Shortly before I left on my cross country trip, while browsing in the Barnes & Noble bookstore in the Grove, I chanced upon a book which seemed particularly relevant to the current debate on gay marriage, Elizabeth Gilbert’s, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage.  The title itself sounds like a reference the gay movement’s sudden embracing of an idea which many activists, until quite recently, so passionately rejected.

Reading the dustjacket and learning how this bestselling author was “forced” to marry her Brazilian sweetheart so they could live together in the United States, I wondered if any gay marriage advocates had done what she had done, studied the institution of marriage to better understand it meaning:

Having been effectively “sentenced to wed”, Gilbert decided to tackle her fears of matrimony by becoming a student of the institution, trying once and for all to understand what this befuddling, vexing, and contradictory, yet stubbornly enduring habit of human marriage actually is. Over the next ten months, as she and Felipe wandered haphazardly across Southeast Asia, waiting for the U.S. government to permit them to return to America and get married, the only thing she talked about, read about, or thought about was this perplexing subject.

Committed tells the story of one woman’s efforts through contemplation, historical study and extensive conversation with every soul she encountered along the way — to make peace with marriage before she entered its estate once more. Told with Gilbert’s trademark wit, intelligence and compassion, the book attempts to “turn on all the lights” when it comes to matrimony, frankly examining questions of compatibility, infatuation, fidelity, autonomy, family tradition, economic realities, social expectations, divorce risks and humbling responsibilities. (more…)

This morning, I posted the piece about Eleanor Clift’s lament that Obama is just plain not blaming Bush enough largely on a lark.  It amused me that a left-of-center columnist is as obsessed with the former Republican president as is his Democratic successor such that she just makes up facts about other Republican presidents (you know, those with names beginning with “R”) she also resents.

That said, her lament does provide a wonderful window in the world view of Eleanor and her ilk.

First, her response assumes that people hate George W. Bush as much as she and her peers do.  Sure, the Republican left office with low approval ratings, but most people who, in late 2008, didn’t approve of the job he was doing don’t spend their days, in 2010, obsessing about the man and blaming him for Obama’s failures.

Second, this shows the readiness of such commentators to blame Bush in specific (and Republicans in general) for all manner of the nation’s woes.  Even though the Democrats have been in power for 18 months (longer if you count their congressional majorities as of January 2007), it just can’t be their fault that the economy has not yet recovered and jobs are not in abundance because Democrats are good smart, people who have all the right answers to all the world’s problems.  And Republicans are just bad, mean (not very bright) people neglecting the common good to coddle their corporate cronies.

They just think that when things go poorly, the buck must necessarily stop with Republicans.

Over at the Kansas City Star, Derek Donovan posts the entire NAACP press release on its resolution condemning “racism within the tea party”:

The resolution condemns the bigoted elements within the Tea Party and asks for them to be repudiated. The NAACP delegates presented this resolution for debate and passage after a year of vitriolic Tea Party demonstrations during which participants used racial slurs and images. In March, members of the Congressional Black Caucus were accosted by Tea Party demonstrators and called racial epithets. Civil rights icon John Lewis was spit on, while Congressman Emanuel Cleaver was called the “N” word and openly gay Congressman Barney Frank was called an ugly anti-gay slur.

(H/t:  Gateway Pundit)

Seems they based their entire resolution on a jaundiced view of the Tea Parties.  By their method of argument, if fringe elements of a large movement use hateful rhetoric, that rhetoric can be used to criticize the movement.

First, what the resolution is asking to be done (not sure who they’re asking given the use of the passive) has already been done.  Tea Party leaders have repudiated the handful of racist slurs at image, heart and seen at a handful of Tea Party (yet described in a plethora of media reports, blog posts and opinion columns).

Second, look at the actual “facts” cited by the organization.  Despite a $100,000 prize for video evidence of such activity, no one has stepped forward to provide the video and claim the money.  As Deroy Murdock explains:

If such comments actually were uttered, the NAACP and its leftist allies would have played them over and over and over and over and over and over and over to embarrass and humiliate Republicans, conservatives and the allegedly racist tea party movement. In fact, no one has stepped forward to collect Andrew Breitbart’s $100,000 prize for any documentary proof that these supposed race bombs ever were dropped on their targets.

Perhaps, it was the serendipity of catching this headline, 3 officers plead not guilty in Katrina shootings, while pondering the media’s comparatively* kid-glove treatment of the Administration’s reaction to the Gulf Oil Spill that reminded me just how jaundiced was their coverage of Katrina.

Here we have a story of the misconduct of New Orleans police officers, individuals answerable to municipal, not federal, authorities, yet all too many media outlets covered the story as if the Bush White House and the Republican’s appointees were entirely responsible for the mayhem in The Big Easy in the immediate aftermath of Katrina:

Five former officers already have pleaded guilty to helping cover up the shootings, which happened in the midst of another of the scorching days after Katrina. Bodies floated in filthy flood waters. Shots could be heard throughout the city, and many believed they were aimed at the endless stream of helicopters, the police, the rescue crews.

This all relates to the overheated media coverage of Katrina, with many false stories making their way to the public through the media, such as at the “legend” of shot being fired at helicopters.  This is not to excuse the Administration for some of the bungled federal efforts at relief, but to point out that officials from other levels of government responded in a manner which compromised relief efforts and conributed to the chaos.

This story serves to remind us that municipal officials did not always respond in a professional manner, yet somehow, somewhere a narrative was created of George W. Bush’s almost exclusive incompetence.

* (more…)

Democrats attack Wall Street while prominent Democrats rake in case from the financial sector, their allies in the media continue to trash the GOP as the party of big business, even as the big-government policies more readily favored by Democrats (and all too frequently by all too many Republicans) do seem to help big businesses (and big banks) maintain their size and increase their market share.  They have crafted this narrative of a big business/big bank/Republican axis.

And Katrina vanden Heuvel, “editor of the liberal Nation magazine,” has become the latest pundit on the left to repeat this notion.  After she accused Missouri Republican Roy Blunt of standing “with the insurance and drug companies against health-care reform“, the Washington Examiner‘s Timothy P. Carney set the record straight and took his leftist counterpart to task:

It’s a knee-jerk reaction for many liberals — they hate industry and they love government, and so they just assume that big business is against big government. But they’re wrong. Sometimes, they’re very wrong.

It seems this liberal “narrative,” like the notion of “racist” Tea Parties (as if racism must needs be behind every popular movement on the right) is based on prejudice rather than evidence.

Just contrast the two writers.  Ms. vanden Heuvel fails to marshal any facts to buttress her accusation about those who stood with Mr. Blunt (not, I might add, against health care reform per se, but against the Democrats’ massive health care overhaul.)   Furthermore, she provides no evidence whatsoever to support her contention that Republicans “have served as the guardians of entrenched corporate interests, as opposed to the common good.”  I wonder if she has even the faintest understanding of the ideas undergirding Republican opposition to the bill what she deems reform.

That she would suggest they aren’t interested in the “common good” betrays her real prejudices against her ideological adversaries.

Carney, on the other hand, provides abundant links to show just how the drug lobby did double time to move the passage of Obamacare.

UPDATE: (more…)

Former President George W. Bush has long been the all-purpose bogeyman of Democratic Party and their various echo chamber in the mainstream media and left-of-center blogosphere.  They blamed all manner of woes on him during his tenure his office, ran against him in 2008 (even though he wasn’t on the ballot) and his successor continues to blame his difficulties on him.

Now, Newsweek columnist Eleanor Clift tells us, he just  ”isn’t blaming George W. Bush enough.”

Obama inherited a big mess, and people are frustrated that he hasn’t fixed the economy. Counseling patience together with a show of resolve and determination helped President Reagan weather the storm in his first midterm election under conditions remarkably similar to today. Unemployment stood at 10.8 percent when voters went to the polls in November 1982, and Reagan’s numbers were 49-47, almost identical to Obama’s (50-47).

One key difference: Obama hasn’t done as good a job as Reagan of blaming his predecessor. Jimmy Carter for years served as the GOP’s version of Herbert Hoover while Obama let George W. Bush slip away into the ether, a former president so invisible that he might as well be in a witness-protection program. Bush’s upcoming book, Decision Points, won’t be released until a week after the November election, reinforcing the GOP’s decision to keep the unpopular president out of the mix in the midterms.

(H/t: CampaignSpot.)

Seems Ms. Clift is using the poll most favorable to the president and she’s forgetting that we’re not yet in November.  Polls could still go down.  Also recall this, Ronald Reagan’s economic plan, while enacted in 1981, didn’t kick in until 1983.  The Gipper never promised us unemployment would remain below 8% within six months of the passage of his tax cuts.

And then there’s this and let me quote Ms. Clift again to emphasize something she said:  ”Obama hasn’t done as good a job as Reagan of blaming his predecessor.”  Emphasis added.  Please, Eleanor, please show us where after January 20, 1981, Ronald Reagan blamed Jimmy Carter for the mess he inherited.  Indeed, see if you can find him blaming his the then-defeated incumbent between November 4, 1980 and his inauguration ten weeks later.

Folks like Ms. Clift really can’t let go of their obsession with George W. Bush nor their misunderstandings of Ronald Wilson Reagan.  So fixated have they become on the immediate past president that they think all will be made well (in their psyches at least) if they keep reminding themselves people how horrible, no good and very bad he really is was.

Saw something on CNN while I was doing my cardio yesterday about how Democrats intend to use the near unanimous Republican opposition to the 2000-plus page financial overhaul bill against them. Guess they feel that running against Wall Street will burnish their populist credentials. Trouble with this narrative is Wall Street seems more pleased with the legislation than do small banks on Main Street.

Even if Democrats do succeed in peddling their narrative that Republicans are tools of Wall Street (while Democrats have recently been the party raking in the most Wall Street cash), I don’t think they’ll find voter paying them much heed.  They have different concerns this year.  Bashing Wall Street may earn accolades on left-wing blogs, but it won’t change people’s opinion about the Democrats’ record since Obama took office.

Two new polls show that the top issues for American voters are jobs and the national debt. And the president’s inauguration, his party hasn’t done a very good job of enacting policies which allow for the the creation of more jobs, but they have passed legislation which, will lead to a trebling of the national debt.

According to the latest Pew Research/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll:

The public overwhelmingly views the job situation as a major priority for Congress during the coming months. Fully 80% say it is very important for Congress to pass legislation to address the job situation, which is virtually unchanged from May (81%).

Somewhat fewer (70%) say it is very important for Congress to reduce the federal budget deficit.

A CBS News poll found that Americans had similar concerns:

The county’s most important economic problem, Americans say, is jobs, volunteered by 38 percent of respondents. Coming in a distant second was the national debt, the deficit and spending, cited by 10 percent in the poll, which was conducted between July 9th and 12th.

(CBS Poll via Instapundit.) (more…)

February 18, 2009: Attorney General Eric Holder calls USA a “nation of cowards”

July 13, 2010: NAACP Passes Resolution Condeming “Racism of Tea Parties”

Mr. Attorney General… who are the cowards now?

RELATED STORY: The Racism of the NAACP – BigGovernment.com

In the short history of the Tea Party there has been one racist incident, one, and it was a Tea Party protester who was the victim. The NAACP has abandoned its mission and become a partisan political organization.

Sadly the NAACP has forgotten the words of Dr. Martin Luther King:

This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

While I would prefer that the Tea Party groups acknowledge how Judge Tauro’s use of the Tenth Amendment could further their small government agenda, I do take a least a little bit of comfort in their decision to remain silent on the ruling:

While many conservative organizations immediately decried a federal judge’s decision last week to invalidate the federal ban on recognizing gay marriages, tea party groups have been conspicuously silent on the issue.

The silence is by design, activists with the loosely affiliated movement said, because it is held together by an exclusive focus on fiscal matters and its avoidance of divisive social issues such as abortion and gay marriage. Privately, though, many said they back the decision because it emphasizes the legal philosophy of states’ rights.

The comfort I take is related to that part I emphasized above.  The silence provides further evidence of the Tea Party focus on matters fiscal and further and so helps undermine the left-wing/media/Democratic narrative of sinister racist or anti-gay forces dominating the movement.

Washington Post writer Sandhya Somashekhar quotes one activist who pretty much sums up what’s at issue here:

Everett Wilkinson, state director for the Florida Tea Party Patriots, agreed: “On the issue [of gay marriage] itself, we have no stance, but any time a state’s rights or powers are encouraged over the federal government, it is a good thing.”

NB: Tweaked the text slightly as I had initially written it in haste.

In a week when I find it tough to focus on the world of politics, much is happening in that realm.  A decision is expected imminently in the latest Prop 8 trial, this one held in a San Francisco federal court.  Should Judge Vaughn Walker decide that the courts can impose social change, watch for the legal drama to continue until this reaches the U.S. Supreme Court.  Expect further social divisions on gay marriage and further whining from gay activists, with little discussion of the meaning of the institution and why its benefits and responsibilities are good for married couples in general and gay people in particular.

With the Senator who stole Christmas now signed up to vote for the Democrats’ financial overhaul legislation, this 2,000-plus page bill is set for passage, further regulating the banking industry, providing additional paperwork responsibilities on small banks, is all but certain to pass.  This will discourage rather than encourage small banks from making loans to small businesses, the enterprises the most net new jobs, thus further delaying a real economic recovery.

(Take note of the bias in the AP article on Senator Nelson’s switch; they dub the liberal Nebraska Senator a “conservative Democrat“!)

Democratic Senate candidates traveled to Canada for political fundraisers while one poll shows my gal Carly Fiorina surging ahead of Barbara Boxer in the race for the U.S. Senate seat that that 28-year Washington veteran has held since the last days of the George H.W. Bush Administration.

Log Cabin’s suit to overturn Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell (DADT) gets a hearing in federal court.  This lawsuit causes us to question whether that ostensibly Republican organization understands conservative ideas and constitutional principles.  A conservative organization should be wary of setting precedents that would allow courts to second guess the executive and legislature on matters military.  (They are basically compounding the problem begun by Bill Clinton who, when trying to save his political skin back in 1993 (shortly after Mrs. Boxer first won election to the Senate), allowed the legislature to intervene on a matter the constitution clearly delegated to the president.)

A new poll shows that 6 in 10 Americans Lack Faith in Obama. (more…)

I’m not sure what is more disturbing.

This….

As part of “Inspire,” a 67-page English-language Al Qaeda magazine, Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki — who has been linked to the botched Times Square bombing and cited as inspiration for the Fort Hood massacre and the plot of two New Jersey men to kill U.S. soldiers — targeted the Seattle cartoonist for “assassination,” along with others who have participated in her campaign.

“The large number of participants makes it easier for us because there are more targets to choose from in addition to the difficulty of the government offering all of them special protection,” wrote al-Awlaki, who is an American citizen. “But even then our campaign should not be limited to only those who are active participants.”

He warned that “assassinations, bombings and acts of arson” are all legitimate forms of revenge against the creators of blasphemous depictions of Muhammad.

<…>

The woman created her version of “Everybody Draw Muhammad” in late April, days after a Seattle cartoonist launched the online campaign to protest Comedy Central’s censoring of an episode of “South Park,” in which the Prophet Muhammad was depicted wearing a bear costume. The Canadian woman said she will no longer act as the administrator of such a page.

“I just want to be quiet now,” she continued. “I wish I didn’t do this.”

or this…

The 27-year-old Facebook page creator — a Canadian woman who asked not to be identified due to fears of reprisal — told FoxNews.com that she was visited at her home last week by Royal Canadian Mounted Police officials who advised her to remove her page and not to talk to reporters.

Ah, the chilling effect of the death threat is alive and well here in The West… thanks to Islamists.  I think that’s their goal.  Oh yeah, and beheadings too.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

First, there was US House Rep. Bob Etheridge (D-NC) manhandling a college student in early June…

And now, US House Rep. Ciro Rodriguez (D-TX) completely loses his cool when challenged on the facts by his constituents. According to Mike Flynn at BigGovernment, this meeting with constituents was held “recently“. Arrogance doesn’t come across well on video for Rep. Rodriguez.

I wonder… are Democratic Congressmen learning their divisive and arrogant ways from Nancy Pelosi or Barack Obama?

Seems like these two Members would be more happy in an unchallenged Soviet system than in a democratically-elected Congress?  Just sayin….

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

In a post Sunday about the attempt of some left-of-center groups to gin up a grassroots movement with the energy and determination of the Tea Parties, I quoted a Washington Post article which included this line:

They [the groups] promise to “counter the tea party narrative” and help the progressive movement find its voice again after 18 months of floundering.

18 months of foundering? Huh? Now, what happened just shy of 18 months ago? Oh yeah, the dawn of the era of Hope and Change.  Guess the change hasn’t been a good one for the self-anointed “progressives.”

PRIORITIES: Obama Finalizes Plans For 3rd Vacation Since Gulf Oil Spill Crisis Began.

No wonder California Republicans are seeking to unravel the Democrats’ health care overhaul.  Not only does it hurt small business, but it imposes additional costs on larger businesses as well.

Last week, the White Castle hamburger chain said it would lose 55 percent of its annual net income because of a provision in the law. Starting in 2014, the law will levy a $3,000-per-employee penalty on businesses with workers who pay more than 9.5 percent of their income in premiums for insurance their company provides. Herger said White Castle will be forced to cut jobs.

Lungren’s bill would repeal a provision that requires any business that purchases more than $600 of goods or services from another business to file a 1099 tax form to the Internal Revenue Service.

“Large corporations have whole divisions to handle such transaction paperwork, but for a small business – which doesn’t have the manpower – this is yet another brick on their back,” he said.

Lungren said the law will hurt small businesses in particular because companies will want to deal with larger chains as a way to minimize the number of 1099 forms they must file. He said the provision was tucked into the law at the last minute.

If White Castle is forced  to cut jobs, it looks like there will be a longer wait to buy those tasty little burgers.  Not only will we be lining up for health care, but we’ll be lining up for heartburn as well.

Via Instapundit.

It is not often when a judge hands downs a ruling which ostensibly benefits gay people while using legal arguments correspondent with conservative ideals.  In many cases, judicial action sought by gay activists relies on strange logic relying on principles at odds with our ideals (& constitutional guarantees) of limited government, separation of powers and federalism.

Occasionally we see a ruling which causes the libertarians among us to cheer while making social conservative grimace, e.g,. Lawrence v. Texas which struck down state sodomy laws.  (While I like the result, I wish they had worked it through the Ninth Amendment, reactivating that often ignored provision, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.“)

Now, while I’m wondering if the federal benefit at issue in Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, the federal court case striking down a provision of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) on Tenth Amendment grounds, will cause appellate courts to overrule Judge Tauro, this ruling (at least for now) remains a decision that both gay people and conservatives can cheer.

Gay people should be pleased that DOMA will not prevent partners from getting benefits to which they are, by dint of their relationships, should be entitled.  Conservatives should be delighted by the invocation of the Tenth Amendment; courts are recognizing (as they long ago should have recognized and once did) what the Founders made explicit:  the federal constitution creates a government of limited powers.

While we don’t hear this too often within gay activist circles, it needs be said.  Any law which limits government and expands freedom benefits gay people, not just because of our sexual orientation which makes us different from the social “norm,” but also because we’re individuals just like everyone else.

Freedom is good for all people.

Recall how last year as the Tea Party emerged in response to the big government initiatives of Obama and the Democrats, Beltway insiders and Democratic leaders were quick to call them Astroturf?  This despite no evidence whatsoever that conservative groups spearheaded the movement and abundant evidence of spontaneous protests across the country.

Indeed, the conservative groups who got involved were johnny-come-latelies, trying to latch onto a popular uprising.  Now, we have another example of liberal groups trying to imitate the success of the Tea Parties, only it’s leaders of left-of-center organizations trying to spearhead the movement:

In an effort to replicate the tea party’s success, 170 liberal and civil rights groups are forming a coalition that they hope will match the movement’s political energy and influence. They promise to “counter the tea party narrative” and help the progressive movement find its voice again after 18 months of floundering.

The large-scale attempt at liberal unity, dubbed “One Nation,” will try to revive themes that energized the progressive grassroots two years ago. In a repurposing of Barack Obama‘s old campaign slogan, organizers are demanding “all the change” they voted for — a poke at the White House.

H/t: Mark Hemingway.

Wonder if Nancy Pelosi will call this Astroturf.

Via Newsalert via Instapundit.

This post on Instapundit got me a-wonderin’:

GOOD GRIEF: NAACP Leader: Kenneth Gladney Not Black Enough.

More here: ” Apparently, a HuffPo writer was present. You can see her laughing at the remark in the video.”

I mean we support the Tea Parties and all.  And when in Boston, I bought a “Don’t Tread on Me” mug.

When I first read U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro ruled that portions of DOMA were unconstitutional because the legislation “interferes with the right a state to define marriage“, I wondered which provision in the federal constitution he used to justify his ruling.

Now I like the result because I believe that same-sex partners should be allowed Medicaid benefits, the issue in this case.  And those seeking those benefits had sought the protections of marriage.  But, I feared it may have been based on shady constitutional logic where the judge (or justice) found his justification in illuminations refracted from reflections in the charter’s penumbrae.

Thus, when I looked into matter, I was delighted to learn that Judge Tauro had rooted his decision in the Tenth Amendment.  That provision reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”  So, favoring a federal government of limited powers, I think he’s on pretty solid ground.

But, from Volokh, we learn that some liberals are wary of rooting the decision in this oft-ignored provision:

Jack Balkin has an interesting post on today’s two Defense of Marriage Act cases from the federal District of Massachusetts, Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, and Massachusetts v. HHS. The latter case found DOMA unconstitutional, as applied to Massachusetts, because DOMA violates the Tenth Amendment by infringing the state’s traditional core sovereign power of defining lawful marriages. The most important parts of the Tenth Amendment analysis are at pages 28–36 of the opinion. Balkin is concerned because the Judge Tauro’s “Tenth Amendment arguments prove entirely too much. As much as liberals might applaud the result, they should be aware that the logic of his arguments, taken seriously, would undermine the constitutionality of wide swaths of federal regulatory programs and seriously constrict federal regulatory power.”

If you have time, read all of Balkin’s post; I thought that David Kopel did a good job of summarizing the key points–at least those I wanted to address, so I just quoted his introduction above.  (His post is also a good one.)  We conservatives should welcome a decision limiting the federal government’s regulatory role to those powers delegated to it by the Constitution.

And I believe states should define marriage. (more…)