We have reached the tipping point in the public waking up about the dangers (at home & abroad) of the Obama Administration.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 32% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-four percent (34%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -2. That’s the President’s lowest rating to date and the first time the Presidential Approval Index has fallen below zero for Obama.

Uh oh…. the minority of wingnuts can’t keep their incompetent President afloat any longer.

I wonder if his chilly reception to democracy and free elections in Iran has been the last straw for Americans who support liberty and freedom around the world?

UPDATE: And so much for the “demise” of the Republican Party.  The GOP & Dems are TIED for the second straight week in Congressional preference.  These are the same levels seen right before the 1994 GOP tsunami, by the way.  Sorry, Buckeye.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

What a big contrast of photos this weekend…. heroes and cowards

While the Iranian people are yearning for freedom from a dictator and putting their lives on the line — President Obama chooses not to golf this weekend, but rather to go get some ice cream.

I am confident that Presidents Reagan, Bush (both) and Clinton would be forcefully encouraging pro-democracy efforts in Iran — as their policies have dictated throughout those years.  While we are on the verge of a huge victory for freedom in the Post 9/11 world, our President fiddles.

The best President Obama can do is send chilly signals to the Iranian people while the ice cream slides down his throat.  Pathetic and disappointing.

[RELATED:  Obama Dithers While Iran Burns - The Weekly Standard]

Obama supporters defended his silence. Anything he said to endorse the protests, they argued, would taint the protesters’ message and damage their cause.

The protesters, many of whom held signs written in English, seemed to disagree. “On several occasions, I’ve had supporters of Mousavi say we need President Obama,” reported CNN’s Reza Sayah, from Tehran. When Wolf Blitzer asked Sayah directly whether the protesters want Obama to speak out in support of their cause, Sayah responded: “I think they do, but they’re realistic.”

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Welcome Instapundit Readers!

From the perspective of your humble correspondent, the two biggest stories in the blogosphere this past week have been the ongoing unrest in Iran and the Obama Administration’s relationship with the gay community. Health care has also been an emergent issue and will likely become a focus of next week’s news cycle, replacing the conversation about gays, but Iran will continue to dominate our discourse.

Before the gay issue fades away, I wanted to offer a thought on the President’s attitude toward people like us. It’s an idea that’s been kicking around in my head for some while, at least since I read his first book, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.   Let me qualify my post by saying I don’t have any concrete proof for my notion, but when I was chatting with another blogger, Roger Simon*, earlier this month (before the recent spate of stories on gays) and heard him (without prompting from me) offer a nearly identical theory, I wondered (yet again) if there was some substance to this thought.

My thought was that Obama is either indifferent to or slightly hostile toward gay people.  On Thursday, I noted he “sat in a church for twenty years where a racist pastor spewed anti-gay rhetoric and never once challenged him on his prejudiced attitude toward homosexuals.“  But, then again, he never challenged any of the hateful, paranoid or  narrow-minded statements Reverend Wright made.  It could just be his, to build on a comment of a prominent Democratic Congressman, an absence of political courage.

It’s not just Reverend Wright. Early in his bid for the White House, the Democrat campaigned with anti-gay gospel singer Donnie McClurkin. (more…)

In 1992, the New Republic ran a piece, I believe it was by Jacob Weisberg on then-presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee, reporting something the candidate’s mother (as I recall) had said about her son.  If Bill Clinton entered a room with one hundred people, ninety-nine of them loving him, but one opposed to him, he would spend his entire time trying to persuade that one to like him, to appreciate his qualities and recognize his accomplishments.

It seems that one-time Arkansan has something in common with the next Democrat to follow him to the White House. Barack Obama has a similar obsession with his critics, but expresses it much differently than did his Southern predecessor.

Few incoming Presidents have received as fawning press coverage as has the incumbent.  Yesterday, for example, while doing my cardio at the gym, I was treated to a Larry King Live segment, with Wolf Blitzer substituting for the eponymous host, on Obama as Comic (or Comedian) in Chief.  Had CNN ever run such a segment on any of Obama’s predecessors.  Ronald Reagan was a real genius with one-liners, always ready with a stock of quips to bring a smile to most people’s lips.

When CNBC’s John Harwood asked the President whether the “favorable press” he’s been getting was “hurting the country because you’re not sufficiently being held accountable for your policies,” Obama replied

It’s very hard for me to swallow that one.  First of all, I’ve got one television station that is entirely devoted to attacking my administration . . .  Well, that’s a pretty big megaphone and you’d be hard-pressed if you watched the entire day to find a positive story about me on that front.

Instead of acknowledging the favorable press he has received, the president dwelt on the one news network which probably offers the most balanced coverage of his Adminsitration, featuring critics as well as supporters of his policies and proposals.

Over at Commentary‘s Contentions, Peter Wehner finds the President’s comment “revealing“:

. . . it demonstrates that Obama — who is (literally) compared to God by some journalists, who sends a thrill up the leg of others, and who causes reporters and editors to weep and choke up with emotion in simply thinking about The One — apparently believes he deserves worshipful coverage across the board; when he doesn’t receive it, he views it as a grave injustice.

The President needs to take a page not from the “manual” of his most recent Democratic predecessor but from his most successful Republican predecessor in the century just concluded–learn to take criticism in stride.  The Gipper suffered worse slights on a regular basis from the news media than the incumbent suffers from FoxNews and never complained, always maintaining his sunny disposition.  If Sam Donaldson berated him overmuch, he smiled and said, “Well, that’s just Sam.”  That great man didn’t let criticism get to him. (more…)

No Democrat has ever won the White House running against Ronald Wilson Reagan.  Walter Mondale tried, but barely won his own state.  Michael Dukakis tried to make the 1988 election about competency instead of ideology, but George H.W. Bush made it about Ronald Reagan and Michael Dukakis.   The Gipper’s Vice President won forty states that year.  Had that Bush remembered the Gipper, he might have held his own four years later against Bill Clinton who, understanding the appeal of the Fortieth President, promised a middle class tax cut.

So strong was the appeal of the Gipper’s idea of cutting taxes (instead of raising them in order to feed the federal behemoth) that even the most liberal Senator in the most recent (completed) Congress borrowed the idea and used it to win nearly the same percentage of the popular vote that H.W. had won twenty years previously.

But, tax cuts aren’t the only Reaganite idea which resonates.  The Gipper realized that Americans don’t have much of a taste for big government.  And recent polls confirm that even five years after that great man’s passing, we haven’t regained that unfortunate appetite.

That hasn’t, however, deterred the incumbent President and Democratic Congress from pushing such initiiatives, even as he’s finding less of a welcome for his proposed changes  among the American people than he had hoped.

With Democrats having run up the national debt with their various programs they’ve passed these past five months, the American people are less and less open to the President’s costly reforms.  We still don’t know the tab for Obamacare, with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) finding the various proposals more costly than advertised.  Now that the American people have wised up to the real nature of the President’s policies, expett concerns about costs to cause them to speak out against such reforms instead of reacting as they did to the “stimulus” with lukewarm support, mild indifference or silent opposition.

Indeed, Americans are becoming increasingly skeptical about that “stimulus” given its failure to stimulate the economy.  So, will they now become more outspoken in their support of smaller government and stand up against Democrats’ proposed health care reforms, causing Obamacare to founder on the shoals of popular opinion, the same popular opinion then-candidate Obama channeled in promising a “net spending cut”?  And this public opinion to close to Ronald Reagan’s own vision of a smaller federal government with more individual freedom.

I have been following the demonstrations in Iran this past week with great interest.

I was a young boy in 1979 when the Islamic Revolution overthrew the Shah and led to a decades-long cold and hard war with the West.  It is my firm belief that the events in Iran in 1979 were the beginning of the War on America that resulted in the attacks of 9/11/2001.

I have stated on several occasions that the deaths on 9/11 were the result of actions & inactions of every President from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush as the dealt with the ripple effects of the Iranian Islamic Revolution.

So that all being said, what the hell is my headline all about?   Well, I posted this thought on Twitter earlier today:

Raise your hand if you think the Iranians would be marching now if Saddam had not been taken out in 2003 and successful elections in Iraq?

Can anyone honestly think that the Iranian people could have NOT been inspired by the overthrow of the brutal Saddam Hussein and the subsequent free and FAIR elections in Iraq?  If you think not, you are delusional and living in a dream world.

No matter what the final outcome in Iran is, I am confident that the marches in the streets will represent another battlefield win by the United States against Islamic terrorism.  The actions of President George W. Bush and the heroic deeds of our US military has had a significance influence on the future of Iran — whether it ends this week or in 10 years.

UPDATE: I’m not the only one that feels this way.  Blogger Kirk Petersen remarks: It is a vindication of the decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein and liberate Iraq.

Petersen also put me onto a column by Daniel Finkelstein of The London Times who today even more forcefully connects the dots between American ideals and actions and the protests for election fairness in Iran.  Read the whole thing!

For years we have been told, we neocons, that other cultures don’t want our liberty, our American freedom. Yankee go home! But it isn’t true. Because millions of Iranians do want it. Yes, they want their sovereignty, and demand respect for their nation and its great history. No, they don’t want foreign interference and manipulation. But they still insist upon their rights and their freedom. They know that liberty isn’t American or British. It is Iranian, it is human.

It is not part of their [Iran's] precious heritage that someone be charged with a capital offence for circulating a petition on women’s rights. Nor that nine-year-old girls should be eligible for the death penalty, and children hanged for their crimes. There is no special Iranian will, even given their religious conservatism, that students should be flogged in public for being flirtatious, and homosexuals hanged in the streets.

The protests for Mr Mousavi do not just expose the lie of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s landslide victory. They expose the lie that there is something Western in wanting democracy and human rights.

Precisely.  There is no question that the modern-day quest for liberty and freedom throughout the world that continues today had its origins on July 4, 1776 with those visionary words and yet simple theory of self-government:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Few (if any) professional pundit can analyze polls (and demographic data) better than Michael Barone, whom I have dubbed the Hephaestus of punditry for sharing with the master craftsman of Olympus an attention to detail.  In his latest piece from his new berth at the Washington Examiner, he analyzes the latest polls on the President’s job performance.  They show that while the public continues to approve of Mr. Obama, they are wary about his policies.

Simply put, Americans don’t want to move in a more statist direction and prefer the free market to the federal government as the solution to our economic problems:

. . . despite the financial crisis and current economic distress, there has not been a drastic shift in American voters’ views of the balance between the market and government. The economic failures of the 1930s and successes of the 1940s convinced Americans to trust government more and markets less; the economic failures of the 1970s and successes of the 1980s convinced Americans to trust markets more and government less. These results show that American voters remain suspicious of centralized government power over the private sector and that they have great unease about the enormous far-larger-than-Bush’s budget deficits which experts project the Obama programs will produce.

Read the whole thing!

As I worked on Pajamas piece on the President’s benefits package for the same-sex partners of federal employees, I kept coming across articles and blog posts indicating the disappointment and even betrayal gay Democrats feel at the President’s failure to follow through on the campaign promises he made to our community.  This morning, when I checked my e-mail, my in-box was inundated with missives from readers alerting me to other such posts and articles.

After my mid-day workout when I returned home to surf the web and blog, I found more such pieces, with straight blogger Glenn Reynolds alone linking three four just today.

While I certainly understand their frustration of gay Democrats, I almost feel like telling them, “I told you so.”  (I guess I just did that.)

Democratic politicians, with a few notable exceptions, have an uncanny habit of breaking the promises they make to gay people.  Aware of the affluence of our community and the dedication of our activists, Democrats know that by appealing to our interests, they can increase both their campaign contributions and their grassroots efforts.

Their enthusiasm for Democrats who say the right things, however, seems a little unmoored from reality.  Then-President Bill Clinton backed down on his promise to repeal the ban on gays serving openly in the military as soon as he saw there was a political cost.  He signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996 when he thought he might help him with evangelical voters.  Obama sat in a church for twenty years where a racist pastor spewed anti-gay rhetoric and never once challenged him on his prejudiced attitude toward homosexuals.

Now, some may say, “Well, Dan, you support the GOP and Republicans are no better, perhaps even worse.”  And I’ll reply, “Yep, you’ve got a point, my party’s not perfect, but at least my guys don’t treat our community like a cash cow, milking it when they need funds and hiding it in the barn when they fear it might offend the neighbors.”  it’s not just that.  As a conservative, I don’t believe state action is the appropriate means to advance social acceptance of gay people. (more…)

Back in 2005, after reading this comment from our reader Mike, then blogging at Republic of M, I read the piece he had encouraged us all to read, the then-Prism Warden’s piece on his evolution away from the gay left.  So good did I find it that I just had to post on it, delighted to discover not only another thoughtful blogger, but a smart young man offering a truly unique perspective on the world at large and gay issues in particular, with a particular affection for a certain baseball player.

Soon that Prism Warden (AKA Robbie) and I started corresponding and I read his blog on a regular basis.

I’d like to believe it was my post which drew Robbie’s good work to the attention of a larger audience, but more likely it was just the quality of his writing.  Well, that adorable young blogger moved onto the Malcontent before the blog petered out.  Well, it’s back with him at the helm and better than ever.  In a recent post on the gay activists boycotting a Democratic fundraising dinner, Robbie shows just exactly why so many have come to appreciate his writing:

However, the situation is far from a devolution in gay partisanship. While being hailed as the strongest action yet by GLBTers against a Democratic administration, it seems not a single prominent blogger mentions the ridiculous submissive position they placed themselves in by spending the last twenty years being unfailingly loyal and protective of a national party that has gleefully abused their generosity while daring them to do anything about it.

To whit, the DNC fundraiser’s very existence puts in a stark light the Democratic Party’s usual treatment of the gay community as little more than a cash cow to be milked to the point of bruising. Imagine this, timed to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Stonewall, during a Pride month, the DNC “celebrates” these milestones by deigning to give prominent gays the privilege of paying them to mutter nice things. Could the party any more plainly and harshly say “Hooray for you! Now pay us.”

He goes on to imagine the tongue-lashing Human Rights Campaign (HRC) President Joe Solmonese’s delivered to leading Washington Democrats for their failure to follow through on campaign promises to the gay community.  That lickspittle will continue his kowtowing to the Democratic powers that be in our nation’s capital.  As Robbie so acidly notes:

If the gay community were a fifth as serious in opposing Democratic intransigence as they were complaining about Republicans, they’d probably start outing Democratic staffers in the Department of Justice. That, of course, will never be forthcoming.

As with anything by Robbie, just read the whole thing.  And now that Malcontent‘s back, make sure to set your bookmarks accordingly.

I’ve never been much of a fan of California State Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco).  His rhetoric on gay issues has been over-the-top and his attitudes toward Republicans lacks the respect he demands social conservatives extend to gay people.

But, you gotta give credit where it’s due.  And unlike the better part of the gay leadership across the nation and in the Golden State, this openly gay state legislator has endorsed the San Franciso Rally for Iranian democracy that Michael Petrelis is organizing today in San Francisco.  It would be nice if more left-wing Democrats followed suit.  This is an issue which should not only unite the nation, but also the gay community.

it seems the leftist bloggers have been far ahead of the gay leadership in standing up for other brothers and sisters in Iran.

If you can make it, that rally is just a few hours away, today at 5 PM in Harvey Milk Plaza.

Slightly more sanguine about the benefits package the President has put together for same-sex partners of federal employees, I still see political posturing at play in the Democrat’s move and said as much in a piece I wrote for Pajamas.  A bone it may be, but a bone with a little meat on it.

Here’s a taste:

With two prominent gay activists, one-time Friend of Bill (Clinton) David Mixner and blogger Andy Towle  bowing out of a Democratic fundraising dinner to be headlined by Vice President Joe Biden later this month, the Obama Administrtion is feeling the heat from the President’s failure to follow through on campaign promises he made to the gay community.

Obama has backtracked on his pledge to repeal the Clinton-era Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell (DADT) policy barring gay people from serving openly in the military.  The Administration has sidelined legislation to repeal the ban until 2010, with even openly gay Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) concurring with his party’s decision to defer consideration of the issue.

Not only have Democrats deferred on Obama’s campaign promises, but the Administration has actively sought to to uphold one law, the Defense of Maraige Act (DOMA), which, candidate Obama pledged to repeal.  DOMA, signed by President Clinton in 1996, defines marriage for federal purposes as the union of one man one woman and allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. Earlier this month, Justice Department lawyers filed a legal brief in a Santa Ana, CA federal court defending that law.

Now that I’ve whet your appetite, click here to read the rest.

I strongly encourage Bay Area GayPatriot readers to join leftie blogger Michael Petrelis in rallying today, Thursday, June 18, 2009, from 5-6 PM at Harvey Milk Plaza in “friendship and solidarity with the democratic-loving people of Iran.”  It would be great to have some conservative gays there both to show our support for  people suffering under the hand of an oppressive Islamofascist state and to express our gratitude to Petrelis for being such an advocate for our fellows in Iran.  And he’s singled out conservatives who speak out for gay people.

This is not the first time Petrelis has organized on behalf of Iranian gays.  He has staged protests before at Harvey Milk Plaza “over Iran’s hanging of two gay teenagers in Mashad in 2005.”  He reminds participants to wear green.  Let’s make sure American gay conservatives stand together with our San Francisco liberal brethren on behalf of all Iranians, but particularly our gay fellows, suffering under the lash of a brutal tyranny.

Something tells me HRC will not be sending a representative.  I wonder if any gay group will.

I won’t be able to trek up to the Bay Area, but will be wearing green all day to show my solidarity with the Iranian people.  Please do the same.

R.S. McCain, in feeling the pain of angry gay Democrats as they realize that President Obama is not really the man riding the pink unicorn.  He just plays one during campaign season.  He suggests they abandon their party and join the GOP:

So if this latest knife in the back from your Democratic “friends” is one betrayal too many, maybe you should consider becoming an ex-Democrat, too. I mean, if you want to raise millions of dollars for untrustworthy politicians who oppose gay marriage, the Republican Party would certainly welcome your support.

This other McCain is witnessing right now what we and our blog readers have been noticing for some time.  If there’s a political cost to helping gays, well, then Democrats just jump off that unicorn and pick a more practical means of transportation.

While Republicans won’t offer the sweeping promises Democrats regularly make to gay people, well, at least they won’t break them.  And there could be a little fun to joining the GOP:

Just because Republicans are never going to support your identity-politics agenda doesn’t mean they don’t have anything to offer you.

For example, think of the delicious fun of payback politics, evening the score with those Democrat bastards who sold you out.

Not to mention the fun of coming out conservative to your gay friends and seeing their commitment to diversity and inclusion melt like icicles in the spring when it comes to diversity of points of view and inclusion of political opinions at odds with the prevailing left-wing ethos of the gay community.

But, in the end, it all comes down to that pink unicorn, that image of Barack Obama, presidential candidate, new kind of postpartisan politician with his airy rhetoric and sweeping promises to all and sundry.  Republicans just don’t ride pink unicorns, at least not on the campaign trail.

When election season’s over and your candidate takes office, you won’t be disappointed to find that you just voted for a fantastic image, an illusion really, drawn from the imagination of your chosen candidate to appeal to your childish hopes.

Barney Frank does have a habit of offering an opinion on legislation and legal briefs that he hasn’t read.  Even his erstwhile supporters on the left are catching on. Blogger John Aravosis reports that

After criticizing the DOJ’s anti-gay DOMA brief this morning, Frank did a 180 this evening and lauded the brief, which invoked incest and pedophilia. Frank now thinks the brief is just super.

Frank claims that he gave a newspaper reporter his negative opinion of the brief without actually having read it.

(H/t Glenn.)  Emphasis added.  While doubting the unhappy Congressman’s explanation, Aravosis wonders “How many other issues has Barney opined on about which he’s been knowingly willfully ignorant?”  Some on the right might contend that that question defines the public pronoucements of the mean-spirited man from Massachusetts.

But, I do know of at least one time where the Democrat changed his position on an issue he once supported.  Then, he claimed he was mistaken.  Guess he hadn’t read the amendment for which he had already voted in favor.  This past April,

Frank withdrew his support from an amendment offered by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) that would forbid groups like the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) from receiving federal grants if any of their employees have been indicted for voter fraud.

After approving the amendment by a unanimous voice vote, Frank announced Thursday he was mistaken to back the bill, and said he’d offer a substitute that would apply the amendment only to groups with employees who are actually convicted — not just indicted.

Seems Barney realized that doing the right thing might cost his party the money and other support ACORN provides.

Seems that Barney has become a lickspittle to the Democratic Adminisration.  Aravosis’s latest posts show that he at least has some integrity, not falling into line with the President merely because of the (D) after his name.

If the Massachusetts Democratic Congressman really wanted to go to bat for our community.  He’d defy the Administration and push for legislation repealing DOMA instead of kowtowing to the President who would rather delay consideration until it’s politically more convenient.

Of all John McCain’s mistakes in the 2008 general election campaign, perhaps the greatest was his initial assumption that his decades-long efforts to curry favor with the mainstream media would mean less biased coverage that they had traditionally afforded to Republican presidential nominees. If our party is ever to win back the White House and rebuild our majorities, while reaching out to the under-30 crowd who voted so overwhelmingly Democratic in the most recent election cycles, we have to confront the reality of media bias.

With ABC set to broadcast from inside the White House next week to promote the President’s health care plan, that bias has become increasingly clear.

And yet when asked about the absence of media criticism of his policies, the President harped on one, just one network that criticizes him:

I’ve got one television station [FoxNews] that is entirely devoted to attacking my administration . . . . Well, that’s a pretty big megaphone and you’d be hard-pressed if you watched the entire day to find a positive story about me on that front.

If he had bothered to watch FoxNews, he’d know that the network regularly includes Democrats (and their allies) defending his policies.  Funny that W never complained about MSNBC — its entire agenda was attacking his Administration.

Mary Katharine Ham took the President to task for dismissing the notion that the press has given him a free pass:

He called the idea that he’s gotten an easy ride from the press “very hard to swallow.” Delusional and totally graceless for a man who’s gotten the journalistic tongue bath he’s received from so many outlets (with the notable exceptions of a few in the White House press pool, who are great to watch).

Read the whole thing!  As she puts it, citing Newsweek‘s Evan Thomas, they’ve moved from seeing their job when Bush was in the White House as bashing the President to, now that their chosen Democrat is in charge, deifying the Chief Executive .

With the rise of the blogs, one would hope they would consider the opinions of a greater variety of bloggers of all political stripes, but instead, they are taking their cues increasingly from left-wing web-sites:

How many MSM reporters (Associated Press, NY Times, CBS News, etc.) ever read Hot Air or Instapundit? And how many of them sympathize?  The typical MSM reporter sympathizes with Media Matters, DKos and Crooks & Liars. The typical MSM reporter watches Olbermann every night. The typical MSM reporter thinks Letterman’s jokes about Palin are ROTFLMAO funny.

This from the increasingly indispensable R.S.McCain who would surely agree that we conservatives, we Republicans, have a problem with the media culture.  Had another McCain recognized that problem sooner, we might well be calling himself something other than Senator today.

Given the parallels between the various world and economic crises in the late 1970s and today as well as the world views of the Democratic Presidents then and now, some are wondering if it’s 1979 all over again.  Back then, we saw unrest in Iran, with mass demonstrations in the streets.  Government spending was skyrocketing with inflation looming.  Gas prices were on the uptick, with the President urging us to drive smaller, more fuel efficient cars.  Chrysler, tin cup in hand, came to Washington begging for a federal bailout.

And the President of the United States, then as now, was blaming American policies for creating unrest among the Iranian people:

The fantasy that “moderates” within the mullah regime can be coaxed into a “grand bargain” has taken in better men than Barack Obama, but Obama doesn’t even have the excuse of not being aware of that prior history. The level of self-loathing an American has to possess to believe that the Khomeinists are a brutal, terror-supporting regime entirely because the US hasn’t been nice enough to them is pretty staggering.

Khoemeini and his heirs were and are brutal fanatics. Period, dot. They have subjugated and terrorized their own people and done their level best to kill ours for thirty years because that’s what they are and that’s what they do. The devil didn’t make them do it. There’s nothing you or I or Jimmy Carter or George W. Bush or Barack Obama ever could have said that would have changed them

Read the whole thing where Will Collier, its author, puts forward Ronald Reagan (rather than his predecessor) as an example of how an American President should react to power-hungry regimes which oppress their people.  And he’s not the only one.

So, I’m wondering, given the similarities between Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter if the one Democrat shares the other’s naiveté about the ways of the world?

I think there’s something more than naiveté at play here. I think we’re seeing instead the influence of leftist academic theories, particularly those of Edward Said, and the President’s left-wing associations before he leapt onto the national stage.

Here (via Gateway) is Obama with Said:

Jimmy Carter was just plain naive and blind to the realities of the world.  I fear that Barack Obama really believes the hooey peddled on so many university campuses that repression abroad is just a natural reaction to American “aggression/imperialism.”

By that logic, increasing gay activism since Stonewall has fueled anti-gay bigotry and is thus responsible for hate crimes against homosexuals.

It’s time that President Obama woke up and recognize the brutal reality of some of our nation’s adversaries.

Reading yesterday that some prominent gay donors to the Democrats were pulling out of a party fundraising dinner later this month because the President has been backtracking on promises he made to the gay community helps illuminate San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s political strategy.  It becomes increasingly clear that his decision to direct city authorities to issue marriage licenses to gay couples in 2004 was a ploy to curry favor with the gay community in anticipation of a future gubernatorial bid.

And now with his rainbow “Newsom 2010,” signs, we see how it’s tapping into our community’s enthusiasm for his actions as he begins that campaign.

With these prominent gay figures pulling out of the national Democratic fundraiser, we are reminded just how generous gay people have been to the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates.  While we may not be as demographically strong as some activists might claim, we are a relatively affluent community, thus a ready source of campaign cash for political candidates.

So, Newsom sought to become a folk hero among gays in order to raise money from affluent homosexuals and to seek volunteers among impassioned activists for his 2010 campaign.  And Newsom supporters were out in force at the Gay Pride festival this past weekend in Los Angeles.  His rainbow signs and stickers were ubiquitous.  Those very signs indicated his recognition of the role gay people play in California Democratic politics.

He marched with his supporters in Sunday’s parade:

Newsom’s pandering to the gay community is a smart political strategy.  It could put him in a good position to win a potentially crowded Democratic primary.  Enthusiastic gay people are more likely to vote than other groups.

It’s not clear, however, how much this will help him in the general election.Indeed, should a proposition appear on the fall 2010 ballot to repeal Prop 8, they would energize evangelical voters–and Republicans would already be energized to vote against big-spending Democrats.  That could diminish Newsom’s chances.

Right now, the San Francisco Mayor is focused on winning his party’s gubernatorial nomination.  And he seems to be doing all the right things to tap into the financial resources of an affluent community and the energy of that community’s overly politicized activists.

President Obama may be backing down on his promise to repeal Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell (DADT), the ban on gays serving openly in the military, and he may be silent about the plight of gays in Iran, but his Administration has is about to do one thing which will benefit gay and lesbian Americans.  He will sign today a “presidential memorandum . . . extending benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees.”

It’s about time.  Kudos, Mr. President.

This is part of a package of

small, quiet moves to extend benefits to gays and lesbians. The State Department has promised to give partners of gay and lesbian diplomats many benefits, such as diplomatic passports and language training.

It’s not yet entirely clearly the extent of the benefits offered and whether this will include health benefits, but it does appear to be a step–and a big one–in the right direction.  I’m wondering if there is statutory authority for the Administration to extend such benefits so am eager to see the details to be released later today.

This may not turn out to be much, but it is, at they very least, an important gesture and a commitment by the federal government to recognize same-sex relationships.

UPDATE (06/17, 5:30 EST):  I was optimistic when I first read about this before going to bed Tuesday evening, but found that there’s far less than meets the eye.  It seems that, like much which comes from this President there’s a lot of highfaluting rhetoric, but little actual substance.

Shows you when happens when you try to give certain Democrats credit.

If you want to know why I call blogress Jennifer Rubin aJewish Athena, just take a gander at her Pajamas piece on the American Left, the President and the protests in Iran, Don’t Iranians Deserve ‘Hope and Change’ Too? The very title tells you much of what you need to know.

Barack Obama, who promised hope and change in his successful campaign to win the White House, seems oblivious that the Iranian people could have aspirations for those very ideals.  And they are in far more dire streets than we were when he announced  his bid for the Oval Office.  And yet he has been most mealy-mouthed as they rise up against a fraudulent election, hoping for regime change.

The man eager to push the longest standing democracy in the Middle East to alter its policies on settlements doesn’t want to be the United States to be seen by the world as “meddling” in Iranian affairs.  When he got that 3 AM phone call, he voted “present.”  Hearing the President’s initial statement on the protests in Iran, Jim Lindgen struggled “against a feeling of utter disgust”

I recognize that there are times in diplomacy when one has to hide one’s real feelings and to mince one’s words about evil. And I realize that it is remotely possible that this is one of those times.

Yet this is a president who mormally loves the bully pulpit. And Obama’s statements so far are about as restrained as it is possible for a president to utter without a gun actually being held to his head. One might perhaps understand a statement this mushy if Iran were America’s closest political or military ally in the world. But it’s not.

Note that even now Obama is not willing to denounce Ahmadinejad. All he is willing to say is “as odious as I consider some of President Ahmadinejad’s statements.” Obama chooses his words carefully. He doesn’t call Ahminejad odious, nor does he call Ahmadinejad’s core beliefs odious (after all, sometimes people say loose things that don’t express their core beliefs). Nor does he say that Ahmadinejad’s statements ARE odious, just that Obama personally “considers” them odious.

Amazing that the President of the United States can’t denounce a man who wishes to wipe a sovereign nation off the map and who serves as chief executive of a regime which executes gay people on a regular basis, some so young that if they were American citizens, they wouldn’t be old enough to vote.  And with such a ruthless hegemon, Rubin sees “the Obama administration [apparently] choosing, a ruthless determination to pursue some deal, any deal (there has to be a deal, right?) with the mullahs.” (more…)

While Andrew Sullivan has earned praise for covering the Iranian uprising, that easily excitable blogger just can’t seem to resist getting in his digs at his favorite bête noires, the sinister Karl Rove and the dishonest Sarah Palin.  After all, he doesn’t want to risk losing his newly acquired liberal bona fides.

On Sunday, blogger R.S.McCain (via Glenn) pointed out that Sullivan compared the Iranian President to those two Republicans:

Really, Sully? I mean, really? WTF goes through someone’s mind when they dream up an idiotic comparison between (a) Karl Rove, a Republican political strategist, and (b) Mahmoud Ahmadinejed, a Jew-hating genocidal maniac?

You might as well compare Rove to Charles Manson or Pol Pot. Please note that Sullivan’s comparison involves no hypotheticals. It does not appear to be any sort of parodic humor, except unintentionally. He evidently means to suggest in all seriousness that Ahmadinejad and Rove are similar in some meaningful way.

Even as Sullivan was criticizing an enemy of America, of freedom, a man who harbors a particular animus against gay people, he had to get in a few hits on two of his favorite punching bags, two people who, despite their flaws, have never led regimes which execute gay people or who have even advocated our elimination.  The worst they did was to argue against state recognition of same-sex marriage.

Perhaps, Andrew “needed” to make those digs.  As he was joining conservative (& libertarian) bloggers in covering the rallies in Iran, he needed to reassure his new (well, not so new any more) left-wing audience that he hadn’t returned to his “roots” on the right.  Just because he’s agreeing with conservatives on this one, he’s telling us with his potshots at Palin and Rove, that he has hasn’t (re)joined the neo-con cabal.

It’s too bad Sullivan can’t denounce an anti-American regime without also badmouthing American conservatives.  And he still styles himself a conservative.  Pathetic.