Ooops, my bad…. got this one wrong.  Sorry, but the mistake is understandable.

Senators Suggest Bush Administration Missing Chance To Engage Iran – CNN.com

“What I think many of us are concerned about is that we stumble into active hostilities with Iran without having aggressively pursued diplomatic approaches, without the American people understanding exactly what’s taking place,” Sen. Barack Obama told John Negroponte, who is in line to become the nation’s No. 2 diplomat as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s deputy.

I’m guessing Obama thought that Hitler stumbled into Poland, too. 

Meanwhile, the evidence is mounting that Iran is intent on attacking American troops, thereby declaring war on the United States.

“We will not accept Iran to use Iraq to attack the American forces,” [Iraqi Prime Minister] al-Maliki said Wednesday in an exclusive interview with CNN. 

Asked about the role of Iran in Iraq, al-Maliki said he was confident that Iranian influence was behind attacks on U.S. forces. “It exists, and I assure you it exists,” he said.

What WILL House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s solution to the Iranian threat to US Armed Forces be?  I’m waiting…

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

As Larry Kudlow points out, the “Goldilocks US Economy” just keeps growing and surprising the “experts.”

Though Mr. Bush never gets any credit for the strong economy, the reality is that economic growth continues to surprise everyone. Today’s real GDP report came in at 3.5 percent at an annual rate for the October-December period in 2006.

Consumer spending was very strong (+4.4 percent) for both durable and non-durable goods (+6.0 percent and +6.9 percent, respectively). Business capital investment spending was weak (-0.4 percent), perhaps due to energy prices, but we believe it will rebound.

Price inflation inside the report was very low around 2 percent with one major price gauge actually declining for its biggest drop in 52 years. Treasury yields inched lower in response to the data, including the 10-year TIP yield, the economy’s natural rate proxy. However, the 10-year TIP spread, the market’s inflation expectations, was unchanged and remains within the range dating back to early-2004.

For the whole year, GDP advanced 3.4 percent following 3.2 percent last year, 3.4 percent in 2004, and 3.7 percent in 2003.

The highly diverse and resilient American economy has not been derailed by a temporary housing slump, which occurred last year following many years of outsized gains. Excluding the drag from housing investment, real GDP growth in the 4th quarter was 4.8 percent and was 4.3 percent for the year.

Mr. Bush is on the right track as he follows classical supply-side economic principles. He deserves a better polling fate for this achievement. Be that as it may be, the Goldilocks economy, not too hot and not too cold, continues to defeat all the pessimists and nay-sayers out there.

Nevermind that the Bush Recovery brought us out of the double-whammy of the Clinton Recession and the 9/11 Attacks. 

So… are you ready for it?   Since, according to the MadLibs, this is the most inept, yet evil-brilliant President ever… we must do it… altogether now… say it in unison:

IT… IS… ALL… BUSH’S… FAULT!

[RELATED STORY: Economy Grows at 3.5 Percent in 4th Quarter - BREITBART.com]

PS – Five gets you ten that the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric tonight will lead with: “Despite the words of the President today, the one person we searched all day to find in our Blue State community says he can’t find a job and the economy sucks….”  

I’ll bet ya a million.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

UPDATE (from GPW): Via Instapundit, I learn that when the President visited the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, “all the floor brokers and their assistants stopped work and started cheering and applauding.” Hmm. . . . the president on the floor of the NY Stock Exchange, only the second sitting Chief Executive in U.S. history to make such a visit and the market rallies to “another trading high.”

I have not really gotten the fascination people have with Anderson Cooper. While he cuts an impressive figure with his gray hair and handsome face, I actually find him kind of boring when he reports the news. And he, like other CNN “reporters,” seems to give that news a left-wing spin.

Now, reader Peter Hughes e-mails me a link which confirms my impression of Cooper’s left-wing bias. In an interview with Hillary Clinton, he can’t seem to understand why private corporations and individuals (instead of the government) raised the funds for the Center for the Intrepid, “$50 million state of the art” rehabilitation facility “for wounded soldiers in San Antonio, Texas.“

He asked New York’s Junior Senator this leading question: “This center was $50 million in donations from corporations, and even individuals, school kids giving them dollars here and there. Why didn’t the government do it?” Instead of addressing this question to a frequent critic of the Bush administration and so politicize a center that appears to be doing great things for our heroes, if he really wanted to know why the facility raised funds from the private sector, he would have asked the individuals who organized the project.

Or perhaps, he could have just checked the web where he might have learned about the “public-private partnership to build” the center. Even his own network notes that the Army will administers this “privately funded facility.” Mr. Cooper doesn’t seem to understand the generous spirit which animates most Americans many of whom (including your humble bloggers) donate to a number of charitable organizations, including veterans’ organizations.

Mr. Cooper’s question betrays his inherent liberal sense that if there’s a major problem to be solved, only the government can do this. But, what this public-private partnership shows is that the private sector can succeed in raising the funds for such beneficial projects as this facility.

Look around the country, look around your own community, you’ll see hospitals built by churches, synagogues and other private groups. The Shriners build pediatric hospitals. The Jewish Federation sponsors a variety of social services. Catholic charities feed the hungry. And many of these do their good work without a dime of government money.

instead of wondering why the government didn’t fund the Center for the Intrepid, Mr. Cooper and Mrs. Clinton should marvel at the generosity of their fellow Americans, willing to dig deeply into their own pockets to help finance needed services for others less fortunate than themselves. They could even note the generosity of the corporations whom the leaders of Mrs. Clinton’s party frequently decry.

And for those GayPatriot readers who are so generous, you can support the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund (which raised the money for this facility) so it may “provide additional services to the patients who will be treated in the Center and their families” by clicking here“

I’m guessing many of the GayPatriot moonbat parade will have a lot of praise for this piece in the LA Times on Sunday.

Was 9/11 really that bad? – David Bell

Has the American reaction to the attacks in fact been a massive overreaction? Is the widespread belief that 9/11 plunged us into one of the deadliest struggles of our time simply wrong? If we did overreact, why did we do so? Does history provide any insight?

Certainly, if we look at nothing but our enemies’ objectives, it is hard to see any indication of an overreaction. The people who attacked us in 2001 are indeed hate-filled fanatics who would like nothing better than to destroy this country. But desire is not the same thing as capacity, and although Islamist extremists can certainly do huge amounts of harm around the world, it is quite different to suggest that they can threaten the existence of the United States.

Unfortunately, Bell suffers from terrorist-apologetic delusions (a disease afflicting many in the American Left).  Technology now allows a MUCH quicker bridge between “desire” and “capacity”.  Bell ignores that fact.  It is one of the many reasons Saddam had to go after 9/11, by the way.

Of course, the 9/11 attacks also conjured up the possibility of far deadlier attacks to come. But then, we were hardly ignorant of these threats before, as a glance at just about any thriller from the 1990s will testify. And despite the even more nightmarish fantasies of the post-9/11 era (e.g. the TV show “24’s” nuclear attack on Los Angeles), Islamist terrorists have not come close to deploying weapons other than knives, guns and conventional explosives. A war it may be, but does it really deserve comparison to World War II and its 50 million dead? Not every adversary is an apocalyptic threat.

No, but if the tyrants of our past had been stopped early on in their bloodthirsty careers instead of appeasing them, perhaps there never would have been 50 million dead in WWII.   That is the whole point of pre-emption by Western democracies (the Bush Doctrine).  Unfortunately, the “progressive liberals” have created moral equivalence between America and Islamic terror groups.  Just a rehash of the 1960s, of course.

There are some great comments at Dean’s World about this piece, too.

The comparison to the Soviet Union is unbelievably asinine. That same country had only years before killed millions of its own people in forced famines.  Sadly, this kind of idiocy is pretty much par for the course. Half the world sees 9/11 as our Reichstag fire.

The guy’s right: we should wait until we’ve racked up massive civilian casualties before we take action. That’s much better than proactively preventing casualties. Better to wait until our enemies can threaten us than to stop them before.  Sheesh. What a maroon…

So have at it, gang!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

I just got back from a discussion and signing of Self-Made Man: One Woman’s Journey into Manhood and Back, the wonderful book by Norah Vincent, a graduate, like yours truly of America’s finest small college. I had reviewed the book last February and still ***highly recommend*** it. In the book, Norah recounts her experiences living for eighteen months as a man and offers observations on what she learned in that guise.

Perhaps due to her excellent college education, Norah did not do a traditional reading where an author reads a select passage from her (or his) book to whet book-buyers’ appetite for the rest of her work. Instead, she led a discussion, more like a college seminar than anything else. And yours truly was truly, truly in his element, frequently chiming in, noting how lesbians seemed to get relationships right and defending the book’s fifth chapter — about her experiences in a monastery — as one of the best. Two men (one gay, the other straight) who otherwise enjoyed the book did not particularly like that section of the book.

I liked that chapter because it was there that she realized how women serve “communicators, the interlocutors between men and themselves, men and their children and even men and each other.” She became aware of the absence of intimacy in the all-male environment of the monastery.

What was interesting about the conversation tonight was that we (that is, those who came to hear Norah) basically agreed with those who commented to my recent post on Vulnerabilty that our difficulty relating to one another has more to do with our gender than our orientation. Women seem to “get” relationships better than men.

There was, however, disagreement on whether or not women could really “tame” (my word which I acknowledge is perhaps a bit too clunky) men and that we would always be driven to stray. I got into a heated discussion with a gay physician, disagreeing on the ability of men to settle down. I believed we are capable of that. He was dubious. And to show you how I differ from many gay men, I gave him my card not because he was my type, but because I enjoyed our exchange. It seemed one could have a great conversation with him.

The conversation tonight reminds me why I loved Norah’s book so much. That it’s one of those works which really gets at important matters — and does so in such away that invites a good discussion. And I loved that Borders Bookstore gave Norah Vincent the forum to promote her book and she used it to initiate a lively exchange. While those of there did not always agree, we did show great respect for the other fans of this wonderful book. And had the kind of civil discussion of which I wish we could see more of on this blog.

Hello, hello?!?  What delicious irony and duplicity do I see here?  A Republican United States Senator (Gordon Smith of Oregon) has introduced an important, real-life gay rights proposal…

GOP Senator Gordon Smith’s amendment would ease the tax burden for domestic partner benefits.  The Domestic Partner Health Benefits Equity Act would correct an unfair provision in the tax code that blocks self-employed people from deducting their domestic partner’s health insurance premium costs.

But the supposedly gay-friendly DEMOCRAT-CONTROLLED United States Senate is putting the kabash on the Smith’s legislation.

Senator Smith was prevented from offering his amendment during a recent Finance Committee hearing because Democrat Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) threatened to rule it out of order.  Now Smith has introduced his amendment to the entire Senate, but Baucus is still threatening to use arcane Senate rules to stop the amendment.

What universe did we just get transported to?  The one where a Republican Senator offers common sense, pro-gay legislation and where the Democrats stand in the way?  The same universe that has seen gay people offer time and treasure to the Democrat Party for decades yet has gotten nothing in return except a Democrat President who signed off on two of the most anti-gay policies in our lifetime?  Oh yeah…. we’ve been living in that universe already… silly me.

Bravo to new Log Cabin President Patrick Sammon for taking on the Democrats and standing with Senator Smith.  Unfortunately (yet not surprisingly), the two self-important big national gay rights groups are silent on the issue. 

The Hypocrite Rights Campaign is too busy wading into the “Grey’s Anatomy” scandal as well as advertising their XM Radio program.  Interestingly, the HRC was all too vocal about the legislation last year when Smith and US Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) introduced it to a Republican-controlled Senate.  Now that the Democrats have the power, will HRC be satisfied?  Probably.

And over at the National (Socialist) Gay & Lesbian Task Force – they are taking up their webspace bashing the President on Iraq and advertising their YouTube video.  Compelling and important stuff there!  Oooooooooooo.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Um… I thought I read somewhere from master political scientists that Republicans would never, ever elect Rudy Giuliani as the GOP nominee?  Seems like he is doing pretty well so far in New Hampshire a year out, despite efforts by the Mainstream Media to shove his candidacy under a rug in favor of John McCain.

In a Republican Primary in New Hampshire today, Rudolph Giuliani and John McCain are tied among Republicans, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted exclusively for WBZ-TV Boston. Giuliani gets 33% of likely Republican primary votes today, McCain 32%. Mitt Romney follows with 21%. 11% would vote for some other Republican.

In my humble opinion, the person that would be most responsible for Rudy or Newt Gingrich getting the GOP nomination would be none other than Bill Clinton.  He forced us through the slime of all of those marital problem albatrosses that sunk previous candidates (Gary Hart).

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

I’m pretty sure this sums it up accurately.  (Nice job, GatewayPundit!)

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

I wholeheartedly concur…  (RightWingNews poll of Right-Of-Center Bloggers)

1) Newt Gingrich (52)

2) Rudy Giuliani (45)

… yet I repeatedly switch my order of preference depending on my mood.  Perhaps “that’s the ticket” then?

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Progressive liberals no more care about extending human rights than I do about scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush and soapy water. 

FACT: Self-proclaimed “progressive” liberals have never once praised the efforts of the United States and its allies for liberating 50 million people in Afghanistan and Iraq from two murderous dictatorships that were poster children in their suppression of human rights. 

Instead, progressive liberals have been on a witchhunt against liberal Western democracies – looking for every possible sign and signal (most of them false) of Coalition troops committing “war crimes”. 
Our own elected officials from the Democrat Party have repeatedly accused American troops of being terrorists and Ted Kennedy celebrates the anniversary of Abu Ghraib, but not the free elections in two previously oppressed lands.  What the hell?!?

For Amnesty International and their ilk, it is more important to advance their progressive political agenda than it is to truly stand up for “human rights.”  They have used the Geneva Convention as an article of convenience and have not applied the standards equally by keeping Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, Sunni insurgents, Syria and Iran under the same scrutiny as the United States of America.

Latest example?  On its website today, Amnesty International promotes its boat-led protest to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and its concern about the diamond trade (perfect story for limosine liberals!). 

But not a single word about this Islamic terrorist violation of the Geneva Convention.

Four U.S. soldiers, one of them a New Yorker, were captured – and promptly murdered – last Saturday in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 50 miles from Baghdad, officials confirmed.

Two of the slain soldiers were found handcuffed together in the back of a vehicle.

Soldiers die in combat, of course.

But the murder of disarmed and helpless troops – killing POWs, in effect – is what’s at issue here.

The murder of helpless captives is a stark reminder of the barbaric nature of the enemy that American-led forces face in Iraq.

Indeed, it puts into perspective the complaints about U.S. “atrocities” committed against prisoners at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

Frankly, complaints about degrading photos and alleged desecration of the Koran can’t hold a candle to the savage abduction and execution-style murders of brave soldiers.

Those who have led the outcry over what they hysterically decry as U.S. “war crimes” in Iraq have a particular obligation to speak out against genuine atrocities of the kind committed by these terrorist insurgents.

I also don’t see Matt Foreman of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force shedding many tears over the murder of Americans around the world and the torture of American troops by Islamic terrorists.  Perhaps, for a socialist, it is better to support Islamic fascism than liberal democracy?

This clear hypocrisy of silence shows “progressive” liberals’ true colors.  They stand behind the mantra of “human rights”, but they cast a blind eye when it comes to the human rights of Americans.

Shameful.

[RELATED STORY: Senator Kerry sits down today with former Iranian dictator - RadioJavan.com]

**UPDATE** – Another progressive liberal Democrat thinks that liberating Muslims from oppression is wrong!

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said Bush “tricked” the country into an immoral war. “He did not tell the truth,” she said. “I will not vote one dime for this war.”

Reminder:  President Clinton repeatedly stated throughout the 1990s the same intelligence conclusions known at the time that Saddam Hussein was developing WMD.  Indeed in 2003, all of the world’s major intelligence organizations believed it.

“Tricked”!?!  Hardly, Maxine.  Your brain is just an inconvenient and untruthful mass of cells.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Although I referenced the latest thing up Traitor Kerry’s sleeve today in the post above, this photo deserves full attention. 

Former President of Iran Mohammad Khatami, right, shares a word with Senator from Massachusetts, USA, John Kerry after participating in a session ‘The Future of the Middle East’ at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. 

If you recall, Khatami helped spur on the Iranian desire for nukes to annihilate Isreal and the United States.  He’s no moderate, but then again neither is Kerry, the American military hater. 

Have you any doubt now who John Kerry and those in his Democrat Party support in the War Against America? (h/t – LittleGreenFootballs)  If he were truly a patriotic American, he would have declined to be on the same stage… or had the bravery to shove a knife into the Iranian tyrant, not a pen.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Today, while beginning my day, I had FoxNews on and was delighted to hear the President challenge the critics of his new Iraq policy, saying that it was their “obligation”* to put forward their own plan. It seems he’s following up on his strong State of the Union address where, as I noted earlier this week, quoting Powerline’s John Hinderaker, that the president was “back on his game.”

And he was back on his game asking for his critics to come up with an alternative to his Iraq policy.

For as long as Bush-hatred has been a phenomenon of American politics, it seems that its practitioners are more interested in baiting than in arguing. And, by and large, the president has not done a good job of challenging his angry adversaries. They claim he lied in leading us to war without offering particulars, that is, without pointing to statements the president made in the months before the war — and showing how the president knew them to be false when he made them.

Let’s hope we see more of the combative President Bush I saw today on FoxNews. While he need not adopt the ruthlessness of his predecessor in going after his critics, he should at least bear in mind that part of Clinton’s success stemmed from his willingness to rebut his opponents (or attempt to discredit them). The president and his team should dare to challenge his critics, questioning their assumptions and demanding that they come up with alternatives (as he did today).

Perhaps had he done a better job of defending the mission in Iraq — and done so regularly, we might see greater public support for the war. Just as he should have taken more time to take issue with those who level false accusations against him — and criticize his plans without putting forward alternatives of their own.

* The President’s exact words were: “They have an obligation and a serious responsibility therefore to put up their own plan as to what would work.“

When I had first heard the Mary Cheney, the daughter of the Vice President, was pregnant, I thought to blog on it. But, I hesitated for two reasons. First, other bloggers had already said pretty much what I wanted to say. Second, it seemed to me that Mary’s pregnancy indicated that, after her time in the limelight, she and Heather wanted to settle down to a private, domestic life. And it wasn’t really my business to comment on her private life.

Now, some gay activists are in a huff that the Vice President called CNN’s Wolf Blitzer “out of line” for asking him to comment on a statement made by Focus on the Family, a socially conservative organization, critical of his daughter’s pregnancy. Roberta Sklar, spokesman for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLFT) said that such questions were “completely appropriate.“

I disagree. Reader Peter Hughes sent me a link to this post where Tim Graham asks, “When has a Democratic national candidate’s sons or daughters ever been the subject of a national controversy?” He notes how the MSM assiduously “avoided the story of Al Gore’s teenage son Albert Gore III, caught driving 97 miles per hour on an interstate highway, an offense on the public record, just two days before the 2000 Democratic convention.“

While CNN ignored this story, the network played up the story of the President’s daughters citation for underage drinking in 2001.

It seems it’s fair game to discuss the private lives of the children of Republican leaders, but not those of Democratic ones.

To be sure, the Vice President did, in the interview, express his delight that he’s “about to have a six grandchild,” but simply refused to answer a question about the implications of a lesbian becoming pregnant. Basically, he just didn’t want to politicize his daughter’s pregnancy.

It seems that Blitzer wanted to expose some tension between the White House and the socially conservative group. And while I would have loved to see the Vice President take on Focus on the Family, he wanted his daughter’s pregnancy to remain a private thing, a joy for his family and not a public thing, a source of national controversy.

And while Graham did note the double standard, he thought the question was “fair,” even if meant to cause trouble. Preferring to keep his family life as private as possible given his position, the Vice President did not take the bait. And, I believe, he did the right thing.

Well, we’ve made the Advocate and it seems their reporters liked Bruce’s responses better than mine as they quoted his replies to all of the questions, publishing my words only in reply to the last question. Well, that makes sense. The blog is GayPatriot, not GayPatriotWest.

We’re featured in the February 27, 2007, edition of the magazine on Page 18, in the “Meet the Bloggers” column. I am, as of yet, unable to find a link online.

Of course the one day that a UFO flies around the Charlotte area, I’m out in San Francisco all week.

911 Callers Report Lights In Sky – Charlotte.com 

Emergency dispatchers around Charlotte handle wacky 911 calls each night. But Wednesday, agencies got the same type of unusual call:

A hovering light was in the sky.

Others described it as a plane that might be in trouble. A blueish glow. A fire in the sky. A light moving too slow to be a plane.

I just hope I’m out of San Fran before there is an earthquake!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

With Hillary Clinton and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson indicating their intentions to run for president in recent days, I have been thinking a bit about their chances. While noting Mrs. Clinton’s missteps, Dick Morris thinks that if she gets “used to the pace of politics in 2007,” she has a good shot of becoming the nation’s next chief executive. Ed Morrissey thinks that “Richardson could be ’08’s most dangerous candidate” (Via Instapundit).

Noting Richardson’s experience as U.S. Ambassador to the UN as well as a governor of a state, Morrissey believes he’ll be formidable candidate. Not only that. Richardson worked “with President Bill Clinton on bolstering the party’s credibility with centrist voters.” That line made me realize that success in 2008 may well depend on a candidate moving to the middle without losing his party’s base — as Clinton did in 1992.

Given that the past two presidents (either by design or default) have been polarizing figures, I think the American people will opt for a less divisive candidate next year. That attitude could really help Richardson. Whenever I see him on TV (he frequently appears on FoxNews), he comes across as a level-headed man of the center-left, occasionally willing to praise the president, never baiting, always civil in tone. He seems to prefer argument to attacks.

But, will his reasonable attitude sit well with Democratic primary voters?

By the same token, should my man Rudy prevail in the GOP primaries, he’ll be a strong candidate for the general election. A Republican Mayor of one of the nation’s most liberal cities, he has shown the capacity to reach out beyond his partisan base. But, he’s going to have a challenge winning over that base.

Let’s hope that the next president will be better able to unite the nation. And that one party, preferably the GOP, can choose a candidate who can hold on to his party’s base and reach beyond it.

In his statement criticizing the President’s State of the Union address last night, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) Executive Director mentioned only one gay issue, pleased that the president “chose not to lobby for a federal constitutional amendment” defining marriage. Instead, he reserved his vitriol for the president’s continued support for the war in Iraq, saying, “The nightmare in the Middle East continues unabated.“

Um, Matt, while things may not now be hunky-dory in Iraq, if we pull out now, that nation will come under the dominance of Iran where things are bad all around, particularly for gay men who are routinely hanged merely for being gay.

Once again, Foreman’s statement shows that NGLTF styles itself more as a leftist organization for gay people, preferring to promote the standard left-wing agenda than to focus on gay issues.

If NGLTF were dedicated to gay issues, its executive director would not have issued such an angry release, instead would have been content to note that the president was no longer advocating a gratuituos constitutional amendment defining marriage, an ammendment which would be out of place in our nation’s founding charter.

As I was organizing a dinner for my college alumni association’s entertainment group, I did not get to watch all of the State of the Union Address last night. Before setting out, I did see his very classy introduction, a very warm tribute to an ideological adversary, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

She seemed to accept this with grace. It would be nice if this type of respect were to define their relationship for the next two years, much as, in the 1980s, Ronald Reagan and then-Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill, while differing greatly on policy issues, respected each other as individuals — and even enjoyed each other’s company.

I heard most of the speech while driving from West Hollywood to Sherman Oaks, much of the time caught in horrible traffic on Coldwater Canyon. You see, they had closed Laurel Canyon, the normal route I would take. I was thus not able to concentrate as much as I would like, focusing more on the stop-and-go traffic. I will note that the president sounded more confident than he has in recent media appearances. Indeed, before leaving for the dinner, when I watched his entrance on TV, I thought he looked confident — and determined.

On the whole, I thought it was a good speech. He offered a good, solid defense for the “surge,” the change of strategy in Iraq and his health care plan seems a good first step at reforming a system which works well for most Americans, but whose costs are becoming prohibitive for many. (I may have more to say on this later.)

Listening to the Democratic response from Virginia Senator Jim Webb, I became easily distracted. He did not sound nearly as strong as the president and offered little in the way of alternatives to the president’s plan. MSNBC’s David Shuster pretty much sums up my thoughts, noting that “Webb spoke mostly in platitudes, didn’t offer specifics about Democratic plans, and the way he described the current economic situation in this country was a bit misleading.“

On the whole, I agree with Powerline’s John Hinderaker that the president was “back on his game,” but wonder with him if it will matter. It seems Democrats — and many in the MSM — are intent on opposing him no matter what he proposes. As the Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus puts it, “If George W. Bush proposes something, it must be bad. Such is the knee-jerk state of partisan suspiciousness that when the president actually endorses a tax increase — a tax increase that would primarily hit the well-off, no less — Democrats still howl” (Via Instapundit).

The President delivered a good speech last night, offering many good ideas to defeat terrorism and improve the lives of Americans. It would be nice if Democrats in Congress showed the same respect for these ideas as he showed for the Democratic Speaker of the House.

UPDATE: Seems I’m not the only one who liked the speech. Glenn Reynolds notes that it polled well. According to CNN, 78 percent had a very — or somewhat — positive reaction to the speech.

This one man American traitor single-handedly stole and possibly destroyed evidence the 9/11 Commission and posterity needed to ensure the massive failure of intelligence that led to the terror attacks never happens again.   The Justice Department let him slide… Republican lawmakers say “not so fast, Sandy!”

The Justice Department should administer a polygraph test to former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger to find out what documents he took from the National Archives in 2002 and 2003, Rep. Tom Davis wrote in a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales dated Monday.

Davis, ranking Republican on the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, is leading a group of 18 lawmakers who say the Justice Department has been “remarkably incurious” about Berger’s decision to remove documents relating to the Sept. 11 commission’s inquiry into his role in helping prevent terror attacks during the Clinton administration.

“It is extraordinarily important that the Justice Department avail itself of its rights under the plea agreement and administer a polygraph examination to Mr. Berger to question him about the extent of his thievery. This may be the only way for anyone to know whether Mr. Berger denied the 9/11 commission and the public the complete account of the Clinton administration’s actions or inactions during the lead up to the terrorist attacks on the United States,” Davis wrote.

The letter was signed by all Republican members of Congress.

In case you forgot the crimes of espionage committed by the former Clintonista…

Berger admitted to taking documents on two of the four occasions he went to the National Archives to bone up on his responses for the Sept. 11 commission on his inquiry into how intelligence and law enforcement communities failed to prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States. He said he hid some of them at a construction site near the archives building in Washington.

I’m wondering why no Democrat Members of Congress have signed the letter?  Do they approve of Sticky Fingers Sandy’s actions of treason?

By the way… is it just me or does Scooter Libby’s alleged lying about an already well-known CIA agent pale in comparison to the devastating actions by Clinton’s former National Security Advisor?  Well, you wouldn’t know by the media coverage ratio of both stories.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Not too long ago, as I was driving home from a meeting, a friend called and asked me to come over. When I got to his place, he seemed upset, but gratified to see me. He had just had a job interview for an opening which had seemed promising. But, his prospective employer had not been very accommodating. Noting that this once-promising opportunity evaporated, he expressed concern that his job search could lead to naught.

In telling me the story, not merely venting about the difficult interview, but also expressing his anxieties about the job search, my friend acknowledged his own vulnerability, something which all too many of us seem to reserve for our conversations with our therapists. Afraid to let any chinks appear in our masculine façades, we don’t want to let others see our pain, our fears, our anxiety.

I have often wondered why some gay men (just like our straight counterparts) project this image of masculine toughness as if we fear any indication of vulnerability might make us appear weak or too “feminine” and so make us less attractive to others. But, when my friend told me his story, it only drew me closer to him. I saw him as a more complex human being, sensitive, alert to his feelings.

I find the men who come across as too icy, too tough as far less attractive than those men who manifest a little bit of vulnerability underneath their masculine exterior. Yet, all too often, I see gay men who, after offering a hint of vulnerability, instantly close up.

I wonder sometimes if that’s the reason so many of us cut ourselves off from the guys with whom we “hook up.” Acknowledging that we find someone attractive, that we desire him, indicates a certain vulnerability to his beauty. (Perhaps, we don’t like giving him that power.) Yet, after we have (for lack of better term on a blog open to the public) found our pleasure with him, too many of us cut ourselves off from the man who just moments previously we had so desired. Is it that we are afraid to acknowledge his power over us, to acknowledge our own vulnerability?

Instead of seeing sex as a means of connection, that desire represents (in part) a longing to bond with another human being, we dress it up so as not to let on that we feel alone. We see it as just sex, serving only our own pleasure. And not perhaps an indication that we are dependant upon others for certain things in life.

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