When I had a few moments to myself during my sister’s wedding weekend in San Francisco, I did something I love to do when visiting another town, visit a bookstore. And there was a delightful independent bookstore not far from my hotel, Books, Inc in Laurel Village.

This smallish (compared to the chain stores) shop reminded me how much I enjoy browsing in an “old-fashioned” bookstore. Here, instead of immersing yourself in one section, you find yourself starting in one section, then moving without thinking into another.

This store was one of those “independent stores,” you know, those who complain how they are losing business to Amazon and the chain stores.  I sympathize with this bookstore’s complaint.

I have tried to frequent such stores because the staff there tend to know and love books, but find that at some shops, the highly literate clerks have an attitude or lean far, far to the left and their store’s selection shows it.

Not so at Books, Inc. While I chanced upon a number of left-wing books on the shelves, I also saw offerings from Bruce Thornton (colleague/ideological ally of Victor Davis Hanson), David Frum and William F. Buckley, Jr. Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism was prominently displayed.

Not only that, The staff could not have been friendlier. As a result, I felt compelled to buy a book (always nice to find a reason to add another volume to my collection).  I don’t mind paying extra for a book when I buy it at a store with supportive staff and unbiased offerings.

If Independent bookstores are to survive, they will be places like Books, Inc. in San Francisco’s Laurel Village where you have a friendly staff and a selection which includes a panoply of political perspectives.

I had forgotten the pleasure of browsing in a smaller store where one section just flows into another. And the delight in perusing volumes which cover the gamut of American political opinion — as well as mythological texts, collections of poetry and bound reflections on human kindness.

So next time you’re in the Bay Area, pay a visit to Books, Inc.  And if the shop’s selection is as diverse as that I observed, buy a book and tell the clerk there you appreciate their inclusion of conservative tomes.  That is, if you think the market should reward broad-minded booksellers.

… to Sadomasochistic Fascists... (h/t – The Corner)

Formula One’s governing body is keeping its distance from sexual allegations in a British tabloid newspaper about its president, Max Mosley.  This is a matter between Mr. Mosley and the paper in question,” an International Automobile Federation (FIA) spokesman said.  We understand that Mr. Mosley’s lawyers are now in contact with that newspaper and the FIA has no comment.”

The News of the World reported in a front page story that FIA president Mosley, 67, had taken part in a “sadomasochistic orgy” with five prostitutes that reportedly involved Nazi role-playing.  According to a story posted by the London-based Times Online on Monday, Mosley and others “re-enacted a concentration camp scene in which he played the role of both guard and inmate.”

Hey, but at least Mosley has some family connections to the authentic Fascists of old…

Mosley is the son of the late Oswald Mosley, founder of the pre-war British Union of Fascists. Mosley is married with two sons. He has been president of the FIA since 1993.

Methinks Mosley would do well to hire one of Bill Clinton’s Monica-era attorneys.

(Side Editorial Note:  I had no clue which of our Categories to file this under…..)

-Bruce (GayPatriot) 

This conversation really happened via email.  I know the people involved.  I saw the email exchange.

I am, however, changing the names and facts a bit to protect the innocent.  The bolded statement is reprinted in its original form.

Mike to Peg via email (Joan copied): “Just wondering…. when were the packages sent out since they will be needed in New York on Monday?”

Peg to Mike (Joan copied): “Today.”

Joan to Mike (Peg excluded): (sarcastically) “So…. I should expect them…. Um Wednesday?”

Mike to Joan: “Oh come on, you gotta have faith!”

Joan to Mike: “Well, you can’t have faith and your period at the same time.”

Priceless.

-Bruce (GayPatriot) 

Christopher Barron thinks the answer is personality over substance.

Sen. Obama has a fairly pedestrian record on what the gay left considers the critical issues for our community. Obama’s thin legislative record reveals little to no leadership on gay-related issues, and his positions on gay issues on the campaign trail have been largely indistinguishable from those of his Democratic opponents (all of whom, with the exception of Sen. Hillary Clinton, he has vanquished).

The love affair between the gay left and Obama seems to be much more about personality than policy, which should make the recent controversy surrounding the bigoted, hate-filled comments of Rev. Jeremiah Wright all the more troubling to the gay community.

I DON’T BELIEVE that Obama shares Wright’s outrageous views, but I also still don’t know why Obama would have chosen to associate himself so closely with a man so filled with rage, hate and contempt for this country.

If Obama is going to base his campaign for president on his judgment, then he owes all Americans — including LGBT Americans — an honest explanation for that judgment. 

I wonder what the reaction from the gay left would have been if it were revealed that Jerry Falwell had been John McCain’s pastor for decades or that David Duke had been the best man in his wedding. I am fairly certain that such an intimate association with men with such divisive and repulsive views would certainly be grounds enough not to support his candidacy.

But maybe Barron is onto something more than the gay community’s adherence to Obama’s looks and style.   Perhaps the American gay (left, mostly) can also relate to Rev. Wright and his views.

So, what say you, gay community?

Do you also feel so oppressed that you hate the nation of your birth?   Do you hate the United States so much because you cannot be married here that you cheered after 9/11/2001 like the Palestinians and the Trinity Church members?

And since Obama and Wright were on the one hand “oppressed”, but on the other hand it turns out they are both are multi-millionaires… I’m assuming wealthy liberal gays are most adoring of Obama.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

A big and hearty wish of good luck to the guys from Davidson College.  

Charlotte is abuzz this weekend with Final Four mania — for UNC Tarheels, of course — but also for the Cinderella team from Davidson!  It is going to be a tough battle for the Wildcats today in Detriot as they go up against Kansas for a spot in the NCAA Final Four.

But our whole city is behind Davidson and we know they will do their college and our state proud today no matter what the outcome.

GO WILDCATS!

UPDATE: Well, Kansas was just too much for Davidson, but the Wildcats stayed in it until the final buzzer. Kansas – 59, Davidson – 57. Now it is time for the UNC Tarheels to mop up the floor with Kansas in the Semifinal game.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Welcome Instapundit Readers!

As I take a break from writing the toast/speech for my sister’s rehearsal dinner tonight, Glenn Reynolds alerts us to a display of PC prudery at the University of Michigan.  And it’s not socially conservative Christians or Republicans who are objecting to the suggestive logo Ann Arbor’s Quickie Burgers, “a busty woman in a tight shirt straddling a hamburger.”  It’s the University’s Stonewall Democrats, “a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender caucus of the University’s College Democrats chapter.”

This Democratic group has been “circulating a petition to sway the owners to change the logo.” Club member Kolby Roberts finds the logo inappropriate and offensive, claiming its message not a good one since it contributes to “the objectification of women.”

Well, if he objects to the objectification of woman, he must also (favoring gender equality) oppose the objectification of men. So, therefore, I would assume he’s leading the charge against ads for gay bars, sexy photographs in gay magazines and any other media representation of scantily clad men designed to appeal to men like us who find such images alluring. And I trust he’s been leading a boycott of Abercrombie & Fitch, given how that clothing company’s ads “objectifies” young men.

Give me a break.  If you find Quickie Burger’s logo so offensive, head down to McDonald’s when you want a burger. But, maybe that’s not PC enough for you. Or maybe it’s just that you’re offended by the display of a busty woman?  Or just overeager to please your feminist allies at the U or M?

Gee whiz. Our society is rife with images which objectify men and women. That this Democrat would choose to direct his anger against a burger chain with a drawing of a woman when there are countless more alluring photographic images out there, suggests someone with a need to be offended.

Most adults, while we may be titillated by such images know better than to “objectify” members of the opposite sex (well, in our case, the same sex). And if they don’t, it’s not a problem of the image, but of themselves. And silly petition campaigns will do little to fix that.

So, to those Michigam Democrats, I say, leave the burger place alone and focus on improving yourselves.

As per Glenn, there’s more on this at Classical Values and the Advice Goddess.  Good posts both.

I’m in San Francisco now for my baby sister’s wedding. Every time, I come to this city I am struck by the natural beauty of the city as well as the architectural beauty of many of its buildings and the charm of its streets. I was delighted this time, as on a previous trip up here, to meet with some blog readers, talking about blogging, politics and sexuality.

And I’ve had time to spend with my family, having a heart-to-heart with my sister, playing tag with a niece and nephew in Golden Gate Park, getting a rush when I finally found a bank with Oklahoma quarters so I can distribute the latest state quarter to my parents’ progeny.

I spent the afternoon with Mom, going to two wonderful museums, the Legion of Honor and the DeYoung, fortunately one could go to both on the same ticket. I wanted to see the former to view their antiquities collection (small) as well as their Renaissance and Impressionist sections.

And while I enjoyed many works in those sections, I have to say that I was blown away by the Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer’s Life, 1990—2005 exhibition. I’m often skeptical about whether photography is art. Well, this exhibition made a mockery of my skepticism. Some of the pictures really moved me. (To be sure, others left me cold.)

If I was not so eager to get to bed, I might try to review the exhibit, but will only comment on one picture of Queen Elizabeth II, wearing a blue cape-like overcoat with storm clouds in the background. I thought it looked liked a Romantic painting featuring Napoleon. My mother thought the Queen looked like George Washington.

While Leibovitz politics (or what I’ve heard of them) may turn the stomachs of some readers of this blog, her art (for yes, some of her pictures are art) rises above politics. And the show is well worth a visit. As is so much in this town.

Because someone hijacked our original site on blogspot, I will repost (below the jump) a piece I did on San Francisco when I visited my sister and mother here in December 2004: (more…)

Just over two weeks ago, I observed that for the Left & MSM, McCain is the new Bush. So eager are many on the left (and their allies in the MSM) eager to elect a Democrat to the White House that they’ll savage whatever Republican wins his party’s nod in the presidential contest. Even if he has departed from conservative “orthodoxy” on any number of occasions. Even if the MSM has heralded his “maverick” stance over the years.

Now that he is the Republican nominee for President of the United States, Senator McCain is learning that the kid-glove treatment he had come to expect from the MSM is no longer forthcoming. Not only that. Whenever I check left-of-center blogs, I see advertised a slew of books attacking that courageous veteran.

Yesterday, when I chanced up the term “JohnMcBush” (A google search yields 37,700 hits), I wondered if these attacks on the Arizona Senator involved more than just a desire to defeat the Republican nominee and elect a Democrat to the White House. I wonder if it some on the left really want to run against George W. Bush again so they can finally defeat him. After all, one site (advertising John McBush paraphernalia claims, “Bush. McCain. The result will be the same.” They’re engaged in the “fight to get the Bush Crowd out of the White House.“

Um, guys, that crowd will be leaving the White House in less than a year. I don’t expect President McCain to keep many of his predecessor’s advisors when he takes office.

Maybe they’re still obsessed with W that they need to keep running against him. George W. Bush will not be on the ballot this fall. While Senator McCain has long supported the president’s broad goals in the Middle East, he had (until the surge) criticized the president’s tactics there, favoring a different military strategy. And he has opposed the president on any number of initiatives and issues, most notably federal spending.

On January 20, 2009, in fewer than ten months, George W. Bush will be leaving the White House. They, to paraphrase another much maligned Republican, won’t have him to kick around any more.

Or will they? So obsessed are some people with George W. Bush that they may continue to compare other Republicans to this object of their animosity for years and years to come. Why is it wonder that they so hate this man? Why do they so need to run against him this year? What is it about the president that so arouses their antipathy?

Or is it something in themselves they need to express and they find it easy to project their own feelings of insecurity, alienation or some other anxiety onto the current President of the United States?

Sometimes, when I have an idea for a post, a catchy title for the post comes to me as I write.  Other times, I’ll finish the post and have to struggle to think up a title, one which may be catchy, may even summarize one point in the article, but doesn’t necessarily often a succinct synopsis of the post’s central idea.  

Such was the case with the post I wrote late Wednesday night California time, If Dems had Strong Nominee, GOP would be Toast in ‘08. Just today, after breakfast, it occurred to me that the above title better suited the post than the one I gave it.

So, I’ll use that title and see if it attracts more attention.

UPDATE:  A Democratic official describes the protracted campaign for his party’s presidential nod as the “nightmare that’s getting worse.” While the article focuses on the tight race, it all but ignores the Democratic candidates weaknesses, something which surprisingly we have seen more mention that we might have in years past.

Do the new House Ethics rules cover expenses being covered by a dictatorial regime that Congress passed a law vowing to change?

Saddam Hussein’s intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

The three anti-war Democrats made the trip in October 2002, while the Bush Administration was trying to persuade Congress to authorize military action against Iraq. While traveling, they called for a diplomatic solution.

Prosecutors say that trip was arranged by Muthanna Al-Hanooti, a Michigan charity official, who was charged Wednesday with setting up the junket at the behest of Saddam’s regime. Iraqi intelligence officials allegedly paid for the trip through an intermediary and rewarded Al-Hanooti with 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil.

The lawmakers are not named in the indictment but the dates correspond to a trip by Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, David Bonior of Michigan and Mike Thompson of California. None was charged and Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said investigators “have no information whatsoever” any of them knew the trip was underwritten by Saddam.

Surrrrrrrrrrrrrrre.   And Eliot Spitzer thought “john” meant the bathroom.

Aren’t rules about treason and sedition enforced anymore?

(And two of the three are Democratic superdelegates.   How precious.)

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

“If nothing is going well, call your grandmother”. “Italian Proverb

Unless of course, you’ve just delivered a nationwide speech that implied Granny’s a racist — in that case, you may want to call your spiritual adviser — oops, perhaps not.  Maybe in this case, call your wife – she’s sure to clear things right up.

You know your campaign is in trouble when you toss Granny under the bus because you’ve been caught hanging out with the wrong crowd.  Say what you will about the ‘Bi-States Luv Guv’s’ (Spitzer & McGreevey) – they may have used their wives as political window dressing – but they wouldn’t dare to speak ill of their Grandma’s — no one is that craven.  Or so we thought.

I’m a ‘Granny Groupie’ from way back: I fell in love with Grannies back in 1938 when the actress May Robson showed up as Esther Blodgett’s crusty old grandma in the original ‘A Star is Born’.  She bankrolls Esther’s trip to Tinsel-town and fame.

Granny admires Esther’s ‘pioneer spirit’ and gives the timid girl the confidence to eventually catch a movie star husband (Fredrick March doing a horrible Errol Flynn impersonation) and win an Oscar.  When people say ‘They don’t make ‘em like that anymore’, they’re usually referring to people like Granny Blodgett. Just ask Carol Burnett how tough Grannies are.

Fast forward 70 years and you’ve got the presumptive nominee of the Democratic party saying things about his Granny that would make Granny Blodgett box his ears and wash his mouth out with soap.  Apparently, many years ago, Barack ‘cringed’ at his Granny’s use of racial stereotypes and her unfounded fear of an aggressive black man on a public bus. Thank goodness she didn’t spout off about anti-war protesters, men with long hair, or young girls who favor low cut dresses or we’d have to conclude she’s probably a right-wing-pro-war-fanatical- anti-feminist- prude, with a narrow worldview and used Kleenex tissues stuck up the sleeves of her housecoat.

Actually, she’s a lot hipper than Barack can even imagine: Obama’s Granny helped raise a young black man who graduated from Harvard and later became a US Senator from Illinois, and is now — in some people’s opinion — the probable next President of the United States.

Now there’s something to bring up when the ‘old ladies bridge club’ gets together to brag about the grandkids.  Oh, and by the way, Granny Obama was into bi-racial families back when the Reverend Wright was into the black separatists movement.

While Granny Obama was raising Barack as her own, to guide and love, Reverend Wright was adopting the Black Value System, to misguide and hate. While Granny Obama was embracing Barack and protecting her family, Reverend Wright was embracing the Black Ethics ideology and misleading his followers. While Granny Obama was telling Barack he could be anything he put his mind to, the Reverend Wright was telling his followers AIDS and crack were engineered by the Federal Government to kill black people.

Granny and the Reverend: they’re both preaching and their both praying, but it’s obvious they’re not preaching and praying for the same thing.

“Typical white woman”, indeed. Granny Obama should take a page from Granny Blodgett’s book and wash Barack’s mouth out with soap.

To all the Grannies: Cheers!

-Vera Charles

If I were a Democrat, I’d been gnashing my teeth right now. Just months ago, it seemed all but certain that the party of FDR would recapture the White House this fall. Now, the smart money is on a man who, less than a year ago, looked dead in the water. If John McCain doesn’t get too cockyand wages a smart campaign (by respond quickly and effectively to MSM & Democratic attacks and putting forward an upbeat conservative agenda), he should keep the presidency in Republican hands.

It’s that the two remaining Democratic presidential contenders don’t seem very presidential. Tenacious, intelligent and disciplined though she may be, Hillary Clinton doesn’t come across as an optimistic and confident leader. Plus she seems to want to fit the past into the record she needs to appeal to whatever audience she addresses in the present.

Her opponent, on the other hand, has the gifts of presence and passion she lacks, but has her husband’s skill of answering tough questions with fancy (and often inspiring) rhetoric.

Had the Democrats picked a candidate who could unite their party while appearing to moderate and other independent voters, we might be looking at a Republican wipeout that would make 1932 look like a cliffhanger. That is why, until New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson’s meltdown, I most most fear his nomination. He can argue with Republicans, criticizing their points without engaging in name-calling or appearing condescending.

He has governed effectively in a “purple” state without raising taxes. A man with a record of leadership who shows respect for his political adversaries could lead a divided nation.

I wonder if Richardson now regrets tacking left during his presidential campaign. Then, he sought to appeal to the party’s angry base. But, had he run from the center-left, the place where he stood when in the Clinton Administration and where he governed as the chief executive of his state, he might have succeeded in his party as did John McCain in the GOP, by winning large enough pluralities to catapult himself to frontrunner status. Disgruntled Democrats might have turned to him as a consensus choice who could win in November.

(more…)

On Monday, I noted how the news headlines on Yahoo!’s homepage tend to reflect a left-wing bias. If there’s bad news coming from Iraq, it’s sure to find its way to the news headlines on that page.

And today, we find Yahoo! leading not with bad news from Iraq, but with an article speculating that things are about to get worse. In their “In the News” colum, they list an article they title, “Will spiraling Iraq violence force a ‘re-surge’ of U.S. troops?” a Time magazine piece which is so fulfilled with the conditional, it almost reads as a grammar exercise wherein a high school students shows he knows how to use that speculative tense.

There is a growing possibility that it could become a wider intra-Shi’ite war . . . .

Tuesday’s sweep of Basra could turn sour in other southern cities where the central government’s power is weak . . . .

If the U.S. decides to actively go after the Shi’ite forces in the south, it would mean reopening a southern front . . .

.
Yes, there has been some increased violence in the southern regions of Iraq. But, we don’t know whether this is just a last gasp of the militias or an attempt by forces loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to show that they still matter.

Perhaps, things will turn out as Time’s Darrin Mortenson imagines. But, that’s not what’s happening now. His speculations belong more on the editorial page than on the news headlines.

Sometimes, it seems Yahoo!’s editors can’t distinguish the two, so eager are they to lead with stories critical of our mission in Iraq. Not just that, now that there is much good news coming out of Iraq, it seems that those in the MSM will seize any piece of bad news and define it is a trend.

Speaking in Madison, Wisconsin, with rhetoric typical of all too many in his party, Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean offered a litany of insults about the GOP, few having any basis in reality. At a crowd “thin on students,” the former Vermont governor said that voters under 30 had an affinity for his party because they were a “multicultural generation.”

Meanwhile, the Democrat claimed “that the Republican Party has scapegoated every ethnic group and therefore can’t create a multicultural identity and reach younger voters.” Has it? Can he provide evidence to buttress his claim?

Or has he forgotten that it was leaders of his party who fought the Civil Rights Act and that a former “kleagle” of the Ku Klux Klan served as Democratic Leader in the Senate for twelve years. That man, West Virginia’s Robert Byrd, still serves in the Senate–as a Democrat.

Still, Dean wondered “Who in their right mind, if they were African American or Hispanic or Asian American, if they were gay or lesbian, would join the Republican Party?”

While firing of this mean-spirited tirade, Mr. Dean himself faces a lawsuit brought by dismissed former DNC gay and lesbian outreach director Donald Hitchcock, claiming anti-gay discrimination. Seems Howard stands accused of scapegoating this gay man. (For the record, yours truly used to run with Donald when I lived in DC and found him to be a most decent man.)  And this isn’t the only example of this Democrat’s anti-gay animus.

Well, Howard, maybe some people don’t see their ethic (or sexual) identity as the defining factor in their lives and join the GOP for a great variety of other reasons, including their support of lower taxes, a less intrusive federal government and a strong national defense. And for gays and lesbians, favoring an aggressive stance in the War on Terror so as to defeat those Islamofascist forces which would (and have) persecuted and executed our fellows in lands under their sway.

It’s amazing that the Democrats have as their leader a man with a mind so narrow that he can’t see past people’s ethic (or sexual) identities. We’re Americans first, Howard. And there are many reasons for us to support the GOP, even if we do not always agree with our party’s policies.

So, don’t tell us there’s no place in the GOP for us. Understand that that individuals of a great variety of backgrounds can support the broad principles of our party.

ADDENDUM:  Great minds think alike.  I had no clue Bruce was working on a similar post as I whipped this one out.

UPDATE (from Dan in SF):  Log Cabin weighs into on Governor Dean’s remarks, with President Patrick Sammon calling the speech “bizarre“ and finding his comment on minorities not having a place in the GOP “insulting.”  Check it out! 

Perhaps “hate” is a strong word, but Howard Dean definitely suffers from “foot-in-mouth” disease when it comes to gay Americans.

First, his really big Gay Problem:

Two Thursdays ago, on March 6, Dean did a flurry of early morning television interviews on the political news du jour – the race for delegates and taking on Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the general election – before heading to the law offices of Bernabei & Wachtel for the start of a 6 ½ hour grilling about why he authorized the firing of the DNC’s gay and lesbian outreach director, Donald Hitchcock.

Hitchcock filed his suit against the DNC last spring, a year after he was fired, alleging the DNC discriminated against him because he’s gay and retaliated against him because his life partner, well-known Democratic activist Paul Yandura, publicly criticized the Democratic Party for not doing more to fight anti-gay ballot initiatives. Hitchcock is asking for unspecified damages and severance pay.

The lawsuit and Dean’s deposition, a copy of which was obtained by the Sleuth, has dredged up long simmering tensions between the DNC and gay Democrats.

Dean sparked the ire of the gay community when he said in an interview in May of 2006 on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s “700 Club” hosted by evangelist Pat Robertson that the Democratic Party platform from 2004 states “marriage is between a man and a woman.”

He also defended his admittedly challenged gaydar while explaining why he doesn’t have a tally on the number of gay people he has appointed to the DNC. He doesn’t always know who’s gay. Even his gay staffers don’t have 100 percent accuracy in pinpointing other people’s sexual orientations, Dean said.

Can someone explain to me exactly why is Dean going around trying to snuff-out gays working at the DNC?  Sounds like a witchhunt similar to what liberal gay activists have undertaken before.

“Mr. [Andy] Tobias is openly gay, right? Yes,” Dean said, answering his own question. “But he has been wrong about how many people are gay before. He was shocked the other day. We did a big gay fundraiser and he couldn’t believe those people were gay.” (Tobias is treasurer of the DNC.)

Oh…. and Howard Dean doesn’t think much of free-thinking gay Republicans either:

Dean said that the Republican Party has scapegoated every ethnic group and therefore can’t create a multicultural identity and reach younger voters.

“They can’t become more diverse,” Dean said. “Who in their right mind, if they were African American or Hispanic or Asian American, if they were gay or lesbian, would join the Republican Party?”

Perhaps Dean can consult on his personal comfort issues with gay people with fellow Democrat, John Edwards.

In the book, he says he asked former Sen. John Edwards at the outset of his 1998 Senate campaign, “What is your position, Mr. Edwards, on gay rights?”

“I’m not comfortable around those people,” was Edwards’ reply, according to Shrum.

Is there some hangup that Democrat leaders have with gays that they must refer to us as “those people”?  They don’t seem to care when “us people” send them “our money” to fund the DNC’s divisive identity politics strategy.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

I figured I should post this new development given I covered this when the previous accounts surfaced a couple weeks ago.

Gorbachev Dispels “Closet Christianity” - Christian Post

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev made clear this past weekend that he is an atheist after European news agencies last week claimed that he had confirmed his Christian faith during a visit to the tomb of St. Francis of Assisi in Italy.

Gorbachev, the last communist leader of the Soviet Union, confronted speculations that he had been a closeted Christian during an interview with the Russian news agency Interfax.

“Over the last few days some media have been disseminating fantasies — I can’t use any other word — about my secret Catholicism, citing my visit to the Sacro Convento friary, where the remains of St. Francis of Assisi lie,” Gorbachev said, according to an Interfax article posted Friday.

Oh well… Have faith, Gorby. Have faith.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Sixteen months after voters in Michigan voted to kill affirmative action in the public sphere, opponents of preferences based on race and gender are pushing five more states to ban the practice.

Foes of affirmative action, which is meant to address current and historical inequities, delivered 128,744 signatures to Colorado authorities earlier this month. Similar organizations in Arizona, Missouri, Oklahoma and Nebraska are circulating petitions as civil rights groups and educators are mobilizing to defeat the measures.

The initiatives are spearheaded by Ward Connerly, the nation’s most prominent opponent of affirmative action, who said he has raised about $1.5 million for the campaigns. He sees the November ballot initiatives as the next step in his drive to end preferences in public education, hiring and contracting… (MSNBC)

It doesn’t surprise me that the movement to ban racial and gender preferences has been given a boost thanks to the presidential campaigns of both Hillary Clinton & Barack Obama. As much as I oppose both of these candidates on their policy stances, I do believe we owe them a debt of gratitude for breaking the perceived ‘glass ceiling’. It matters not whether either of them are successful in winning the White House this November, they both have helped women and minorities with their historic campaigns. My fervent hope is that this will widen the pool of choices for all sides of the political spectrum and we can get better candidates. This could help minority candidates in future runs for high office, like Bobby Jindal, the new Republican governor of Louisiana.

In what must seem perverse to advocates of racial and gender preferences, the serious run for the presidency by both Clinton & Obama also highlights such set asides and calls the need for them into question. It’s about time. I adamantly oppose racial and gender preferences and would dearly love a chance to vote them down in my home state of Virginia. The more states that ban them the better it will be for us a nation since in my view these preferences do more harm than good.

(more…)

On Monday, when I read Jules Crittenden’s review of the PBS Frontline documentary, Bush’s War, I was not as much surprised by the biased as I was upset that my tax dollars paid for this. It seemed that more often than not, PBS has become a federally subsidized outfit for anti-Republican propaganda.

To be sure, PBS has done produced some remarkable documentaries (I blogged about their docudrama on John Adams here). Their history documentaries are often quite good, but it seems that on current events, they tend to obscure, if not misrepresent, conservative ideas.

About a year ago, the network refused to air a documentary, Islam vs. Islamists about “moderate Muslims who have challenged the “Islamists” who espouse a more radical view of their religion.” There were reports that PBS executives were not happy that Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy and former Reagan administration official, was “associated with the film in a senior role.” In the end, the privately-owned FoxNews aired the program (probably guaranteeing it a larger audience than it would have had on PBS).

I wonder if PBS executive raised objections when high profile liberals played senior roles in the production of other documentaries.

As Crittenden finds in his review, producers of Bush’s War preferred critics of Vice President Cheney and former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to those who actually helped those Republican officials shape the decision to go to war:

Of the actual participants in events, there is a heavy reliance on well-known Rumsfeld-Cheney adversaries such Richard Clarke, Richard Armitage, with no mention of the fact that they, and virtually everyone in this depiction of recent history, have axes to grind and their own sullied legacies to patch up. Few people actually close or aligned with Rumsfeld or Cheney appear to have been interviewed. Possibly because they knew how this was going to end up

And they relied on another media favorite not known for his honesty:

The “16 words” controversy is presented by none other than Joe Wilson, with no mention of the view that — yellowcake deal or no yellowcake deal — Saddam Hussein in fact had been in the market for uranium in Africa. You can also remain innocent of the fact that Joe Wilson is himself a controversial figure whose qualifications for his task are highly questionable and were in fact a bizarre case of nepotism.

I wonder if they asked Joe how he squared his public statements with the report of the Senate Intelligence Committee which found them at odds with the record.

Why is this taxpayer-supported network producing programs which make little effort to offer both sides of the story, which criticize conservative policy makers without giving them a chance to defend their actions?

This would be one thing on a show like Keith Olbermann on a privately-owned network, but on public television? It’s a sad commentary that this is what we have come to expect from a network that you and I subsidize.

Not only does Ms. Hillary surround herself with disingenuous spokesmen and dishonest supporters, but she herself has long had a problem of being straight with the American people. One-time (Bill) Clinton supporter David Geffen observed, “everybody in politics lies, but [the Clintons] do it with such ease, it’s troubling.”

With a recent poll finding that a majority of Americans believe Mrs. Clinton to be neither honest nor trustworthy, it’s no wonder the media are highlighting her latest “embellishment” of the facts, claiming she had landed in Bosnia under sniper fire when in fact she hadn’t.

Bruce Kesler reminds us of another Clinton fib: in 1994, she that in 1974 she had “almost enlisted in the Marine Corps.” As Bruce notes, Jim Geraghty quickly disposed of that fabrication.

And other pundits have disposed of additional Clinton lies. While she claimed on February 26 that she had “been a critic of NAFTA from the beginning,” the release of White House documents earlier this month showed that she had tirelessly worked to pass this job-creating measure (Via Instapundit).

So, the revelation that Hillary misrepresented what happened when she went to Bosnia is just the latest exposure of her mendacity.

I wonder if she had been so mendacious before she met Bill or if it was something she picked up in the course of their partnership. Maybe aware of his superior political skills and seeing his repeated victories, she concluded that duplicity was a defining spect of political success.

UPDATE (on 03/28):  Yahoo! may be biased on Iraq, but, just like this blog, its editors all find Ms. Hillary has, what they call, a “credibility gap.”

I wonder if, after finally sitting down and slowly reading Democratic presidential frontruner Barack Obama’s speech on race, I will have anything more to say than I have already said. When I read certain passages, it strikes me that the Illinois Senator does have something to say, but that he dodges the real issue, that is, he fails to explain why he never challenged his pastor for his crazy comments.

As Lionel Chetwynd put it today in a must-read “letter” to the Senator on Pajamas: “That is the teaching opportunity I hoped you would evoke: not explaining Wright’s outrage to me, but explaining his outrageousness to him.” To me, that failure signals a man who is not ready for the presidency. (The problem for the Democrats is that this item item in today’s reminds us that neither is his only remaining opponent for their party’s nomination.)

We all have friends, mentors even, whom we admire on any number of issue, but have some significant flaw. We may admire her ideas on mythology, yet decry her politics. We may like someone’s writing style and economic arguments, yet object to his sexual behavior. We may find someone to be a tremendous conversationalist and loyal friend except when he drinks too much (which happens on all too many occasions).

Or, in my case, you have a rabbi with a deep commitment to the traditions of our faith and an ability to draw profound insights from weekly Torah readings, yet who, in a Yom Kippur sermon, misrepresents the President’s policies on torture. Perhaps, I should have raised my objection with the rabbi. Instead, I left the synagogue.

A couple months ago, I learned that a friend of mine opposed Obama for all the wrong reasons — he didn’t think a black man should be president. As soon as he raised the issue of the Senator’s race, I challenged my friend on his bias. I don’t know if I succeeded in changing his mind for we soon changed the subject. It would have been easier to remain silent.

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