*** Post deleted Because I am a blithering idiot and was being played the fool. ***
Never trust the f-ing Washington Times.
There is no post here. Move along.
by John Cole| 27 Comments
This post is in: Democratic Stupidity
*** Post deleted Because I am a blithering idiot and was being played the fool. ***
Never trust the f-ing Washington Times.
There is no post here. Move along.
Comments are closed.
ketel
John, you’re the man. Talk about instant integrity, and that’s why I always come back to your site.
KC
Steven, I think you hit it on the head.
And honestly, John, per your Raw Story post below, what’s going on with privacy issues etc., you’re right, it isn’t a good thing that people’s private conduct is thrown out there for political purposes. And there is a tinge of hypocrisy there. On the other hand, you and I both know that Republicans have made a huge deal out of morality, character, and other “private” issues. They’ve used them over recent years to beat Dems silly. At some point, they are bound to face return fire; Dems are returning the fire now. Could you really expect any different?
John Cole
KC- I have no problem when you nail the people moralizing. I had no problem calling Bill Bennett a schmuck for his gambling hypocrisy and took a lot of shit from Republicans for saying so.
But I think it is utter bullshit for all Republicans to be fair targets for smears because of a few assholes. I thought it was bullshit to be smearing Gannon, because of too my knowledge, he never said anything about gay marriage or homosexuality, other than covering Kerry’s opinions on it.
Show me where Bolton moralized about this issue or demonized others, and I will shut up. If you catch one of the Holy Roller busybody bigmouths, I will be right there with you. But I don’t think it is fair to attack people for the sins of others.
rilkefan
Gannon “covering” Kerry’s opinions on October 12, 2004: “[Kerry] could become the first gay president.”
John Cole
Rilke-
You have to be fucking kidding me. Here is the media matters write-up:
As someone who has no problem with gays, or gay marriage, and who clearly recognized that Kerry, up until last week when he decided to fuck the gay lobby in order to move to the center, supported gay rights, I find nothing in Gannon’s coverage there that is offensive, unseemly, or wrong. In fact, it was a play on the first blak President schtick.
Those are the low standards you want to set for publicly crucifying people? Some of you fucking Democrats are lowlife vermin just like the moralizers on my side of the aisle.
rilkefan
John, I doubt that the article was read in that enlightened way by some people on your side. E.g., what does “pro-gay agenda” mean in a news article? Kerry didn’t have a pro-gay agenda or espouse a “pro-homosexual platform” – he advocated civil rights for straights and gays. That said, I’ll look for better examples.
John Cole
rilke-
It cuts both ways, and like it or night, a pro-gay agenda is advocating for just what you said.
Otherwise, anti-gay means nothing.
Gannon was not a gay basher.
ketel
I agree with the main point John is making about not going after people’s private lives because of the wrongs of others. In Bolton’s case, I think it’s a lame cheap shot and weakens the case against him because it is so low. Now forced sodomy and attempted forced public sex (to the point of breakdowns) on your wife is definitely a different matter. But I think the Gannon case is somewhat different. If you are so intertwined in the GOP support structure and you do nothing more than suck up and parrot their talking points, for the most part you are part of that agenda. If it bashes the hell out of gay people and you are secretly gay, it seems completely fair to point out the hypocrisy.
sidereal
No, but he was gay! And it’s okay to make fun of gay people if they’re off the Dem reservation. They lose the shroud of protection conferred by loyalty.
“Never trust the f-ing Washington Times.”
An idea so true that it deserves its own blog.
ketel
Whatever, sidereal. If you can’t see the difference between pointing out hypocrisy of party loyalists (and sometimes going too far in the process) and thinking homos are sinners who are gonna burn in hell but not before they destroy the sanctity of your straight marriage and brainwash your kids, you’re either blind, dumb or lying.
ppgaz
John, you are as usual on target.
Lies, hypocrisy and manipulation are the culprits, of course, not political party. But surely anyone can guess that the Repugs are going to get extra creme pies in their faces over these things only because of their “morality” and “values” posturing.
But I must take exception to the use of the stupid meme “pro-gay agenda.” That’s its own brand of cynical manipulation. The agenda is fair and equal treatment, not “pro-gay.” I am almost sixty years old and have not exactly led a sheltered or uninformed life. I have never seen, heard or heard tell of anyone promoting “gayness” to people who don’t already have gayness. What I have heard is people demanding that they not be treated as second class citizens.
One may argue over the subtle policy aspects of that latter subject, but the issue is legitimate and the demand is fully justified, and the success of the demand is inevitable, just, and right.
I am terminally straight, and I will fight like a dog for the rights of gay people, for several reasons, not the least of which is the that my observation of those who oppose such a policy are doing so because they can employ gradeschool homophobia, in public, and get away with it, and for no other reason. Anyone who claims otherwise is a liar, as far as I am concerned. There is no excuse for gay-bashing, no matter the pretext. Period.
John Cole
ppgaz- It is the same thing as pro-abortion/pro-choice.
At any rate, saying Kerry has a pro-gay agenda, which he did and which was one of his few redeeming qualities in my eyes, is hardly an excuse for the savage outing of Gannon, the tut-tutting, and the attempts to ruin his life.
Was he a hack? Yes.
Did he, in my estimation, have no business whatsoever in the White House? Hell no.
Was talon News a joke of a site that was nothing more than conservative agitprop? Absolutely.
But Gannon was hardly a gay-basher by any stretch of the term, and while I think he made his whole bed by being an open escort and thus vulnerable to this, I don’t think it excuses the vicious and gleeful pummeling those lowlife bastards at the Raw Story and the rest of their allies subjected him to.
Stormy70
How nice that you guys assume that if people are not for gay marriage, they are all homophobics who can be insulted and their private lives torn to pieces by the liberal mob. This behavior is why you are losing the national debate over gay marriage. You treat your political opponents like dirt and sneer down your nose at them. Gee, that’ll win them over.
This pisses me off because I am for gay marriage, and most of my friends in their thirties and younger have no problem with gay marriage. However, instead of starting slowly with civil unions, and letting people come to terms with the way the majority of gay people live normal, productive lives, one stupid court in Mass. screwed it all up.
My rightwing Mother-in-law, watches Will and Grace, and her favorite characters are Jack and Karen. Nearly every woman I know watches Home and Garden Channel, and they have shows that have real couples looking for homes, or picking out designers to redo their homes. The interesting thing about the shows are not that the designers are gay, but some of the couples are gay. Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is watched by lots of hetero couples. My husband watched some with me, and I’ve got him using skin care, and he’s not a metrosexual. It is shows like this that are going to help win over the country, by showing people that gay people live lives like the rest of us.
The battle should be in the legislatures, not the courts. But the backlash against the courts overstepping their bounds has set off a major backlash against gay marriage. Amendments against gay marriage are passing by 60-80 percent, even in races where the Democrats won elections. Perhaps the Left needs to work on their arguments, and start trying to actually win people over to your position by convincing them why gay marriage is actually a conservative principle. I know several gay couples who have long term relationships, and they voted for Bush. They liked his stance on the War on Terror, and his moral values. Marriage makes people more conservative, gay or straight. Thank you, Mass courts for screwing it up, and setting the issue back by years.
KC
John, you have the best blog on the net. I like Drum, I like Andrew, I like Marshal, but I really like you. It’s the only blog, with the exception of Drum occasionally, where the guy who makes the opinions has them weighed and is fair enough to defend them too. Right on!
rilkefan
JFTR, I didn’t find anything on the web that people who disagree with me about Gannon would consider evidence that he had been anti-gay – just code words and political positions and so forth that people of good conscience will disagree about. It’s too bad it turned out he was a prostitute – the resulting furor distracted (people on) both sides from the real issue – why the WH needed a ringer in the press pool.
John Cole
Cool of you to be up front, Rilke. If there were anything, Media Matters would have been on it like stink on siht.
At any rate, there is no question Gannon was a shill for the administration. What can be debated is the extent to which the administration knew about it.
That having been said, I have seen nothing to indicate he was virulently homophobic or a gay-basher. He just wasn’t, and the folks at Raw Story savaged him for their own political reasons.
What is most offensive is that it was unneccessary to do that- he was/is an idiot and his ideas were easily refuted. You could have destroyed his arguments on their merits (or lack thereof), and exposed him and discredited him by simply pointing out what a joke Talon news was…
This is just my psychobabble projection, but I have a feeling he may have been one of those trobled individuals who has wrestled his whole life with his sexuality, and post 9/11 started to turn hard right- I believe he was born again, but he never really embraced the gay-bashing part for obvious reasons.
There was a big piece in Vanity Fair on him here.
rilkefan
I think the point was not to discredit him – who cares? – but to discredit those who went to a lot of trouble to get him into the WH. The left’s view of the MSM is that it will only pursue the juiciest stories against the Bush admin (e.g., the great difference in the coverage of the comparable selling of the Lincoln Bedroom by Clinton and Bush) and pushing the prostitution angle was a way to catch their eye. Plus a lot of stuff I won’t argue now given my misstep above.
Randolph Fritz
Sympathies, guy. No fun being taken in by propaganda, and it’s damn smooth these days–compared to these guys, Goebbels and Muenzenberg (he was the Communist William Randolph Hearst) were pikers.
Justin Faulkner
What was the original post? Or the Washington Times article it was about?
At any rate, I agree with the general statements you made above, John–I think it’s pretty distasteful to drag people’s private lives into public simply for the purposes of smearing them.
The only times I tend to discuss the personal lives of public figures is when it exposes their hypocrisy in contrast to actions as a public official, or when it is relevant to their responsibilities in such a position. Spokane mayor West, for example, and perhaps also David Hager.
sidereal
Actually, I can. Though I might be a dumb, blind liar for unrelated reasons.
My point is not that hypocrisy is out of bounds. Certainly you should point out the hypocrisy of people who privately do something and publicly campaign against it. The problem is that with gay Republicans, that’s not nearly as often the case as Democrats would suggest. First, calling gay Repubs hypocrites just for being gay is ridiculous. Most of them obviously don’t agree with the party stance on gaity, but they don’t have to be single issue voters. I haven’t seen any evidence that Gannon himself said anything homophobic. Second, even if they do campaign against a policy like gay marriage, they aren’t necessarily hypocrites unless they themselves want a gay marriage. It’s perfectly possible (though admittedly weird) to be gay and believe that gays should not be able to get marriages.
Jeff
“I had no problem calling Bill Bennett a schmuck for his gambling hypocrisy”
Yeah, he’s such a hypocrite for doing something that was totally legal and didn’t cause him any financial or family hardship.
neil
I don’t think you know Mr. Bennett well enough to say that his gambling addiction caused him no family hardship. Though you certainly do know him better than he knew the people who he categorically accused of ruining their families by doing the same thing he did. Oh yes, I believe that
Kimmitt
Yeah, he’s such a hypocrite for doing something that was totally legal and didn’t cause him any financial or family hardship.
Since Mr. Bennett’s whole schtick is to try to make things that don’t cause other people financial or family hardship illegal, I don’t share your equanimity.
HH
“Inexcusable.”
Indeed… I’ve seen this post title before.
Glen
“Never trust the f-ing Washington Times.”
(1) Sorry I didn’t see the post before you took it down; it must have been a beaut. (2) I never have.
Shawn
Heh, what Glen said. Isn’t the Washington Times Reverend Moon’s rag? I think “inexcusable” describes a lot of what they print.
AWJ
Yep, they’re the Moonie Times all right.