Christian Leftist

Man, I knew those FreedomWatch ads were horrible, creepy little packs of lies, but I didn’t think that GOP members would see a need to script them personally. Can’t the crazies even write their own propaganda anymore?

The Washington Post is reporting that Democratic Party officials are going to file charges with the Federal Election Commission (note: they also intended to do this against McCain for using public money and then turning the rest of it back to avoid spending caps in the fall). See here:
Democrats Accuse GOP Campaign Arm Of Covertly Writing Ad

The issue here is not that Political Action Committees can’t support party causes, be they the Democratic National Campaign Committee, the Republican National Campaign Committee, or whoever else they so choose, or PACs wouldn’t exist. As DCCC Executive Director Brian Wolff puts it, “Freedom’s Watch is coming to the NRCC’s rescue. The problem is that they’re doing it illegally.”

Larry Craig can’t seem to make up his mind about much of anything these days.

First, he didn’t solicit sex from a police officer. Then, he may have given the wrong impression and merely wanted to plead guilty and sweep the whole dirty affair under the rug. Then, it was in his best interest to shout “I AM NOT GAY!!!” from the rooftops with a 300-lb. bullhorn. A bit later, Craig decided, “I’m sick of this crap. I’ll just quit now while I’m behind. Now, he’s saying he’s not sure, that he wants to fight the accusation made against him but he had planned to not seek re-election BEFORE the scandal broke but he may not quit unless the Ethics Committe finds him guilty of wrongdoing and oh, by the way, his spokesperson says, “There will probably be a new Senator from Idaho come October.”

Guh?

I’m not going to even TRY to tackle this one. Read CNN’s story on the latest about the Larry Craig sex scandal instead, and then blame them for confusing you, not me.

By the way, I think I agree with Arlen Specter on one thing: airport police have far better things that they SHOULD be doing with their time other than waiting for gay men to nudge their boots in restroom stalls.

Everyone hates someone else they haven’t met because they never think they’ll walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. Maybe you’re certain that all veterans are gun-loving warmongers until you go on a camping trip with one of them who happens to be an environmental pagan. Maybe you view all foreigners with suspicion until you find out that the wife of that grocer down the street teaches your children. It’s hard not to take cues from those around you who have already formed intractable opinions on people who they dislike.

Try.

That’s what I want to say when I see these conservative ‘family values’ politicians and their ilk exposed for the liars and cowards they are. Sure, some of them are just misguided ignorant people, but most of them are willfully ignorant and intolerant, especially towards non-Judeo-Christians, leftists and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. How many times must we remind those who insist on dragging religion into the public square that Christ himself said, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone?” (John 8:8)

For those of you still hung up over Bill Clinton, let’s take a look at the recent role call (if I’m leaving anyone out, which I’m sure I am, please let me know):

∙ Ted Haggard, the minister of a mega-church in Colorado springs who had sex with a male prostitute and did drugs—meth, I think?
∙ Mark Foley, the Republican congressman from Florida who resigned after a teenage male congressional page turned over explicit instant message conversations between them
∙ Glenn Murphy Jr., the Clark County Republican Party (Utica, NY?) chairman who resigned both that position AND his appointment as president of the Young Republican National Federation after a colleague reported that Murphy, Jr. sodomized him while he was trying to sleep over at his house during a campaign event, also accused of sodomizing another minor several years earlier
∙ David Vitter, the Louisiana Senator? whose phone number appeared on the D.C. Madam’s call list for having sex with one of her call girls
∙ Bob Allen, the Republican elected official from Florida who blamed his solicitation of a police officer to let him blow the officer in return for paying the officer $20 on fear of racial violence from the police because the officer and his friends were large and black
∙ Larry Craig, the Louisiana Senator who pleaded guilty to soliciting sex from an undercover cop in the men’s bathroom at a Minnesota airport and then tried to publicly disavow his plea

The Young Turks, a liberal-leaning blog that does a segment on Air America, has reported on a GOP sex scandal every week for a while now and never run out of material. Now THAT’s sad.

I don’t have a problem with gays having sex. I don’t see why Craig was arrested. It’s the fact that Ol’ Larry has been campaigning to pass anti-gay rights legislation in Congress that really sticks in my craw.

I don’t know, maybe, just maybe we’re all human beings who make mistakes and we shouldn’t try to legislate flawed ideology and force-feed it down the throats of our fellow citizens? Just a thought.

This little gem of an article has been going around Digg.com for the past few days, and I think every single person who thinks post-Reagan conservatives aren’t evil should read it.

What Conservatives Say When They Think We Aren’t Listening

[P.S. -- Sorry for the long absence. Family medical emergencies.]

Oh, will the trail of underqualified, overly righteous, neo-conservative appointees from Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell’s colleges who commit political suicide never end?

As for Randall Tobias, the Boston Globe article that describes his past controversial positions on AIDS treatment programs really says it all in the first sentence:

“Randall L. Tobias , the Bush administration official responsible for foreign assistance who resigned late Friday because of his use of an escort service allegedly involved in prostitution, was ridiculed as a hypocrite yesterday because he supported US policies that forced overseas organizations not to help prostitutes.”

This is what happens when people try to play the moral police. Whatever happened to loving the least of one’s brethren? People are going to have sex whether you think it’s right for them to do so or not. Why did the Bush administration assume that they themselves were infallible pillars of morality?

I really couldn’t care less if Tobias received ‘massages’ in a house not his own from the fingers of a woman not his wife, or what specific types of therapy those massages entailed. That’s his problem and God’s. It probably throws his personal character into doubt, but the fact is that as long as he didn’t use government property to do it, it’s solicitation at worst, because morals aren’t the same as ethics.

At least, they’re not supposed to be. Now, because Tobias has injected his personal religious beliefs (and those of the Bush administration) into policy, he has made himself look like a dogmatic imbecile and a fraud. Deservedly so, in my opinion, but the point remains that no one can or should judge another’s private sex life. Abstinence education is an oxymoron because it presumes that using unfounded conclusions from biased think tanks to tell people to control their biological urges is more sensible than teachingthem how to use condoms.

Poor ol’ Rummy. He’s just not getting a break, is he? He signed up for absolute power, but all he gets is absolute chaos. To top it off, his office is only three downs down from the janitor’s. Now he knows how Colin Powell felt.

In the latest NYT article about the Secretary of Defense, Pentagon Memo Aims to Counter Rumsfeld Critics,General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tries to paint a rosier picture of the man five retired and active generals want to see resign. I’m willing to be reasonable when it comes to the criticism of GOP members, but Rumsfeld is the BIG excetion to that rule (Well, maybe him and John Ashcroft, who has faded in the twilight). Most of Rummy’s behavior, both verbal and otherwise, indicates a complete ineptitude so profound that it approaches archetypal Orwell-Meets-Dr.-Strangelove-trigger-happy images. Here’s a snippet/summary:

The memorandum begins by stating, “U.S. senior military leaders are involved to an unprecedented degree in every decision-making process in the Department of Defense.” It says Mr. Rumsfeld has had 139 meetings with the Joint Chiefs of Staff since the start of 2005 and 208 meetings with the senior field commanders.
Seeking to put the criticism of the relatively small number of retired generals into context, the e-mail message also notes that there are more than 8,000 active-duty and retired general officers alive today.
The message was released Friday by the Pentagon’s office of the Directorate for Programs and Community Relations and Public Liaison, but it was unclear who wrote it.

Wow. That’s a lot of meetings. I wonder how many trees his poor assistant kills transcribing all of the text he claims he never reads?

…So, that’s (139 meetings + 208 meetings) x (3 handmade flip-books for entertainment per meeting) x (150 mini-pages per flip-book) / (16 mini-pages per piece of paper) = 9,759.375 pp.

They must have really, really long filing cabinets at the DoD.