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Good Morning America’s David Muir on Thursday used the announcement that Republican operative Ken Mehlman is gay to push the GOP towards rethinking its stance on marriage. Talking to former George Bush staffer Ed Gillespie, the ABC host speculated, “…Had Ken come to terms with this…when he was influential in the White House with the President, do you think that he could have influenced the President differently, in looking back?” (An odd suggestion, considering that Bush’s own Vice President disagreed with him.) After reading from the Republican Party’s platform on the issue of gay marriage, the GMA guest anchor pressed, “Do you think the Republican Party should take a second look at this?” During a previous segment, reporter Jake Tapper featured a clip from Mike Rogers, a gay activist who outs closeted Republicans: ” [Mehlman] was really the architect of all the homophobia we saw in 2004 out of the Bush re-election campaign, which he was the general manager of.” To be fair, Tapper also quoted from Mehlman’s call for tolerance towards those in the Republican Party who oppose gay marriage. The other two morning shows, unlike GMA, mostly ignored the story. NBC’s Today gave it a brief mention at the end of a political round-up segment. Ann Curry responded to the news that Mehlman would now lobby for gay marriage by asserting, ” Well it’s a pretty brave move on his part .” On CBS’s Early Show, Jeff Glor just read a news brief and noted, “It’s making news because Mehlman was a key GOP operative at the same time some Republicans were pushing anti-same sex marriage initiatives.” A transcript of the Ed Gillespie interview, which aired at 7:10am EDT on August 26, follows: DAVID MUIR: And want to bring in Ed Gillespie, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee to talk about the changing face of the Republican Party. And he joins us from Long Beach Island, New Jersey, this morning. Ed, as always, good morning. ED GILLESPIE: Thanks for having me on, David. MUIR: I know you’re good friends with Ken. You go way back in your work with the Republican Party with him. And he shared this with you a couple of weeks back. I’m just curious what you said back to him. GILLESPIE: Ken was my friend ten years ago. He’s my friend today. And if I’m lucky, he’ll be my friend ten years from now. And I accepted his decision. And we agreed to disagree on the issue of same-sex marriage. But, you know, proponents of same-sex marriage in the Republican Party have gained an effective advocate. I don’t think the party should abandon its position that marriage remain between one man and one woman. But Ken and I can respectfully disagree on that. MUIR: So, you’ll be one of the friends who agrees to disagree, as he alluded to there. But, I wanted to point out a quote here. One thing he says he regrets is the fact that “I can’t change the fact that I wasn’t in this place personally when I was in politics. And I genuinely regret that. So, I could have worked against it.” And he’s talking about the constitutional amendment pushed by President Bush. But, we did check the Republican Party platform. And let’s put this up on the screen. It still says, “We call for a constitutional amendment that fully protects marriage as a union of a man and a woman, so that judges cannot make other arrangements equivalent to it.” When you take what we’ve now heard from Ken Mehlman, and even Vice President Dick Cheney, who has changed his view in recent weeks, saying that he still believes it should be up to the states but that gays should have a shot at marriage. Do you think the Republican Party should take a second look at this? GILLESPIE: Well, as I said, I believe, it’s a tenet of my faith, and I believe it, that we’re best suited to have in our society, marriage being one man and one woman. But, look, there’s advocates inside the party. You mentioned Vice President Cheney, now, Ken, and others who will advocate that it be reconsidered. There are Democrats, obviously, beginning with President Obama, who share my perspective on this issue. So, there is a debate going on in the country, andtates, where states are sanctioning gay marriage. And, you know, inside the party, as well. That debate’s ongoing. And people have views. I think Ken’s point is a good one. I accept Ken. He’s my friend. I accept his point of view on this, you know, very heartfelt issue in a lot of ways. And he accepts mine. And I think that civil discourse is very important. MUIR: Ed, you know the inner workings better than anyone. And I’m sort of curious, had Ken come to terms with this, as he puts it, at an earlier time, when he was influential in the White House with the President, do you think that he could have influenced the President differently in looking back? GILLESPIE: Well, there’s no doubt, I mean, Ken’s an influential person and effective advocate for policies and positions that he believes. But I don’t believe that, at that time, or this time, the Republican Party platform would change on the issue. We’ve had courts injecting themselves into this decision making process, into the political process, in a way I think is generally unhealthy for unelected judges to make decisions about whether or not government should sanction gay marriage or not. I think it’s best left to the political and policy debate. And I think the President, in 2004, in response to the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision, made the right decision, to call for constitutional amendment because of the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution. A same-sex couple married in Massachusetts and moves to my home state of Virginia, could conceivably, Virginians could be compelled to recognize that. So, I think there is a constitutional issue here. And I think President Bush was right to adopt that position. I think the Republican Party is right to keep it as part of the platform. MUIR: All right. Ken Mehlman’s friend, Ed Gillespie, who says he plans to continue, obviously, being his friend. Thanks for weighing in honestly on the debate. We sure do appreciate it.
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ABC’s David Muir: Could Gay White House Staffer Have Dissuaded Bush on Marriage Amendment?
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So AP writer Allen Breed begins his recent mosque piece by defining the word, “tolerance.” It’s a traditional rhetorical device, one learned back in sixth grade while plagiarizing the Encyclopedia Britannica. His piece focuses on religion, of course, – but not Islam, Christianity or even my favorite, “the universal life force of the Grand Unicorn.” His all powerful religion? Tolerance. Of course, for him, tolerance can only play one way. As Yanks we must kneel before the alter of acceptance, while everyone else uses us as a footrest. I mean, I doubt Breed would MENTION tolerance to the mosque developers. Instead, true to the predictable mind grazing on hysterical cliches, he hearkens back to the witch trials – the most overused example of intolerance ever – and one that probably deserved it. I mean, witches suck. Breed then quotes a reverend who says this is all due to a “dominant religious lens factor” – meaning, i guess, when one group thinks their religion is better than others. He knows this, since he’s a wiccan minister, a practitioner of a cult populated by veiny spinsters with cats. I guess the writer wouldn’t find an imam tolerant enough to grant him an interview. Or maybe he didn’t look. After all, it would be a sign of intolerance to question the intolerant, especially when their intolerance is protected by tolerance! Instead, focus on us. We’re nice people. We won’t kill you. But look, intolerance is not the issue. Think about your pal who can have any girl he wants, but chooses to go after the girl dating you. There, tolerance, doesn’t enter the equation. Being a jerk, does. And that’s what this is all about. Tolerance now serves as a condom for jerks seeking protection from their own jerkiness. I’d use it myself, but they don’t make one in my size. And if you disagree with me, you’re a racist homophobe who owes me thirty bucks. Crossposted at Big Hollywood
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The Religion Called Tolerance
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The New York Times editorial board on Thursday called successful Tea Party candidates insurgents. For those not intimately familiar with the term, despite having several meanings, it has in the years since 9/11 become largely synonymous with terrorists. With that in mind, the imagery in ” The Wrong Kind of Enthusiasm ” was unmistakable: Republican insurgents from the far right did well in Tuesday’s primaries. What their campaigns lack in logic, compassion and sensible policy seems to be counterbalanced by a fiercely committed voter base that is nowhere to be seen on the Democratic side. In fairness, there are two meanings to insurgent: 1. a person who rises in forcible opposition to lawful authority, esp. a person who engages in armed resistance to a government or to the execution of its laws; rebel. 2. a member of a section of a political party that revolts against the methods or policies of the party. On cross-examination, the authors might make the case that their intent was to depict these illogical, compassionless and senseless conservatives as the latter. But the imagery and implication throughout was clearly to brand these “insurgents” as something far worse: In Alaska, Joe Miller, a little-known lawyer from Fairbanks, has a lead for the G.O.P. Senate nomination over Lisa Murkowski, the incumbent. The race is too close to call, but Mr. Miller’s possible victory shows the power of his mentor, Sarah Palin, and the misguided popularity of his anti-immigrant, pro-gun message. Among other dubious positions, he has questioned the constitutionality of unemployment benefits. Then, the Times predictably took sides: The good news is that the anti-immigrant message may not play as well in Florida in the general election. Good news? Good news for whom? Certainly not the overwhelming majority of Americans that support Arizona’s new immigration law. But the Times wasn’t done displaying its deplorable biases, for even a victory by a moderate mainstream candidate left a sour taste: Insurgents did not triumph everywhere. In Arizona, Senator John McCain easily fended off a challenge by a former congressman, J. D. Hayworth. But he did so by throwing his principles overboard. Gone was the stalwart voice for campaign finance reform and a humane, bipartisan overhaul of immigration laws. In his place was a man calling himself “Arizona’s last line of defense,” strutting along the Mexican border in a campaign ad, telling a county sheriff that all we had to do to fix immigration was “complete the danged fence.” Yes, McCain is the Times’ darling when he tacks far-left to help pass legislation that makes conservatives sick. But defending Arizona’s border is “throwing his principles overboard.” Not surprisingly, a good Republican to these shills is really one with no principles at all. Disgracefully, this editorial ended with more terrorist imagery: Much of the G.O.P’s fervid populist energy has been churned up by playing on some people’s fears of Hispanics and Muslims, by painting the president as a dangerous radical, by distorting the truth about the causes of the recession. Far too many Republican leaders have eagerly fed that destructive anger. Yes, the desire of the majority of Americans to defend the borders from illegal immigrants while doing everything possible to prevent another terrorist attack is “destructive anger.” Makes you wonder if former President Jimmy Carter is heading up the Times editorial board. But the larger point is that the Obama-loving liberal media are in a full state of panic about Democrat prospects in the upcoming elections. As such, the goal now is to paint every GOP candidate as too scary to hold political office. That even the formerly lovable McCain, who has been in Congress since 1983 and is currently one of the most moderate Republicans up for re-election, is being depicted as equally frightening should clue readers in to just how far the Times is willing to go to help Democrats this cycle. Ironically, as this editorial board clearly is way on the wrong side of public opinion concerning the issues herein addressed, aren’t they behaving like insurgents rather than the objects of their disaffection? The only question is whether their actions fall under definition one or two. We’ll let you decide that.
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NYT Editorial Board Calls Successful Tea Party Candidates ‘Insurgents’
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“The old general might still have it in him … 145 years after Appomattox, Grant won’t have to surrender this one either.” — Katie Couric, Notebook, 8-25-10 What does it take to get Katie Couric to root for a military man? Put him in a fight against the MSM’s great bogeyman, Ronald Reagan. The CBS Evening News anchor devoted her Notebook yesterday to the battle to replace Ulysses S. Grant on the $50 bill with the Gipper. And Katie left little doubt–witness her concluding lines above–that she’s pulling for the man who’s buried in Grant’s tomb to defeat the president who made Mr. Gorbachev tear down that wall. There is, apparently, nowhere that the liberal media won’t extend its fight against conservatives. In the meantime, Katie presumably prefers to pay with $20 bills, featuring Dem-party founder Andrew Jackson, rounding things off with JFK half-dollars and FDR dimes. Wonder if, when visiting DC, Couric insists on flying into Dulles, to avoid having to patronize that other airport, named after . . . you-know-who?
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Couric Crows: Reagan Unlikely To Replace Grant On $50 Bill
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Marcos Esparza Bofill moved to New York from his native Spain in 2006 to try his hand at day-trading. When he nearly went bust after a year, he moved back home. He failed as a day-trader and barely survived in New York on a beer budget, but Marcos Esparza Bofill has been hit with a $172 million tax bill by the IRS. “Who#39;s the IRS?” Esparza Bofill, a twentysomething Spanish émigré, asked a friend who alerted him to his astronomical back taxes. “He lost money while he was here. He couldn#39;
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Profile for Koni Lui * Name: 呂慧儀 / Lui Wai Yee (Lu Hui Yi) * English name: Koni Lui * Also known as: Konnie Lui, 謎女郎, 長腳蟹 (Long-Legged Crab) * Profession: Actress, model, and host * Birthdate: 1982-Sep-03 * Birthplace: Hong Kong * Height: 177cm * Weight: 57kg * Star sign: Virgo Koni Lui (呂慧儀) (born 3 September 1982, Hong Kong) also known as Koni Lui Wai Yee is a model and 2nd runner up at the Miss Hong Kong 2006 pageant. She represented Hong Kong at Miss International 2006 in Tokyo, Japan a
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Koni Lui Wai Yee Height Profile
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I have no idea what is going to happen in the November congressional elections, but it seems the polls — for what they’re worth — predict a huge Republican win. It may or may not happen, I just don’t know, but if it does and the aisles of Congress are littered with Democrats who will be kicked out in the New Year, will they feel they don’t have anything to lose and try to pass the remainder of their socialistic agenda before they’re forced to leave. And if lame duck Democrats try to do this will the Republicans and remaining Democrats who will return have the guts and the honor to block them? Will they let cap and trade, card check and all the other catastrophic crap they have proposed be passed? America has not even begun to feel the lash of Obama’s whip from the legislation his sycophants have already passed. The cost of health care insurance is already going up in anticipation of the restrictions Obamacare will put on insurance companies. The federal unemployment numbers continue to hover right around 10% and there’s no telling what the actual numbers are. The economy is headed for the pits and you could run out of ink trying to add all the zeros to the national debt. How much more can this nation take? We may well find out with a lame duck Congress, a room full of ticked off losers who want to show the country that they’ll still have their way although the very programs they would be passing into law are what got them kicked out of office to start with. But let’s just get something straight; just because somebody has an “R” after their name doesn’t mean they are the kind of conservatives it will take to undo some of the damage Obama and the Democrats have done. Remember some of them were bitter disappointments voting for bills they knew their constituents were against and some of them sold out for favors only them and Obama’s operatives know about. I don’t claim to know what it will take to bring America out this morass we’re in but there are a few common sense factors that are tried and true. The old Democrat mantra, “tax cuts for the rich” is misleading it’s not the rich they’re hurting when they raise taxes. The rich people are going to get along just fine. They’ll just hang on to their money instead of investing it in businesses to create more jobs. The card check proposal is nothing short of ridiculous. What business is it of anybody’s how somebody casts their vote for union leadership or anything else for that matter? This just opens someone up for intimidation and ostracizing and subverts the very heart of the Democratic process. Nobody even knows how the health care fiasco will play out, even those in Congress who sold out the people who voted them in to pass it. But there’s something I can guarantee you; the cost of health care will go up instead of going down as Obama said it would. In fact it’s going way up. If nothing else, the new bureaucracies it will take to administer and enforce it will see to that. Obama is insincere in really wanting to do something to bring down the cost of health care as no meaningful bill could possible leave out tort reform. If we’re not going to let our troops win the war in Afghanistan, we should just write off that part of the world and bring them home. Why keep dribbling American lives down the drain in a country where most of the people don’t want us there to start with. The only way we’ll ever destroy the Taliban is to accept tremendous collateral damage to the civilian population and evidently we’re never going to do that so why stay? A year or so after we pull the troops out of Iraq that country will go right back to what it was except this time the mullahs in Iran will be calling the shots. The most dangerous and powerful enemy in that part of the world is Iran; they export terrorism and arm our enemies. Until something meaningful is done about them our efforts in that part of the world are meaningless and any victory is temporary. Playing politics with the energy production in this country is going to play out to be a stupid and horribly costly mistake because one day. Sooner than later, the oil from the Persian Gulf will suddenly stop coming to this country. We should be drilling in ANWR, and the shale deposits in our western states and bring these sources on line before this catastrophe happens. I agree that we should be pursuing alternative energy sources for all we’re worth, but let’s face it… We’ve been pursuing them for years and are not anywhere near the point that we can depend on them. Let’s go for it, make an all out effort to harness wind and water, create fuel cells, build nuclear plants, discover non-food supply sources of ethanol. But in the meantime, we’re going to need petroleum and we’re not going to get it by the feeble and superficial gestures the federal government is making. You want alternative energy? Make it profitable for the private sector. Get out of their way and it will happen. A government that sues a state for keeping the law and turns a blind eye to sanctuary cities for breaking it is seriously out of balance and needs to have its priorities adjusted. Let’s hope that will happen in November.
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The Specter of a Lame Duck Congress
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Still more slanted coverage in the New York Times of the controversy over a proposed mosque at Ground Zero: First in Saturday’s story by intelligence reporter Scott Shane, fretting that public opposition voiced to the speedy approval and building of a giant Islamic cultural center topped by a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero would somehow make radical Muslim extremists, who despise the very existence of America, hate the U.S. even more: ” Anti-Islam Protest in U.S. Bolsters Extremists, Experts Say ” (Note: This article was compiled from three separate articles prepared for Times Watch ). Some counterterrorism experts say the anti-Muslim sentiment that has saturated the airwaves and blogs in the debate over plans for an Islamic center near ground zero in Lower Manhattan is playing into the hands of extremists by bolstering their claims that the United States is hostile to Islam. Opposition to the center by prominent politicians and other public figures in the United States has been covered extensively by the news media in Muslim countries. At a time of concern about radicalization of young Muslims in the West, it risks adding new fuel to Al Qaeda’s claim that Islam is under attack by the West and must be defended with violence, some specialists on Islamic militancy say. For confirmation of his slanted premise, Shane went to an unlabeled center-left policy group, New America Foundation. “I know people in this debate don’t intend it, but there are consequences for these kinds of remarks,” said Brian Fishman, who studies terrorism for the New America Foundation here. He said that Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric hiding in Yemen who has been linked to several terrorist plots, has been arguing for months in Web speeches and in a new Qaeda magazine that American Muslims face a dark future of ever-worsening discrimination and vilification. “When the rhetoric is so inflammatory that it serves the interests of a jihadi recruiter like Awlaki, politicians need to be called on it,” Mr. Fishman said. Shane even suggested former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was fomenting radicalism with his opposition to the mosque: Mr. Gingrich, the former House speaker and a potential 2012 presidential candidate, said in a Fox News interview that “Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust museum in Washington,” a comment that drew criticism for appearing to equate those proposing the Islamic center with Nazis. Asked about the view that such remarks could fuel radicalism , Mr. Gingrich sent an e-mail response on Friday that did not directly address his critics but said that “Americans must learn to tell the truth about radical Islamists while being supportive of and inclusive of moderate Muslims who live in the modern world, respect women’s rights, reject medieval punishment and defend American laws and the American Constitution.” He added that he believed “it is possible to be a deeply religious Muslim and a patriotic American.” Sigh. What doesn’t “fuel radicalism” these days, in the view of America-bashers? Besides, Gingrich isn’t the only prominent political name to come out against the project — several Democrats have as well. Yet the Times has made only muted acknowledgment of the inconvenient fact that prominent Democrats like New York Gov. David Paterson, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and former DNC chairman Howard Dean have come out against building the Islamic center so close to ground zero, with Dean calling it “a real affront to the people who lost their lives” on 9-11. Is Democrat Dean also “fueling radicalism”? Besides the knee-jerk fretting over “fueling radicalism,” there’s a healthy dose of Manhattan-centric snobbery in the paper’s attitude toward opponents of the mosque, who obviously have no clue about what’s really going on. About four minutes from the end of an August 19 ” Political Points ” podcast at nytimes.com, reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg took up discussion of the controversial plan to build a mosque near Ground Zero, explaining how the hicks in the sticks who disapprove of the plan, don’t know what’s going on, unlike sophisticated Manhattanites (who actually may not like it much either). Stolberg: “Here’s another reason for the disconnect. I think, in New York, especially in Manhattan, people realize that Muslims live and work in Lower Manhattan , in the area where they’re seeking to build this mosque and community center, which would also include a fitness center where young people could play basketball or swim or what have you. Out in the country, the news coverage has not been as intense, there are fewer details and it allows for the debate to be reduced to its essence, boiled down to a few words: Mosque at Ground Zero. And those words have become inflammatory around the country and I think the nuances is somewhat lost, frankly.” And a Tuesday column by metro writer Clyde Haberman in support (naturally) of the mosque included this unpleasant nativist sniffing: Obscured in the fog of this culture war are a few New York realities, perhaps not fully appreciated by outsiders like Mr. Gingrich of Georgia or Sarah Palin of Alaska . Two blocks may seem like nothing to a non-New Yorker. But anyone who lives or works in Manhattan knows that this distance can be significant. Two blocks is equivalent to several miles in other cities or in the suburbs. Your dry cleaner moves two blocks, and it’s so long, pal. He’ll never see you again. He might as well have relocated to Yonkers.
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NYT Accuses Mosque Protesters of Fomenting Muslim Extremism, Reveals Own Manhattan-Centric Snobbery
The Guernsey girl Alice Loveridge finished third of four in her qualifying group, losing to the home favourite 3-0 and a Japanese player, but defeating the New Zealander Julia Wu. Alice Loveridge was yesterday making good progress in the consolation singles at the first Youth Olympics in Singapore. Although out of medal contention in the next stage, she opened with wins over an Algerian, a Puerto Rican and a third player.
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