Metaphorically speaking, of course.

I want to apologize to our readers (and foes) for my lack of blogging (or inconsistent) over the past 12 months.  You all know that I don’t like to talk about “me” much — but let me explain a bit.

My job expanded significantly last year and I now manage ten people across the entire Eastern USA.  I’m not complaining; I love it!  It just takes a LOT more time. 

In addition, last year I experienced increased problems with my chronic lower back issues.  I still go to physical therapy regularly in addition to being on pain and anti-inflammatory medicines.

Finally, and something I have never blogged about before, I have battled clinical depression for about 10 years.  Last year something “clicked” which sent me into a downward trend.  Nothing serious or life-threatening — but I just wasn’t myself for much of 2010 and didn’t realize it for quite a long time.

So with all that being said — I’ve made three resolutions for 2011.  First, exercise more.  Second, blog more.  Third, do more podcasts.  The good news is — I got back into my exercise routine today!   Second piece of good news — I’m attending CPAC again and will be blogging a LOT that week.

I know that people have it a LOT MORE worse off than I do.  I’m struggling more with a time deficit rather than crippling financial problems.  I love to write here at GayPatriot and don’t want my lack of blogging to suggest my lack of intent or desire.

I hope to do better.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

In an interview with the Daily Caller’s Jamie Weinstein, Harry Stein, author of, I Can’t Believe I’m Sitting Next To A Republican, recently released in paperback, offers an anecdote which corresponds with the experience of this blogger — and many of our readers.  Answering the question, ”What is it like being a Republican in San Francisco?“, he offers

Well, as one (gay) Republican I spoke to out there put it, it’s a lot easier to be gay in San Francisco than a Republican, adding that when he came out as a Republican “friends abandoned me. I got called a fascist, traitor, crazy, insane, a racist.” In the Bizarro World that is San Francisco, fascism is always around the corner and that great bogeyman, the Christian Right, is just waiting to pounce.

Our experience has shown, it’s far easier to be openly gay in conservative circles than it is to be openly conservative in gay circles.  To be sure, we have also met many dyed-in-the-wool left-wingers who treat us with dignity despite our political differences, but there is a common thread running through the anecdotes of our interactions with our fellow gays, stories of individuals insulting, attacking or otherwise avoiding us because of our political opinions.  And they tell us as much to our faces.  Often in the nastiest terms.

Via reader Viking the Kitten.

I was hoping this might happen:  Kent Conrad to retire.  (Via Instapundit.)  Even though the North Dakota Democrat has spent his career grandstanding on fiscal discipline, he voted for the “stimulus” and Obamacare.  Methinks, with an energized Tea Party, he would have had a tough job defending those votes in a state no Democratic presidential nominee has won since 1964.

Question now is what does Jack Dalrymple do.  The newly sworn-in governor of the Peace Garden State ran to succeed Conrad in the Senate in 1992 and lost to Byron Dorgan who most recently retired rather than face popular Governor John Hoeven whose election last fall to said Senate seat allowed the then-Lt. Governor (Mr. Dalrymple) to become governor.

Given how well Republicans did in 2010 in North Dakota, electing a Republican Senator and easily ousting a nine-term Democratic incumbent Congressman, expect the GOP to do as well in the state next fall as it did last November.

Last night, for the first time perhaps since I moved to LA, I watched two one-hour dramas back to back.  Indeed, this may well have been the first time I watched an one-hour drama alone since Northern Exposure was cancelled, save when I tuned in to see an acting friend who snagged a part on a show.

I watched The Cape tonight for a similar reason, a friend of mine helped produced the show and Harry’s Law for another reason altogether, one of my favorite actresses, the accomplished Kathy Bates, headlined the program.  It’s great to see someone so talented on screen (big or small), but sad that she hasn’t had much screen time as she deserves.  If this show succeeds, then, on that score at least, justice will be served.

And it was nice to see a TV show set in my home town, Cincinnati, Ohio.

I liked both shows, but admit being a little confused by The Cape. It seemed there were too many threads, but there was a lot of great dialogue and the pleasure of seeing Keith David on screen as the mentor to the young hero possessing the title garment.  Like Kathy Bates, he hasn’t had as much screen time as he deserves.  And whoah, what a voice.  What a voice.  Great casting choice.  He so works as the aging wise man.

And both shows were very well-written with snappy dialogue and well-conceived plots.  

The latter show, however, seemed to be trying a bit too hard to push Democratic talking points with Kathy Bates’s Harry, while engaging the prosecutor in a debate on drug legalization, added an aside on how while conservatives were the first to propose ending the “drug war,” the party has since been hijacked by Rush Limbaugh and his ilk.  As if series creator David Kelley just had to promote the narrative that the GOP has lost its libertarian moorings.  And even though Bates’s Harry later acknowledged her ambivalence on said war, when she took on her courtroom rival, she articulated arguments which warm the heart of many a libertarian.

Had they cut that one line about Limbaugh, I would have no objection to the show.  That debate on the drug war coupled with the trial of another character, Johnny Ray Gill‘s Damien Winslow, who runs a protection racket in a “bad neighborhood” (didn’t the writers do any research on Cincinnati so they would know to call it “Over-the-Rhine”?), helped create a show with a very libertarian theme. (more…)

Despite the president delivering a well-received (even by conservatives) speech in Tucson last week and once again demonstrating that he can deliver a unifying address, he still has a problem with his agenda. People may like him as a person, but they don’t like the big-government, policies he is pushing, er, has pushed.  

That’s why former vice president Cheney thinks the Democrat will be a one-termer:

Former vice president Dick Cheney, back in the public eye after a major heart operation, predicts that President Obama will be a one-term president because of health care and other big government programs.

In an interview to air Tuesday on NBC’s Today show, Cheney cited Obama’s “overall approach to expanding the size of government, expanding the deficit, and giving more and more authority and power to the government over the private sector.”

As for health care, Cheney said Obama has “enacted a program that a great many people are very worried about. And that there’s a lot of support out there for the effort to repeal that health care package.”

The Wyoming Republican also lauded the Illinois Democrat for taking a page from former president Bush and adopting many of his counter-terrorism policies (policies he once criticized).

I’m not yet as sanguine as Cheney about Obama’s 2012 prospects, but do think this sterling public servant has a point.  Unlike 2012, Obama can’t run on the amorphous slogan of “change” and rope in, as he did in 2008, conservatives and libertarians disgruntled with the incumbent Republican president and more ready to take him at his word when he paid lip service to their concerns.

Now, we see that lip service for what it is. (more…)