While I'm a Kentucky boy through heritage and experience, by an accident of the draft and the Vietnam war, I was actually born in California. Given today's big pro-marriage rights ruling, and Schwarzenegger's decision to uphold the court's decision, I'm tempted to claim native-son status from the state.
Wow. Everyone should bask while they can. This is a big, big deal.
If you were a better candidate, you would have run a better campaign. If you were honorable in your positions, you wouldn't attempt to change the rules that you agreed to when you realized you were losing. If you were even a decent candidate at this point, I wouldn't be cringing and yelling every time a I saw you or one of your surrogates -- please, God, make Terry McAuliffe go away for a long, long time -- appear on television.
Stop it. Stop it now. Otherwise, when the Republicans snatch victory with your gracious assistance, we'll know just who is to blame.
Just caught Lisa Caputo's shot about Hillary not being the type of person sipping "white wine" with the elite, and it just makes it even clearer that these people must go. Sooner rather than later.
Or, as Andrew says, "God, I hate the Clintons."
We really do deserve better, you know.
So Howard Dean's on MSNBC telling me how superdelegates are just ordinary people with a vote. Really? The superdelegates actually have two votes, and one of those votes counts more than the other. That ain't ordinary people, and don't try 'n tell me different cuz I'm onto you, Howard.
I was kind of planning to write a post on why even though rising gas taxes are having a negative effect on many aspects of my elite life -- they increase the money I have to pay to distribute Metro Weekly, they increase the money I have spend on food for my catering business, they put a huge burden on my family members in Kentucky and Indiana who drive more than 50 miles to and from work each way every day -- but frankly, I can't get motivated because the Clinton campaign is simply too depressing in its willingness to ask the American voter, "How big a check do you want for your vote?"
Obviously, I'm against the gas tax holiday for similar reasons as basically every living economist. But I'm just finding myself more and more depressed about the possible outcome of this entire election cycle and the fact that Hillary Clinton seems to believe that America as a nation is all about the lowest common denominator. I'm hoping that voters -- including my Hoosier family -- who are actually hurting from the current economic situation will resist Clinton call to naked, short-term self interest and cast their vote for a needed change in the way our political system is structured. I like to think they will.
It would be nice to be proved right, for once.
When some bloggers began criticizing a Commentary column that criticized Barack Obama for choosing orange juice (a "childish" drink) over coffee ("bitter and bracing"), I kind of assumed that too many people were reading a joking column as a serious rant. Then I went to read it for myself.
And it really is about the stupidest thing I've read this campaign. It may even be stupider than Fox News talking about the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
Scary thing? There's plenty of room to go even lower between now and November.
Via Andrew, a Kentucky Democrat voices an opinion to The New Yorker on Clinton v. Obama:
"I really don't want an African-American as President ... I thought about it. I think he would put too many minorities in positions over the white race. That's my opinion. After 1964, you saw what the South did ... There's a lot of white people that just wouldn't vote for a colored person. Especially older people," - a Clinton supporter in Eastern Kentucky, to George Packer of the New Yorker.
I'm not sure what's sadder, the attitude represented by the thinking or the fact that my home state seems determined to be as embarrassing as possible these days. Perhaps I could take refuge in that I'm only half-Kentuckian if you look solely at my paternal lineage.
Unfortunately, my maternal lineage is in Indiana, and Hoosiers have their own problems lately.
My sister just e-mailed that they found a scorpion in her office near her work area.
Her office in Kentucky.
Surely, a sign of the apocalypse. I expect the rain of frogs by 2 p.m. In the meantime, I'm working with my legs well out from underneath my desk.
Howard Kurtz tosses one off at the end of his Post media column today, noting NBC anchor Brian Williams consternation at all the sexy, sexy stuff in recent issues of the New York Times.
Finally, Brian Williams turns media critic on his NBC blog, questioning (without quite saying so) whether the New York Times is out of touch with mainstream America:
"It's tough to figure out exactly what readers the paper is speaking to, or seeking. Consider this: the Sunday Styles section lead story on April 13th was 'Scavengers on the Urban Savannah' (people buy things at flea markets!), and promoted on Page One was 'A Sex Chair Becomes A Battlefield.' Alrighty then.
"This Sunday's lead story was 'Through Sickness, Health, Sex Change . . . ' in a section that included the essay, 'Was I On A Date Or Baby-Sitting?,' and 'Let's Say You Want To Date A Hog Farmer' (and who among us hasn't?).
"The magazine cover story this week was 'The Newlywed Gays!' (happy gay men in Massachusetts who are married outdoor grilling enthusiasts!) . . .The lead story in the Travel Section? The rise of vacation resorts catering to nudists."
All the sex that's fit to print.
You know those stories about young gay men getting married and, in many cases, committing to monogamy -- nothing but sex, sex, sex!
Really, given that it looks like neither one of them bothered to read the Newlywed Gays story -- I did, by the way, and it's pretty good overall -- it makes me wonder what pictures go through Williams's and Kurtz's heads when they hear the word "gay." And if they did read the story, well, ingrained bias is an ugly thing.
A kilt as a part of Scottish formal wear? Kinda hot:
Kilts worn with worn, nondescript American t-shirts? Kinda not:
(Appy-polly-logies to Jimbo, from whom I cruelly stole the action shot.)
In a strange day of political developments, I'm struck by the reaction to the far more minor eruption in North Carolina where Gov. Mike Easley made his endorsement of Hillary Clinton more newsworthy by tossing out the loaded word "pansy."
But what strikes me more than the utterance itself is the blog posts and e-mails I've been watching that defend Hillary's defender because "pansy" isn't really an anti-gay term, or because Easley's just a humor-impaired old straight guy, or because "OMG, I didn't even know 'pansy' was a gay insult!" And, no surprise, some gay Obama supporters have been pushing the story, while some gay Clinton supporters have been pretending it's no big deal. Both of which are useless pursuits.
Anyone who votes against Clinton solely for this Easley flap probably shouldn't be voting anyway because it kind of indicates a lack of any sort of critical thought about either candidate; the same goes for anyone who votes against Obama because of Rev. Wright or some other supposed "surrogate." There are far bigger issues at stake, and far better arguments for both candidates.
But. But, but, but.
As a 40 year old gay guy with strong memories of how homosexuals were verbally degraded in my rural Kentucky hometown -- faggot, queer, pansy, homo, etc. -- and even stronger memories of those words and others being used against me in college and beyond, the dismissal by some of a pretty nasty little word strikes me as a pretty egregious case of granting an exception for political purposes. I've watched the gay community over the past few years rear itself up with righteous dudgeon over the use of the word "gay" by pre-teens. Yet the 50-something Democratic governor of a southern state gets a pass with a wink and nod? Isn't he the one who should know better? Isn't he the one we should be holding accountable?
Maybe we should come up with a list of words that are acceptable and those that are not. "Pansy" = okay. "Faggot" = off limits. "Cocksucker" = depends on the context.
The idea that Clinton should have reacted immediately and cast Easley aside to give some soul-stirring speech denouncing the history of the word pansy is, frankly, silly. But the idea that we as a community should react with no more than a laugh and a wave of the hand is disheartening.
I generally spend a fair amount of time reading "conservative" web sites, mostly just to keep up with what's going on, etc. But as of late I've taken a breather, given that the Democratic race seems to have driven the right wing to out-and-out insanity. That and the pope's visit proved that Katherine Jean Lopez really could get stupider.
But I cruised by tonight, curious to see what was up in winger-land after Obama denounced Wright today. Right at the top was this excrescence from Kate O'Beirne, under the title "October Suprise?":
An interview with Jeremiah Wright during which he recounts past conversations with Barack Obama about the young aspiring politician's views on race and whites and his mixed feelings about his country. i.e. Don't Democrats have to sweat out this angry, arrogant wild card who could destroy the Obama campaign at will?
If they're this unhinged and desperate in April, imagine what they'll be like come September. It's going to be a long, long summer, whether or not Hillary pulls off her heist.
Settling in this morning for the first Roger Federer v. Rafael Nadal final of the year, this is one of the tournaments where you can appreciate the beauty of the facility as much as (or even more so) than the quality of the play. Really, if you were to die and go to tennis heaven, I'm pretty sure you'd find something like the Monte Carlo Country Club (though maybe with a hard court, depending on your preferences). The view is gorgeous, and I imagine the smell of the the water coming in over the stands would only accentuate the experience.
Of course, it would be easier for me to pass through the eye of a needle than to be rich enough to enter this particular kingdom of heaven. Lucky for me I'm an agnostic.
It's been a long day on deadline, so I'm going to settle in for a little relaxing session of Rock Band before I get too deep into the final day of the campaign to be president of Pennsylvania. But I did just catch Hillary on CNN asking why, with his enormous fundraising advantage and lead in votes, Obama "hasn't been able to close the deal?"
Oh, good lord. It does get stupider by the day. But I'll bite. Why couldn't Clinton, with her huge, experienced machinery and out-of-the-gate fundraising edge, close the nomination by Super Tuesday, the way she had planned to from the start?
Add that to her husband Bill claiming that he didn't say Obama's campaign played the race card when there's an audio tape of a radio interview in which he claimed Obama's campaign played the race card and I just wonder why it is that we're still having to have this debate. Do we really want this dynamic duo back in the White House?
I'm exhausted already just thinking about it.
Watching Hillary Clinton defend her previous pro-McCain commander-in-chief comments to Keith Olbermann and once again witnessing her easy ability to elide the truth -- okay, flat-out frickin' lie -- makes it ever more impossible for me to vote for her.
Update: She laughs at the mention of Richard Mellon Scaife? The man who propagated the myth that she had Vince Foster killed? She thinks that's humorous? Jesus frickin' Christ. She must, must go.
Via Towleroad, I caught wind of a new book, You're Going to Be Gay!, that features photographs of adult gays and lesbians alongside childhood pictures that should have announced to the world at large their upcoming homo-tude. Like any gay man who looks back fondly at the days when friends and family refused to see the flaming truths in front of them, I love these sorts of pictures.
Luckily, when I was last at my mom's house going through two big boxes of old photos I managed to begin a long-term scanning project that, in addition to chronicling the history of my family, will show exactly how nelly a little boy I was. For example, here's a shot of my sister and me with our Grandpa Joe (actually our great-grandfather) circa 1975:
Honestly, the gunpowder horn, rifle and miniature football jersey aren't fooling anyone -- maybe it's the way I'm striking a pose. Although those pants would have made anyone look gay. Just FYI, despite her hair and the big animal trap she's joyfully carrying, my sister turned out straight.
School pictures and other portraits seemed bring out some of my best unintentional swishiness, but I haven't gotten the chance to scan some of the more obvious evidence. I do have a couple instances, though, including this one from a couple years before my rifle-totin' pic:
It may not seem obvious in these more enlightened days, but I took huge amounts of shit in elementary school for having such long hair, and was called "hippie" with some regularity. I, however, loved my hair. It was very luxuriant and lustrous and felt good in the wind -- I was an early connoisseur of such things as Body on Tap. Interestingly, my shirt appears to be a prescient Native American interpretation of Space Invaders. But even before my locks grew long, I think I looked pretty gay. In fact, I couldn't even be bothered to wear pants:
As opposed to my sister, who though sleepy managed to maintain a sense of propriety. Of course, all this nelly-ness may be mostly in hindsight, at least as far as the photographic records go. Then again, I know my parents never ran to grab the Kodak when I donned my sister's clothes or commandeered her Barbies, so my pool of evidence is limited.
A minor tempest over at Queerty as touchy Madonna fans take the gayer-than-thou site to task for daring to criticize She Who Must Be Worshipped. From the comments:
I wouldn’t be a proud gay man without Madonna.
And that, my friends, is the saddest thing I've ever read.
When family members back home tell me how much they dislike -- even hate -- politics, I can thank amoral political hacks like Douglas E. Schoen. An adviser to Bill Clinton post 1994 -- the era of Dick Morris -- Schoen today in the Post advocates Hillary Clinton taking a scorched earth policy to somehow breath life into her lost campaign.
Although voters and the media look favorably upon a positive campaign message, and Clinton is acutely conscious that too much negativity and too many personal attacks will hurt her party in November, a positive message is simply not enough to alter the race at this point. It is too late for Clinton to wait for Obama to make another mistake. She must seize the opportunity that Obama's self-acknowledged mistakes last week presented to her campaign; it is almost certainly her last chance.
So the advice is that even though going negative and personal could cost the Democrats the race in November, Clinton should go ahead and do it anyway because this race is all about her, regardless is she's run a losing campaign from Day 1. Of course, this would all just be mildly amusing if it didn't look like she was about to do exactly this.
Leaving aside my biases in this race, I'm not some political Pollyanna who thinks that all campaigns should be conducted at a tone appropriate for serving tea. Politics is a rough business -- it should be, given the importance of the ideas, values and expectations at stake. But that's not reflected in shots of Crown Royal and endless repetitions of "I'm not bitter!" All that's doing is laying the groundwork to -- pardon the cliche, but it's appropriate -- snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
With the issues at stake in this election -- war, executive abuse of powers, suspension of basic civil liberties -- it's disappointing, sad and infuriating that Clinton would choose to run a campaign based on a solipsism.
There seem to be two ways for Kentucky politicians to get themselves mentioned in the national news:
1. Be Mitch McConnell.
2. Say stupid shit.
So Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY) is just the latest example of why my home state pride cringes in expectation every time I see the state mentioned in a headline. As for Davis, well, stereotypes aside, Kentuckians are not stupid in general. They're not stupid about race. They know calling a black man "boy" is racist. They know that even a racist doesn't use "boy" in public unless he really, really means it.
Judging from his "apology," I'd guess that Rep. Davis really meant it.
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