I should start this out by admitting that I am against Gay Marriage.
However, in my defense, I should also make it clear that I am against Straight Marriage as well.
At first glance my opposition to gay marriage may stand in contrast to my opposition to Proposition 8. But not if you think about it.
If the religious zealots really want to put the taste of the bitter root in the mouths of gay marriage advocates, they should encourage them to get married, not make it illegal.
Making something illegal just adds the spicy tang of taboo to it. Like when you were teenagers, getting it on in your parents bedroom while they were at the club playing golf.
Actually having gays get married will ruin peoples’ sex lives, destroy them financially, and turn them irredeemably against marriage, all while pumping $$$ into the economy via the excessive spending habits of divorce lawyers!
Bottom line: gay Californians should have every right to get married, join the military and volunteer for suicide missions, or become subjects for high risk medical experiments that straight people do. It’s only fair.
And before anyone tries to pull the “what about the children” line, one of the best set of parents I ever met was a same sex couple whose son was on my son’s soccer team. Not only did the kid have the advantage of two soccer moms, they were some of the awesomest team parents ever, making banners, throwing team parties, in addition to being two of the nicest people ever. They both had successful careers, and their son was a happy, well adjusted kid. Gay people can have or father children and can also make awesome (or not so awesome) parents, just like straight people.
So vote against Proposition 8 whether you are for or against gay marriage. It’s the right thing to do.
None of this matters a whit when you have no message, and that is the unenviable position the Republicans are in right now. What is John McCain’s core message? I will tell you, as it is very simple- “Not Obama.” That is it. That is the sum total of the message. He and the Wasilla Wingnut have done nothing for the past two months but provide weak and ugly reasons why you should not vote for Obama, starting with the sneer de force at the RNC and continuing on to the present, where we learn that we should not vote for Obama because some plumber (but not really) is worried about socialism and because Obama knows a guy named Khalidi who does not agree with everything Bill Kristol says about Israel.
Roger Simon at Politico reports that McCain’s people are already focusing on a scapegoat for Tuesday’s impending defeat — Sarah Palin.
John McCain’s campaign is looking for a scapegoat. It is looking for someone to blame if McCain loses on Tuesday.
And it has decided on Sarah Palin.
In recent days, a McCain “adviser” told Dana Bash of CNN: “She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone.”
Imagine not taking advice from the geniuses at the McCain campaign. What could Palin be thinking?
Also, a “top McCain adviser” told Mike Allen of Politico that Palin is “a whack job.”
Maybe she is. But who chose to put this “whack job” on the ticket? Wasn’t it John McCain? And wasn’t it his first presidential-level decision?
Yes, she is a disaster. And yes, she has turned out to be a drag on the campaign rather than a magnet for disaffected Hillary supporters. But, as Simon points out, McCain picked this catastrophe.
So as scapegoats go, she’s not a very good one.
Because the fault for McCain lies not in the stars, but in himself.
Conservative and neoconservative alike are stepping up to explain the demise of McCain’s candidacy - it’s the candidate himself.
George Will belives McCain is careless and shows poor judgment:
Call Him John the Careless
From the invasion of Iraq to the selection of Sarah Palin, carelessness has characterized recent episodes of faux conservatism. Tuesday’s probable repudiation of the Republican Party will punish characteristics displayed in the campaign’s closing days.
Some polls show that Palin has become an even heavier weight in John McCain’s saddle than his association with George W. Bush. Did McCain, who seems to think that Palin’s never having attended a “Georgetown cocktail party” is sufficient qualification for the vice presidency, lift an eyebrow when she said that vice presidents “are in charge of the United States Senate”?
And for former leading neoconservative Francis Fukuyama, it is not only McCain’s “irresponsible” choice of Palin for VP, but his ties to Bush and unwillingness to stand for any principle during his ill-starred candidacy:
I’m voting for Barack Obama this November for a very simple reason. It is hard to imagine a more disastrous presidency than that of George W. Bush. It was bad enough that he launched an unnecessary war and undermined the standing of the United States throughout the world in his first term. But in the waning days of his administration, he is presiding over a collapse of the American financial system and broader economy that will have consequences for years to come. As a general rule, democracies don’t work well if voters do not hold political parties accountable for failure. While John McCain is trying desperately to pretend that he never had anything to do with the Republican Party, I think it would a travesty to reward the Republicans for failure on such a grand scale.
McCain’s appeal was always that he could think for himself, but as the campaign has progressed, he has seemed simply erratic and hotheaded. His choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate was highly irresponsible; we have suffered under the current president who entered office without much knowledge of the world and was easily captured by the wrong advisers. McCain’s lurching from Reaganite free- marketer to populist tribune makes one wonder whether he has any underlying principles at all.
. . . . Obama is much better positioned to reinvent the American model and will certainly present a very different and more positive face of America to the rest of the world.
A lot has happened in the last 8 years for Will and Fukuyama to repudiate McCain a few short days before the election. Even as McCain tries to paint Obama as the more dangerous choice, his former political allies are making the case that it is McCain, not Obama, whose prospective presidency would pose the far greater danger.
MORE: It seems even Joe the (sort of) Plumber blew off McCain yesterday.
Florida Governor Charlie Crist, to the shock and dismay of Florida Republicans, just moved to extend early voting hours, a move likely to widen the Democrats’ lead under a program on which the Obama campaign has intensely focused.
“He just blew Florida for John McCain,” one plugged in Florida Republican just told me.
Needless to say, McCain cannot win without Florida, one of several critical (for him) states where he is trailing and where early voting appears to favor Obama.
Assuming he’s elected, Barack Obama’s presidency will be historically insignificant and devoid of innovation and social change, just like Franklin Roosevelt’s.
Verbatim DoughyP:
Save for his skin color, Obama doesn’t represent anything novel.
You have to hand it to Jonah, it takes some kind of talent to craft a sentence that resonates stupidity so deeply. Except for being the first American to overcome centuries of servitude followed by another century of racial discrimination and apartheid, as well as the current residue more than three centuries of racism and bigotry to attain the office of President, Obama is unexceptional.
At this point, the message from the GOP and its lackwit wingnut minions like Jonah is hopelessly confused. McCain, Palin and its media worms are trying to paint Obama as a wild-eyed revolutionary class warrior cross between Hughie Newton and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, and here the Pantload is saying he’s really no different from FDR. Which probably sounds pretty damn good to most Americans after 8 years of George W. Bush.
John McCain’s Pennsylvania communications director told reporters in the state an incendiary version of the hoax story about the attack on a McCain volunteer well before the facts of the case were known or established — and even told reporters outright that the “B” carved into the victim’s cheek stood for “Barack,” according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions.
John Verrilli, the news director for KDKA in Pittsburgh, told TPM Election Central that McCain’s Pennsylvania campaign communications director gave one of his reporters a detailed version of the attack that included a claim that the alleged attacker said, “You’re with the McCain campaign? I’m going to teach you a lesson.”
Verrilli also told TPM that the McCain spokesperson had claimed that the “B” stood for Barack. According to Verrilli, the spokesperson also told KDKA that Sarah Palin had called the victim of the alleged attack, who has since admitted the story was a hoax.
This is a new low in scumbaggery, for an already scummy McCain campaign. When did making up bullshit and trying to blame a fabricated racial attack on your political opponent become Mavericky?
Republican John McCain, taking a cross-state bus tour aimed at keeping vote-rich Florida from swinging to the Democrats, on Thursday accused rival Barack Obama of saying “anything to get elected.”
You mean like making crazy statements about ACORN stealing the vote for the GOP and McCain palling around with terrorists? Like claiming his clueless Vice President Candidate who doesn’t know what the Vice President does or what constitutes the Bush Doctrine is ready to be President? Like suspending his campaign to save the world and claiming credit for passing a finance bill that doesn’t pass, only to later claim he killed it? Like telling Dave Letterman he has to cancel his appearance to return immediately to Washington, then going to an interview with Katie Couric — which Letterman can see via internal feed?
What next? Maybe McCain can accuse Obama of being a rich elitist with 8 mansions and a beer heiress wife? Or complain about how Obama grimaces and grunts while he’s speaking during a debate? Or rudely refers to his opponent as “that one!”
Or maybe McCain will call just Obama short, old, and ill-tempered.
Anything can happen once a candidate crosses the rubicon of batshit-crazy.
