It is quite possible that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed may go free after masterminding the 9/11 attacks.  Why?  Because AG Holder’s decision to move KSM and the other al-Qaeda suspects out of the military courts and into the civilian courts may throw a lot of evidence out the window.  This is the ACLU’s wet dream.  So from a normal court circumstance, the acquittal of KSM and the AQs could happen.  But would President Obama allow it to happen on his watch?  Probably, hopefully, not.

So why is Holder (with Obama’s nod) doing all of this?  Not so much to put the 9/11 conspirators on trial, but to put the Bush-Cheney post-9/11 war effort on trial.

Anthony Dick at The Corner puts in words what my thoughts have been since Holder’s announcement on Friday:

They talk about due process and the rule of law, but the trials can’t possibly provide anything close to the level of objectivity that applies in an ordinary criminal-law setting.  There is no way the defendants will get an impartial jury in New York, and there is no way the government will actually release the terrorists if they are acquitted.  Thus the courtroom proceedings in Manhattan will be, in a very real sense, show trials.

They are designed purely for PR purposes, so that the Obama administration can pay lip service to the ideal of due process while implicitly rebuking the Bush administration for failing to respect the rule of law.

Meanwhile, it is the Obama administration that is truly making a sham out of the rule of law, by politicizing the trial process and pretending that these enemy combatants will be getting normal, neutral, dispassionate trials, as if the larger strategic context of the War on Terror will not affect the judge, the jury, or the actions of the government, which is sure to retain custody of the defendants in the off chance they are acquitted.

This reflects the fundamental unseriousness of the Obama administration in the face of terrorism.  We saw the same thing with the foolish announcement that Gitmo would be closed by January, which was the first iteration of the administration’s fantasy-land effort to sidestep one of the core dilemmas of the post-9/11 world:  We have a significant number of detainees whom we know with operational certainty to be dangerous terrorists, but, for various reasons, we can’t prosecute or convict them according to normal procedures.   This is another way of saying that there is no way we can prosecute the War on Terror while providing the full panoply of ordinary due-process protections to enemy combatants. And no amount of hope can change this reality.

I predict that nothing good will come to America as Holder moves forward to implement his ill-advised and shallowly political decision.

RELATED:  Obama must rethink rethinking Afghanistan – LA Times

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Was it on AOL or Yahoo!’s homepage where a story about former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s dinner invitation to her ex-son-in-law-to-be led for (what seemed) the better part of the day?

Perhaps, I should have saved the link, but, well, the story didn’t much interest me.  (It was the media’s obsession with the father of the Republican’s grandchild whichs fascinates.)  Seems I wasn’t the only disinterested person to take notice in this story.  In his blog, Hugh MacIntyre offers:

Sarah Palin is a former public official. Any legitimacy the press may have in digging into a politicians family (which I think extends only as far as looking for corruption) surely ends when that politician no longer holds office.

That is to say, why should anyone give a flying donkey where Levi Johnston decides to eat turkey?

Why is the media so obsessed with the doings the ex-son-in-law-to-be of an ex-Governor?  Well, because of his former relation.  They just can’t let go of their obsession with Sarah Palin.  They have this “need” to reduce her to the level of tabloid trash, even if the behavior they recount is not her own.  Even as they demean this good woman and accomplished politician, writers, bloggers and editors in the MSM regular run with stories highlighting her latest comment on politics and policy.

Mark Steyn notes that AP relied on the services of writers in addition to Calvin Woodward (who got the byline) to “‘fact-check’ . . .  Palin’s new book, and in return [those] 11 fact-checkers triumphantly unearthed six errors.”  They are obsessed.

But, their obsession, as John Podhoretz notes is a sign of her staying power:

And a person who can make news just by opening her mouth is a person to be reckoned with, a person who is not going away, a person who is going to play a role in American politics for a long time.

Or maybe he’s reading too much into .  Maybe her ability to make news is more a function of the neuroses of those who so hate her, evidence perhaps of their own need to demonize their political adversaries or to just plain attack someone whose appeal they don’t undestand.

Why is that President Obama must make it appear that the world began anew with his inauguration not quite ten months ago?  In his videotaped speech to the audience assembled to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of fall of the Berlin Wall, he mentioned his own accomplishments more than those of his predecessor most responsible for the collapse of that barrier — and of the Communist system it protected.

In his speech to the United Nations, he didn’t reference the accomplishments of any of his predecessors, even his partisan predecessors, quoting Franklin Delano Roosevelt only to note that Democrat’s vision for such an organization.  Indeed, he used that speech to highlight his own record:  ”For those who question the character and cause of my nation, I ask you to look at the concrete actions we have taken in just nine months.”

His inauguration redeemed America and, in his view at least, helped him make it “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal“.  At his speech yesterday in Tokyo, he sounded a familiar note (for him) about his own greatness, “Already, the United States has taken more steps to combat climate change in 10 months than we have in our recent history . . . .”

Why can’t this guy just point out the specifics of what he has done without putting his record into a world-historical context?   Let others be the judge of how much more (or less) he has done than his predecessors.

And let us wonder why he is so reluctant to honor their accomplishments.

In my early days in Hollywood, when I focused more on the business of entertainment than I do today, I used to try to predict (before I realized there were websites dedicated t0 that very science) how well certain new releases would do at the box office on a given weekend.  If I was egregiously wrong and a movie I thought would tank grossed over $100 million (as in the case of the 1999 release Double Jeopardy), I would make sure to see the movie to try to figure out why I had been so wrong.  I did get some things right, predicting that Josie and the Pussycats and Gigli would tank, with the former’s total gross not even equalling its anticipated opening weekend take.

And while I think yesterday’s release, 2012, will open pretty well, largely on the strength of its special effects, it will see a serious drop-off and end up being a money-loser for Sony.  Yea, the preview looks cool.  Maybe that’s because the filmmakers concentrate on the amazing-looking effects and barely show the flick’s lead, John Cusack, an actor who lacks the screen presence to carry a movie.

Over at boxofficeguru.com (one of those aforementioned websites), Gitesh Pandya, anticipates a dynamic similar to the one I’m predicting

Though they get little respect, disaster movies are popular with the masses and are reliable sellers of tickets, popcorn, and soda. Audiences usually know that they’re not going to get a great story, but instead sit back and enjoy the special effects and all the destruction. With 2012, Emmerich has widened the deficit with visuals that are even more impressive while the script got even more ridiculous. But the effects and the intriguing doomsday plot should sell the picture in the short term. Word of mouth may not be very good so don’t expect much damage on the charts after Thanksgiving weekend.

Yeah, but disaster movies don’t sell as many tickets as they did in the 1970s.

And since my readers surely anticipated a political prediction with this post’s title, let me offer this:  should Katie Couric keep her job as anchor of the CBS Evening News, by Election Day 2012, her audience will be smaller than that of the O’Reilly Factor.

It’s not always a good idea to recommend a book of which you’ve read only the first 18 pages.  But, if the remaining 208 pages of Matthew Continetti’s The Persecution of Sarah Palin: How the Elite Media Tried to Bring Down a Rising Star are as good as its Prologue, this could prove to be one of the best books on the 2008 presidential campaign.

On pages 13-15, in a section entitled “The Second Front” wherein he provides the background on John McCain’s selection of the then-Alaska Governor, Continetti offers perhaps the best short summary of the dynamics of last year’s election at the time when the then-presumptive Republican presidential nominee considered choosing a running mate.

A few pages earlier, he had given a brief background of Mrs. Palin, showing her to be the kind of politician who has long existed in the feminist imagination:  an independent woman who challenges a corrupt male establishment:

Throughout her professional life, Sarah Palin has challenged the dominant power structure and overturned the accepted, elite narrative of the ways things ought to be. . . . Her state establishment declared that Juneau ought to be run by a cozy network of Republican lawmakers and energy interests.  Palin didn’t think so.

If people studied the record of this accomplished woman before rushing to demonize her.  But, then again, if they hadn’t Continetti wouldn’t have been able to write this book.

He clearly knows his stuff, so I give the book a preliminary thumbs up.

FROM THE COMMENTS:   I wonder if many of our liberal readers will second DaveP’s motion “that we hold Barack Obama and his family to the Sarah Palin standard.”

One reason Obama did so well in last fall’s presidential election was that moderate voters believed him when he promised a “net spending cut.”  Many, once reliable Republican voters, no longer trusting the GOP on spending, agreed with the Democratic nominee that were “living beyond our means” and needed “to make some adjustments.”

While these voters may have trusted the newcomer to the national stage, many on the right, including yours truly, never believed him.  It wasn’t just his liberal voting record.  It was also his partisan pedigree.  Democrats have traditionally held onto power by turning on the federal spigot to pay off various interest groups.

And while I certainly appreciate that the President is finally considering a “domestic spending freeze” and will commend him should he succeeded in effecting it–should he freeze spending (adjusted from inflation) at the levels they were when he took office, I highly doubt he’ll get this done.  From one standpoint the move makes a lot of political sense; it would endear the Democrat to the independents who have been abandoning his party in droves.

But, in winning back independents in such a manner, he’d dispirit his base.  Heading into mid-term elections, Democrats can’t afford to antagonize those groups dependent on the largesse of and special treatment from the federal government.

Should Obama succeed in implementing such a freeze, I do hope he’ll apologize to his 2008 opponent for dismissing his plan to do just that.  When John McCain brought up the topic in the first debate last September, Obama quickly shot it down, “The problem with a spending freeze is you’re using a hatchet where you need a scalpel.”

Here’s hoping the President whips out that hatchet and that he doesn’t freeze into place the big budget boondoggles of his erstwhile Congressional colleagues.

Yahoo! currently leads with a story supposedly fact-checking Sarah Palin’s new book, with a headline contending Palin’s book goes rogue on some facts. Because it’s the AP, I use the adverb “supposedly.” When it comes to “fact-checking” Republicans, most of their “facts” tend to be liberal talking points.  And when they do use facts, they usually pull them out of context.

Anyway, this got me wondering, did the AP ever do a fact check on either of Obama’s books? And if so, did Yahoo! lead with such news?

In my studies of mythology, I learned that while each of the Greek heroes is born with great potential, none of them realizes it without the guidance of an Olympian or other immortal, most often the owl-eyed goddess Athena.  Perseus could not have killed Medusa without the shield she gave him.   Achilles would not have slain Hector so easily had she not deceived the Trojan prince.  Herakles would not have been able to remove the threat of the Stymphalian birds had she not given him bronze castanets to frighten them.  Odysseus would not have made it home without her assistance.

The lesson we derive from all of this is that a man’s potential alone does not him a hero make.  He first needs guidance so he can use his gifts to accomplish great things.  Only then does he receive his honors.

Not so with our president.  He won election to the White House based on his powerful presence, his rhetorical gifts and his calm demeanor.  Not even a year after that election, he won the Nobel Peace Prize based on his potential to bring peace among the nations.

In this day and age, it seem that accomplishments don’t matter as much as they once did.  Now, all you need to become a hero is the potential to do good.  Well, unless you’re a Republican or a Mormon.

In this morning’s Wall Street Journal, Matthew Continetti, author of the just released The Persecution of Sarah Palin: How the Elite Media Tried to Bring Down a Rising Star, contends that that good woman’s various public appearances, including an interview with leading Obama cheerleader Oprah Winfrey, could “humanize” this charismatic Republican whom the media have portrayed as a polarizing harridan.

Yet, one wonders, if given a different media reaction to her sudden appearance last fall on the national political stage, she would have emerged as bright new force in politics as did another national political novice in 2008.  Like Barack Obama, she was new to the national scene and charismatic.  Yet, the media celebrated one and demonized the other.  Various news organizations dispatched entire teams to Alaska to dig around in her trash, yet ignored stories about Obama they could research by a few keystrokes and phone calls, you know, like say about how Mrs. Obama’s salary more than doubled soon after her husband won election to the Senate.  And let’s not forget that her husband secured a federal earmark for that employer.

That’s just one story the media didn’t investigate, well, actually they did, kind of.  They highlighted the errors in a chain e-mail account of Mrs. Obama’s professional situation, without probing the sudden increase in her salary nor wondering why such a high-salaried position was not filled when she resigned to become First Lady.

But, the media can’t let up with stories about (and invitations to) Sarah Palin’s ex-son-in-law-to-be (while ignoring the situations of and scandals surrounding various Obama relatives).  There seems to be a method to their madness, er, double standards, something Continetti caught in the prologue to his book.  It seems the media were acting at the behest of the Obama campaign.  Continetti quotes this from a November 5, 2008 article in the Wall Street Journal:

On his weekly strategy call with Democratic senators after the Republican convention in early September, Obama Chief of Staff Jim Messina began, “Let me walk you through this week’s events.” He was cut off by angry senators calling for a more aggressive response to the Republican running-mate pick: “Go after Palin.” “Define Palin.” “Make the race about Palin.” Mr. Messina was startled by the new nervousness in the party ranks.

After the American people responded favorably to Palin’s stirring speech to the GOP convention, Obama had been replaced as the new kid on the block.  The media which had so built him up, would help his campaign destroy her.

And yet the great irony is that while the media made one figure out to be a unifying figure and the other a polarizing force, it was that supposed polarizer who had actually accomplished more in elective office, governing as a pragmatist and building bridges across the partisan divide.  While that supposedly unifier, in 2007, ranked as the most liberal member of the United States Senate.

Neither the President nor his supporters can complain enough about the economic and fiscal problems the Democrats inherited from the previous Republican Administration.  Oftentimes, when I bring up the incumbent Administration’s spending spree these past ten months and how it has caused the federal deficit to explode, our critics (in the comments section) remind me that Obama is still operating on Bush’s budget.*

Not any more.

The federal fiscal year begins on October 1.  With economic data from October 2009, the first full month of a fiscal year where the budget was set by a Democratic President and Congress since the early days of the Clinton era, just being released, we now have a measure of just how the Democrats are doing.  And the picture sure ain’t pretty.  We learned yesterday that the government posted 1 $176.36 billion deficit for October. Not all that long ago, this was a respectable deficit for a year:

The federal government kicked off fiscal year 2010 by posting its widest-ever October budget deficit, the Treasury Department said Thursday. . . .

The $176.36 billion gap is more than $20 billion wider than the shortfall recorded in October 2008, driven up by lower tax receipts, stimulus-related revenue reductions and consistently high government outlays. . . .

At the equivalent of 9.9% of gross domestic product, the figure is the widest U.S. deficit as a share of GDP since 1945.

Consistently high government outlays?  I thought the guy who won the White House did so by promising a “net spending cut”?

——-

*Of course, Bush’s last two budget had to first be passed by Democratic Congresses, so their party shares as much of the blame as does his for the prior fiscal situation.

FROM THE COMMENTS:  One of the great things about blogging is that when you’re in haste to complete a post and leave out a fact which could strengthen your point, one of your readers supplies it for you.  Thanks to ILoveCapitalism for reminding us that the situation for Democrats was even worse than I described:

In 2008, they deliberately broke tradition and held up the FY 2009 budget, so that Obama could add to it and seal it come January. So Obama has really owned his first-year budget, in a special way that previous Administrations haven’t.

UPDATE:  Ed Morrissey:

What better way to kick off Barack Obama’s first full budget year as President than with a deficit that exceeded the White House’s own projections as well as analysts’ expectations?

(Via Instapundit.)

Ruh-roh, Comrades Obama & Pelosi. The independent, freedom & liberty loving Americans are showing their muscles again….

More Americans now say it is not the federal government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have healthcare coverage (50%) than say it is (47%). This is a first since Gallup began tracking this question, and a significant shift from as recently as three years ago, when two-thirds said ensuring healthcare coverage was the government’s responsibility.

The more America hears about Pelosi/Obamacare, the less they like it.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

UPDATE (from Dan):  No wonder Gallup shows Republicans edging ahead of Democrats in 2010 Vote, with independents swinging decisively away from the Democrats.  So Miss Nancy may have scored a big victory n Congress last weekend, but polls show her party are her policies are losing favor with the American people.

As the information drips out about the ties Nidal Malik Hasan had (or aspired t0 have) to terrorists at war with the United States and about his own radical statements, we see two competing narrative developing among the blogging and pundit class.  Conservatives wonder why more wasn’t done to discipline or discharge this American-hating Islamist while those on the left warn us not to make hasty judgments while chiding conservatives for stirring up Islamaphobia.

Of course, those left-wingers don’t get that most conservatives have been careful to distinguish those Islamists who would do us harm from the American Muslims who serves his nation honorably.

And then there’s another other left-wing narrative that has even seeped into the mainstream media, as it did in the days after 9/11:   given the bellicose nature of Americans, there will be a backlash against Muslims for the actions of one lunatic Islamist.  Problem is this is narrative based more on liberal prejudice rather than American reality.  And while, to be sure, there was a spike in anti-Islamic hate crimes after 9/11, hate crimes against Muslims have plummeted since 2001 with 1/12th as many such crimes committed against Muslims in 2007 as were committed against Jews.  (And even with that spike, fewer such crimes were committed against Muslims in 2001 as were committed against Jews in 2007.)

What does it say about the left that they seem more concerned about crimes yet to be committed than about the Islamist motivations of a man who has just murdered over a dozen Americans?  Or, as Michael Nehring puts it, “What says more about America–that we always, ALWAYS manage to refrain from an anti-Muslim backlash, or that progressives are always, ALWAYS, convinced that one is on the way?”

Indeed, American leaders have bent over backwards to avoid such backlash.  Within a week after 9/11, then-President George W. Bush visited an Islamic center in our nation’s capitol, making clear that Americans do not see Muslims as our enemies, “These acts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith. And it’s important for my fellow Americans to understand that.”

But, perhaps we have gone too far to avoid such a backlash.  That’s how Army Major Shawn Keller sees it:

The Army as an institution has been neutered by decades of political correctness and the leaders in Hasan’s chain-of-command failed to act accordingly out of fear of being labeled anti-Muslim and receiving a negative evaluation report. The counter-terrorism agencies knew Hasan was communicating with Al-Qaeda and dismissed it as academic research instead of delving deeper into the probability that a terrorist had infiltrated the ranks. . . .

This has nothing to do with being anti-Islamic.  After numerous tours to Iraq and working with countless cultural advisors on Ft. Bragg, I know dozens of Muslims who I respect and admire greatly. (more…)

Bruce just forwarded me a message he got from Twitter about gay activists setting up a “Bigot List” of donors to Question 1 in Maine, the successful ballot measure to “veto” a marriage law passed by the Pine Tree State’s elected legislature.

Now, like those who publish this list, I opposed Question 1, but their determination to root through the list shows an interest in berating these individuals.  Can you imagine how they would react if radical social conservatives published the list of those who donated to the campaign to defeat Question 1 and dispatched ex-gay leaders to their homes while encouraging church-goers to boycott their businesses?

This type of behavior does little to advance the cause of gay marriage.  Indeed, if it helps anyone, it helps opponents of gay marriage, giving them an additional talking point to show the thuggish tactics of gay activists. I hope (but doubt) that other gay leaders and bloggers will join me in denouncing these antics and encourage advocates of gay marriage to make a better case of their cause.

Remember, the issue should be making the case for state recognition of same-sex marriage, not demonizing those who oppose such recognition.  These folks need take a page from the Service Members Legal Defense Network, a group whose leaders refuse to indulge in such juvenile tactics.

I’ll be heading up to San Francisco to celebrate Thanksgiving with the state’s most important citizen (my newest nephew) and would like to organize a GayPatriot brunch, lunch (or dinner) that weekend.  E-mail me if you’ll be in the Bay Area that weekend and let me know what day (and time of day) works best for you.

And one of our readers is organizing a holiday party for Sunday, December 6 at 4 PM.  e-mail me for details and to RSVP.

While I have registered some of my concerns about California Republican Senate candidate Chuck DeVore in comments to this blog, e-mails to friends (and readers) and in private conversations, I have, by and large, held back on criticizing him on this blog.  While I don’t support his candidacy, I do believe a staunch conservative like he can serve a useful function in a contested Republican primary.  He can help remind the more moderate candidate of the resilience of conservative ideas andd prevent her from moving too far to the left to cater to the supposed big government whims of the electorate of this “blue” state.

Perhaps DeVore ‘s candidacy, announced last year, ensured that when Carly Fiorina launched her bid last week she stake out conservative positions on fiscal issues.  But, to be sure, her public statements before then indicate that she has long been a champion of freedom and opponent of excessive government regulation.

Despite these public statements, DeVore still seems to believe Carly is a Golden State version of Dede Scozzafava, supporting more government spending and greater regulation.  Yesterday, on Ed Morrissey’s radio show, he contended this businesswomen favors massive new regulation of the financial sector, suggesting she refused to blame the Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, for helping contribute to the financial meltdown.

Chuck forgot to do a google search.  Last September, Fiorina faulted Congress for letting “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac get totally out of control.”  Like many Republicans, she faulted the federal government for failing to oversee the GSEs:  ”The oversight of Fannie and Freddie has been woefully inadequate over the years. We’ve seen a series of frauds and abuses coming out of Fannie and Freddie.”  Not just that, the faulted the Democratic Congress for failing to do anything about the GSEs.

She does not favor new regulations, but streamlining existing ones, repealing those that have proven excessively burdensome on private enterprise.

It’s a good thing for the GOP to have the various candidates vying for its Senate nomination to engage in a robust debate on the issues.  But, such a debate does not mean one candidate gets to claim his opponent is the liberal straw woman against whom he would rather square off.  Especially when her record tells a different story.  Like many sensible conservatives, Carly Fiorina is not only aware of the role of the GSEs in last fall’s financial meltdown, but she has said as much in public statements.

It’s time that DeVore respect her positions and address them honestly as they both vie for the GOP nomination.

The Golden State is beginning to lose its luster in large measure because legislators surely assumed that given our state’s climate and natural beauty, people would pay extra to live here.  And that may have worked for a time.  Indeed, having lived here for more than a decade, I am loath to leave.  I love the fact that it’s November and needed only a light cotton sweater when I went out last night.  I still marvel at the beauty of the Santa Monica and San Gabriel Mountains raising behind the many buildings of this megapolis.  And I delight in the palm trees all around us, even right in front of my building.

But, businessmen don’t just see the natural beauty of this state, they also see how the cost of business continues to rise because of the taxes and regulations, generations of Democratic politicians have imposed on us, with all too many Republican governors acquiescing in their meddling.  And so they flee the state.  I recall recently seeing a TV commercial urging California “business owners to relocate to Southern Nevada.”  It was part of a Nevada Development Authority (NDA) campaign reminding Californians of the “high taxes and strict business regulations” in the once-Golden State and highlighting

. . . Nevada’s business-friendly attitude and the fact that business owners pay no corporate or personal income tax and have much lower workers’ compensation rates. “Just looking at the numbers, I don’t know why a California business owner would NOT relocate to Southern Nevada,” said Somer Hollingsworth, NDA president and CEO. “Business owners would be able to make more money, hire more employees, and buy more equipment. They could do more with their business in Nevada than they ever could in California.”

It seems that Barack Obama wants to do to the United States why his fellow partisans have done to the Golden State.  Yesterday, “Emerson Electric Co. Chief Executive Officer David Farr said the U.S. government is hurting manufacturers with regulation and taxes and his company will continue to focus on growth overseas“:

“Washington is doing everything in their manpower, capability, to destroy U.S. manufacturing,” Farr said today in Chicago at a Baird Industrial Outlook conference. “Cap and trade, medical reform, labor rules.” . . . .

Companies will create jobs in India and China, “places where people want the products and where the governments welcome you to actually do something,” Farr said.

Via Instapundit.  What Nevada seeks to be for California businesses, India and China may soon become for American enterprises, should Obama get his way. (more…)

While I frequently disagreed with the domestic policies of the immediate past president of the United States, I regularly call him a “good man,” in large measure because of the abundant evidence of his decency.  Around the time of his fortieth birthday, he gave up alcohol for many reasons, but primarily to preserve his marriage.  Hiw wife delivered a ultimatum to the then-lush, “It’s Jim Beam or me.”  He sent Jim back to Kentucky so he could keep Laura in Texas.

Shortly after that good man took office in 2001, he invited then-Ted Kennedy and the Massachusetts Senator’s son Patrick, a congressman from Rhode Island, as well as other members of that celebrated Democratic family to the White House for a screening of the movie Thirteen Days, a dramatization of the Cuban Missile Crisis.  It was the first such screening at the presidential residence during that Republican’s Administration.  Later, he would praise the Massachusetts Democrat referring him a “great American” whom he had “come to admire” and calling the liberal firebrand “a smart, capable senator.”

Not only did he praise his political rivals, he also offered them a helping hand as the image below shows.

Well, some lefties are starting to take notice of that good man’s fundamental decency.  A number of readers alerted me to a post of a reformed Bush-hater who commenting on how his fellows “RAILED against Bush in 2000…and how we RAILED against the surge in support Bush received post-9/11 when he went to Ground Zero and stood there with his bullhorn in the ruins on that hideous day.”   Upon learning what that good man and the woman (who remains his wife because he jettisoned Jim) did this past week, those Chicago gay boys realized that they had been wrong about the former President:

As we will always be grateful for what George and Laura Bush did this week, with no media attention, when they very quietly went to Ft. Hood and met personally with the families of the victims of this terrorist attack. (more…)

As many of you may know that last Tuesday while voters in Maine rejected gay marriage, voters in Washington State approved domestic partnerships.  That “split decision” occasioned my latest column for Pajamas Media.  Here’s a taste:

Largely lost amidst the hullabaloo of Republican gubernatorial victories in New Jersey and Virginia and a Conservative defeat in New York’s 23rd congressional district last week was a successful citizens’ veto in Maine of a state statute recognizing gay marriage.  At the same time, across the nation, citizens in Washington State approved a statute making “the rights, responsibilities, and obligations  of same-sex and senior domestic partners” the equivalent to those of married spouses without calling the relationships marriage.  The margins were nearly identical.   In the Pine Tree State, 52.8% of voters approved Question 1, rejecting state recognition of same-sex marriage.  In the Evergreen State, 52.56% voted to approve domestic partnerships.

This split decision, if you will, could have tremendous reverberations in the current debate on gay marriage, particularly as it relates to the strategies gay activists employ to secure state recognition of and legal benefits to same-sex couples.  When Maine voters’ approval of Question 1, the Pine Tree State become the 31st state to either reject same-sex marriage or accept the traditional definition of marriage by popular initiative.  No state has recognized same-sex marriage at the ballot box.

By contrast, Washington State become the first state to approve state recognition of same-sex domestic partnerships at the ballot box.*  It’s only been ten years since California became the first state to recognize same-sex relationships when the state legislature enacted the Domestic Partnership Act of 1999.  While some state courts (e.g., Vermont that year and New Jersey in 2003) mandated the state legislature enact legislation recognizing civil unions, until last Tuesday, voters, via a statewide initiative process, had never previously approved such legislation.

Click here to read the rest.

Last night at the SLDN fundraiser, I did my utmost to stay silent when various participants maligned Republicans and “the right.”  Though when one person suggested the Club for Growth had an anti-gay agenda, I blurt out that just wasn’t so.  Just one look at their web page indicates that their primary interest is promoting economic freedom.

Yet, when these left-wingers see the Club as backing more conservative candidates and because, in their narrow view of the world where all conservatives hate gay people, they have determined that the Club must needs have an anti-gay agenda.  When these people see the tea party rallies, they single out the most hateful signs and decide that all people there share the sentiments printed on that isolated placard.

But, then, it really doesn’t matter what the vast majority of signs say at the rallies, left-wing pundits will focus on the hateful ones (after having ignored the even more vile signs carried at anti-Bush rallies in the early part of the current decade).

(H/t for the sign:  Michelle Malkin.)

The media, like all too many on the left are bound and determined to see those rallying against Obama’s policies as having nefarious notions.

There’s an energy on the right and it shouldn’t come as any surprise to those who have studied the history of American conservatism, followed the events in Washington these past few months, even listened to Obama’s campaign speeches.  It has nothing to do with prejudice toward gays or any other minority.  It has to do with an issue that that Democrat addressed in the campaign.  In the third presidential debate, he said:

But there is no doubt that we’ve been living beyond our means and we’re going to have to make some adjustments.

Now, what I’ve done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut.

But, instead of a net spending cut, we’ve had a severe spending explosion.  No wonder Americans are upset.  Had the President acted in accord with his campaign promises, the GOP today would be as Republicans were in the early 1930s, devoid of ideas with a dispirited base.  Instead, Fred Barnes finds “the political energy and ardor are on the center-right“: (more…)

Last night, I attended a Los Angeles-area fundraiser for the Service Members Legal Defense Network (SLDN), a group “dedicated to ending discrimination against and harassment of military personnel affected by “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT).”  They also provide legal assistance to those affected by DADT.

When I learned about the fundraiser, I decided to contribute and attend, in large measure because of the tone of the e-mails they send out to their listserve.  Unlike most such missives I receive from gay organizations, the folks at SLDN do not engage in partisan rancor.  They focus on making the case for repealing the ban and understand they can better achieve their goals by working with Republicans rather than demonizing them.

A case in point was the way the group’s Executive Director, Aubrey Sarvis, handled some questions and comments from people at the last night’s gathering.   The crowd was largely left-wing; I may well have been the only Republican in the room.  A handful of people made some rather ignorant comments about the tactics of the right and the intransigence of Republicans.  One man even suggested that the Club for Growth had an anti-gay agenda.

Sarvis, however, did not indulge these unwarranted attacks on conservative groups an the GOP.  Instead, he insisted that SLDN needs to work with Republicans, reminding us that not all Democrats will vote to lift the ban.  Later, in a private conversation, I learned that they have already reached out to a number of prominent Republicans, hoping to bring them on board.

I decided to double my modest contribution not merely because of the good work they do, but because of how Sarvis handled the anti-Republican rhetoric.  The staff at SLDN do not harbor any animus against Republicans (or if they do, they keep it safely under wraps).  They just don’t think it’s a sound strategy to make enemies of the GOP.

I hope that other gay organizations follow their lead and encourage you to join me in supporting SLDN.