Me, about thirty minutes ago:
Next meme: Arnold is better than Obama. Begins is 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…
Little did I know that Sully was already on it:
The Californian Republican gives out-of-state marriages the full force of civil unions and signs the Harvey Milk Day legislation. He has more of a record on gay rights than Obama. And no one is telling him they can wait till 2017.
Obama- worse than Republicans on gay rights!
Clearly what we need to do is have Obama do like Gavin Newsom and just make it all go away. Because that has worked out so well for California- so much so that Arnold is now a gay hero! And if he doesn’t do exactly what we want when we want it by executive fiat, why, then he THREW US UNDER THE BUS.
And Arnold didn’t “give” them anything. He signed a damned bill sent to him by… GASP.. the legislature. Somewhere I bet someone has been arguing that instead of throwing spitballs at Obama, they should pressure Congress to act. You remember all those money bombs the progressive left organized to support Gillabrand after her amendment was floated. You remember all the pressure on the other Senators to make this happen, don’t you? Then again, flaming POTUS is so much more fulfilling and better for traffic.
And is Sullivan implying Obama would veto bills sent to him by Congress overturning DADT and DOMA?
That is it. I am done with this stupidity.
*** Update ***
How soon they forget:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a same-sex marriage bill Friday, the second time in three years that such a measure died on the governor’s desk.
Schwarzenegger vetoed a similar bill in 2005.
“I support current domestic partnership rights and will continue to vigorously defend and enforce these rights,” the governor said in a statement Friday.
In his veto message, the Republican governor said it is up to the state Supreme Court and then, if necessary, voters to alter Proposition 22, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman in California.
Yeah. He is so much better than Obama on the issue. Arnold for President.
aimai
JC,
When you are right, you are right. Maybe you’d better stay on the cough syrup, its making you damned prescient.
aimai
Just Some Fuckhead
Sully reads BJ. I think you directly affected the outcome of your own prediction. I’m throwing the bullshit flag.
mgordon1
Please don’t use the phrase “Under The Bus” when talking about Obama for the simple fact it reminds me of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_JUQSje_xA
beltane
The backlash to this should be fun. And trust me, there will be a backlash. Most of those shrieking the loudest would be proud Republicans if only the GOP would have them.
Balconesfault
I think what is really killing Republicans is that Obama won’t take action to nullify the DADT statute … because they’re just chomping at the bit to talk about how doing so is another example of his totalitarian approach to governance.
Each time he pays attention to Constitutional Law, it’s like a slap in the face!
slag
Gotta give him credit. What Sullivan lacks in consistency and perspective, he makes up for in predictability. How is that even possible?
JMY
So I guess by Sully’s standard, Arnold should be president? Oh wait…he can’t. Comparing Arnold to Obama about this issue proves what? Especially when you consider the problems Cali is having now.
theturtlemoves
You know, I thought the folks on here slagging on Sully a couple weeks back were being harsh. Not so much, apparently. So, when it comes to Andrew Sullivan, super-Catholic, he’s a conservative. But when that gets in the way of him smoking a joint at his gay marriage reception, he’s letting his freak flag fly. I’m detecting a central theme in what most concerns him, and it looks suspiciously like a mirror.
Comrade Kevin
Apparently John still has a few grenades he wants to lob.
Also, it’s “Newsom”, not “Newsome”.
CT Voter
@JMY: Yes, Arnold should be President in the same way that Neda, and Moussavi should have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.
The fact that none of those people are/were eligible for what Sullivan wanted for them is evidently irrelevant.
And Sullivan now has readers chiming in with “Wouldn’t be any different under McCain.”
This is insane, and he’s lost me as a reader until some sanity returns.
4tehlulz
Obviously, gays will never have their rights as long as there’s a black president.
Ambergris
John has already noticed this before, but I am also amazed at how un-conservative (in the burkean sense) Sullivan can be.
Warren Terra
Well, if so, he hasn’t responded in any visible way to the several posts more directly calling him out on his BS – and not just on the DADT/HRC issue, but also on the “Nobel for Neda” issue. He eventually responded to half of his fellow Atlantic blogger James Fallows’s post pointing out why the “Nobel for Neda” meme was purest nonsense, about a day later, but even then he manage to miss the second half of the very paragraph he responded to.
Simply put: Sully has always been manifestly incapable of taking even the slightest bit of responsibility, or showing even the slightest bit of intellectual consistency or honesty – with the very rarest of exceptions, all of which were at best halfhearted and most of which came after months or even years of deafening and nearly unanimous denunciations of his misbehavior (see: Trig Palin, Betsy McCaughey). None of those reconsiderations could remotely be considered fulsome, and there are other topics — on which Sully has been at least as bad and on which he has at least as loudly and widely denounced and for at least as long – which Sullivan has, for whatever reason, resolutely refused to reconsider his positions despite their obvious and incendiary wrongness (see: The Bell Curve, The Fifth Column on the coasts).
slag
@theturtlemoves:
True. He is a conservative. But I do give him credit for the torture stuff. That counts.
Brick Oven Bill
I don’t think that Harvey Milk should be honored by Arnold, or the President, or Sully. Harvey Milk was a supporter of Jim Jones, writing letter to Jimmy Carter in support of his movement. His efforts contributed to the death of hundreds, including something like 270 kids.
Harvey, as an aside, was killed by a San Francisco Democrat. This is the violence that Nancy Pelosi tried to associate with the Tea Bagger movement by way of her tears.
This in contrast to the CIA agents who water-boarded three killers, and probably saved the lives of many children.
I do not know why the modern Left embraces the Harvey Milk belief system, and rejects the CIA. It is unhealthy and probably rooted in anger.
Rick Taylor
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Sully posted his missive 8 minutes before John posted his prediction.
beltane
@CT Voter: Well, in all fairness, Sarah Palin would do away with DADT. She would replace it with a lengthy investigative process to determine the sexual orientation of all recruits, to be conducted by representatives of the Assembly of God. Those who didn’t pass muster would be flown to Afghanistan and handed over to the local authorities.
El Tiburon
So stupid to demand and expect equal rights.
What a bunch of morans.
The fact of the matter is Obama could, if he so desired, effectively kill DADT. It might be unpopular with certain segments of the military, but it would be a huge signal how serious Obama is on this topic.
Otherwise, beyond his rhetoric I don’t think he really cares too much.
Warren Terra
Is there some reason B.O.B. isn’t banned? Sure, he’s mostly harmless and sometimes his stream-of-consciousness nonsense is amusing, but then he periodically pops up to say things like today’s “Harvey Milk Killed Thousands” or the other day’s “Abraham Lincoln Would Have Been Against The Fourteenth Amendment” that really are nothing but purely incendiary nonsense and should not be tolerated.
slag
@Brick Oven Bill: Timothy McVeigh was trained and supported by the US Military. I don’t know why the modern right embraces the militaristic belief system. It is unhealthy and probably rooted in anger.
Violet
@theturtlemoves:
I’ve wondered what Sully would be posting about gay rights were he a straight man. My guess is that, if he posted at all about it, he’d be telling the gay community to get in line and wait their turn. It’s only because it’s personal to him that he hauls out the civil rights argument. It is a civil rights issue, but somehow I don’t think he would give it much notice were he not personally affected.
matoko_chan
I don’t get why some of the same bloggers that fretted over Obama’s Nobel turning up the wingnut craziness volume to 11 now WANT to turn the wingnut volume up to 50 on DOMA/DADT.
I thought the adversary was the party of cognitive dissonance.
Da Bomb
@El Tiburon: That has never been the argument. It’s reactiveness of the movement and not the proactiveness that is daunting.
Even Rep Barney Frank said that the march on Saturday was a waste of time, if you are not pressuring and lobbying the right people. Which is gasp, the senate and congress then “putting pressure on the grass isn’t going to change anything”, his words.
Amazing we have a President who wants to treat the legislative branch as a co-equal branch of government and not act as a executive fiat and we still bitch.
beltane
@Violet: If his views towards womens’ reproductive rights are any indication, he would denounce homosexuality as somewhat immoral and repellent, something to be discouraged though not in violent, mean spirited way.
ironranger
I knew a minister who was a lovely man but sometimes irritable & acerbic. I don’t take to very many ministers but I knew he was a pretty self aware guy when he shared his favorite joke:
“Lord grant me patience….and grant it right now!”
BFR
Hey, guess what – I’m not gay and I’m not allowed to serve in the military either. When was the last time you saw medically ineligible folks screaming about equal rights because we can’t serve either?
scav
This is how the world ends: neither with a bang nor a whimper, but over the edge in a clown car.
theturtlemoves
@Violet:
Exactly. I don’t think he’d be posting about the issue at all if he weren’t personally affected. Not that self-interest is necessarily unique to Sully, but not everyone has the kind of mouthpiece he does to vent their self-interest to the world.
inkadu
I’m pissed that Obama hasn’t declared martial law, enacted mass conscription, and extended VA benefits to every citizen/soldier. He could do it if he was serious about health care.
JMY
@El Tiburon
What makes you think he doesn’t have the desire to kill DADT? Maybe, just maybe, he would like to issue an executive order, but he looks at the bigger picture and legislation through Congress, who last I check, make laws, seems to be the better strategy. Why do people insist that he doesn’t care? Because DADT & DOMA haven’t been repealed sooner? So I guess because the economy hasn’t fully recovered he doesn’t care about the middle-class?
Expecting and demanding equal rights is not stupid. Sully isn’t a moron to support equal rights for the LGBT community. What is stupid is comparing Obama with Arnold for the sake of undermining and putting down the president because hasn’t done what you wanted. That is an unfair comparison because as John noted he didn’t give them anything, the legislature did that, just as the Legislative Branch of our government should send a bill to the president’s desk repealing DOMA & DADT.
ruemara
@El Tiburon:
face + palm.
I don’t know why this is such a common version of legislation. The President does not create legislation, the Congress does. If the President crafts executive legislation to “repeal” DADT, it is not repealed and can be reinstated by selfsame executive fiat goodness. If Congress makes it a law, it is has stability that takes a Constitutionality challenge.
@ JC
Dammit! Where was the support from the DADT lobby for Gillibrand? I had hopes that this was going to the floor. Isn’t this exactly the sort of opening you were waiting for?
Comrade Jake
There are days when Sully’s page is simply unreadable. This is clearly one of those days. I’ll tune back in on Wednesday.
donovong
Well – that was quick! Sullivan Responds to JC:
Brick Oven Bill
I did not claim that ‘Harvey Milk killed thousands’ Warren Terra, I claimed that Harvey Milk contributed to the death of hundreds. Perhaps you should be banned for bearing false witness. I do not believe that Harvey Milk should be celebrated.
“Rev Jim, It may take me many a day to come back down from the high that I reach today. I found something dear today. I found a sense of being that makes up for all the hours and energy placed in a fight. I found what you wanted me to find. I shall be back. For I can never leave.”
– Harvey Milk, from a position of authority
CT Voter
@JMY: Comparing Arnold to Obama and neglecting to acknowledge the role of the legislature is a convenient dodge for Sullivan.
Otherwise, he’d have to also acknowledge that advocates weren’t able to persuade the Senate to do anything about this when Gillibrand brought the issue up.
Ignoring the role of the legislature and focusing solely on what the President could do is a way of denying reality.
And if the President were to issue some executive order about anything but DADT, Sullivan would probably be horrified about the heavy handed approach of the executive.
Leelee for Obama
Irony is dead, dead, dead. Lather, rinse, repeat. It is absolutely true, apparently, that the Governator is the One. He will make everything more better if only we change the rules about who can be President. Was no one watching President Obama a few months back when Harvey Milk was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom? A more discerning examination might find that Teh Ahnold was only following the real leader? To say nothing of the fact that signing the bills costs him exactly nothing, since he is done politically?
I am done.
Zifnab
You’ll be back, John. They always come back.
freelancer
Is “Threw us under the bus!” 2009’s “Slap in the face“?
Origuy
Some people missed this on Saturday morning when they were kids.
martha
@Leelee for Obama: For the win.
And to repeat, he is done politically, and will likely join that evil Obama’s administration and rescue it from its abject failure after 9 months. /s
Violet
@beltane:
Yeah, good point. He doesn’t seem to have the ability to put himself in the shoes of women. He’s all “my Catholic faith teaches me” when it comes to that. But nevermind he seems to be going against the teachings of his Catholic faith all day, every day, simply by being gay.
@theturtlemoves: Obviously people post about what interests and concerns them. But it’s interesting to me how vehement he is about it, when similar types of things (like women’s reproductive rights) get shoved to the side with “my Catholic faith teaches me” comments.
El Tiburon
BFR: seriously? You’re going with that lame argument? Perhaps I forgot you are unable to marry the person you love because of your disability and people think you are sick and perverted and want to have sex with a dog. Oh, and of course I forgot all of the amendments being proposed to ban you from marrying the chick with no legs.
I never said the Pres. creates legislation. But he has a lot more than the bully-pulpit in which to wield soft and hard power.
And don’t forget this:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/30/hastings-dadt-white-house/
Hastings withdraws ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ amendment due to White House ‘pressure.’
inkadu
@Zifnab:
“Andy Sullivan, It may take me many a day to come back down from the high that I reach today. I found something dear today. I found a sense of being that comes from reading months of stupid self-interested crap at your blog. It makes up for all the hours and energy placed in learning how to read, fighting with Comcast to get my internet connection working, and neglecting Lily. I found what you wanted me to find. I shall be back. For I can never leave.”
– John Cole, from the near future
Zifnab
@BFR:
Are you suggesting that being gay is a medically classified disability? Or are you being snide for kicks?
The argument against the medically ineligible is that you are not physically fit enough to serve. As in, if they put you in combat, there is a higher chance you will be shot.
The argument against gays in the military is that they will spontaneously start raping people in the showers.
It’s the difference between being told, “We don’t hire paraplegics as lifeguards because they can’t swim” and “We don’t hire women as lifeguards because they have cooties.”
Brien Jackson
I assume you’re talking about stop-loss orders? If so, can you tell me why anyone would want that. I’m not gay, so maybe I’m just lacking perspective, but I can’t exactly see how that would be welcomed by anyone, save for maybe the progressive element that just lives to piss off conservatives.
ricky
I said it once, I’ll say it again. I find it ironic that matrimony and military have become the insitutional aspiration of the gay political community.
BFR
Fighting over civil unions and/or marriage – I’m totally with you.
Fighting over DADT as though it is a major issue has always seemed silly to me. The military always has banned all sorts of people for all sorts of reasons.
zoe the dyke in pittsburgh
It’s fucking Sully for pete’s sake– what do you expect from someone who is a walking, talking incoherent contradiction? Mr. conservative glibertarian barebacking Catholic Brit???
He may be a prominent gay in punditville but he does not represent most of us.
Stop reading him. He’s an idiot.
The only thing he ever got right was calling for marriage rights before most anyone else– by making the case that it’s a conservative argument for assimilation and stability, blah, blah.
matoko_chan
Stop clutching pearls over the “anonymous source” crittin’ “bloggers”.
this is the substance.
Anyone with an IQ over two digits that has observed what the wingnuts did with an innoucuous issue like healthcare reform should be able to grasp what DOMA/DADT action could to the current political dialog.
It could easily could turn up the volume on “conservative outrage” to at least 1500 db, and 120 db is where sound turns into sensation.
Can’t we please just get stealthcare passed first?
freelancer
Aw shit, he just linked to you. Hope he likes this post.
Midnight Marauder
@JMY:
Thank you for this. I think something that has gotten entirely lost in all this brouhaha is what @Da Bomb stated earlier, which is that it’s “amazing we have a President who wants to treat the legislative branch as a co-equal branch of government and not act as a executive fiat.”
This country has gotten very far away from the way our branches of government were structured and intended to operate. I think that restoring that sense of equilibrium between the branches is a very understated and underdiscussed element of the Obama Administration’s approach to governance. That’s part of the reason they left HCR to Congress (and still are, albeit with more White House oversight during the home stretch), and that’s a major reason Obama doesn’t just swoop in and end DADT via executive order. There’s something to be said for letting progress natually (and legitimately) work its way through the system.
BFR
How do you know that? And what makes you think that I wouldn’t be competent in a non-combat role?
slippy
@Comrade Jake: I went over to his page like twice, and I saw nothing but preening narcissism “Look, I Haz a Blog!!!1!!” and the self-assured bullshit that all Conservatives swim in in order to justify their stupid, hateful, fucktarded positions.
I’ll never go back. I only read about what he says through BJ.
CT Voter
@matoko_chan: Don’t you mean 120 dB is where sound turns into pain?
BDeevDad
But Arnold didn’t sign the bill that matters to Sully the most. He vetoed it, twice.
mcc
I dunno if Brick Oven Bill’s running troll was particularly funny to begin with, but I think when his persona gets into advocating murder it’s worth questioning if the joke has run its course.
—-
donovong: Your quote there calls attention to something I think is getting lost in the discussion: Andrew Sullivan is opposed to most of the gay rights measures under active consideration right now. Sullivan is not only not representative of the community, he’s not even really representative of the yelly anti-Obama part of the community.
Actually I think John has reached the point of doing something basically unfair in treating Sullivan as a spokesperson for the foot-shooting squad– to the extent the foot-shooting squad is siding with Sullivan it’s because they got badly lost somewhere, I don’t think it’s because they actually share his generally GOProud-y views…
slag
What @beltane said:
slippy
@zoe the dyke in pittsburgh: Thank you. I don’t know why the fuck anyone reads that self-important twit.
that colored fella
Fags are lazy.
There, I said it. And I can, ’cause I’m one of the gays.
Sully reminds me of a lot gays who vote consistently, but forget there is a sizeable minority who want to impede the community’s progress at every step. Yes, there’s a basic ignorance to how democracy works and an indignance from living in a gay bubble where no one knows who the hell Louie Gohmert is.
Zifnab
@inkadu: lulz
Brick Oven Bill
And also Warren Terra, my opinion on Lincoln’s theoretical take on the 14th Amendment is based on his words. Read the rest, if you dare.
I suppose that in reference both to its actual existence in the nation, and to our constitutional obligations, we have no right at all to disturb, it in the States where it exists, and we profess that we have no more inclination to disturb it than we have the right to do it. We go further than that: we don’t propose to disturb it where, in one instance, we think the Constitution would permit us.
We think the Constitution would permit us to disturb it in the District of Columbia. Still we do not propose to do that, unless it should be in terms which I don’t suppose the nation is very likely soon to agree to — the terms of making the emancipation gradual and compensating the unwilling owners. Where we suppose we have the constitutional right, we restrain ourselves in reference to the actual existence of the institution and the difficulties thrown about it.
simonee
OMFG!!! I hate how Sully gives massive credit to meek little politicians in the GOP who show flashes of doing the right thing on gay rights. The GOP has spent the last eight years showing us that gay bashing is a part of their legislative agenda– they fucking have a lot to answer for.
I’ve been living in the miserable state of California my whole life and I distinctly remember that Schwarzenegger is more of a coward on gay rights issues than most Democrats.
I bet Sully doesn’t give a shit that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed similar legislation every year that he was governor or did nothing for prop 8 last year. But I guess that gets a free pass because he’s a Republican and now we get to celebrate Harvey Milk Day. Woop-de-freakin-do!
matoko_chan
CT, it can be pain…..depends on the nerve endings involved and how they interpret pain sensation.
It could just be vibration or pressure.
1500db (sound is measured on a log scale) would likely melt flesh.
;)
inkadu
@El Tiburon:
Hastings ammendment would be weak tea that would only keep DADT on the books longer, because panicky legislators could say, “Well, why should I bother sticking my political neck out for a bill to ban DADT when DADT is effectively not functioning?” Why waste political capital on a half-measure when you have a shot at the whole enchilada? It’s a bad ammendment for this environment.
Ana Gama
“And no one is telling him they can wait till 2017.”
Except that since Arnold is not running for reelection, this is his 2017.
eric
Let me see if I have this right: this Obama fellow seems supportive of “Gay Rights.” He gives a speech in which he says this openly and without reservation (so says teh google). He is fighting against perhaps the SECOND best funded lobby in America — the health care lobby — during which he is not willing to take on the FIRST best funded lobby — the defense establishment.
I expect lukewarm defense policy from the Dems. Sad, I know, but true. The relexive use of “soft on terror” or “eak on defense” should be expected on almost every major daily and news network. GE doesnt own a major news network for nothing.
I want to see the Afghan and Iraq wars ended quickly, but sensibly; yet, I know this is a political impossiblity because of the way Washington works.
Then, if on top of that, I have to choose between DADT and ending those two wars, well, if ending DADT would get in the way, I will deny justice a little while longer to see fewer body bags and mass graves.
Give me the end of those two current conflicts and the end of DADT by the next time i cast my vote for President of the United States. That is the only deadline I care about.
eric
Kryptik
It feels like the Republicans have won, at least on the subject of Obama’s record. Oh, they’re totally wrong as far what he should be doing and the like…but I think that the whole damn Nobel Prize snit has made fairly clear that the pressure from their incessant bleating has caused a bit of a reactionary tilt on our side of things where many of our own have lost all patience. The right has crapped out the ‘Messiah’ and ‘The One’ meme that we on the left, whether we realize it or not, have bought into it in the worst sort of way: wondering why Obama hasn’t turned everything around within one year of office if he’s so damn good.
COnsidering the time frames we’ve worked with (we had 8 years of Bush, 14 years of solid Republican Congressional BS, and much more of seriously crappy corporate influence worming into our policy making) as well as the sheer fact that, unlike in the Bush years, it’s not going to be all top-down, ‘Executive Branch says jump, everyone else asks How HIgh?’ stuff. Yes, it gets infuriating in ways, and I do wish that he would throw his weight around a bit more on things like the Health Care debate. But for things like (as this specific series of posts has gotten into) DADT and gay rights, there are other factors coming in outside of just what Obama wants.
I’ll crap all over Obama for not throwing his weight for health care form, as well as taking a stand against warrantless wiretap and the like (as things like the latter regard mostly Depts. of the Executive Branch, meaning the buck DOES stop with him there). But Repubs have been mocking about how he hasn’t changed the world yet since he was elected. Please, please don’t let them influence things to where we’re about to throw Obama overboard for the exact same reason the Repubs have been mocking Obama, the Dems, and us for.
gbear
@Comrade Jake:
I’m feeling the same way about the BJ conversations on this issue. I got nuthin’ anymore except a headache…
Punchy
This really ought to be the by-line of this blog, in place of “consistently wrong…..”. It really has been your mantra.
beltane
@that colored fella: On Daily Kos there are Public Option advocates who post action diaries every single day. They circulate petitions, urge people to call their reps, and exhort us to twist Reid and Pelosi’s arms on a regular basis. I do not recall anything of the sort being undertaken on behalf of repealing DADT & DOMA. In our corrupt, broken political system, effective advocacy requires a lot more than presenting a list of demands.
Ann
@CT Voter: He lost me when he went on for weeks about the conspiracy covering up the fact that Tripp Palin was really Bristol’s daughter, not Sarah’s. Who can forget that one?
Comrade Darkness
Well, so not the glbt have a political goal they can work toward. Getting Arnold elected president. I for one would welcome our smiley-faced oatmeal overlord.
@beltane: ding!
Just because a political outcome is stupidly obviously long overdue, doesn’t mean it’s just going to happen on it’s own. Period. Gays are not the only group working for something from the position of being political whipping boy (mostly from republicans, but not exclusively). Hispanics, women, scientists, college professors, native americans, the poor in general, just to toss some obvious ones out. They all want stupidly obvious change that’s long overdue. What bothers me most about this is not even the shrillness of the pressure for change, but the attitude that they are the only group with any long-neglected grievance whatsoever. Get a grip on that and the pressure toward backlash will lessen. A lot.
BDeevDad
@simonee: Schwarzeneggar specifically said he wanted the courts to decide while Obama wants Congress to do it’s job. This is another case of Sully tossing his “Conservative” ideals when they interfere with his personal life. But heaven forbid the courts don’t overturn Roe v Wade cause that’s just a women’s issue.
BDeevDad
@simonee: Schwarzeneggar specifically said he wanted the courts to decide while Obama wants Congress to do it’s job. This is another case of Sully tossing his “Conservative” ideals when they interfere with his personal life. But heaven forbid the courts don’t overturn Roe v Wade cause that’s just a women’s issue.
Ann
@Ann: obviously I meant Trig Palin. Can’t keep the names straight.
Violet
I think pictures of Tunch and Lily would help lighten the mood.
You can always vote for Bitsy. Doing good can make you feel better about things.
CS Lewis Jr
What Pam said.
CT Voter
@Ann: I tried, for some time, to understand his focus on that situation, but I just couldn’t.
I appreciate his passion for causes that directly affect his well-being, even if I can recognize the inconsistencies inherent in that passion and his “conservatism”. But the laser focus on the details surrounding Trig’s birth seemed beyond passion and verging on, well, the creepy. And that’s influenced my opinion of his blog.
Leelee for Obama
@martha: I think this is my first FTW!
I feel like I got a Nobel….hehehe!
Hob
Sullivan doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. He clearly hasn’t paid any attention to Schwarzenegger’s career.
Arnold started talking like a supporter of marriage equality shortly before his first campaign, and since then has strenuously avoided every chance to do anything about it. He opposed judicial challenges, saying it should be a matter for the legislature, not the courts. Then he vetoed two bills from the legislature, saying it should be a matter for the courts or for another goddamn ballot measure. He moved aggressively to shut down the San Francisco marriages, hiding behind Prop 22 from 2000 and refusing to make any statement about the clear constitutional challenge to Prop 22 that was raised by SF’s lawsuit. Then the state Supreme Court ruled for gay marriage, and Arnold, who had carefully avoided saying anything about the case (as far as I can tell) till then, announced that he would comply with the ruling– whoopee. He also announced that he did not support Proposition 8, but (again, as far as I can remember & find any evidence of), his public opposition to Prop 8 before its passage consisted entirely of (a) the word “No” in a checklist of endorsements, and (b) a speech to the Log Cabin Republicans in which he simply said Prop 8 was “a waste of time.” Once it passed, then he spoke out all over the place about how he hoped it would be overturned one of these days.
Basically, if you think Obama is kind of weaselly about this stuff, Schwarzenegger is the biggest fucking weasel who ever weaselled. This is worth pointing out even if you don’t think Sullivan is worth taking seriously anyway, because a lot of people outside of California STILL seem to have the idea that the Governator is one of the good guys in some way, as an alleged social liberal.
Zifnab
@BFR:
Shit, I’m not a military doctor. I don’t know how they come up with these rules. But I don’t think it’s because the brass have this secret bigoted loathing of people with scoliosis and flat feet. There is actually a medical reason why a military guy couldn’t perform his or her duties if sporting these disabilities.
By contrast, there’s nothing about being gay that physically or psychologically restricts you from doing your job. You don’t lift less or run slower or find yourself more prone to PTSD. The only distinction is the “Ew! Gays!” factor.
And as for non-combat roles, you’re still in a combat zone. The danger of getting shot or blown up might go down, but it doesn’t go away. And, again, I’m not a military doctor, but I’m sure one could tell you exactly why your flavor of ineligibility would make you less capable of doing your job.
JMY
@Midnight Marauder
Liberals and Democrats gave Bush hell for the executive orders he used to undermine federal laws or to skip Congress all together and rightfully so. We can’t demand Obama to do it simply because the law in question is stupid. Part of me would love for him to do it and part of me wouldn’t for the simple fact that it would be hypocritical for him to take that route and hypocritical to support it and I pride myself on no being hypocritical. So say he issues an executive order without any congressional laws in place to effectively end the policy that will ensure that DADT will never see the light of day again and make it tough for a law to approve the policy again, will liberals be outraged because he bypassed Congress? No they won’t. That won’t stop a Republican president in 2012 or 2016 – God forbid – from issuing their own executive order instituting the DADT policy.
ricky
@Violet:
“He doesn’t seem to have the ability to put himself in the shoes of women.”
Is there a special ability required for that?
gwangung
@Ann:
Uh oh…David Letterman Syndrome…
cat48
On days like this, I always see posts about how Harry Truman signed an Executive Order and the military was magically desegregated. Actually he appointed 3 Gen to study it and make policy in1945, Executive Order signed 09/45, announced Basic Training would be desegregated 03/51, and Army finally 95% integregated 10/53.
If it were me, I would want a law passed that became effective relatively soon; not an Executive Order “just like Truman.”
Bob (Not B.o.B.)
The question is what did Arnold do for gay rights in the first 9 months of being Governor? Nothing? Thanks.
Leelee for Obama
@JMY: This is exactly why the repeal of these two laws is necessary-an executive order is reversible-not pointless exactly, but not enough in the final analysis. And since we on the left hated all the Unitary Executive BS from Bush/Cheney and Co., it’s more than disingenuous to want our guy to do it now. Good post and well said.
Violet
@ricky:
In a figurative sense, apparently so. Literally, the shoes just have to be big enough for him to get on his feet.
Hob
@ricky: It depends on the shoes. I’m OK in flats, but sadly can’t do heels at all — ankles too weak.
Leelee for Obama
@cat48: Thanks for this-the desegregation of Basic Training was apparently my first B-Day present-Thanks Harry.
gwangung
By the way…what do people think would happen if Obama DID issue executive orders to end DADT? Is it reasonable to believe Congress would then pass legislation?
IMAO, they would not, and either a) they wingnuts would be mobilized to pass legislation countermanding the executive policy, and b) the left would let up and leave it to executive orders–which would leave it to the next Republican president to overturn (which they would). Actually, maybe both would happen…
BFR
I’ll grant that bigotry makes up 99% of the opposition to lifting DADT but somewhere out there are likely a handful of people genuinely concerned about how the fraternization rules would be impacted by lifting DADT.
That being said, I don’t think that DADT “works” in any sense since the “DA” part never has and never will be honored. The military would probably be better off just ditching it and rewriting some of the anti-fraternization guidelines to bring them up to speed.
But my opinion is that DADT is small potatoes compared to the Prop 8s of the world. Why anyone would draw a line in the sand on DADT is beyond me.
simonee
@BDeevDad: Yep, I love how Sully wants “discussion” and “dialog” for all the issues that don’t affect him personally. But for gay rights and marijuana? RADICAL CHANGE NOW PLZ!!!
Punchy
OT:
You want ridiculous? I give you ridiculous.
How in the fuck anyone gets educated in this fear-based disaster of a school system is a mystery to me.
Money quote:
Student drops a knife in someone’s lap, and the dropee gets canned? WTF?
simonee
@Hob:
“Basically, if you think Obama is kind of weaselly about this stuff, Schwarzenegger is the biggest fucking weasel who ever weaselled.”
THIS.
JMY
@gwangung
My fear with issuing an executive order is that Congress would have no incentive to pass legislation to effectively end the policy, which would leave room for an executive order by a Republican president is enact the policy again. And also, the fear of complacency. Would we then want an executive order written for every major issue?
Corner Stone
@matoko_chan:
Can’t speak for anyone else, but I generally plan my activities based on how the opposition will react.
What? They won’t like what I have to say? Well then I guess I’ll just turn off the lights and take a nap.
Dave
@El Tiburon:
I don’t want to make you cry, but I’ll say the unstated. Your issue is not the most pressing one. Health care reform is. The Plan is pretty clear at this point: everything takes a back seat to passing HCR, regardless of what was promised. Obama is not going to risk alienating any member of the Senate or Congress for any reason, because he may need their vote in the HCR battle. Now, the truth is, he won’t get the votes of those who would be most upset over the repeal of DADT, but the Plan is the Plan, you stick to it and see it through. On the other side of HCR, he can work on all these other issues, but for right now, outside of absolutely critical issues (like stimulus or bailouts), it gets put on the back burner.
Understand: he paid attention to Clinton, who pissed away needed HCR capital by passing NAFTA first. He won’t make the same mistake.
Corner Stone
@CT Voter: I think it’s more than evident by now that matoko doesn’t actually understand anything s/he posts.
Comrade Mary
@cat48: Wow, cat48. I had heard all about Truman’s “stroke of the pen”, but I had no idea of the full story.
This blog post seems to be an excellent summary of the time it took for the army to be desegregated. The take away points (which I am going to quote w/o blockquote, because I don’t want to cry):
“Saying President Obama could institute open service with the stroke of a pen is both historically inaccurate, and politically ignorant. It ignores the key facts about Truman’s action:
1. Integration of the military was initiated by the military itself, not by the president;
2. Truman’s order did not immediately desegregate the military; and
3. Truman did not desegregate the military at the beginning of his term, when he was at his most popular, having succeeded a popular Democratic president and won the war (by nuking Japan.) He waited until the end of his term, despite having had the military’s internal report on desegregation on his desk for three years. In fact, it was only in what amounted to the final hour of his presidency (again, he very nearly lost the election) that Truman acted. No one knows why, especially since black soldiers had distinguished themselves as patriots during the war, and one would think that the immediate aftermath was the time to act. But wait he did. Sometimes, the politics of the moment requires a president to wait.”
Corner Stone
@Dave:
Ummm, NAFTA was a Republican idea, and heartily backed by what we consider Blue Dogs today. I don’t think your analogy means what you think it means.
This is just priceless.
anonevent
@inkadu: Exactly.
During one of the Supreme Court Cases that ended segregation someone in favor of segregation tried to argue that it was OK, no one was enforcing the law, so there was no reason to do anything about it, and one of the judges said “Lack of enforcement of a law does not equal its repeal” or something like that. That’s what I thought of when I read about that defense add-on: The law will still be there, but it just won’t be paid for. How is that helpful?
gwangung
@JMY: Yes. Exactly.
And…
@Comrade Mary: Hm. Interesting. There’s some similarities to Obama’s behavior there (IMAO).
wrb
@ricky:
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@JMY:
The US Constitutional system is strongly biased in favor of the legal status quo – legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by a previous President is very hard (politically speaking) to overturn, assuming it passes muster with the courts. In order to do so the oppostion will have to gain control over both branches of Congress and the WH. An attempt to overturn existing legislation can be blocked in any one of: the House,the Senate, or vetoed by the WH. Exec orders are much easier to overturn. Which means that the road to lasting change runs through Congress, not the WH. Change from the executive branch can be short-lived – look how quickly Bush was able to undo everything Clinton had accomplished which was not already enshrined in law. On the other hand, look at how well the liberal agenda from the late 1960s and 1970s (e.g. the Clean Air Act, the EPA, etc.) survived through the sustained assault directed against it during the Reagan years and later.
HyperIon
I wish I had a dollar for every time you have written this.
wrb
@Corner Stone:
He also pissed it away by moving to allow gays to serve in the military without first building consensus within the military. The rebellion that resulted made him look like a naive incompetent, took the wind from his young presidency, led to DADT and DOMA and doubtless contributed to the loss of congress in ’92.
A lot of people have died from lack of health care in the intervening years.
And the same could happen again.
freelancer
@Just Some Fuckhead:
There’s a physics joke in here somewhere, but I’m really busy.
Da Bomb
@El Tiburon: Well then you should read these two articles that talk about why that bill wasn’t rescinded.
http://lawdork.net/2009/07/28/hastings-withdraws-dadt-amendment-after-white-house-congressional-pressure/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jackson-williams/rachel-maddows-omission-d_b_248124.html
Midnight Marauder
@JMY:
And that’s what it really boils down to. The ideas of the Imperial Presidency and Unitary Executive have become so entrenched after the past 8 years as “the norm,” that now people expect the same thing to happen just because their guy is the one in office right now. It’s that kind of short-sighted thinking that is detrimental to momentum and progress on all issues at large.
I know that every day, every hour, every minute DADT is still the law of the land is a travesty; but I can’t for the life of me imgaine why anyone would think Obama getting rid of DADT via executive order would be: a) smart; b) effective; c) constructive; or d) a long-lasting institutional change that was beyond the threat of being reversed whenever “the bad guys” come back into power.
There’s just nothing logical about that way of thinking at all.
HyperIon
@Warren Terra:
Another question suitable for the now pathetic FAQ.
You must not pay much attention to the operating rules here at B-J. Essentially no one is EVER banned. Saying stupid things is NOT sufficient for banning. And a good thing, too. Otherwise the threads would be half as long.
gwangung
@HyperIon: God, you’re optimistic….
Corner Stone
@wrb: I can’t find the link but this reminds me of the Dibert cartoon where the male engineers go to “team building” exercises (or some such).
They are told to “imagine” they are women, and how they would act in their environment. It rapidly devolves as the male engineers imagine people being nice to them for no reason, opening doors for them and generally treating them with respect and interest.
The person running the drill sees it going to hell and starts trying to walk them back and they start saying things like, “People are nice to me. I’m not going back. I’ll never go back!”
I wish I could find the cartoon as it’s awesome.
Holy shit! Just found a clip of it on youtube.
My blouse falls to the floor
HyperIon
@Punchy:
I see you got there before me.
And I seldom agree with you on other matters. ;=)
Da Bomb
@inkadu: Thank you for summarizing that. I just linked two articles about that amendment.
Corner Stone
@wrb: I don’t disagree that lessons were to be learned from Clinton, I just disagree that how NAFTA somehow conflicted with other things was one of them.
I was quoting another poster, and you quoted me quoting them.
And I just disagree with your analysis. We are not back in 93. Not the politicians, and not the citizenry.
Just like in HCR, people keep saying, “Well, even Dean’s plan didn’t call for that!!” So the F what? We aren’t living in 2004 anymore, Bush isn’t President, and we have a lot more nominal D elected officials. Comparisons mainly suck for many of these reasons.
*and I’m not a stickler or anything but I think you mean the losses in ’94, not ’92.
inkadu
BFR – Imagine serving in a gay military while being straight. Imagine that any time your eyes lingered on a woman’s ass too long you’d be risking getting discharged. Imagine all the talk about people’s gay husbands or lesbians wives. These are people whom you spend 24 hours a day with, for several years, under stressful conditions, and you have to live your life in fear of them finding out that you are infected with teh strait. Why haven’t you found a nice boyfriend yet, BFR? I think Private Jefferson likes you. Imagine dealing with that every day for years.
And then it comes out, somehow, that you are straight. Maybe you didn’t tell anybody, but somebody found out, and then you’re screwed. After 5 or 10 years of military service, years of training, you are dumped on the street with a useless skill set and no access to the society in which you’ve spent most of your adult life.
Serving in the military is an enormous life decision. It’s not like working at Walmart. You don’t live, sleep and marry inside Walmart. And if you get fired, you can go to work at Target. Nobody expects to work at Walmart for life. Walmart doesn’t have a retirement package worth mentioning. Working at Walmart will not get you killed.
DADT is a monstrous and barbaric daily intrusion into the lives of the men & women who choose to serve in our military; it’s not just an inconvenience. And for everyone outside the military, it is a constant reminder of the terrible days when people lived in the closet, paranoid and afraid.
Gay people may not be able to get married, but they can live together, and that’s not against the law in any state of the Union. And whatever social discrimination they may face (outside of being denied marriage rights) it’s not backed by the full force of the United States Congress, and it’s not an official negation of almost everything they’ve managed to accomplish in their life.
If I had to pick between living unmarried with a gay lover, and having to serve in secret, I’d pick being UNmarried. I had to pick which is the greater evil, I’d have to pick DADT.
(just a perspective from a straight civilian)
Zifnab
@BFR:
And that logic might make sense if a) women weren’t allowed in the military and b) army guys didn’t regularly invade bars and brothels like they were storming the beaches of Normandy. The former went out decades ago. The latter – military personal getting their funk on? – good luck controlling that.
I don’t think it’s really beneficial to judge which one is more important or more valuable. One is employee discrimination, the other is more an issue of contract law. Both are civil rights violations and both need to be overturned. Order doesn’t really factor into it.
But comparing military service restrictions on medical necessity to sexuality is the kind of absurdity that conservative bigots love to play on. That sort of thinking needs to be tossed out for the junk belief that it is.
celticdragon
@BFR:
I was going to stay out of this…but that is 15 kinds of fail right there.
How about this…
Yep. Patience. Be patient. Uppity queers and trannies just don’t understand…and get yer wallets open, bee-hotches! We need yer money! Rahm said so.
freelancer
@inkadu:
THIS.
Bostondreams
@Brick Oven Bill:
Have read down to see if anyone pointed it out yet, but the quote you provide is in reference to slavery, which was banned by, you know, the 13TH Amendment.
JMY
I’d like to reiterate that I support the cause of the LGBT community to end DADT, DOMA, and other types of discrimination towards non-heterosexuals. You should let you voices be heard, and keep your government accountable to issues that are of grave importance to you.
What I won’t support are these idiotic statements directed towards the president over his management of the issue, such as the ones by Sullivan. The one article I read where this individual had the nerve to be upset that the speech was not immediately on the White House website, when he could have easily checked YouTube, blogs, or other media outlets, and used that has a means to criticize the president, was the icing on the cake.
wrb
@Corner Stone:
That’s wonderful. Thank you.
@Corner Stone:
I agree with regard to NAFTA.
I think the way marriage led to prop 8 shows that the issue still has lots of juice for Republican gotv efforts.
And many claim it gave Rove the edge that gave us Bush.
I think it should be handled carefully is all, which Obama is doing.
inkadu
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: That was the most nails I’ve ever seen put into a coffin for executive action with the fewest words. It’s like you’ve got an air hammer.
mcc
So, let’s talk about this.
One problem here is that the “gay blogosphere” has kind of separated off into its own separate entity from the rest of the political/progressive blogosphere. So, the kind of action you’re suggesting– it’s happening already, I see it every day. But you’ve never seen it, because you don’t read the right blogs. This highlights a running problem– that we’re having sort of internal discussions inside this gay blog bubble and it’s not leaking out into the outside world. A lot of activists are preaching to the choir and forgetting the actual point of activism is to influence the world outside.
Let me call attention to to one running blog project that sort of seems like the exact thing you’re suggesting: Julian Weiss’s ENDA diaries at Bilerico. Bilerico is a big group blog tying together people from different corners of the LGBT community; Weiss has been posting action diaries there on the Employment Nondiscrimination Act basically every day for what must be months now. This usually takes the form of a “legislator of the day”– she posts a specific Senator who is waffling or persuadable on ENDA, and posts a full set of contact information for anyone able to call in to that Senator. The information gleaned from making these calls is then used to maintain a running whip count on ENDA.
I think Weiss’s diaries are highly worthwhile despite the blog bubble / “preaching to the choir” problem I was complaining about a moment ago– because here the point is to direct people with personal involvement to call legislators, so “the choir” is precisely who you’re trying to target. But it apparently is the case this is a project which is not visible outside of the gay blogosphere itself. So I’d wonder– could projects like Dr. Weiss’s be more effective if they had visibility outside the gay blogosphere? If those “legislator of the day” posts were mirrored in the larger progressive blogosphere, would that lead to a bloc of straight allies calling in who might not have otherwise? Is there a way that projects like this could get more visibility?
Because this is something that is bothering me a bit about this ongoing flamewar here– people like John Cole here are having this flamewar with the Sullivan/Americablog crew, and I don’t think it’s making the Sullivan/Americablog crew look particularly good, but it’s also in some sense glorifying the Sullivan/Americablog crew because since they’re the ones flamewarring, they get assumed to speak for the entire gay community. I’m seeing a lot of posts in the comments section here stereotyping “gays” as sharing some behavior that they saw in one or two political bloggers that irritated them, as if we are all somehow responsible for the behavior of John Aravosis. Meanwhile (because they don’t come with their own flamewar-starting committee) it seems to be really easy for projects like Weiss’s to get kind of ignored or overlooked, even in blog posts specifically calling for action of the type Dr. Weiss has been doing all along…
HyperIon
@zoe the dyke in pittsburgh:
Here at B-J his idiocy is a substantial reason that Cole and DougJ continue reading him IMO. Sully is like the little girl with the curl right in the middle of her forehead. When he’s good, they praise him; and when he is horrid, they mock him. In a phrase, he makes their life easier. They will never stop reading him; it has a certain “can’t quit you” aspect.
Of course, a week after Cole announces that he will never read Sully again, he’ll link approvingly to something new Sully has written. Those who attempt to track this boomeranging risk whiplash.
matoko_chan
What is wrong with Sully?
ummm….and your point is?
67% of the american electorate supported healthcare reform.
Now it is “Obamacare” and 84% of the electorate oppose it.
Sully is being stupid.
I wonder if he regrets using Lady Gaga’s name to ridicule Palin.
He should apologize!!!!
I demand it!!!
Teh outrage!!!!!!!
Makewi
The DOD’s position.
DADT’s author was Colin Powell, or rather the policy initiative was his. It is an actual law.
The Democrats could do away with it, but why would they since it is their policy? I do like the just wait until 2017 line, reminds me of the “of course I’ll leave my wife baby”.
Sullivan isn’t really a very consistent pundit. So there’s that.
matoko_chan
Seriously Sully.
I don’t care what the WECs say right now…..how long would it take before Beck is fearmongering them into believing Obama is going to send their kids to gay re-education camps?
Get a clue.
And for chrissakes let us pass stealthcare before you start your hissy fits about not being served first.
Get in line, WATB.
Less QQ more pewpew, please.
;)
inkadu
@mcc: If you could get what you just wrote there (with the title ACTION ALERT! of course) on DailyKos, there’s a chance you can get it recommended up the list and maybe something good will come out of this entertaining blog brawl.
I was dumping on DKos a few weeks ago because of their constant petulant whining about Obama not doing enough. Today I revisited and saw that they actually post pending legislation and realized those nutters are doing more than I am by preening myself with self-congratulatory smugness here on Balloonjuice.
Pangloss
If the mainstream media weren’t “in the tank” for Obama, there wouldn’t be “a disconnect” or “a perfect storm” and he most likely wouldn’t “throw us under the bus” or “stab us in the back.” By the way, “where’s my bailout” and “how’s that working out for you?”
Da Bomb
@mcc: Please, if you can start a blog on Daily Kos with that blog linked. Just putting it up and running everyday, so people will realize that their senators are involved in writing a bill to pass along to the President.
gwangung
@mcc: Cripes. This is the single-most valuable and information packed post I’ve seen in this family of threads to date.
And, yeah….if people in general don’t KNOW about the substantive efforts like Julian Weiss’, we can’t be effective at all.
CT Voter
@mcc: Chiming in with everyone else, mcc. Post this to DailyKos, or even put up a blog at TPM. . .I bookmarked her site.
And was relieved to discover neither of my senators are high maintenance or in need of a call, but I’ll probably call them anyway.
MNPundit
Seriously Cole.
NAME ME ONE FUCKING GOD DAMN THING IN THAT QUOTE THAT INDICATES HE IS EXTRAPOLATING TO ANYTHING OTHER THAN GOVERNATOR? HOW DOES IT EQUATE TO REPUBLICANS IN GENERAL OR EVEN CALIFORNIA REPUBLICANS?
Look I apologize for shouting but you are just blatantly mischaracterizing what he said.
Joe M
@BFR: I’m about done with this blog, this fucked-up bullshit has gotten on my last nerve. Honestly, are you really comparing gay people who are healthy and willing to risk their life for their country and medically ineligible people who are ineligible because, well, they may pose a detriment to themselves and others? H’bout the overweight? They can’t serve either. Oh wait, because they’re FAT. What a 1990’s argument. What cheap homophobic trash. And yes, I meant homophobic. I read this “Gays just can’t stop whining” garbage and I just throw up my hands. Meet and talk to an actual gay person, bitches.
John, just make out with Sully and get it over with. You’re both pretty. So what, he’s happy Arnold did SOMETHING to support gays. Anything other than a pretty speech some symbolic bullshittery. Deal. This constant comparison to self-mutilation or misdirected anger is something I have to disagree with.
One of the things that I did love about this blog was it’s glossary of terms and two stick out to me – “Shrill” and “Tinkerbell Syndrome”. I’m not gonna fucking clap louder. We aren’t Republicans, there is no purity test, no lock-step agreement with president. We argue and rail, especially about deeply personal things that affect us. Y’all keep convincing yourselves your better than that. Sully may be an exhausting turd with a touch of the hypocrisy, but at least he’s honest. Gay politics is never pretty or easy or smooth. We have to demand some backbone. Grow a pair, however small.
Ash
@MNPundit: Maybe that’s now the exact right extrapolation, but Sullivan has been harping for months now about how there are a few Republicans out there who don’t want to banish gays to hell and how they’re standing up to their party!!! and are therefore better than Obama “on gay rights.” It’s an old trick he’s been doing forever and will continue doing forever because he’s ridiculous like that.
Zifnab
OT: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/12/dobbs-fox-business/
They’ve nearly got all the puzzle pieces scattered across the other networks. Rope in Joe Scarborough from MSNBC and I think they complete the set.
John Cole
@MNPundit: He “gave” them their rights. He has “more” of a record than Obama.
Quit fooling yourself. The message is quite clear.
Ash
Oh yay, he SIGNED LEGISLATION. WHICH COMES FROM THE LEGISLATURE.
AFTER vetoing all sorts of other stuff. Hello historical perspective, I wish you’d come back.
Zifnab
@MNPundit: He was being facetious.
Svensker
Y’all are all passionate about this, but I’m stuck on trying to figure out how to read the difference between HRC (Hillary), HCR (health care reform) and HCR (Human Rights Campaign).
Since I’m one of those people who agrees with whomever spoke last (sometimes), I won’t add my .02. Except to say that Sully is silly (that doesn’t change).
Midnight Marauder
@MNPundit:
Why is Ah-nuld referred to as “The California Republican” then?
I think John’s comments are more reflective of Sully’s general attitude the past 72 hours, and the post you cited just happens to be the crystalization of that attitude, via the completely misguided and intellectually dishonest comparison between Obama and Arnold’s respective actions.
The key element, as others have pointed out again and again in this thread, is that Arnold did nothing whatsoever to bring about the aforementioned progress except signing the legislation he was presented. That’s pretty much what people a lot of people are saying here in regards to eliminating DADT via executive order (the impulsive, “feel good” method with little in terms of lasting, substantial impact) vs. having Congress repeal the law (the way that it should and needs to happen in order for the change to be a permament institutional change.)
freelancer
Can we change the subject to “Fuck Nooners in her ignorant fucking eye sockets?”
CoughKissingerCough
h/t MM
General Winfield Stuck
This is all at the feet Of Barack Obama. He could have gone to that HRC event and given a supportive reassuring speech, and none of this would have happened. Shame on you, presnit Obama.
General Winfield Stuck
@freelancer:
No, this is bigger than Elvis, and he’s as dead as Franco. Maybe.
General Winfield Stuck
@Svensker:
Acronym hell it is.
harlana pepper
As for Sullivan, I just cannot forgive war whores who do not beg forgiveness for being wrong and thus, pay no attention to anything they have to say. Of course, I have the same feeling about most Sunday morning show panels. Someday, I’m going to do stats on how often each panelist has been wrong about major issues (the kind that get people killed and bankrupty our treasury) and how often they continue to be asked back for their opinions on the most serious issues of the day.
Makewi
Obamas greatest gay hits.
Kyle
It pretty rich that JC is bemoaning the stupidity on this issue when his post is the exact example of it. Last I looked, Sully did not speak for the gay community, but JC must treat the comment in that way so that he can get his “the gay community is stupid and impatient” argument in. I mean, what idiot would argue that the gay community thinks Arnold is a hero? Answer: Someone who doesn’t know what he is talking about, but doesn’t let that get in the way of his dismissal of those tiresome fags.
It’s petty. And disappointing.
matoko_chan
I think Sully has gone mad.
Why link this?
OF COURSE THE CANDIDATES ARE CREATIONISTS.
The base of the Republican party in America has been wholly colonized by WECs (White Evangelical Christians) and Mormons. WECs are 20% of the electorate and Mormons are 2%. Glenn Beck is a mormon convert channeling Cleon Skousen, a mormon conspiracy crank too crazy for even the LDS. The GOP has become a purely religious party.
Consider the candidates–
Romney– mormon
Pawlenty– WEC
Palin– WEC
Huckabee– WEC
The GOP leadership is enslaved to the base…so the party platform consists of evangelical doctrine disguised as “culture war issues”…..creationism, racism, homophobia, and chattel slavery of women and children.
mcc
inkadu / bomb / gwangung / CTVoter (hi CT!): Hm, OK. Well give me a day or so and let me try to put something for dkos/tpm together. I’ve only had a DailyKos account for a couple months…
General Winfield Stuck
We deal in the blogosphere here, and it is certainly not the broader community of anything. It is where the activist base for both parties come to debate their issues, but sometimes it devolves into wanking,
This blog tries to limit wanking to mocking wankers, though there is some crossover from time to time into the wanking mode itself. Not on this one IMO
Da Bomb
@Kyle: When DADT is repealed, hate crimes law is signed, and ENDA is overturned in the next three years, what will you claim as your contribution to helping that happen.
Calling John Cole petty?
Kneecapping Obama?
Or have you written to any senators and congrsscritters that represent your district to help President Obama keep his promsie to overturn these laws. Last time I checked, the President didn’t say that it would be overturned in 9 months after he was sworn in.
Yet again stop being reactive and become proactive. Put pressure on the right people.
John Cole
@Kyle: Missing the point, boss. The point is this is the kind of stupidity (ie- Arnold > Obama) we get when we run around pissed off and throwing things than if we sit and think about them. Like, for example, screaming that the HRC transcript is not up on the website fast enough. Or saying that Obama shivved the gay community and the online community through an anonymous advisor.
Bobby Thomson
@freelancer:
“Threw us under the bus” was already synonymous with “slap in the face” in 2008. (Notice the cross reference?)
For true disrespect, though, nothing beats being slapped in the face with a bus.
Midnight Marauder
@Kyle:
Andrew Sullivan. The subject of the blog post you grossly misinterpreted.
Violet
@mcc:
Get someone to post them at Daily Kos or maybe TPM. It might take a bit for them to get some attention, but if they get rec’d up, they will very likely get more people to take action than would otherwise.
Preaching to the choir is good, but sometimes it’s beneficial to involve new people. There is a pretty good sized GLBT community at Daily Kos. It’s probably a pretty friendly crowd for such diaries.
Keith G
Today, as this “conversation” continues, is the 11th anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s murder. He would be 32.
Rest in peace Matthew.
Calouste
@mcc:
If you (or someone else) has daily action diaries, crosspost them at Daily Kos. Just copy and paste the content, add a line at the top saying it is crossposted from another side. Make sure the name of the diary has “series feel” to it (for example “Bilerico’s Senator of the day: “), and people will pick up on them.
It will probably take about 5 minutes every day to do that.
Beauzeaux
@mcc:
Has it? What exactly constitutes the “gay blogosphere” as you see it? I know tons of gay blogs that have nothing to do with politics, so your statement wouldn’t apply. Glenzilla is gay but that’s kind of incidental to his blogging. The only gay political blogger I know of that your statement might apply to is Aravosis, but most of us figured out long that he’s really a horse’s ass. (I stopped reading him entirely after he had a massive freakout when one of his personal friends didn’t get a job, which he attributed entirely to homophobia.) And I don’t know anyone in the gay community that reads Sully, so he doesn’t count.
I really don’t see any evidence of the “gay blogosphere” having separated off into its own entity…whatever that means.
Joe M
@Ash:
What’s the word I’m looking for? Oh here it is – SO? Yeah, he vetoed the legislation before. Boooo. Now he signed it. Yay! It wasn’t his doing, though. Big Em-effing whoop. Sully is allowed to be happy about it. So am I. Also, and -> we are allowed to compare it to a supportive and pretty great sitting President who up until now hasn’t done anything other than the literal least he can do. My historical perspective, my darling, is watching gay rights go from a dirty secret to a full fledged cultural phenomenon in mere decades. I don’t recall this happening because we didn’t challenge our allies to man the frick up.
P.S. BTW – man the frick up!
lyons
Most of the gay people who are angry he hasn’t done DADT yet are conservatives like Sullivan who don’t care about health care reform. I know from reading Dreher’s blog that Celtic Dragon is a libertarian…at least I think it’s the same person. I am not saying that to put you down, Celtic Dragon, so don’t get all mad and yell at me. I am just saying that people who are libertarians and conservatives DON’T CARE that the republicans will have a field day and use it to start a whole crap storm and stop health care reform… because they don’t care about that issue. Meanwhile, the need to pass health care reform of some kind has been the ONLY concern possible for the last 4 or 5 months at least.
Zifnab
@matoko_chan: To be fair, McCain won the primary and he was probably the least religious of all candidates.
I know we like to say that the GOP is “beholden to the base” but I almost don’t know who the base is anymore. Between FOX propaganda and an intense strain of party puritanism at the leadership level, the party certainly looks like a bunch of religious nutters. But when you look at the people actually getting championed… Sarah Palin wears the Jesus hat, but she gets just as much of her popularity from the fact that she’s drawn up as a right wing sex symbol and because she is violently confrontational with her left wing peers. And she’s a gun nut, so she gets the NRA vote.
The pro-life movement isn’t even a full blown thing anymore. It just kinda flares up and dies out as the GOP needs it. There’s a lot of demand for religious monuments on public land and religious education in public school, but there’s not much coherent conversation on which religion to champion or what curriculum to teach.
There’s less and less “there” there with the religious fundies. The guys actually getting elected are either in deep red districts that let them say whatever they want or aren’t very deeply religious at all. Ralph Reed couldn’t win in Virginia. Coleman’s religious creds couldn’t swing him any commanding majority in Minnesota (admittedly, he was Jewish). The Ladies of Maine aren’t running hard on any religious platforms.
I’m just not seeing where all these religious voters are supposed to be. They seem to have dried up outside the south.
gwangung
@Joe M:
How long has Arnold been in office? And how long has Obama been in office? And what is Obama’s political philosophy?
I really do think you missed the point. And quite badly. It’s not challenging people per se; it’s focussing on the right people and the right avenues. Focussing on the executive falls for the tricks of the authoritarian right wing. It focusses all hopes into one person–whose actions can be undone once he leaves office. As someone else pointed out, an act passed by the legislature AND signed by the executive is much harder to overturn. I am purposefully pointing out that you blithefully skipped over a necessary component–the legislature.
kay
@freelancer:
It makes me laugh because they care so much.
It’s like listening to little kids. They can’t stop talking about how much they don’t care about the Nobel Peace Prize.
Who has kept this ‘controversy” alive since Gore won the prize?
Conservatives. Because they do not care. about not getting this prize. So remember that, okay, or they’ll write another zillion words on it.
Elie
Midnight Marauder, Da Bomb and many others…
I agree with your comments and add this:
Democracy, such as we are trying to have is difficult, messy and always a work in progress.
Authoritarianism is much easier, cleaner even — none of that messy needing consensus or figuring out how to use your capital or prioritizing what you do when because of key dependencies. Authoritarianism is essentially rule by fiat. Of course the agrieved party or parties just do the same back when THEY are in power, but who cares, right?
I am so weary of explaining civics and more importantly, why doing it the “democratic” way allows us to fix very broken and distorted ways that we have been the way our government has functioned over the last decade or so.
Abusing the rule by Administrative Order just one more time is no justification. Also, the need for focus on HCR to me is paramount.
I am sorry that the gay community that is lobbing the grenades against the President are pissed off. They are of course due their own opinions. I strongly disagree with their tactics and point of view, from the perspective of needing to kneecap Obama. Hard for me to think how they think this is more likely to get them what they want. Of course they gotta do what they gotta do. I don’t have to pay attention though — and I am plenty pissed off about it.
gwangung
I’m not pissed off about it. LGTBQ folks legitimately have gripes; they have righteous anger and frustration. All I’m disagreeing with them is their target for their ire.
And that takes it into the realm of tactics and strategy—which is really not worth getting bent out of shape over.
lol
Removing DADT via executive order (assuming it’s even possible) would pretty much kill any chance of it being repealed at the legislative level. Then when a Republican president comes in, DADT will be back in full force.
It’s called valuing long-term planning over short-term gratification.
Mnemosyne
And after all of this, John Harwood now says that the paraphrase he used did not refer to GLBT activists at all:
Aravosis hysteria strikes again.
Da Bomb
@cat48: I appreciate the link. Very informative.
beltane
@mcc: Thank you for your thoughts. Being a straight, married woman, I really have had no exposure to to the blogs you mentioned, nor have most others in my position. However, if I read a compelling action diary on Kos, I might very well feel moved to call my Senators. An example you may want to follow is the effort of Color of Change to get sponsors to drop Glenn Beck. Rather than just preaching to the choir at African-American blogs, they regularly post at Kos and have been rewarded with thousands of petition signatures, and calls and letters to various sponsors.
Any minority community, no matter how vocal, must ultimately enlist the good will of some part of the majority in order to achieve their goals.
Makewi
Executive Orders by Administration
Clinton – 364 (3.79 per month in office)
Bush – 284 (2.95 per month in office)
Obama – 21 (2.33 per month in office)
I’m glad to see those numbers trending downwards, but didn’t realize Clinton was an “authoritarian right winger”.
Kyle
@JC: I got your point, and generally agreed with it. You missed mine in that you can’t really take the comment of one person (or even a handful) and attribute their idiocy to an entire community.
Elie
gwangung
Well you are a better person than I (for not getting upset over tactics and strategy)
I support complete rights for gays. It makes me crazy that the tactics and strategies used by some in their community 1) make more difficult attaining those rights by 2) attacking the persons/administration interested in providing them those exact rights. Doesnt that make you the least frustrated? If you watch me try to put out a fire with kerosene, not once but several times, at what point would you start screaming at me?
James
I stick with Sully because of his full-throated, take-no-prisoner, unapologetic, unwavering stance against torture. I had to quit him and Aravosis during the campaign because of their pathologic hatred of HRC. I never returned to AmericaBlog but I’m pretty much addicted to Daily Dish, except the religion stuff and this kind of stuff on DADT, marijuana, and other minor stuff. I just skip it. He’s a flawed man, just like all of us. When you tally it all up, he comes out as one of the good guys.
@mcc, I’ll echo the kudos on your post, and second the suggestion of getting it on dKos and TPM. Lots of us, I’d wager, will call and write on behalf of getting the repeal of DADT and DOMA through Congress. I know I will.
Zifnab
@Makewi: Reading comprehension is key.
“– Focussing on the executive… –“
Da Bomb
@Zifnab: For Makewi, that’s all par for the course.
slag
@Mnemosyne: Honestly, though, does that alteration make it better or worse? Now they come off as incompetent whiners who can’t accomplish any of their goals rather than as an administration with a set of strategic priorities that slightly differs from that of their base. For instance, if dealing with ten percent unemployment is hard for these jokers, imagine how hard it is for the ten percent unemployed. The opposition ads write themselves.
Seriously, are they really expecting the entire leftwing to sit down and shut up for the next four years? If so, what turnip truck did they just fall off of?
Ash
Torture, which probably wouldn’t have been as widespread, were it not for his full-throated, take-no-prisoner, unapologetic and unwavering (for a few years anyway) support of war.
The Bell Curve, also. He’s basically always wrong on everything.
arguingwithsignposts
@James:
When you tally it all up, he comes out as one of the good guys.
I disagree. He’s an elitist hypocrite on health care, especially, and that whole conservative boot-strap ethos (despite his “view from your recession” series).
I wrote about it a while back, and I’ve seldom been back to his page since.
Mnemosyne
@slag:
Given that the entire poutrage was “O M G Obama hates gays and thinks we should all STFU!” I think you’d have to say it’s better. Try not to move the goalposts too far, okay?
Lesson for today: never trust a quote from John Aravosis. He’ll screw you every time.
Da Bomb
@Mnemosyne: You took the words right out of my mouth.
gwangung
@Elie: Well, I don’t think I said I wasn’t frustrated. But we ARE after the same goals–we’re just not in agreement on tactics. If we look at it that way, it kinda ratchets down the emotions and gets us a better chance to do something effectively.
And…sometimes…you just have to back off entirely and let everyone’s temper simmer down…
Of course, I’m often bad at taking my own advice…
toujoursdan
@Beauzeaux:
For gay blogosphere try:
http://joemygod.blogspot.com/
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/
http://www.towleroad.com/
for a more moderate perspective (mostly fighting against religious right lies)
http://www.boxturtlebulletin/
Some of them I have had to stop reading for this reason. It’s grumbling that “Obama hasn’t done enough” 24/7. I am gay and of course I want full equality, but I understand that change has to come from Congress. It can’t be imposed by Obama, even with DADT. Yes, he can suspend prosecutions by executive order, but that just puts the gay soldiers charged under DADT into legal limbo. They won’t be discharged but they can’t legally serve either. And this may even be a worse fate than discharge.
I don’t look at fixing healthcare, the economy and ending inequality as either/or things. The government can multitask, so I reject the idea that our issues should wait until the others are fixed. But I didn’t expect much to happen in the first year. I knew it was going to be a slow process and I don’t blame Obama for it.
Makewi
@Zifnab:
By all means explain more fully what you think I missed.
Chuck Butcher
Sully is pretty funny sometimes and he can turn a pretty phrase, but the naked conflict between his own self interest and his ideology and religiousity makes him ludicrous as far as content goes. Whatever misses John Cole has in his posts I have a great deal of respect for the consistency of his evolution of ideology with what he posts as opinion. It stands as a body of work rather than the self-interested hackery of Sully.
tomvox1
I don’t understand Aravosis’s willingness to conflate this admittedly snide anonymous comment as being representative of how the WH views gay bloggers in specific, which it obviously does not (per Harwood and even before he clarified, it was pretty clear, IMO). And as an aside, Greenwald really seems to feel that this administration is absolutely no better at all than the previous one and is basically dedicating all his (long, long, long) posts to trying to prove that daily. The impatience of some on the blogging Left (i.e. the FDL crowd) for Obama to do everything all at once and now, Now, NOW! really does come across as somewhat juvenile & unrealistic, predilection for pajamas & Cheetos notwithstanding.
Mnemosyne
@tomvox1:
Because no one in the history of the entire world has ever been as oppressed as John Aravosis, so therefore the comment was not only directed at gay bloggers like himself, it was actually directed specifically at him.
Why anyone takes the guy seriously anymore, I have no idea.
mcc
Beauzeaux: I mean, I don’t know. When I think of “gay blogosphere” I think of sort of the Towleroad / Joe My God / Pam’s House Blend / Queerty / Bilerico type sites and some other blogs that are tied in to them– sites that are kind of specifically “about” being gay and gay politics rather than just maybe featuring some gay people. (I’d think of AmericaBlog for example as being a different sort of thing.) I think this group of blogs roughly corresponds to the internet presence of a certain kind of activist– the people who drove the National Equality March, maybe. And I’m not sure I would have said what I did about there being a bubble a week ago (unless I was feeling really mean), but the last 24 hours or so seeing arguments here, on DailyKos, etc, what it seems like I’ve been seeing is arguments that are kind of familiar to me from following blogs like that kind of bursting out into the general blogosphere… and people reacting more than anything with a sort of blank non-comprehension that suggests they haven’t really seen this running HRC Versus Blogosphere flamewar before.
geg6
@Zifnab:
Actually, there are active duty soldiers I know who were injured in the course of duty who are back in the battle zones. Serving. One of whom has only one leg. Several with severe PTSD, and those are serving against medical advice and their own wishes.
So, you actually can serve with a disability. If they want you to.
slag
@Mnemosyne:
Yes. Having some measured expectation of relative competence is truly a dramatic goalpost shift. My original goalpost was that they try not to drool on themselves during press conferences. Mission accomplished.
Seriously, if the administration gets stuff done, they can talk about liberal pajama-wearers all day long as far as I’m concerned. But I find it hilarious that anyone considers the possible quote (which I neither trust nor truly care about) alteration from “Getting equal rights for gays is hard!” to “Accomplishing anything at all is hard!” to be an improvement. Just sayin.
henqiguai
@Kryptik (#67):
Not picking on you, specifically, Kryptik, but that whole meme of wanting Obama to get more pro-active, more aggressive, to throw his weight around is just puzzling. Every time I see some variation on that theme, I want to ask how you know he’s not ? Is it that everyone who asks that question assumes that all, or even most of his, and his staff’s, activities are via the media ? Everything is published for public review and critique ? Am I the only one who thinks that maybe, just maybe, Rahm and crew are secretly slapping people around but doing it so as to then not have to deal with hurt feelings and emasculation as an aftermath ?
Don’t know, am really curious, but I’ve been assuming that (pick your poison, Sun Tzu like or Machiavellian like) the bulk of the strategizing and maneuvering are by design out of the public eye. ‘Cause, really, Congressional and Senatorial egos are really really delicate things.
Mnemosyne
@slag:
Hey, if you want to defend the past 24 hours’ worth of hissy fit as having been really about bloggers in general and not specifically about GLBT bloggers, you go right ahead, but you’re going to have a lot of scrubbing to do.
And just to clarify, I’m not saying that GLBT bloggers and lefty bloggers in general have nothing to complain about with this administration. I’m saying that if John Aravosis is providing you with the day’s outrage, take it with a really big grain of salt because, as usual, his poutrage has left his allies looking like fools.
Svensker
@General Winfield Stuck:
You realize the palindrome is Sit Illeh My Norca, don’t you?
General Winfield Stuck
@Svensker:
Of course, maybe.
slag
@Mnemosyne: I haven’t read Americablog lately and have little interest in the supposed poutrage. I’m just pointing out the simple reality that the administration can expect to see a lot more of it if they don’t accomplish at least one or two of the big ticket items on their list soon. And no amount of bitching about pajamas is going to change that fact.
trollhattan
This just in: Ahnold is now “Teh Rejectionator.”
http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/capitolalertlatest/026166.html
That is all.
Mnemosyne
@slag:
So you haven’t been following what this entire comment thread (and two others besides) have been about but you’re going to make a pronouncement on what the statement “really” meant anyway?
Have fun with that.
Zifnab
@Makewi: I just highlighted it. Holy mother of god, please tell me you are a spoof. No one really needs 3rd grade reading comprehension lectures do they?
Zifnab
@geg6: Well… that sucks.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne:
Watch–this is going to be filed away for future use. The next time Obama disappoints John Aravosis, he’ll pop up again ranting about how their actions–like their scathingly homophobic private comments after the speech to the Human Rights Campaign–tell the Real Story, the Real Story of the Antigay President. It’s a story that only John Aravosis has the guts to tell, if only he had a slightly better electronic gadget that would make his Important Work even more productive, and if you don’t like it, you’re banned, and you’re probably a homophobe yourself, unlike the perfectly lovely Katherine Harris.
James
@Ash:
@arguingwithsignposts:
Re: support of war, Bell Curve, wrong on everything, elitist hypocrite on health care, especially, and that whole conservative boot-strap ethos…
I know, I know, and I don’t disagree with any of that. I do admire Sully for willing to (occasionally) admit error and make an apology when it’s due, and to post dissenting views, and that series he did on late-term abortion was both admirable and ground-breaking. He’s flawed, yes. Aren’t we all.
I guess I’m inclined to give a flawed man a break, and credit where it’s due, since I’m hardly a paragon myself.
colleeniem
@inkadu: Bravo.
I’ve also thought that one of the reasons (that is implied in your thoughtful posts) that DADT is so difficult to repeal among military types is that the institution financially encourages two parent households (with a significant bump in a living allowance for couples), and of course, those health benefits being passed on to dependents. Of course we all know the cost of that isn’t small. Add in this new absolutely rockin’ GI Bill (Thanks Senator Webb! You’re my boy!) and you’re talking about a lot of bennies that go to families who support the troops.
Which is as it should be.
And when gays are allowed in the military, the government should encourage that same support network to the same people with same sex spouses, otherwise that is pure discrimination, the same as or worse than DADT. Then you have government actively encouraging (with cash!) family building by homosexuals. To us, this is a great thing, just one more step to legitimize relationships that until recently were considered illegal and sordid by some. And those some see that writing on the wall, and politically, will fight tooth and nail not to see that step come to fruition.
slag
@Mnemosyne: You’re right. I was under the impression that these threads have been about whether or not gay rights activists are productively pursuing their goals. And what GLBTs and liberals, in general, should reasonably expect from Democrats in the executive branch as well as both houses of congress. Now that I know they’ve all been about John Aravosis, I can sleep easy. In my PJs, of course.
Mnemosyne
@slag:
Glad I could clear that up for you since you seem to be under the impression that the conversation arose from the ether and not because of what Aravosis claimed a White House official had said about the GLBT blogosphere.
Makewi
@Zifnab:
No, explain what you mean, don’t just repeat yourself. How does focusing on that one word change the argument? I’m guessing you can’t, and you just want to appear as if you could.
Brachiator
Hey, at least the Japanese love Obama:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/business/global/12iht-speech.html?em
Little Dreamer
@Da Bomb:
That “we” that you speak of is not a clear cut division of left and right anymore. The right is infiltrating the left.
grumpy realist
Actually, John Aravosis doesn’t seem to mind tradition-that-impinges-on-other-people’s-rights when it’s a tradition he approves of. Thread long while back about the whole Chief Illiniwek bruhuha. JA just could not see (as opposed to roughly 99% of his commentators in a very long and verbal thread) why anyone would get upset about the American Indian equivalent of a guy in blackface prancing around on a football field. So I sorta put him in the Sully category.
slag
@Mnemosyne: As oddly irrelevant as your point is here, I can’t help but correct you and make clear that I know exactly where this series of conversations came from. But their places of origin don’t necessarily dictate the places they go. As you, yourself, demonstrated by presenting the evolution of John Harwood’s pseudo-quote to which I responded. However, if all you want to do is complain about John Aravosis, then by all means, don’t let me or anyone else get in your way.
wrb
@Brachiator:
“Hey, at least the Japanese love Obama”
Well… they’re yellow too.
What did you expect?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWNi2RiWgzM
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Makewi:
I’m also glad to see those numbers going down, but since executive orders are sometimes used by the POTUS as a substitute for being able to get legislation thru Congress it would be a good idea to analyze those numbers in two seperate sets, putting POTUS with a same-party majority in Congress in one column, and POTUS with a same-party minority in Congress in the other column. You’d probably need to break it down further by House vs. Senate and the size of the majority, but then we’d be getting into Nate Silver territory.
Little Dreamer
@eric:
Too reasonable, everyone knows that demands only come in the “I want it Daddy and I want it NOW!” variety around here. Sit down and wait your turn.
celticdragon
@lyons:
Yes, it’s me. I do trend libertarian on a number of issues, although I consider it unworkable as an overarching principle of governance. It simply doesn’t allow for actual human problems that fall into “blind spots” that folks like McMegan and the editors at Reason can’t seem to acknowledge. (A little bit like arguments in Anthropology between Emic and Etic principles of research. Neither are complete in of themselves)
That is why I actually do support a public option for health care, since I believe it is a matter of moral imperative..but that is a topic for another thread.
Leelee for Obama
@Little Dreamer: That’s what I couldn’t put my finger on! It reminds me of Verucha Salt from Charlie and Chocolate Factory! Where the hell are the Uumpa Lumpas when you need them, I ask you.
Saw someplace, maybe HuffPo that Harwood says the pajamas crack wasn’t directed at HRS or Gay bloggers, but the lefty blogs in general. Nice to clear that up after starting a shitstorm-and since we piss on the 101st Keyboarders quite a lot, seems a bit disingenuous to not like it when it’s about the Left, n’est pas?
Like I said before, I love me some Will Rogers.
Chuck Butcher
Let me point out again that Presidential speeches to organizations like HRC are not campaign rhetoric, they are a very clear and very public signals to the Legislative branch what the President wants. Short of browbeating Congress it is the way it is done. It was not a quibble point speech nor was it devoid of content and it was not aimed at HRC.
Such a speech is supposed to drive comment and action and it has, though some of it is pretty unfortunate. Even that unfortunate reaction is less a deal than the stirring of the pot which was the aim. This is the second day this is all over the MSM and inter-tubes; how’s that for stirring the pot?
This device is not new or short in practice, it pays to remember that GWB did few news conferences and lots of speeches – to friendly audiences. Sometimes this kind of thing is called access to earned media, which is useful in getting the message out without the annoyance of questioning reporters.
Leelee for Obama
@Chuck Butcher: Chuck, my man, this is the winner of the thread! I actually enjoyed the professional descriptions of the way a good speech can turn the tide of things!
matoko_chan
Zifnab, u wronnnngggg.
WECs (White evangelical xians) make up 20% of the electorate. Mormons make up 2%. 2008 exit polls put them at 50% of the the GOP.
The GOP has declined from 30% of the electorate to 22%.
The voters that left to become independents were not WECs…
resulting in an an increasingly homogeneous religious party.
I estimate that the GOP is 75% WEC now.
McCain got in because WECs hate mormons worse than satan.
That is why you don’t hear much about Beck’s conversion to mormonism.
73% of the GOP supports Palin for prez. 84% of republican WECs support Palin for prez.
You do the math.
;)
Pretty soon there will be a poll.
75% or higher WEC is my hypoth.
matoko_chan
Also I have changed my mind about DADT.
Obama should repeal it and call the GOP’s bluff.
Sully says 60% of churchgoing ‘mericans (ie conservatives) support repealing DADT.
Just do it.
;)
not DOMA though…..that will be “Obamacare” Part Deux.
Little Dreamer
@Chuck Butcher:
I tried to articulate this last night in a less eloquent fashion. There is no reason for Obama to be bringing this up now just to get the GLBT community in an uproar. He means to do something with this, but, our gay comrades haven’t any patience.
tc125231
Well clearly Arnold is better. Look at how masterfully he has handled California’s problems and stood up to the powerful penal workers union.
Or not. Blech. So typical. They say Obama is too much of a celebrity. So they come up with The Terminator.
Sullivan embodies Socrates’ statement: –the unexamined life is not worth living.
Chad N Freude
@trollhattan: Well, it might help if the
legislaturedysfunctuslature actually passed bills for him to sign.From the SacBee report:
Elie
gwamgung@184
I see what you are saying and I have to agree that you have a point or so…
I just have to remember it as various members of the left progressive keep pushing my patience for tactical difference button over and over and over..
Still to me it IS weird how much parts of the left mimic the right or vise versa. You call it “tactics” but in many ways its “world view”. The will to power is more comprehensive than a tactic and sadly characterizes some of the harshest points of view put out on what they believe are the right “tactics” — just ram it down the opposition’s throat by fiat and screw the tiresome process of reaching consensus or thinking about priorities.
We have to believe that we are not just trying to do right by one issue at a time, but that we are trying to do right for the whole system — so that we can again begin to use and believe in effective government that can actually do the right thing. Otherwise, we just have whatever group is in power running the table to their own ends…
It is also clear that many on the left have as little trust in government with Obama in it as they had with Bush. If that is their reality, they will always just be waiting for the next disappointment and betrayal…
HyperIon
@gwangung: LGTBQ
i love it when the Q gets included.
matoko_chan
Why are people here bellcurve-denialists?
Were your moms all scared by a stanford-binet or are you just Gauss hatahs?
kommrade reproductive vigor
Fuck Mr. “Well maybe he should show his birth certificate,” with Maria Shriver’s cheekbones in a not at all loving or gentle way.
That is all. (I mean it this time.)
Persia
I’m watching Outrage right now, and it’s easy to understand why people are angry. The segment on Charlie Crist made me want to drive down to Florida and smack that guy around a couple of times. So much of the history of gay rights in this country is the story of people saying ‘shut up, this is more important than your rights as a human being are.’
I get that Obama can’t do everything at once, and I want to believe that he’s counting on Congress. But I can’t fault people for being cynical. Not considering history and not considering how people act right now against the rights and interests of gay people. Not considering that people in this thread are comparing homosexuality to medical conditions that disqualify people from combat service and acting like this is a comparison that is logical and makes sense.
Chuck Butcher
Thanks Leelee and Dreamer, I am actually trying to be useful.
Chuck Butcher
@Persia:
Aw cripe Persia, I and others have been reminded repeatedly not to take comments here or even all over the blogospere as indicative of the gay population, so I’ll remind you.
celticdragon
@Chuck Butcher:
If you say so.
LD50
Actually, those two events happened the other way around.
Chuck Butcher
@celticdragon:
Did you become politically aware yesterday? Do you actually know anything at all about trying to push a political establishment in your desired direction? It’s not that I say so, it is the pattern through modern Presidencies and it is there for your consideration despite my bringing it up. But figuring shit out is more work than yelling and crying.
You’ve got a quibble? Then state your damn objection for clarity’s sake. Are you always this childish?
I understand personas even if I don’t participate, yours really is asshole-ish and if it isn’t assumed I start to wonder if gayness or you are the root of your social difficulties.
If you want the expanded version click the link
celticdragon
@Chuck Butcher:
It’s cynicism.
I don’t expect anything to be “worked out” for another 8 to 10 years. The glbt community can be strung along for donations for years….
Glad to oblige.
Pain medication, insomnia and mid-terms do wonderful things for my temper.
Probably because we all know that our interactions here are not anything remotely like what we would do in person.
Honestly. You can’t see my body language or hear my tone of voice, nor I yours. A huge part of communication is lost right there. Don’t forget the anonymity factor, which is an actual (unfortunately necessary, perhaps) detriment and allows for bad bahavior.
The dust up about “Just Some Fuckhead”?
You and I both know that he almost certainly would not have made the snide, nasty remark in person to me or anybody here in real life…so my hypothetical was actually useless. There would have been no “slap” because people really don’t speak that way to each other face to face unless they are actually trying to start something. I have found that to be almost nil.
I am also not a “guy” or gay, per se. I’m trans (and a former helicopter door gunner), so my reasoning and imagery tend to be influenced accordingly.
In any event, if my commentary annoys you so, then ignore it…although I have tried to engage you honestly here.
Social problems? All my friends are Revolutionary War re-enactors, Highland Games enthusiasts, Celtic music types and table top wargamers.
Yes…I’m a game geek. Convicted.
cat48
I guess Arnold was competing with Obama. A few months ago Obama gave Harvey Milk the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously; now Arnold decides to go ahead with the Harvey Milk Day.
Joe M
@gwangung:
Naw. I don’t do much blithefully, skipping or otherwise. I just don’t see why the “how” or the “when” mattered vis a vis whether or not gay people found it a positive thing that Arnold signed the legislation and our right to compare it to other allies, namely President Obama. Still don’t.
This thread is very interesting because it’s shifted. It started as a treatise against misdirected anger toward your allies (a treatise I disagreed with and still do – I don’t think it’s misdirected and the frustration well-earned) and now is about “tactics” and also about how we are all in agreement that Sully and Avorosis are self-involved tools.
Look, my main issue is this: I know most people here are allies, but realize that many of y’all are late to this party and I nor anyone else has the energy to get you up to speed. You will disagree on this, perhaps strongly, which is your right. I just hate being lectured on legislative tactics and historical accuracy like we just started this fight yesterday. Gays have been fighting the rising theocracy in the US for a long, long time and we know the rules and we know what’s in store. Save it. Despite your feelings about Sullivan or John A, not everyone who finds the current atmosphere of “wait until it’s the right undefined, undetermined time! Meanwhile, behave” immensely frustrating does so out of some blind, selfish anger or childish self-centeredness. And the constant characterization of this train of thought as such is very insulting. Check ya-self before you wiggidy wiggidy wreck ya-self.
tc125231
@LD50: In time of appearance. Not as proposed presidents.
celticdragon
@Joe M:
Indeed. I have played the game and lobbied at the NC legislature on open lobby day. I’ve made appointments with the Republican leader of the House in Indiana while I was working there. I have smiled, schmoozed, rallied, written and called congresscritters.
And for lack of anything better, i will keep doing so…but being patronized is enraging like nothing else.
Since Chuck Butcher is deeply concerned about my willingness to lash out with angry talk of smacking somebody, I will merely think about sharpening my Cladaigh-moire downstairs.
Or would that be phallic-centric?? *sigh*
Chuck Butcher
@celticdragon:
I have friends who are Celtic games enthusiasts and I’ve been invited any number of times to toss and throw things, but I’m already over-extended with committments and joining would be unfair. Yes among my mongroid ancestry are Scotts.
Oblivion is loaded in the XBox with a 48″ screen and another run through going on so I’ll kill some digital images.
I’m sure you have had plenty of reason for cynicism, I’m nearly 50 years a leftist, give you any idea if I’ve had some reasons? I pay attention and I find ways to work my ends. My successes are small compared to the amount of issues, but they exist. I have some pretty damn important and powerful ears that respect me and that is something not to lightly dismiss since I got there with no money as entre’.
I could get angry and I do sometimes and I pick my targets carefully because I want something beyond the release of fury.
celticdragon
@Chuck Butcher:
Ceud Mile Failte’
(Scots Gaelic for “10,000 greetings”)
You ought to consider at least going and hoisting a pint of McEwan’s even if you aren’t able to do the heavy athletics. Highland Games are a blast.
Chuck Butcher
@celticdragon:
I’m 21 years clean and sober so that might be a poor idea.
They’re disappointed but there are exactly so many hours in a day and I’m fresh out.
celticdragon
@Chuck Butcher:
Oh dear. Point taken and apologies. That is one subject I never screw with anybody about.
I have dealt with family members (on my wife’s side) who had problems, and my hat is off to you for your accomplishment.
dan robinson
Mistake #1: giving a shit about anything Sullivan says.
Chuck Butcher
@celticdragon:
Apologies not required at all, you made a nice gesture w/o knowlege.
Deschanel
Right on to Joe M and others. What a fucking annoying thread this turned out to be.
In this thread, gay people have been accused of “poutrage”, throwing grenades at Obama, hissy-fits, all sorts of of straight peoples’ idea of faggy insouciance. Literally told to sit down and shut up.
I liked Obama’s HRC speech and was on board saying criticism from gay quarters was too harsh. But some of the alleged well-meaning straights here are pretty fucking arrogant too, telling gay people what they should and shouldn’t do to achieve equality.
Tell me what the hell gay people did besides a march and a speech that so many BJ commenters feel the need to say, ” shut up and sit at the back of the bus?” The condescending crap from some of you alleged liberals here is grating. We don’t need your permission.
Last night on “Mad Men”, Betty says to her black maid, “maybe it’s just too soon for civil rights”, as MLK is on the radio in 1963. It’s always too soon it seems. And the campaign for gay rights, to be seen as equal Americans, has been ongoing since the 1950’s, a lot longer than the internet and asshole commenters who pretend they’re well-meaning and gay-friendly but are still telling us to STFU at the back of the bus. You sorts seem to think we should be grateful for your crumbs, your cheap liberal piety. We’re stronger than that, we went through the firestorm of the AIDS crisis, and it was our “bitching” ie activism that got the life-saving drugs that has made the disease manageable, worldwide.
All you people saying gay people should just shut up and be grateful for crumbs- sorry , we have more pride and spine than that. Sullivan is quite right on this topic- we’re not some damned pets here, and don’t tell us to shut up. Ever, because we have been fighting our whole lives, and we won’t be stopping now.
Mnemosyne
@Deschanel:
Given that the remarks from an anonymous White House source that people have been indignant about all day turn out to have not been directed at LGBT activists after all, I’m not sure what to call the brouhaha about them other than poutrage. I can understand people still being upset about things that were said in the comments over the past 24 hours, but it turns out that John was right and the whole original “controversy” was in fact manufactured bullshit.
gwangung
@HyperIon: Some of us try to learn (and some of us sometimes don’t get it, but keep trying).
Nellcote
@Svensker:
I get (TNR) The National Review and (TNR) The New Republic confused all the time too. also.
gwangung
@Elie: Well, having gone through the sixties and seventies, I know quite well the authoritarian impulses live quite as well on the left as they do on the right. Each side are blind to its own darker impulses; you really have to work to keep watch on them, and sometimes we don’t do a good job at keeping them in check. But you still must try.
gwangung
@Joe M: Well, we certainly don’t agree. I don’t think it’s comparing apples to apples (and I just don’t think Obama is as weasly as Arnold has been)(but YMMV).
Danceswithwords
This is one of the reasons I find Sullivan so frustrating. He leaps in without having the slightest clue what he’s talking about. To whit:
(a) As noted above, Ahnold vetoed real gay marriage legislation when he had the chance.
(b) He only signed the Harvey Milk bill as part of a giant bill-signing spree, which in turn only happened because he was threatening to veto every bill on his desk unless the legislature passed a very bogus water bill. And, in fact, since the Harvey Milk bill was guaranteed to garner press attention, it’s reasonable to suspect that he did it to take attention away from the other bills he vetoed, many of which (this is a theme with his administration) cut services to the poor.
If Andrew Sullivan thinks this is a big sign of principles, I’ve got a bridge to sell him.
Yeah, I live in California.
Paula
Deschanel:
Gay activists have every right to hit Obama on all sides and go shopping for another candidate if they want to. On the other hand, if there is contempt for blogger-activists, I share it, so I don’t give a fuck if it’s the de facto WH position. ALL of my bile is about how I do think that bloggers are “using” the gay rights issue in this case to front what is actually a hissy fit about being called “useless”, which they have track record of having hissy fits about. But yes, I AM biased, because I think the maintsream left blogs ARE useless, or at least doing useless things, at the moment.
Obv, the ambiguity of the quote and the compounding ambiguity of the “reporting” feeds into various unhelpful projections of hostility where none need be and break bonds that may be in the process of being forged. Then I realize that the ambiguity is precisely what feeds the outrage, which is what feeds blog traffic—and I get pissed, again. Because it’s all useless.
If these bloggers were in any way interested in “reporting” or “clarity”, they would actually point out stuff like this. Although, given some bloggers (GG) seem to be doubling down even in light of Harwood’s confession that “fringe” wasn’t actually used to describe the marchers I guess it’s safe to conclude that they really aren’t interested in reporting or clarity.
lyons
@Celtic Dragon:
hee hee, thank goodness you are not into McMegan :)
I don’t know Emic from Etic principles, but you shouldn’t ever call yourself a libertarian–people will get the wrong idea about you! Just say, “I’m a liberal who supports gun rights…” or whatever else.
Libertarians are Reason-reading, teabaggers, watering the tree of liberty with Ayn Rand’s pee etc…