Last night, with Andrew Sullivan’s solipsistic 2008 essay and other “rights”/personal validation arguments on gay marriage in my head, I recalled a scene, 3 seconds actually, from the movie Fiddler on the Roof* which defined marriage better than any of the “feel-good” arguments put forward by the gay marriage movement. At 2:51 in the clip below, Motel (Leonard Frey) promises Tevye (Topol) that should he wed his daughter, Tzeitel (Rosalind Harris), she “will not starve.”

To be sure, there’s more to this scene that those telling three seconds.  A few moments earlier, the meek tailor had earned the admiration of his beloved when he stood up for himself.  How much is said with Tzeitel’s astonished expression as she witnesses the gentle boy she loved becoming a man.  Motel has moved from talking about his feelings for Tevye’s daughter to talking about what he’s going to do to take care of her.

Only when he promises to make sure Tevye’s daughter has enough to eat (at a time when starvation was a daily concern) does the father realize that his eldest’s intended is “beginning to talk like a man.”

Now, I don’t mean to suggest by this post that gay marriage advocates ignore this aspect of marriage, of one spouse taking care of another.  But, in the current debate, this point takes a back seat to personal validation, equality and “rights” arguments, yet is more central to the notion of marriage than most arguments put forward in defense of extending the institution’s government benefits to same-sex couples.

That said, I would dare say that the better part of gay couples who seek to have their unions recognized as marriage get that aspect of the institution, at least the ones I know do.  There is a dichotomy between gay marriage as promoted and same-sex unions as practiced.

The issue is making that argument to gay marriage skeptics and opponents.  And maybe some of the couples are making that case in that San Francisco courtroom, but that’s not the place they should be making it.  Had they instead made that case to the people of California in 2008, they wouldn’t be pleading their cause to a sympathetic judge today.

* (more…)

Maybe I was wrong about Democrats, at least Democrats in this day and age.

Maybe they don’t immediately seek to increase spending in response to every social problem.  It seems the 12/12 Democrats have a different kind of reaction every time, they or the nation hits a speed bump (or something worse).  They just blame Canada.

Oh, I’m sorry, in my zeal to find a musical expression of the Democrats’ problem, I got the action right (blaming), but the object wrong.  With a new CBO report showing that the stimulus cost even more than the meager $787 billion Democrats thought necessary to keep unemployment under 8%, Democrats are trotting out their all-purpose bogeyman, George W. Bush, even though that good man retired to Texas over a year ago:

House Democratic leaders said a report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) showing a $1.35 trillion deficit in 2010 was the result of policies put in place by President George W. Bush and Republicans in Congress, who controlled the House and Senate until the 2006 elections.

“Today’s CBO report is a clear reminder of the Bush and Republican Congress-era policies that have resulted in the loss of millions of jobs, led to the worst recession since the Great Depression, and turned record surpluses under the Clinton Administration into record deficits,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a statement.

Um, Nancy, haven’t you been Speaker now for, like, three years?  And, um, well, doesn’t the Constitution give the power of the purse to Congress?  When are you going to take responsibility for your actions.

Oh, and, one more thing, that blame Bush thing worked wonders for Senator Martha Coakley.

ABC News Z. Byron Wolf reports that Senator Carl Levin, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee

. . . told reporters today that he has delayed plans to hold Senate hearings to examine the current “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy at the request of administration officials. Why would they want him to hold off? The officials Levin talked to said they expect the President will address the issue of homosexuals serving in the military during the State  of the Union Address.

Let’s hope he’s right. By using the bully pulpit, Obama could set things in motion for speedy repeal.  But, if he is to address tis tomorrow night, then, let’s also hope that he has already laid the groundwork for repeal by avoiding the mistakes Bill Clinton made 17 years ago, having first consulted with the military brass before making his move.

Such a move would not only be good for our national security as it would increase the pool of available recruits.  (Nor would our armed forces have to divert resources to rooting out homosexuals.)  This would also help Obama protect his left flank.  Indeed, Allahpundit wonders “if the big reason Obama has held back on this until now (and, maybe, on gay marriage) is precisely because he’s thinking strategically and wants to be able to toss it out there when he most needs a boost from his base. This ought to do it.”

Not just that, most polls shows that Americans favor repealing DADT, with even a substantial majority of conservatives favoring allowing openly gay men and lesbian to serve in the armed forces.

So, the president plans on using the same hatchet he once faulted John McCain for wanting to use to control federal spending.  In the State of the Union address, he’ll be calling “for a three-year freeze in spending on many domestic programs, and for increases no greater than inflation after that, an initiative intended to signal his seriousness about cutting the budget deficit“.

On the surface, this sounds like a good thing, finally holding the line on federal spending.  But, alas, it’s not the same “hatchet” that John McCain vowed to use should he win election to the White House.  For the president  to do that, he’d have to cut spending, freezing it at the levels of George W. Bush’s last budget (which was passed by a Democratic Congress).  Karl Rove unpacks this “election year ploy:”

Mr. Obama rigged the game by giving himself plenty of room to look tough on spending. He did that by increasing discretionary domestic spending for the last half of fiscal year 2009 by 8% and then increasing it another 12% for fiscal year 2010.

So discretionary domestic spending now stands at $536 billion, up nearly 24% from President George W. Bush’s last full year budget in fiscal 2008 of $433.6 billion. That’s a huge spending surge, even for a profligate liberal like Mr. Obama. The $102 billion spending increase doesn’t even count the $787 billion stimulus package, of which $534 billion remains unspent.

If he were serious about cutting the deficit, he might think about canceling the appropriation of that unspent $534 billion, preventing it from becoming a further drain on the Treasury.

Without such cuts, the president’s freeze is like going on a diet by continuing to eat the same amount of food.

Say a guy who, realized that he was putting on weight, so just over a year ago, resolves to go on a diet.  But, first, he adopted a change in his routine, visiting the donut shop every morning (except the first and third Monday and the fourth Tuesday) whereas previously he had gone only on Tuesdays, every other Wednesday, every third Thursday and on weekends.

But, this time, he really means business.   He’s going to “freeze” his visits to the donut shop at the current level.  He won’t be adding any new visits, but he’ll still be visiting the donut shop more than he did when he first complained about his weight problem.

I mean, he used to be a professor of constitutional law so he should know how the Constitution defines his job.  In an interview with Diane Sawyer, however, he offered a job description which, well, I couldn’t find in that august document:

You know, there is a tendency in Washington to believe our job description, of elected officials, is to get reelected. That’s not our job description. . . .  Our job description is to solve problems and to help people.

It is?

Couldn’t find that in Article II, §2 of the Constitution:

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment. (more…)

To understand the decline in quality of the debate on gay marriage from its early potential to its current name-calling, you can start by reading two pieces by Andrew Sullivan 19 years apart.  In the first, “Here Comes the Groom,” he outlines a solid argument on the merits of extending the institution of marriage to same-sex couples.  In the second, “My Big Fat Straight (sic) Wedding,” he rhapsodizes about how wonderful state recognition of gay marriage makes him feel.  With said recognition, his “wedding”* “shifted a sense of our own identity within our psyches and even our souls.”

That later form of “argument” is currently on display in a San Francisco court room where lawyers are making a 1970s case for gay marriage, it’s all about feelings, nothing more than feelings.  These lawyers have, in the words of my friend Charles Winecoff, turned gay marriage advocates’ “fetish for state-sanctioned self-esteem into a federal case.”

In the trial, Perry v. v. Schwarzenegger, a lesbian couple from Berkeley and a gay couple from Burbank, seek to overturn California’s Proposition 8.  And in so doing, Charles reports, they’re trying to make federal law out of a saccharine ’70s song:

[Attorney Ted Olson] Olson opened the show by declaring that “domestic partnership has nothing to do with love” – essentially admitting that the two couples are seeking legal recognition of their feelings. Then the complainants took to the stand to deliver a string of what even theLos Angeles Times called “emotional accounts,” proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that non-celebrities no longer need Oprah (or Jerry Springer) to validate their existence.

First, Jeffrey Zarrillo testified that ”the word marriage” would give him the ability “to partake in family gatherings, friends and work functions as a married individual standing beside my parents and my brother and his wife.  The pride that one feels when that happens.”  Does he mean that, like Michelle Obama and her country, he never before felt pride being with his partner?  In their nine years as a couple, did they never attend any of those events together?

If “the word” means so much, why not just call yourself married? (more…)

Right now, what Obama really needs is a prime minister, someone better suited than he to attend to the day-to-day management of government.  With said person in place, say, as White House Chief of Staff, the president can do what he does best, give speeches and otherwise interact with the news media.  Basically, he needs a more adept manager reminding him of political and fiscal reality.

His right-hand man in the West Wing (well, with Obama, he might better be called a left-hand man), Rahm Emanuel, is first and foremost a political partisan.  He would be better served someone who both knows the way Washington works and has earned the respect of Republicans.  Bill Clinton picked just such a man for the post when he tapped Leon Panetta as his Chief of Staff in the summer of 1994 as the first signs of the coming Republican tsunami were being made manifest in special election victories and popular unrest over the then-incumbent’s health care initiatives.

Panetta took over too late to avoid major losses for his party in the 1994 elections, but he helped the Clinton White House find its balance in the second half of the Democrat’s first term.   His boss then became the first Democrat to win reelection in 48 years.  Obama would be wise to follow his fellow Democrat’s example and appoint a Panetta-like figure to replace Emanuel.

But, instead of going for a respected politician with a knack for policy, “Obama’s first significant personnel change in the wake of the Massachusetts debacle”,  Jennifer Rubin reports, “is to hire back his campaign manager“:

Not a new economic team. Not a new chief of staff. Not even a new national security staff to replace the gang that dropped the ball on the Christmas Day bomber. No, with the Obami, it is never about substance or getting the policy right. It’s not about governance. It is about the perpetual campaign. So the campaign manager gets the emergency call. (more…)

Welcome Instapundit Readers!

In her piece of the significance of Scott Brown’s victory last week, Peggy Noonan asks whether or not it was a backlash:

It seems cooler than that, a considered and considerable rejection that appears to be signaling a conservative resurgence based on issues and policies, most obviously opposition to increased government spending, fear of higher taxes, and rejection of the idea that expansion of government can or will solve our economic challenges.

Like Fred Barnes, who sees Brown’s victory as representing as alignment between the tea party movement and moderates, Peggy observes that Brown eschewed social conservatism to articulate the real concerns of the voters:

They focused on the relationship between spending and taxing, worried about debt and deficits, were moderate in their approach to social issues. They didn’t have wedge issues, they had issues.

That’s what the polls have been showing, Americans think the government is doing too much.  And this is where Republicans need to be moving.  The concerns of the American people increasingly align with the bedrock principles of the GOP, principles which our party, in recent years, took for granted.

Thus, as Freeman Hunt puts it, the “answer”, for Republicans is “easy“:

It’s a no-brainer. It’s even Constitutional. People are sick of the spending, sick of the debt, sick of the bailouts, sick of the handouts, sick of the back room deals, sick of the taxpayer funded bribes, sick of the bureaucrats. They want unyielding, unapologetic fiscal conservatism.

(H/t:  Instapundit.)  In short, what the GOP needs do is return to its Reaganite roots.  As the Gipper might have said, freedom is the glue which holds our party together.  Let’s hope his heirs remember this as this go forward this fall.

Pew Research Center: Health Care Ranks Eighth on List of Public Priorities

Asking whether Barbara Boxer will be the next victim of angry voters, Kimberly Dvorak wonders how the aftershocks of Brown Revolution will reverberate the Golden State:

The Massachusetts senatorial elections sent waves of uncertainty to many incumbents across the country and California’s Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has watched her poll numbers drop and competitors pull within single digits. . . .

The fact that Boxer’s support is frozen at 46 percent against all GOP challengers suggest that the race, for now, is about her rather than those running against her. Boxer is viewed very favorably by 25 percent of California voters but very unfavorably by 34 percent.

(H/t Instapundit.)  With the Golden State’s unemployment at 12.4%, the “fifth worst jobless rate in nation“, Mrs. Boxer certainly has some explaining to do. She defended her vote on the “stimulus,” saying it would create jobs in the Golden State.

Looks like this three-term incumbent is going to have a tough time running on her record this fall.  But, I’d advise my fellow California Republicans not to get cocky.  Mrs. Boxer excels at running against her opponents.  Her eventual opponent needs be prepared to defend her- or himself against this partisan firebrand’s gutter politics.  Heck, she’d go to the sewer if that’s what it took to defeat a Republican.

In the wake of Scott Brown’s upset victory in Massachusetts last week, the conventional wisdom is that he’ll be defeated should he run for reelection in 2012.  But, those who forecast his defeat should bear in mind that four years after William Weld was elected Governor of the Bay State in 1990, he won by a margin of over 2 to 1, defeating a Democrat with a hallowed name on that side of the political aisle, Mark Roosevelt.

Now, to be sure, Brown is a different situation, running for a second term in a federal office.  And Bay State voters have been more willing to give Republicans the keys to the State House than berths inside the Beltway.  But, one reason Teddy Kennedy did so well in his home state, despite his troubles with alcohol and women, was that he actually attended to the state, assembling a top-notch constituent service operation and returning frequently.

Brown can hold the seat that the celebrated Democrat once held by doing what he did, no, not womanizing and carousing, but by returning to the state frequently and connecting with his constituents.  He could start by visiting cities, like say, Boston and Pittsfield, where he fared particularly poorly.  Within his first seven months in office (i.e., by the end of the summer, before Labor Day) have held a town hall in each of the state’s fourteen counties.

He should also avoid (as much as possible) stumping for his fellow Republicans outside the Bay State, as he will certainly be asked to do.  As Peggy puts it, he “needs to avoid the Descent of the Congressional Vampires“:

they’ll want him fund-raising and speaking all over the country, not knowing or perhaps caring that the best work he can do for his party is succeeding in the eyes of his constituents, who couldn’t care less about the fortunes of the GOP. He needs to avoid the vampires in the nicest possible way. (more…)

In 2008, Arkansas Congressman Marion Berry ran unopposed for his 7th term in the House of Representatives. This fall, he’s not running at all:

Arkansas Rep. Marion Berry is expected to announce his retirement tomorrow morning, according to three sources briefed on the decision.

Berry will become the sixth Democrat in a competitive seat to leave in the last two months but the first to announce his retirement since the party’s special election loss in Massachusetts last Tuesday.

John McCain won the district by 21-points. Last Friday, Vic Snyder from the state’s neighboring First Congressional District announced his retirement.  Call it the Brown effect?

This leaves Mike Ross in the 4th Congressional District as the only Razorback Democrat running for reelection to the House.

Do the Obama Democrats (Obami, as Jennifer Rubin calls ‘em) understand what’s been going on in the world? They’re still pressing ahead on health care, even as it becomes increasingly clear that the American people don’t want the legislation they’re proposing. Not just that, the president’s support of this overhaul hurts his party while allowing the Republican Party, the once ostensibly defunct GOP, to gain strength among independent voters.

Shouldn’t the Democrats have realized how unpopular reform was when they could not pass it on its own merits? They had to pay off certain Senators to secure their votes. The polls shows that despite the president’s repeated efforts to sell his policy, opposition to Obamacare continues to grow. And a Republican running against the health care overhaul is elected to serve out the term of the Senate’s one-time champion of said reform, winning a decisive victory in Masachusetts, supposedly the bluest of blue states.

But, even as Democrats keep losing, they persist, much like the Black Knight:

Note how said knight says, he “always triumphs.” He believes the mythology written about him–much as Democrats believed what they were reading in the press–with a Democratic supermajority and a charismatic president, this time, a health care overhaul would finally pass.

In this case, their “myth” blinds them to reality.

Jennifer Rubin has an answer:

Jim Geraghty observes of Obama’s appearance in Ohio that the president was ”defensive, prickly, almost indignant that he’s found himself in the tough spot that he’s in.” That’s pretty much par for the course when things aren’t going well. I think that superior temperament thing only works when he’s on top.

Emphasis added.

Perhaps the most annoying (and counterproductive) thing about the most active advocates of state recognition of same-sex marriage is their tendency to paint all those who support the traditional definition of marriage with a broad brush.  They define them as “haters,” with Cindy McCain apparently joining their ranks by posing for a picture with duct tape on her mouth and a “No H8″ tattoo on her cheek (or agreeing to have said accessories photoshopped in).

As if someone somewhere is preventing her from speaking out on gay marriage. Yet, this very image is the inversion of reality. If someone speaks out in favor of gay marriage, they instantly earn the accolades of the PC powers that be and are often heralded for their courage. But, if they dare challenge the politically correct view on this controversial topic, they are frequently branded as haters and their livelihoods threatened.

Larry O’Connor reminds us of “Scott Eckern, the Artistic Director of Sacramento Music Theatre [who] was forced to resign after the public revelation that he donated $1,000 to the Prop. 8 campaign.”  It is the gay marriage activists who wish to silence those opposed to state recognition of same-sex marriage.

Shouldn’t they want to hear their arguments so they can better challenge them in the court of public opinion?  But instead, they seek to ostracize them, punishing them for their point of view.  Via Glenn, we learn further details of this “new blacklist,” no, not against advocates of same-ex marriage, but against those of traditional marriage:

A $26,000 contribution to the initiative that banned same-sex marriage in California appears to have cost a 96-year-old former Mormon temple president his seat on the board that oversees Oakland’s historic Paramount Theatre.

Now, if this Mormon used his position on said board to advocate traditional marriage, the City Elders of Oakland would have a point, but if he happens to hold the view he does, while attending, without prejudice, to his duties on the board, then there is no problem.  Instead of punishing such an individual for his position on gay marriage, they should learn to counter, in a civil manner, his argument. (more…)

Back in the mid-1990s when I worked on Capitol Hill, I found that certain Congressman stood out because of the manner in which they treated staffers.  Some seemed to turn away if it looked like you were about to talk to them.  Others would respond courteously to your greetings, but in a regal manner, as if that were the response owed to polite peons.

And then, there were the just plain decent ones.  And they didn’t divide themselves along partisan lines.  Phil Crane may have been haughty (would later lose his seat), but Eleanor Holmes Norton was amicable, often chatting with staffers in the elevator and thanking those who waited for her to exit before doing so themselves.

Two members, however, stood out for their decency, then-Reps. Joe Scarborough (now of MSNBC) and Harold Ford, Jr., the former a Republican, the latter a Democrat.  I believe their offices were right next to each other.  Each had a great smile and a pleasant manner.  Perhaps, it’s because of Ford’s friendly manner that I’ve been cheering him on as he contemplates challenging New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in their state’s Democratic primary.

But, alas, as I learned in a post linked by Glenn Reynolds, that good man has attracted the animus of New York’s “Angry Gays.”  And we know they’re not easily placated.  ”Their beef seems to knows no bounds: Ford’s dismal anti-gay voting record back in Tennessee.”  Yet, the post provides no details of said voting record.  Still, gay activists in the Empire State have been quick to condemn this young man, with their “rapid-fire” response to his talk of challenging Gilibrand confirming “the potency of their furor — and newfound commitment to taking on politicians deemed enemies of the gay state.”

Enemies of the gay state?  Huh?  Sounds like the attitude of defenders of Communist regimes.

Guess it’s not enough for the gay thought police if someone changes his mind on gay marriage (as Ford has done, now supporting it).  There is no placating some gay activists who demand complete subservience to a set ideology, including adherence to the social justice code of the “progressive” elites.

So, an acquaintance of mine, young guy who is attracted to older guys, attracts the (online) attention of a guy at the upper end of his desired demographic.  Said older man, born about the time of Dewey’s loss to Truman, uses the term “boy” to describe himself in his online moniker.  And no, it’s not some variant of “Boyhunter” or “Boylover.”

Even said acquaintance, born about the time of Reagan’s victory, doesn’t describe himself as “boy,” yet admits being attracted to “daddies.”

So, what does it say about a 60-year-old man interested in 20-something men who calls himself “boy”?  (I understand my acquaintance declined the invitation to get acquainted.)

UN climate change expert: there could be more errors in report:

The Indian head of the UN climate change panel defended his position yesterday even as further errors were identified in the panel’s assessment of Himalayan glaciers.

Dr Rajendra Pachauri dismissed calls for him to resign over the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change’s retraction of a prediction that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035.

But he admitted that there may have been other errors in the same section of the report, and said that he was considering whether to take action against those responsible.

Oh, and, this fellow Pachauri, he’s not a climate scientist. He got is Ph.D. in economics.

Let’s not forget, the IPCC’s 2007 report “which won it the Nobel Peace Prize” based its forecast on the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers “not on a consensus among climate change experts, but on a media interview with a single Indian glaciologist in 1999.”   Wow, just wow.  Media interview as scientific evidence.  Seems sometimes the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) consensus is based on a series of media interviews (and slide shows).

The more people probe this and other reports alleging AGW, the more errors we’ll find that challenge their premise.

And take note of Pachauri’s reaction, it’s all about him and not letting the climate skeptics win:  ”“I know a lot of climate sceptics are after my blood, but I’m in no mood to oblige them”.  Instead he calls it a “collective failure” (like socialism?).   So, it’s all about “not obliging” the climate skeptics where scientific accuracy takes a back seat, at least to Dr. (of economics) Pachauri.

With some Democrats and left-wing bloggers still pushing Obama’s health care overhaul, we gain a better understanding of their view of the popular will:  they believe it’s what the people want because they know just exactly what it is the people want.  Even more so than do the people themselves.

Like the cartoons?  Support the artist!