For the first eighteen months of my dissertation research, I focused on the broad topic of my paper, the Olympian Athene and her role in men’s lives.  Yet, I barely wrote a word of the project’s text.  Not until I realized that I was “missing” a chapter in my initial outline did I find my focus.

As soon as I did the research for that chapter, I found myself writing it.  It dawned on me that I needed to treat the endeavor not as one long paper, but as a series of shorter ones.  In the subsequent six months, I have written four such papers, about 60% of the project’s text and in the next ten days expect to add another 15-20% to that tally.

The lesson was simple:  divide up the project, focus on one piece at a time.

And that is how I would go about the various items on the agenda of the gay organizations, take an issue-by-issue approach, starting with the proverbial “low-hanging fruit,” those bills most easily enacted.  The next item, as I’ve been arguing for at least six months, would thus be legislation repealing Don’t Act/Don’t Tell (DADT).  We should pressing for repeal no matter what the Administrations says.

Unlike the Democrats’ health care overhaul, the more time the American people have to consider repeal of DADT, the more they move in the direction of the Administration’s position, or, perhaps, given Mr. Gibbs’ comments yesterday, I should say, the Administration’s ostensible position.  With even a majority of conservatives favoring repeal, pushing repeal would seem to be a no-brainer.

As we consider Gibbs’ comments, let us ask if, in the wake of Obama’s election, the national gay organizations ever met as a group and/or with representatives of the then-incoming Administration to plot strategy, setting down issue priorities and time lines.  From where I stand, it seems that given “Gay Inc’s” enthusiasm for the Democratic Party, the heads of those organizations just assumed that now the Republicans were out of power, the new powers that be would move swiftly on gay priorities. (more…)

Contrasting the way “Comedy Central cower[ed] in the face of a murder threat/warning against ‘South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker“, Glenn Reynolds opines:

Don’t want things you treasure satirized? Just issue a “prediction” and — voila! Meanwhile, note how entirely real radical Muslim threats and violence are treated as just part of the weather — something you have to adapt to — while nonexistent Tea Party violence is an existential threat to the Republic.

But, it’s all part of the narrative.  Those in our media élites have been taught to see “the other” as the victim of Western cultural hegemony, hence they excuse the violent posturing (and actions) of those deemed spokesmen for (or representatives of) the Third World and/or the “oppressed.”  By contrast, any attempt to stand up for the ideas which made this nation great are seen as retrograde, reversion to their perverted image of what our nation’s past was.  (Perverted because they define our past by its worst aspects, oblivious to the fact that at least since Reagan, conservatives don’t want to turn back the clock.)

They seem to only have one lens with which to view conservative activism:  as a vestige of white supremacist movements which darkened our nation’s history.

It’s fine and dandy to attack those folks, but beyond the pale to satirize those who supposedly speak for the “other”, particularly when they threaten violence.  And yet, all too few condemn those leveling the threats in order to drown out debate and suppress satire.

I have a slightly different take on Michael Steele’s recent comments than does Nick.  To be sure, I share the spirit of the words that that our Colorado colleague believes the RNC chair should have spoken.  And I do think Steele could better serve the party by running against Barbara Mikulski for the United States Senate.

That said, Steele does have a point, a point which, if you read his remarks in context, is nearly identical to one that Clarence Thomas made to the Heritage Foundation back in 1987, thought far less artfully expressed.

Allahpundit, who has looked at Steele’s remarks in context, offers:

All Steele’s saying, when you translate this from Steele-ese to effective PR-speak, is that the GOP needs to repair relations with minority voters before it can expect them to give conservatism a chance. It’s not that the party has nothing to offer, it’s that the strategic choices it’s made — and do note, he’s not the first RNC chair to disown the southern strategy — have poisoned perceptions of its policies. Acknowledge that forthrightly and you win points for honesty, which you can use as a foundation to build trust. All of which is well and good, but the “you don’t have a reason” line is naturally being beamed out by big media and used as an opportunity to revisit some of Steele’s less charming bon mots over the past year. Which raises the question: Why is he still even speaking in public? If he can’t contain the gaffes, fine; just turn off the mic and fundraise.

Dan Riehl offers a similar sentiment:

By focusing on only one line from remarks RNC Chair Michael Steele made to a group, one has to wonder if some folks don’t have issues with blacks they actually do need to resolve. Slamming Steele for these remarks is not helpful to the GOP because Steele is correct. He isn’t calling for the GOP to change it’s positions, as many white so called RINOs regularly do. He’s speaking to the GOP’s inability to pierce barriers built up by the Left in his own effort to do that very thing. (more…)

The outgoing House Majority Leader attempted to walk back from a mean-spirited insult he leveled against Tea Party protesters:

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said today that he regretted calling tea party protests “un-American” but compared the angry rhetoric of some Republican leaders who goad them on to the fiery rantings of a controversial Depression-era priest sympathetic to the Nazis.

“That was not a good phrase, not a good use of language. It was not correct,” the Maryland Democrat said of an op-ed column he and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote in USA Today last summer. The article was a response to protesters who disrupted town hall meetings on their party’s health care reform proposals, hanging members of Congress in effigy and railing against “death panels.”

Hoyer told reporters that while “there are some activities that are not consistent with civil engagement,” he said he regretted having read the column too quickly before approving it.

Wonder if the Democrat ever said that there were some anti-Bush activities in the early 2000s that were not consistent with civil engagement”.  Note anything missing from Hoyer’s remarks?

Well, here’s the caption to the picture going with the article quoted above, “House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is apologizing for a column he co-wrote is which he said, ‘Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American.’”  See anything wrong with that caption?

The editors at AOL inserted a word that Mr. Hoyer did not use.  The Maryland Democrat did not apologize.

And even as he “regretted” his remark, he went on to compare Republican rhetoric to Father Coughlin which showed how clueless he is about American history, Republican ideas or both.  That mean-spirited Catholic preacher who rose to prominence in the 1930s was, as Jonah Goldberg has repeatedly pointed out, was a “man of the left“:  he inveighed against laissez-faire economics, “’international bankers’ and similar ilk.”  (So, who of late has been inveighing against Wall Street?) (more…)

As embarrassing as it is to have an American president who can’t get enough of travelling the world apologizing for what he (and our enemies) perceives as our Nation’s wrongs to whomever will pause long enough for him to bow, comes today RNC Chairman Michael Steele to do the domestic equivalent:

Why should an African-American vote Republican?

“You really don’t have a reason to, to be honest — we haven’t done a very good job of really giving you one. True? True,” Republican National Chairman Michael Steele told 200 DePaul University students Tuesday night.

Can someone please explain why we need an opposition party if its leader is trying so hard to validate the most insidious and obscene false characterization of it himself? Did he turn over the Queen of Diamonds? (Read the rest of the article to see Steele play the race card, victim, and pander to the NAACP…I hope he spoke before dinner had been served.)

Chairman Steele’s response wasn’t, but should have been:

“Why, it would seem to me that the ideas of smaller government, a strong national defense, greater individual liberty, lower taxes would appeal to all Americans. Frankly, we’ve done a good job communicating these values, but a poor job living up to them. Indeed, when we put forth policies and execute programs based on these core principles, the Republican party thrives. At times, however—and I have to honestly say that, to a degree my own time at the helm has occasioned some of this—we get so caught up in the game of government—that Inside-The-Beltway mentality—that we lose track of these important concepts and let power go to our heads.”

Then he should have hit them with this:

“As I said, these are universal American concepts, and frankly, I find the concept of “reaching out” to specific racial segments of the American family anathema to what it means to be American, and quite offensive in its supposition. What black American wouldn’t embrace the concepts of smaller governemnt? Of individual liberty and responsibility? Of lower taxes and a strong defense? To suggest that the Republican party—or any party—needs to do something to appeal specifically to a racial group is insulting to that group. It’s saying that black Americans categorically are opposed (or at least not attracted) to these very values upon which our Nation was founded. Really? Who thinks that? Obviously the Democratic Party does, as they are constantly bringing up race as if we as Americans have a different set of values or goals simply because we don’t share the same skin tone. That, my friends, is offensive. That is racist. That is why I prefer to be a Republican. For even with all our failings that come with the trappings of power, we have always been the party of equal opportunity and equal treatment based in individual liberty and freedom from government overrreach.”

Perhaps he’ll be availed the opportunity to revise and extend his remarks?

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from an undisclosed secret HQ)