Christian Leftist

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.