shopping, socializing and entertainment, that most directly impacts us. Maybe that’s why I haven’t paid much attention to the mayoral election. Perhaps, that helps explain the more widespread voter apathy across the region.

On several occasions, I have pointed out that never in the presidential campaign did then-candidate Barack Obama propose spending of the likes we have seen since his inauguration as president.

Indeed the third debate, he promised not to bloat the budget with new spending initiatives:

What I want to emphasize, though, is that I have been a strong proponent of pay-as- you-go. Every dollar that I’ve proposed, I’ve proposed an additional cut so that it matches.

Over at the Corner, Brian Riedl, a Fellow in Budgetary Affairs at the Heritage Foundation, digs into the President’s budget and finds the Democrat claims we’ll “save” $1.5 trillion by creating “a fantasy baseline that . . . assumes current spending levels forever.” If the budget deficit starts declining in the middle of the next decade after spiking in the next few years, he offers “It is easy to ‘cut the deficit in half’ after you’ve quadrupled it.”

In sum, the president, “proposes a new PAYGO law and then violates it by $3.4 trillion.”

Now, if left-of-center bloggers applied less stringent standards to President Obama than they did to his predecessor, they’d be calling him a liar.  They called Bush a liar for claiming, before the liberation of Iraq that that nation had Weapons of Mass Destruction.  So, shouldn’t they also call his successor a liar for claiming before his election that he would match every dollar in increased spending with an additional cut?

Don’t hold your breath.

UPDATE: It’s not just matching spending increases with spending cuts where Obama has broken his campaign promises.  He won’t stand up to the congressional penchant for pork.

Watch it for yourself.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

The February WIKIO rankings will be published Thursday, but we have a sneak peek because GayPatriot has hit #67 of the top political blogs tracked by WIKIO.  (Huff Post is #1, The Corner at NRO is #2).

In addition, for **ALL** of the blogs tracked by WIKIO, GayPatriot comes in at #218 for the month of February.

Thanks so much to our long-time readers and those just discovering GayPatriot.org.  And a big thank you to Dan (GPW) for his history of Insta-links in February.

Come on back…. vote early & often with your browser!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

[GP Ed. Note: As of March 1, 2009 -- the Pajamas Media blogger network was dissolved.  I have removed the PJM advertising code on our left sidebar today.  I'm already noticing the page is loading much quicker.  If you would like to advertise.... please click on the BlogAds link in the left sidebar.]

Yesterday, Bruce noted that Rep. Ellen Tauscher of California (who carrys some weight, not only as a member of the House Armed Services Committee, but also as someone whose district includes Travis AFB) introduced legislation to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. At the same time, he noted a legal fight in the works regarding the policy.

Since I returned Stateside a couple months ago, I’ve been considering reposting the series I wrote just over two years ago on the issue. After the Inauguration, and knowing the issue would resurface, I reviewed the series. It still stands up, so if interested, feel free to follow the links below to the six-part series, titled DADT: A Gay Servicemember’s Perspective:

Part I: Not-So-Straight Facts
Part II: What’s Really Important Here?
Part III: What Doesn’t Work
Part IV: A Winning Argument
Part V: How You Gonna Do That?
Part VI: How Do You Really Feel?

-Nick (Colorado Patriot) from TML

Tonight I did something that I should have known would have prevented me from getting some things done that needed doing.  And I made a mistake I could easily have avoided.

I should have known better.

You see, I have a kind of hectic week ahead of me.  My Mom and my Dad who are divorced, each having business of some sort on the West Coast, independently picked the same weekend to visit their second son.  So, I’ve been busy preparing for their arrival and completing projects so that I won’t have them hanging over my head when my parents come to town.

Well, tonight (Monday), after getting some (but not all) of those piddling things done, I decided to pop in a DVD while I ate my dinner.  I wanted something that would fully engage me, so I could forget the lost list of little things that needed my attention.

I picked The Godfather, figuring I would watch the first hour or so, then get back to work

And therein lay the error.

I should have known better.

Never start to watch that movie unless you’re prepared to watch all three hours.  I should have known. (more…)

One reason I bristle every time I hear gay activists prattle on about equality is that many of them harbor political views similar to that of the current President of the United States.  And his policies punish the productive to promote equal outcomes.

When I see the raft of legislation state “equality” groups advocate in order to supposedly advance gay interests, I fear they favor increasing amounts of state meddling to secure the “full equality” they claim as their goal.  I prefer freedom to equality.  It’s easier to define and requires far less state intervention.

Well, today, while doing my laundry, I picked up a copy of the Wall Street Journal.   (Sometimes, I really do miss reading a real dead-tree newspaper).  Therein, I chanced upon Congressman Paul Ryan’s alternative to the president’s economic plans.  Taking issue with the prevailing ethos in Washington, the up and coming Wisconsin Republican had this to offer:

In a nutshell, the president’s budget seemingly seeks to replace the American political idea of equalizing opportunity with the European notion of equalizing results.

In the past, we strove toward the goal of equal opportunity by tearing down discriminatory barriers initially erected at the government’s behest.  But, in recent years, decades really, Democrats (with the help of some Republicans) turned to the government not to level the playing field, but to benefit those once burdened by those barriers and to redistribute the wealth of those who used that playing field to their advantage.

For those who think Republicans have no new ideas and are just the party of “No,” I suggest you read Ryan’s piece.  After his prefatory criticism of the president’s policies, he focuses entirely on outlining his approach.  And he’s not the only Republican to put forward ideas on how to address the current crisis.

For that alone, it’s an important document in our ongoing debate.

For me, it also serves as a reminder to address more regularly my concerns with any agenda which makes “equality” its goal.  We don’t need additional legislation to promote the American ideal of equal opportunity.   We just need the state to get out of the way so that individual Americans can find their own way to success.

And to ensure our freedom so we can more readily travel that path.

The media, who in recent days felt pressing stories like the First Lady’s arm workout (CNN) and the Administration’s soft-drink of choice (Time) worthy of their attention, as opposed to three more ethical (or at least noteworthy in their hypocrisy) lapses, feels it necessary to tear down Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal because…well, he’s not as eloquent as the president. Way to speak truth to power, AP.

This petty dispatch starts off: “Widely panned for his national TV address…” Yes, “widely panned” by media elites who expect their leaders to be more sizzle than steak. More rhetoric than sense. After our president went on at length waxing poetically about how he can’t wait to burden future generations with his fanciful ideas, Governor Jindal did a comparatively poor job of staging and delivering. This hit-job opinion piece, disguised as a news story, contains phrases like:

But the address has been the target of political commentators, comics and bloggers who called it amateurish and out of step with the American public. Some critiqued Jindal’s delivery as too “sing-songy,” and compared it to the late children’s television host Mister Rogers. Some critics asserted the speech — which was many Americans’ first view of Jindal — could have damaged the governor’s long-term political aspirations.

(emphasis added)

To buttress this assertion of Jindal’s incompetence, AP staff writer Melinda Deslatte offers comments and criticism from the following political commentators, comics, bloggers, “some critics”, and just plain “some” about their displeasure with Bobby Jindal’s performance: .

Just as they went after Governor Palin during the campaign because she was an outsider, similarly, they’re eager to paint Governor Jindal (the son of imigrants, by the way…just imagine if he had a “D” behind his name, being likewise criticized by, say, Rush Limbaugh) as an oaf. Their reason? He doesn’t speak as well as Obama. So, how about the details of Obama’s plan for healthcare? Oh, forget that. At least he’s dreamy when he talks.

If you weren’t convinced of the elitism and shallowness that resides in the Mainstream Media, and their contempt for anybody not like them, check out the last paragraph of the article:

And despite the repeated criticism over the last week, the Louisiana governor refused any suggestion he might hire a speechwriter.

The nerve of him.

If I had any respect for the national Media, I’d be embarrassed for them.

-Colorado Patriot (Nick) from TML

The House Speaker has an enemies list.

This is awesome.  Jimmy Fallon, who debuts as the new host of “Late Night” on NBC, is a big Tweeter user.

Here is a preview of the premiere of the show from Jimmy’s perspective onstage at 30 Rock.  He just posted this pic a few minutes ago.

Don’t forget to join and follow me at Twitter, too!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

This one’s been sitting in my email InBox since last fall.  I’m FINALLY digging out.

Here is a fellow gay conservative from my hometown (area) of Philadelphia.

Introducing… The Conservative Rainbow.

Why am I a gay Conservative (i.e. a Classical Liberal)? Because our Founders were! Classical Liberals that is–NOT gay–at least to the best of my knowledge! The Democratic Party has become nothing more than a Marxist front group for malignant narcissists attempting to feed their power-hungry egos with a governmental philosophy that has proved, without a doubt, throughout the ages–to be a flawed & failed philosophy. Tammy Bruce, a 2nd Amendment gun-toting lesbian feminist described them as malignant narcissists in her book “The Death of Right and Wrong”. The term itself, according to Tammy, originated from psychoanalyst Otto Kernberg. Tammy–you’re absolutely correct. Ronald Reagan said it best, “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me.”

This website has been created as a fun, informative, & hopefully somewhat entertaining place for other gay Conservatives to chat, hob nob, and otherwise engage in lively conversation & current events affecting the gay community today. So, for those of you disenchanted with the current state of your traditional political alliances–welcome! I’m happy to announce there is a new place for gay men & women who don’t necessarily agree with the big government, socialist agenda of the current Democratic Party. There are Republicans out there looking out for us. And there are more Gay Conservatives out there than many of you may have expected. Gay marriage is, after all, a very conservative idea.

How can you NOT like this blog?   Go visit The Conservative Rainbow and say hi from all of us at GayPatriot.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Last week, Michael Ledeen compared the President to one of the worst presidents of the twentieth century, Jimmy Carter. But, as I read Amity Shlaes’s The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, it seems he has more in common with another failure of the previous century, Herbert Hoover.

Like that hapless (as least as president) Republican, this ambitious Democrat has great faith in the power of the state to fix the economy.

Writing about Hoover in his pre-presidential days, Shlaes observes that Hoover “feared criticism . . . he encountered it so infrequently. Luck and talent had done their work, and he began to feel his greatness was unlimited.” Kind of sounds like his twenty-first century successor.

But, the similarity doesn’t end there; Hoover “disdained laissez-faire economics.” Indeed his presidential predecessor Calvin Coolidge didn’t much care for the incredibly intelligent Iowan:

Where the president [in 1927] eschewed technology, Hoover was always playing with it. Coolidge also hated Hoover’s tendency to react to news with grand-intrusive plans. Could not Hoover see where some of his rescues led?

From this introduction to Hoover and our forty-day experience with President Obama, it seems the two presidents share what Victor Davis Hanson describes as the liberal philosophy:

The liberal philosophy maintains that government, better than thousands of informed and self-interested individuals, can direct and guide our lives and national purpose. It has more confidence in the tenured bureaucrat than it does the small businessman, whose unpredictability and autonomy prove too disruptive to the common vision.

And we all know the results of Hoover’s trust in bureaucrats.

Kudos to Rep. Tauscher for introducing this legislation and at least getting the ball rolling.

It is precisely the sort of knife fight no president wants to get into, especially in his first 100 days. But it seems that President Barack Obama is about to get dragged down the same dark alley as Bill Clinton when he was forced to confront the highly charged issue of gays in the military early in his term.

On Monday, buoyed by a stronger Democratic majority in Congress, Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.) will introduce legislation to overturn the ban against homosexuals serving openly in the military, a Tauscher aide said.

Clinton’s handling of the issue was widely condemned, and the entire fiasco became a textbook example of the sort of avoid-at-all-cost political controversy that can seriously undermine a new president. For Clinton, it knocked him off message, sapped him of auathority, damaged his popularity ratings and left him with a reputation for being wishy-washy that stuck.

And it left the military with a policy that no one really likes — the “don’t ask, don’t tell” regulation that allows gays to serve in the military, as long as they don’t flout their homosexuality.

It will be interesting to see how Obama handles this tactically and politically.  There have been very mixed media reports since November on if and when Obama would tackle DADT.

There is a discussion at Pam’s House Blend on this development.   Feel free to join, and bring those folks over here, too!

Maybe I should post a count-up clock on how many days since Inauguration until DADT is repealed?  Does anyone know how to build such a widget?

[RELATED: First DADT litigation faces Obama Justice Department]

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

***GAYPATRIOT EXCLUSIVE***

Former Log Cabin Republicans President and founder of the National office, Rich Tafel, responded over the weekend to my request for a comment on last week’s news.  I asked Rich his thoughts on the Washington Blade article that suggested a close financial relationship between Log Cabin Republicans and left-wing gay activist Tim Gill.

Here is Rich’s response, unedited:

1. It’s not journalism when the whole story is built on anonymous quotes.
2. If you are on the board of an organization and you feel a need to say that stuff have the courage and integrity to say it publicly, don’t hide behind anonymity.
3. If you don’t like Tim Gill writing checks, write one or raise it.

As you can tell, I’m more disappointed at the cowardly behavior of the person who spoke to the Blade if they even did it.

Only when they go on the record could I respond, because I have no idea what was true.

GP Ed. Note: I believe it is fair to also apply Rich’s criticism to my original reporting last Friday which further detailed the financial connections between Gill and Log Cabin. I fully accept the criticism of my use of an anonymous sources, and understand the frustration with it.  I believe the information was too important to report and I was confident in my source based on a long association I have had with him.  But I take the criticism and I have to accept it for now.

That being said, I do not have the resources of the Washington Blade –  nor the time as blogging is a part-time “hobby”.  So I would share Rich’s frustration that a professional journalism organization bases its entire story on anonymous sourcing.  The New York Times, in fact, has been doing that a lot lately too.  I think professional news organizations should be held to a higher standard if they truly are “reporting”.   That may sound hypocritical, but so be it.  It is how I feel.

I will continue to follow the Tim Gill-Log Cabin connection and will report relevant updates that are important and backed up to my satisfaction.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

PatriotPartner has asked that fellow GayPatriot readers go vote for this as “shirt of the week”.

I like it, too!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Full Disclosure: I disagree with the populist baiters on the Left and the Right who malign business-owners and corporations, executives and boards who allegedly are “using our tax-payer dollars” to “wine and dine” their “rich clients” after having taken bailout money (or, for that matter, after having the temerity to bring in a profit in this atmosphere). These red meat arguments (along with the private-jet-to-Congressional-hearings meme) are pure drivel and miss the point of how a business actually runs. They’re built on class-envy and have basically no grounding in anything other than jealousy and getting yours, and they’ve been perpetrated by a media (from MSNBC on the Left all the way to FOX on the Right) more interested in “gotcha” than in explaining anything in their news. Whew. That said,

President Obama, cheered on by his minions in the press, has been railing against corporate excess since before he even took office. These rich folk, he’d have us believe, are living high on the hog, gilding the lily at our expense. Well, guess whose salary, room-and-board, and all entertainment expenses literally are at our expense, and guess how he’s been living.

Without a hint of irony or embarrassment, the AP passes this wire story today about how “Obama kicks up White House entertaining”. There’s too much good stuff in here about how the Obamas are throwing parties every week, along with an elaborate Super Bowl shindig to quote, and it only takes a minute to read, so follow the link if you’d like the details. And again, my purpose here is not to criticize the president for throwing parties. It’s just very disingenuous for him to attack Corporate America as sanctimoniously as he has (see Dan’s post from earlier today) about “responsibility” while he throws his own soirees literally on our dime. Kind of like how we can’t have our thermostats at 70 degrees, while he can raise hot-house flowers in the Oval Office.

And where’s the press? Read through the AP article and try to find any criticism. This is the same press, by the way, who mocked Bush for all his “vacation” time. Again, not to give quarter to those arguments, which were completely baseless and ridiculous. But do you think the press has suddenly discovered how valuable the president’s time is all of a sudden and is therefore willing to give them all the benefit of the doubt? You know, no more silly arguments about how the president is spending so much leisure time? Don’t hold your breath.

-ColoradoPatriot (Nick) from HQ

One day, President Obama hosts a “Fiscal Responsibility Summit.”  Three days later, he releases a budget forecasting near trillion dollar annual federal deficits for the next decade.  There’s quite a mismatch between his rhetoric and his record.

And he has the gall to title his Budget, “A New Era of Responsibility,” causing economist Irwin Steltzer to wonder:

What is responsible about a budget that projects deficits rising from $459 billion to $1,752 billion in the first year of Obama’s budget, and remaining at $712 billion as far ahead as 2019, when the economy will be growing, is not clear.

Once the glow of his honeymoon starts to fade and the people start catching on, his credibility could sink to Clintonian levels.  Maybe some people, so enamored with the charismatic chief executive may never catch on.  Even he seems to believe his own rhetoric.  In his radio address on Saturday, he said:

I know these steps won’t sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they’re gearing up for a fight as we speak.  My message to them is this:

“So am I.”

Conservative bloggers have been having a field day with that one. John Hinderaker, who alerted me to the howler, offered, “lobbyists all over Washington are lighting cigars with $50 bills at the prospect of having $3.7 trillion worth of spoils to divvy up.” Law professor William A. Jacobson calls “Obama’s multi-trillion dollar spending spree . . . a lobbyist’s wet dream. More money will be made by more lobbyists divvying up this pork than in the collective history of the United States.”

(H/t to Glenn for the Steltzer and Jacobson links.)

Obama still talks like a candidate running against big spending Republicans and Washington’s “culture of corruption.”  But, he’s president now and is offering us George W. Bush’s domestic policy on steroids, with ever higher levels of federal spending.

The only thing Obama has changed from the “old way of doing business” is the speed.  I doubt any of his predecessors have ever proposed increasing spending by this amount in such a short time.  He sure didn’t campaign on spending increases of this magnitude.

He’s spending money our grandchildren haven’t earned yet.

UDPATE:  At Powerline, John notes we are already seeing a decline in the president’s polls:

What’s happening here is that, while media types swoon over Obama’s way with a teleprompter, voters are focusing on something else–the consequences of higher taxes, unprecedented federal spending and control over the economy, and crushing levels of debt. The more they focus on those things, the less they like them.