So, MSNBC has suspended its senior political analyst Mark Halperin for using a derogatory synonym for wiener to describe the president.  Calling “Halperin’s crack . . . crude and dumb,” Greg Sargent says, “it doesn’t deserve indefinite suspension.”

Two years ago, over on CBS, David Letterman said that then-governor of Alaska had the style of a “slutty flight attendant” and joked about a baseball player having sex with hee teenage daughter.  The former funnyman was not suspended and still appears on the air.

Guess MSNBC must just have stricter standards for political discourse than CBS.

Sonicfrog and I seem to have reached similar conclusions about our governor, he from the Central Valley, I from the LA Basin.  We have both been impressed with this Democrat’s willingness to cut the state budget, even standing up to the spendthrifts in his own party, yet remain concerned about his reluctance to take on public employee unions.  Not to mention his support of what Joel Kotkin has called, California’s Green Jihad.

Considering the “The Enigma That Is Jerry Brown,” Sonic writes,

Every time [the governor] does something that goes against the partisan grain, I want to stand up and applaud. See the veto of the union / Democrat sponsored card check bill, a corrupt gimme to the union lackeys, and the veto of the sham budget… OK, the first one anyway. I begin to think that, yeah, I think he kind of gets it now. I start getting comfortable with the idea that, yeah, maybe he’s no longer the “Governor Moonbeam” we all were so comfortable criticizing. Maybe he has changed and is going to be more respectable, more like his Dad.

But then he goes and passes / does something completely stupid –  like this – or this– or now, the so-called Amazon tax.

Jeez! I’m starting to get whip-lash!

Indeed.  Read the whole thing.

Even the AP called the president’s press conference yesterday “confrontational.”  I didn’t watch the press conference as I was spending the morning (Pacific Time) with my sister in the Bay Area before driving back home.  And well, I’d rather spend time with my sister — or play trains with her son — than watch a political talkfest.

What struck me about the conference was the consensus of the coverage, with many pundits and reporters echoing the AP’s evaluation; others labeled it “combative.”  I wondered, as I read the coverage, whether we were getting a foretaste of his reelection campaign, with attacks on partisan adversaries replacing promises of a new kind of politics.

A man who holds such a presser can’t run for reelection as the kind of politician he billed himself to be in the 2008 campaign.  And offering such confrontational public statements, Jim Geraghty reminds us, is hardly new for this president:

What I think this reveals is that Barack Obama is not used to being challenged. Most of us have scoffed at his predictable straw men, his off-the-cuff references to tonsil-stealing doctors, his exhausted, “some on the right say we should take this extreme path, some on the left take this extreme path, but I choose this sensible path in the middle” framing of every issue.

As we recall from his attacks upon Paul Ryan at GWU, the Supreme Court justices at the State of the Union, and his jabs at Pete Hoekstra, Obama loves to go after his opponents in national addresses, with his targets in the audience, unable to respond. In the setting of the grandiose national address is that there is rarely a rebuttal.

He bristles when challenged and lashes out at his ideological adversaries.  Is this the way to lead the country facing great economic challenges and a budget severely out of balance?

While I still have some quibbles with the rhetoric Log Cabin Executive Director R. Clarke Cooper uses on gay issues and his support of policies at odds with the conservative freedom agenda, I am pleased that unlike the first two executive directors of the group, he has shown a clear commitment to electing Republicans, challenging the big-government policies of the Democrats and helping build the GOP.

Just today, we learn that the Republican National Committee (RNC) tapped Clarke for “its Finance Committee, where he will be playing a critical role in raising funds for the party’s efforts to elect Republicans to the White House and across the country.”

We may not agree with Clarke on all issues, but it’s nice to see a Log Cabin (national) leader committed to building the GOP.

Honoring this great man ” for his role in helping to end communism”, the former Communist nation of Hungary “unveiled a statue of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan on Wednesday“:

Hundreds took part in the unveiling in Budapest’s Szabadsag, or Freedom, square, including Prime Minister Viktor Orban and former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Mr. Reagan was remembered for his role in “bringing the Cold War to a conclusion, and for the fact that Hungary regained its sovereignty in the process,” the Hungarian government said in a statement.

How fitting that the statue will stand in Freedom Square. The Gipper would have loved that.

“US Air Force and Army officers, serving in Hungary, pose with the new statue of late US President Ronald Reagan after a centennial commemoration in Budapest, Hungary, Wednesday, June 29, 2011. The 180 kilograms (400 pounds) and 2.18 meter (7 feet, 2 inches) tall bronze statue honors Reagan at the Freedom Square in central Budapest, to mark his efforts to free the people of Hungary from the yoke of communism.”

AP Image via Gateway Pundit.

I believe that statue is life-size, given that the Gipper was larger than life.

UPDATE:   A reader from across the pond alerts us to how folks on the island that gave us Sir Winston Churchill and Lady Margaret Thatcher are honoring that great lady’s great friend:

Margaret Thatcher is “determined” to attend the grand unveiling of a statue of Ronald Reagan in Londonon July 4 despite having been too unwell to make the royal wedding . . . .

The 10-foot bronze will stand opposite a statue of Second World War commander Dwight D Eisenhower, which was unveiled by Lady Thatcher in 1989. A quotation from the ex-premier has been chosen for thePortland stone plinth of the Reagan statue. It reads: “Ronald Reagan won the Cold War without firing a shot.”

There’s more here including a picture of the life-size statue.

With a vote of 21 to 16, the Rhode Island Senate approved a measure to grant

. . . legal rights to same-sex partners “without the historical and religious meaning associated with the word marriage,” a statement from the Rhode Island General Assembly said.

“We have made great progress in our goal of providing increased rights, benefits and protections for gay and lesbian couples,” [Democratic state Rep. Peter Petrarca, the bill's sponsor said]

The bill, writes my friend Dale Carpenter

manages to do what nobody else has done: unite supporters and opponents of same-sex marriage.  Marriage Equality Rhode Island says it establishes “second-class citizenry.”  The National Organization for Marriage says it is “disappointing and dangerous.”  Caught in the middle were legislators, including the openly gay head of the state house, and Governor Lincoln Chafee (expected to sign the bill), who predicted this was the most they could do for at least a couple of years.

The New York Times reports that the legislation “was offered as a compromise this spring after Gordon D. Fox, the openly gay speaker of the Democratic-controlled House, said he could not muster enough votes to pass a same-sex marriage bill.”  Despite this compromise, we learn in a press release from “Freedom to Marry” that gay marriage advocates are asking the Ocean State’s governor to veto the bill:

. . . Freedom to Marry and the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) sent a letter late yesterday evening to Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee calling on him to veto the civil union bill currently under consideration if it comes to his desk in its present form.  The bill contains a provision that would allow  religious organizations and their employees to disregard couples’ civil union status, creating unprecedented, onerous and discriminatory hurdles for same-sex couples seeking to take care of one another.

(more…)

No, this is not Dan resuming his old moniker, but our first guest post in a while.  We’re giving a potential new GayPatriot a test run on our blog.  To be fair to this Midwestern man, I am cutting and pasting the post exactly as he sent it to me, without any edits.  These are his words, not mine.

For the first time since March, Obama and his faithful sidekick, TOTUS, gave a press conference today where he opened with remarks on the economy. After he blamed Bush for the 697th time this month, he launched another round of class warfare. This time, it’s the kids versus corporate jets Obama must have gotten word that Americans are getting tired of his demagogy of the millionaires and billionaires – so corporate jet owners are apparently the next victims. Just at the moment when both Republicans and Democrats are attempting to negotiate a debt deal, our first post-partisan president thought it was just the right time to reiterate his “us vs. them” agenda.

Obama claimed that Democrats had compromised in the debt talks by agreeing to billions of dollars in spending cuts. He blamed Republicans for refusing to agree to eliminate tax breaks for corporate jet owners and oil companies, while completely pretending that he didn’t know it was his own 2009 stimulus package that granted those breaks in the first place. Of course, I can hardly fault him for that; after all, nobody read the bill. Obama also said he would not engage in scare tactics, but went right ahead and forgot he said that when he set what I believe will be the tone for his re-election campaign:

“If we do not have revenues, that means there are a bunch of kids out there who do not have college scholarships,” Obama said. “[It] might compromise the National Weather Services. It means we might not be funding critical medical research. It means food inspection might be compromised. I’ve said to Republican leaders, ‘You go talk to your constituents and ask them, “Are you willing to compromise your kids’ safety so some corporate-jet owner can get a tax break?”

In other words, owners of major companies getting a tax break will cause kids to be punished, tornadoes to occur without any warning, and toxic food to be served at your neighborhood grocery store. Americans know better. (more…)