Via Instapundit comes Michael Moynihan’s reflections on Fidel Castro’s apology “for his revolution’s ‘excesses’ against gay Cubans“:

As [Mark] Hemingway notes, Castro’s persecution of gays (and black Cubans) hardly stopped in the 1970s, as this Reuters story suggests, with gay bars routinely shut down by the state security service and organizers of a 2008 gay pride march thrown in jail. But for this non-apology, designed to burnish his foul legacy, Foreign Policy magazine says that while Castro is “a bit late,” he nevertheless “deserves plaudits.” No he doesn’t. Nor did Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet deserves plaudits for his 1999 letter “lamenting” (and not apologizing) those killed during his reign—which, incidentally, no one in the media was willing to grant. And rightly so.

Great analogy.  It seems that only leftist tyrants deserve plaudits when they apologize for torture and persecution while right-wingers can never (never, NEVER, NEVER) be forgiven for their wrongdoings.

When I first posted on the former dictator’s “apology,” some of our (left-of-center) readers were quick to acknowledge this admission of responsibility (with one indicating he believed the one-time leftist leader still had a ways to go).

Why do some folks on the left show a greater willingness to forgive a man who isolated, imprisoned and tortured gay people than a then-closeted gay man who advocated for traditional marriage?  That man, Ken Mehlman, never harmed a single gay individual (save in the imagination of the gay left).

Seems to be a default reaction of all too many on the political left (including gay people) to show some sympathy for an anti-American tyrant — no matter his treatment of gay people.  And they call us self-hating for generally supporting a party with an imperfect record on gay issues.

What do we call gay people who defend a leftist leader who persecutes gay people?

* (more…)

Gay conservatives have been so critical of the national gay groups, in large measure because these organizations seem more beholden to the political left in general and the Democratic Party in particular than they do to their supposed constituency.  With the Service Members Legal Defense Network (SLDN) being the notable exception.

In the immediate aftermath of the 2004 elections, after a Republican president was elected to a second term in the White House and with Republicans making gains in both the House and the Senate, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), instead of picking someone who could work with Republicans, tapped a Democratic partisan (who had most recently worked for a group committed to electing pro-choice Democratic women) to helm its operation.

Guess they were more interested in playing to the left than to influencing the (then-)party in power.

That choice came to mind when I received a recent e-mail from the National Center for Lesbian Rights.  When I saw the name Glenn Beck in the subject line, I thought maybe they were going to praise the conservative polevangelist* for acknowledging the obvious that gay marriage isn’t a threat to the country.

Instead Executive Director Kate Kendell (she who devoted her most recent 9/11 letter to ranting against conservatives) included a piece by the group’s Federal Policy Attorney Maya Rupert on Beck’s “Cynical Invasion of D.C.”  Now the timing of his “Restoring Honor” Rally may well have been cynical, but, well, what does criticizing this timing have to do with advancing “lesbian rights”? (more…)

Guess Obama’s two-thirds share of the (late teen and) twentysomething vote in 2008 didn’t signal a generational shift to the left:

The college vote is up for grabs this year — to an extent that would have seemed unlikely two years ago, when a generation of young people seemed to swoon over Barack Obama.

Though many students are liberals on social issues, the economic reality of a weak job market has taken a toll on their loyalties: far fewer 18- to 29-year-olds now identify themselves as Democrats compared with 2008.

Emphasis added to suggest that the GOP emphasis on fiscal issues can help them woo voters disinclined to support a party defined (even if primarily in the media) by social conservatism.

And recall, that Obama only narrowly edged John McCain among voters over 30.  Even if a majority of the youth vote (but smaller than Obama’s 2008 tally)
remains Democratic , if the shift away from the president’s party is paralleled among older demographics, the Democrats’ majority vanishes.

Seems the surge in support among young people for Obama was based more on his personality and the imagery of his campaign than on the candidate’s (carefully concealed*) ideology.

* (more…)

If Carly Fiorina can raise enough money and make the California Senate race about the incumbent, she will join Dianne Feinstein in representing the (once and future) Golden State in the United States Senate.

If Barbara Boxer makes the race about Carly’s flaws and imperfections (real and perceived), she will return to the Senate for the next six years and thankfully accomplish nothing, while unthankfully casting votes for the Democrats’ big-government agenda and and against real reforms which streamline the federal bureaucracy, reduce government regulations and hold the line on spending.

No wonder in their debate on Wednesday night, Mrs. Boxer attacked, attacked and then attacked some more.  Twenty-eight years in Congress, of them, eighteen in the Senate and Mrs. Boxer prefers attacking her opponent to defending her record.  It’s the only thing she’s good at — and the only politics she can play.

In his evaluation of the debate in WSJ.com’s Political Diary (available by subscription), John Fund found

 . . . Ms. Boxer proved capable of punching hard. She attacked Ms. Fiorina’s ties to “a wealthy, wealthy few” and “big oil and big coal.” When Ms. Fiorina said she was opposed to abortion but felt the issue should be decided at the state level, Ms. Boxer pounced by predicting that if Ms. Fiorina had her way “doctors would go to jail and women would die.”

Given her partisan pedigree, perhaps it’s better that this career politician is better at punching than she is at legislating.

It looks like the debate is a preview of the campaign we have long predicted the (almost) three-decade Washington veteran would wage.  Barbara Boxer won’t run on her record; the career politician can only win by going negative.

Our reader Alex in Denver reminded us that William F. Buckley, Jr. once said that Republicans should nominate the most conservative candidate who can win.  And that is one reason why I, who cheered when I learned Lisa Murkowski conceded to Joe Miller in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, am joining Ace and Paul Mirengoff at Powerline in backing moderate Republican Mike Castle in the GOP primary to serve out the balance of Joe Biden’s term in the United States Senate.

“Alaska“, Allahpundit reminds us, “is a red state, of course, and even so, Miller’s eventual victory still isn’t quite fully assured.”  Delaware hasn’t gone Republican in a presidential contest since 1988.  Alaska hasn’t gone Democratic since 1964.

And much as we may grouse and groan about Castle’s imperfections, he voted against the “stimulus”, against Obamacare (and favors its repeal) and supports extension of the Bush tax cuts.

As Ace puts it:

Mike Castle will vote against us on 30% of stuff. You will not like him. I will not like him.

But I will like him better than the Democrat Coons, voting against us on 88% of stuff. (more…)

Adam Nagourney had a front-page article in the New York Times earlier this week that got some buzz in the blogosphere, but since I didn’t get to reading it until today (the dead-tree copy was sitting on the kitchen table at my Dad’s place in Colorado).  His article on the changing demographics of California’s reliably Republican Orange County offered not just a window into the anti-Republican slant of Times‘ reporters, but also into their willingness to spin demographic trends to fulfill their wishes of a declining GOP.

Now, let’s look at the chart he uses:

Notice something? I thought you did. While the Times‘ editors dub the county a “little less red,” it’s also a little less blue. Until their recent uptick, Democrats were also on the decline in the Southern California county.   Independents have surged (which, to be sure, Nagourney observed, noting that this follows a pattern “in much of the state.” 

Seems people have lost faith in both parties. (more…)

What the hell am I talking about?  Go check it out at BigHollywood.com!

In the meantime, here’s a sample…

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Last night, I had a choice, try to see if I could find the Fiorina-Boxer debate on a cable channel in Colorado or go out to dinner with my Dad for his birthday.  And much as I wanted to see Carly take the career politician to the cleaners (as I understand she did), this choice was easy.  Sorry, Carly, family first.  

Well, it looks like my gal’s supporters in the San Fernando Valley didn’t have similar conflicts; they were a bit significantly more enthusiastic than those backing the three-term incumbent:

Seeking her fourth term, Boxer holds a substantial fundraising advantage over her challenger, but is still seen as facing a tough battle because the economy has left voters in an anti-incumbent mood.

The crowd at the Valley Democratic viewing party was obviously partisan, but its numbers – perhaps three dozen when the debate began – paled in comparison to the 200 or so who gathered at the local Republican bash held at Galpin Ford in North Hills.

WIth that fundraising advantage, Mrs. Boxer is sure to try to deflect attention away from her lackluster record in the Senate and the dismal state of the economy in the (once-)Golden State despite her promises of a speedy recovery once Congress passed the big-spending initiatives she supported.

Clearly, the Democrat wants to make the campaign turn on her opponent’s flaws and not on her own failures.

Maybe that’s why she’s so reluctant to face Carly in further debates.

If a gunman took hostages and once claimed he had “experienced an ‘’awakening’ when he watched” Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly’s shows, you can bet the headlines would label him a right-wing kook while left-of-center pundits would deplore the “extremist, eliminationist rhetoric” spewing forth from conservative media.

But, James J. Lee, the late gunman who took hostages yesterday at the Discovery Communications Building only said he he experienced his ‘”‘awakening’ when he watched former Vice President Al Gore’s environmental documentary ‘‘An Inconvenient Truth.’”  So, that means, he was just a lone nut and Gore’s “documentary” had nothing to do with the acting out of his violent tendencies.

I highly doubt the MSM will mete out the same treatment to Mr. Gore they offered to “Ground Zero” Mosque Opponents.

Here, I’m with Allahpundit who’s 

. . . not going to blame the actions of a nut on all lefties and environmentalists. I will, however, be sure to remind them of this the next time they pull that on the right. Which they do, merrily, at every conceivable opportunity.

(Via Patterico.)

Indeed, I offered a similar “reminder” when I posted earlier this week on the murder of the Mormon bishop in California.  They blame every crime against a member of an approved American victim group on conservatives, but when leftists commit such crime (or the victim is a member of a non-approved group), it never occurs to them that, using their very logic, liberals groups in general and leftist rabble rousers in particular should thus be held responsible.

No, Al Gore is not responsible for the actions of this disturbed man.  But, neither are conservatives responsible for the attack last week on the NYC cabbie.

Just caught this bumpersticker, thought it might be a new slogan for the Democrats, but if you look in the right side, you can see that it was from ’0[something].  Obviously not for the ’12 campaign.  Must have been an Obama campaign slogan from another part of the country.

Or maybe the car owner was trying to peel off the ’08 as he’s gearing up for ’12?

Fidel Castro has always posed a problem for gay leftists.  On the one hand, he constantly wins accolades from the American left for his efforts to change Cuba while constantly being a thorn in the side of the United States.*  But, on the other, his regime has been perhaps the greatest persecutor of gay people in the Western Hemisphere.  

Not only did this demagogue oppose state recognition of same-sex marriage, but he also sent Cuban gays away to labor camps where they suffered under inhuman conditions and were often tortured.  

Now, the former chief executive of the world’s largest island prison, claims he was just “too busy” to prevent his henchman from persecuting gays:

Continuing his image rehabilitation campaign, ex-Cuban President Fidel Castro called the rampant homophobia in the initial stages of his revolution a “great injustice.”

During an interview with La Jornada, Castro said that while he was not prejudiced against gays, the blame for the homophobic atmosphere lay only with himself. He claims that he was “too busy” with other matters — such as trying to survive U.S. assassination attempts — to deal with the discriminatory policies.

As Mark Hemingway who alerted me to the article reminds us, Mr. Castro suffers from an affliction common to American Democrats, notably Barbara Boxer, remembering things the way he wants them to have been, not the way they were:

I had a feeling some in the media might be overeager to forgive Castro, but some basic questioning of the official version of the Cuban government’s claims might be in order. For one thing, persecution of gays appears to have persisted well past the “initial stages” of the Cuban revolution.

He’s right; it wasn’t just the initial stages of the “revolution.”  Just follow the story of Reinaldo Arenas, the subject of the 2000 movie, Before Night Falls.

Now that Castro has apologized — and his actions directly led to the real persecution , the real suffering, of gay people — I wonder if some gay leftists will more readily rush to accept his apology than they did that of Ken Mehlman — a man responsible for suffering only in the minds of those eager to blame all gay peoples’ woes on Republicans.

* (more…)

Can you imagine the reaction in the mainstream media if a Republican Senator running for re-election had told a leading newspaper in her state that she had not harangued an official in a Republican Administration, asking only how many people had died in a certain conflict — whereas the tape reveals not the question but the harangue?

The story would race to the top of the news, faster than you could say, “Macaca.” And soon we would see stories about the senator’s pattern of dishonesty.

I guess Mrs. Barbara Boxer thinks she can get away with rewriting the past (just like her unhappy former colleague from Massachusetts) because the media always give her party a pass. Over at the San Francisco Chronicle, Debra J. Saunders has the scoop about Mrs. Boxer’s meeting with the editorial board of that Bay Area daily:

Boxer told me:

“I asked her how many people had died and she did not know the answer to that question. And since we had lost a lot of Californians, I was concerned. And I said, you and I don’t have, we haven’t paid a person price, I said, you and I, I said, myself, my grandkids are too young, my husband too old, and as far as I know you don’t have anybody in the war. So I tried to use it to bring us together, but the right-wing press said that I questioned, that I turned on her because she wasn’t married which was a little silly.”

My thanks to Shaky Hands Productions.

Boxer also said: “I was criticizing the fact that she didn’t know how many people died in Iraq. Absolutely I was.”

There’s just one problem. Boxer never asked Rice how many U.S. troops had died in Iraq when she began her “personal price” remarks. In fact, Boxer had not asked Rice a single question. She was engaged in her usual filibustering.

Wonder if any newspaper will pick up  this story about Mrs. Boxer’s faulty memory?  I mean, will the Chronicle even cover it — outside of Ms. Saunders’ blog?

Just another reminder that I’ll be in Denver to visit my brother and sister-in-law and at least one of their kids over Labor Day Weekend and would love to arrange a readers’ brunch on Saturday the 4th (or possibly Sunday the 5th).

If you’re in the Rocky Mountain State and would like to join us, drop me a line.

*re-bumped and updated.