“…and as always in parting, we wish you love, peace… and SOUL!”

For Villagers, Republicans are “moderates” if they’re reasonable dinner party guests.

via Eschaton: It’s Just Tone.

Yes, and this revisionist policy position syndrome affects more people than you think. See one Bill Maher.

I’ve heard him say quite often that former Vice President Dick Cheney is to the left of President Obama on marriage equality.  President Obama has successfully led the repeal of DADT, extended benefits to domestic partners of executive branch employees, supports Civil Unions, stopped the DOJ from defending DOMA in court. Prior to that, Obama as US Senator and US Representative had a record of supporting Civil Rights for LGBT Americans including supporting hate crimes legislation that includes LGBT as a protected class. The sticking point here is that Obama supports civil unions (short of gay marriage), while Dick Cheney supports marriage equality although like Obama  he says (marriage is the province of the states). But Cheney’s strong personal support of LGBT rights amounted when hedged against the Bush/Cheney’s platform resulted in substantial setbacks to marriage equality and civil rights for LGBT Americans.

Cheney was a long serving US Representative, a  Secretary of Defense, director of the Council of Foreign Relations and a very powerful vice president for the bulk of George W. Bush’s 8 years in office. It’s true, as  Secretary of Defense he was first quoted on the record as referring to the policy of banning gays in the military as “an old chestnut”. But not that old of a chestnut:

Increasingly, toward the end of his tenure, Cheney had to consider social issues affecting the military forces, particularly the status of homosexuals in the military and the role of women in combat. In the face of pressure from some members of Congress and the public at large, Cheney reviewed standing DoD policy on these matters. He decided that the existing policies–a ban on homosexuals serving in the military and the exclusion of women from combat positions–were correct and did not need to be changed.

During and after his tenure as VP, Cheney also professed his belief in full marriage equality, but he did little beyond these proclamations of personal belief to advance the rights of LGBT Americans with regards to these issues. Cheney picked himself for the number two job in the Bush administration as head of Bush 2000 VP search committee and it was evident then that a Bush/Cheney administration would never support repeal of DADT or marriage equality and in fact would push for less civil rights for LGBT groups. During the 2000 and 04 elections Bush/Cheney, ran on a platform that made them the bulwark protecting real ‘murkins and their children from teh ghey marriages.

This was a big motivator for evangelicals, the group that when energized supercharges the ground game for Republicans. To tweak the issue prior to the US Presidential Election in 2004 and Mid Term elections in 2006, the Bush Administration introduced legislation for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and woman. These “sanctity of marriage” amendments failed, but showed that no federal action was possible. “The Sanctity of Marriage” was up to social conservative evangelical voters.  With this demagoguery as a motivator, from 2002 to 2008, social conservatives proposed and passed anti-marriage equality ballot measures in 29 states that amended their constitutions to be anti-gay marriage.

Degree, magnitude, process and consequence of political actions matter. Cheney was vocal or personally adamant in his support for marriage equality and civil rights but this was largely absent from Cheney’s legislative, cabinet and vice presidential agendas. These same issues have been political priorities in President Obama’s considerably shorter political career. Cheney squandered his opportunity to be politically “on the left” of Obama on these issues in any substantial way.

• Ron Paul is a plain and simple bigot who fully agreed with the content of his newsletters
•  Ron Paul is a plain and simple charlatan who cranked up the bigotry in his newsletters to grow his audience

“A person involved in Paul’s businesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid criticizing a former employer, said Paul and his associates decided in the late 1980s to try to increase sales by making the newsletters more provocative,” the paper reports. “They discussed adding controversial material, including racial statements, to help the business, the person said.”

(from Ron Paul-Supporting Former Ron Paul Secretary: He Knew All About Those Newsletters | TPM)

Either option disqualifies him as a serious candidate for President or a serious movement politician. I wonder if this meeting in the late 1980′s went something like…

King knew he was marginalized as a referee of the proceedings after that moment. I don’t know if King knows why. King basically asks Gingrich if he wants to comment on a wreck that was a previous marriage. He doesn’t even bother to challenge Newt in the context of his views on marriage  equality or his crusade against Bill Clinton. He just basically asks him if he wants to share some anecdotes regarding his 2nd marriage/divorce.

A divorce that I or any other voter could give two shits about. He could have discussed: The recession. The Iraq war. The mortgage crisis. Fannie/Freddie. The national budget. Reproductive rights. Global warming. No. He wants to know what Gingrich has to say about his 2nd ex wife.

When Gingrich dings him, King then tries to beg Gingrich off with the punk move of saying “this story did not come from our network”. It came from your network the minute you brought up at the Republican debate. If you can’t stand for the value of the question when challenged you shouldn’t ask it.

Could you imagine the free period for poor kids:
Study hall or art elective for all the rich kids! Poor kids: time to frack for Natural Gas!

Democrats lost to this guy because they couldn’t get out of their own way. So what do you call smart people who consistently get served by idiots.

Picking up chatter from live mics and then recounting to the public is no different than what WikiLeaks does:

A staff member reportedly explained that the headphones to go with the translation sets were not yet being handed out because this would have allowed journalists to listen in on the private conversation still going on. Half a dozen journalists immediately plugged in their own headphones and caught three minutes of the private exchange.

The conversation apparently began with Obama criticising Sarkozy for not warning the US that France would vote in favour of the Palestinians’ application to join Unesco, the United Nations agency for culture and education.

One French journalist told Arrêt Sur Images that the conversation was broadcast for around three minutes before officials realised the mistake. Another told the website that the reporters agreed not to publicise the remarks because of their sensitive nature.

via Sarkozy and Obama’s Netanyahu gaffe broadcast via microphones | World news | The Guardian

WikiLeaks had it’s problems (namely protecting sources), but they just focused on this type of journalism: getting people with access to information hidden by the powerful to release documents that eliminate the truth.