Since September 2004, we have been attracting readers & commenters of all stars & stripes here to GayPatriot.

Well, if you head down to the bottom of our page you will see that we are within striking distance of our Two Millionth unique visitor.

In honor of this historic moment in blogosphere history, I’m offering a contest to GayPatriot readers.  For the rest of this week, you will all have the opportunity to guess what date & time we will hit the 2,000,000th mark. 

The person who comes closest will win my 2nd (and untouched) personal hardcover copy of Jonah Goldberg’s awesome book — Liberal Fascism.   I will even autograph it with a suitable note celebrating our 2,000,000th reader.

It isn’t as easy as it may seem.  You never know when we will get a hit from Instapundit, the HuffPo, or the oh-so-rare “Sully-lanche”.

So have at it.   Contest closes on Sunday, August 3rd at 5PM Eastern Time.   Email me your guess of date & time, plus relevant contact information to BRUCE@GAYPATRIOT.ORG.

**NOTE:  Though there are some guesses in this comment thread — only emails to me will be considered as “official” guesses for the contest.**

May the most accurate man or woman win.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Last week, I saw Mamma Mia! on the big screen.

Were I to judge the movie by its component parts, I would give this one low ratings, very low.  The choreography is both campy and cheesy. Pierce Brosnan, while he looks fine on screen, can’t carry a tune.  There’s no chemistry between the young lovers, Dominic Cooper and Amanda Seyfried. The former would be more believable if he were telling his on-screen fiancée that while she was his best friend, he just met a boy . . . .

I mean, who was it who decided not to have someone else sing Brosnan’s part? Marni Nixon sang for Natalie Wood (West Side Story), Audrey Hepburn (My Fair Lady) and Deborah Kerr (The King and I). At least Wood and Hepburn had more passable singing voices than does the one-time James Bond. (I don’t know much about Kerr’s singing abilities, but have heard the other two sing; neither voice grates as much as did that of this male movie star).

All that said, I can’t get the movie out of my head and want to see it again. It was, simply put, a lot of fun. Meryl Streep was amazing as Donna, the lead, convincing both as a mother and as a one-time somewhat “loose” woman finding herself, all of a sudden, in some unusual and tense situations. She was, as always, a delight to watch. It looked like she had a lot of fun making the movie as I did watching it. (I read she really enjoyed the Broadway show and was thrilled be cast in the film.)

While Christine Baranski was not nearly as good as she was (in a much smaller role) in Birdcage, Julie Walters made up for her on-screen friend’s lackluster performance. And Colin Firth was, as always, convincing and compelling, particularly with that little twist at the end which, I hear, was added in for the film.

And the music. It reminded how pleasant good ol’ classic pop music can be. The songs were just fun to listen to. I get why Abba inspired the band Erasure and the movieThe Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert. Makes me want to watch that Australian flick again.

I did stop at Virgin to buy Abba Gold, the CD containing most of the film’s songs — as well as a few other Abba classics. Great to listen to when driving around LA on a hot day.

And then there were the costumes. When you see it, make sure to stay until the very end to see the concluding numbers.

I guess all this goes to show is that even with as many flaws as this flick, we can still enjoy it.  It just needs to entertain us. And Mamma Mia! succeeded.  Odd though some of the directing and choreography may have been, it was a lot of fun.  I want to see this movie again.

UPDATE from Bruce (GP):  I mostly agree with Dan’s review (having also seen it last weekend).  But as a veteran watcher of Mamma Mia! on stage — the movie sticks pretty much to the London/Broadway version in all of its aspects. 

For one thing, Skye and Sophie aren’t the main relationship action in the story — frankly he is just there (in the film and on the stage) for he and his hunky friends to provide the audience with shirtless eye candy.  The most compelling relationship dynamic (again, in both versions) for me is Donna and Sophie; Sophie and her Dad(s); and Donna and Sam.  Interestingly enough all of the “Sams” (including Brosnan) that I’ve seen perform the role have had singing voices that leave a lot to be desired. 

Finally, the music is great — seeing the stage versions made me go out and buy ABBA Gold, too!  And, Amanda Seyfried (Sophie) has by far the best singing voice in the movie (IMHO).   I’d see it again too… but Batman is now at the top of the list!

Just learned from a reader about the production of a WIth You, a documentary on Mark Bingham, an openly gay hero of 9/11.  Check out the website and watch the trailer.

Sounds like it’s going to be a great tribute to a great American.

With the Dark Knight, the sequel to Batman Begins, topping box office charts for two weeks running, eclipsing some records and set to eclipse others in the coming days and weeks, I thought I’d follow up on an idea which cropped up as I crafted my previous post and ask you to weigh in with your choice for the best motion picture sequel.

While most cliches are duds, not living up to the promise of the original (see e.g., the sequels to The Matrix), a good number have been as good as, if not better than the original. While I enjoyed Toy Story, I find myself watching to watch Toy Story 2 again and again (and yet again).

As as adult, I’ve come to prefer The Empire Strikes Back to the original Star Wars. I thought Spider-Man 2 far superior to Spider-Man (though I did love that original). And as I observed last night, Aliens engaged me more than Alien, the movie which inspired it.

Finally, there’s been that perennial debate between movie buffs over which Godfather movie is superior, Part I or II. I find the movies so different that I refuse to choose. They’re both amazing movies and both won Oscars for Best Picture.

Now, it’s your turn, what is the best movie sequel? And which sequels, in your mind, improve upon the original?

I apologize for not blogging as regularly as I would like.  For the past few days, my mind has been elsewhere, actually my mind has been a lot of places. I haven’t really been able to focus on crafting an original post or even developing the ideas I have had for such pieces.

I may try to craft a few posts on Hollywood as movies have been much on my mind in recent days or one a reconciliation with my best friend from elementary school from whom until this year I had been estranged since high school. (I have his permission to post the picture of our reunion.)

I may share my thoughts on Mama Mia! which I thoroughly enjoyed despite its abundant flaws and Aliens which I popped into my DVD player last night to watch for just an hour before bed, but ended up watching the movie.  One of the times when a sequel is better than the original.  Hey, there’s an idea for another post, especially given the box office success of another sequel I much enjoyed — The Dark Knight.

While I have not much been up for original posts, I have been taking on some of my critics in a thread on another blog.  When a fellow Williams alumnus linked my post on my classmate at the New York Times on an alumni blog, it generated quite the thread. I found myself chiming in on regular basis–primarily to correct their repeated and regular misrepresentations of conservative, but as is my wont, I did allow myself to get distracted, but had fun doing so.

Amazing how frequent are such misrepresentations.

Finally, I have also been trying to clean out my various e-mail boxes where I allowed missives to accumulate since my trip to Cincinnati. I find that process quite draining. Perhaps I have been in more of a mood to respond to critics on the other blog given the number of e-mails I have been responding to in recent days.

I used to read all my e-mail, especially those of critics, but find now I no longer have the time to do so. I find it amusing that when I do reply to certain critics (via e-mail) that just as soon as I address the point they raised in their initial missive, they go on to attack me on another point. As if their entire purpose is to attack conservatives rather than to engage us and understand our ideas.

And for me who loves a good debate, this is truly sad. Given the limited number of hours in the day, I regret I may not be able to devote as much time as I would like to my critics and even, alas, some of my supporters.

Finally, a point from one of my e-mails: given this one post a critic linked, I wonder if I should use the rationale of this blogger in saying it was environmentalists who really killed and maimed the victims of Ted Kaczynski.  Al Gore, you’ve got some ’splaining to do.

(Over at Balloon Juice, John Cole offers a good takedown of the post linked above.)

The last time we had an earthquake of this magnitude in LA, I slept through it.  I woke to find some pictures on the floor, but that was about it.

Just moments ago, when this one hit, I was sitting at my desk.  At first, I didn’t know what it was, perhaps a large animal was scurrying across the roof. But, then everything started to shake.  I saw three empty water bottles that I had set out for recycling tumble to the ground.  A box of kleenex fell as well.

As I stood up, thinking I should head to my bedroom where I could best protect myself by squatting next to a large and heavy chest of drawers (which would block a collapsing ceiling), the shaking began to cease.  My electricity remained on.  Soon friends were e-mailing me and messaging me to ask if I had felt it.  One friend who lives near the epicenter reported it was “fairly intense.”

I walked around my apartment to see if there was any damage.  In addition to the items I had seen fall, a total of two framed pictures and a Cary Grant box DVD set had fallen to the ground.  Given all the clutter in my apartment, that seemed pretty amazing.  Most pictures remained on the shelves.  All the books remained on their shelves.  Most DVDs remained in place.

All in all, it was a pretty weird experience.  I still feel a little jittery.

UPDATE: Weird how quickly everything has gotten back to normal, at least in my neighborhood.  I heard a few sirens right after the trembler, but now hear the normal sounds of the day.

UP-UPDATE:  After having a late lunch with a friend, I returned home to find a few more things out of place, but nothing not easily fixed. Nothing damaged, just the clutter re-arranged.

We changed our server since I last asked the question and so lost the comments with your responses.

Last night, I caught the Dark Knight, the latest Batman movie and, like most moviegoers, was blown away by Heath Ledger’s chilling realization of the Joker, the classic evil trickster from contemporary culture, perhaps just a creative re-imagining of Loki, the trickster from Germanic myth.

So, who, in your mind, was the best movie villain?  Has Ledger’s performance perhaps earned his Joker that title?  Or does Nicholson’s Joker still have an edge?  Some think Ralph Fiennes‘ Lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter movies deserves the honor.  Or maybe it’s someone on this list.  Or someone those film buffs left out.

Right now, Ledger’s up there for me.  He may even eclipse Nicholson (who has long been my favorite movie villain).  But, I’ll withhold judgment until I see the movie again which I definitely plan on doing.

When I first read that my Williams classmate David Shipley had taken over as Op-Ed editor of the New York Times, I saw it as a sign of improvement on the editorial page of the Old Gray Lady. Even though David had worked in the Clinton Administration, I had always known him as an even-handed, level-headed kind of guy.  At college, he never showed any particular disdain for conservative ideas — and this in the heyday of the Reagan Revolution.

Indeed, I assumed it was David’s doing when the Times tapped such thoughtful conservatives as David Brooks and William Kristol to write regular columns for its Op-Ed page.  He is the kind of guy who would welcome diverse viewpoints, including conservative ideas intelligently expressed.

At Williams, David was well-liked among his classmates, at least those of us who knew him. He kept a pretty low profile on campus. I recall he was soft-spoken. We rowed together freshman year.

But, David wasn’t one of those angry left-wingers (yes, we even had them on college campi even in my day), railing against the latest action by the Gipper. He may have had left-of-center political views, but he kept them pretty much to himself, at least in his conversations with me. And I was a pretty outspoken undergraduate, particularly during my sophomore and junior years.

Actually, I was kind of surprised when I learned that David had taken a job in the Clinton Administration. I knew he leaned left when we had lunch in the summer of 1993 when we both worked in Washington, D.C. But, he didn’t seem the partisan sort.  

We discussed politics and life since college, he recalling my leadership roles on campus, I recalling his English major and interest in writing. He seemed curious about my date (two years prior to that lunch) with his then-boss, Andrew Sullivan.

Most of all, I recalled that David listened, as he had listened in class and listened to our classmates when we discussed whatever it was we discussed in the now lost (alas, alas) snack bar in Baxter Hall.

Thus, I was surprised to learn that he had personally rejected (or at least written the e-mail rejecting) presumptive Republican nominee John McCain’s column for the New York Times.

The David Shipley who so readily listened to his Williams peers was now dictating how one party’s candidate should write about our nation’s Iraq policy. I want to believe David’s distinction between accepting Obama’s piece and rejecting that of his Republican rival, that the Obama essay “offered new information.”  Given the increasingly biased record of the Times, I am skeptical, even of a man whose even-handedness I have long respected.

It’s sad that David who clearly had a hand in bringing two thoughtful conservatives to his paper’s editorial page would so readily reject the essay of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Is the David who once got along so well with his Williams’ peers now especially eager to get along well with the liberal New York media élite?

I hope David still shows the same respect for conservatives he did at Williams and in our 1993 lunch.

His failure to publish this editorial shows the decline of the paper whose Op-Eds he now edits. Given the controversy this rejection generated, the essay will likely get wider attention than it would had the paper printed it.

It may well be that the bias shown in this rejection accounts for the 82% drop in the paper’s profits.

- B. Daniel Blatt

With the political climate favoring the Democratic Party this year and media coverage skewed in favor of the presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama should enjoy a healthy lead over his Republican rival in summer opinion polls (particularly given the strength of the out-of-power party after eight years with the other party in the White House).  

But, right now, polls show Obama’s lead dwindling, with McCain making gains in key battleground states.

And this in a week where the Illinois Senator has received especially fawning media ooverage.

Given that late-deciding Democrats broke heavily against Obama in spring primaries even after the media had anointed him their party’s nominee, one could expect late-deciding voters in the general election to break for John McCain by ever larger margins. 

Consider this one detail from the recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll (which had Obama up by 6 points):  55 percent of voters surveyed consider Obama “the riskier choice for president.“  This, combined with McCain’s advantage on leadership, knowledge, experience and commander-in-chief qualities, should serve him well with voters who have yet to make up in their minds in this long campaign.

UPDATE:  As per that skewed coverage mentioned above, Ann Althouse, forced to watch CNN while waiting for a flight, observes: “the endless enthusiasm over Barack Obama is appalling. There’s no pretense of journalistic neutrality. Barack Obama is getting a rockstar welcome… blah blah blah… ugh!”  (Via Instapundit.)

Even though he has not yet begun his journalism studies at Indiana University, the second eldest PatriotNephewWest has shown a greater understanding of the way the news media works than does a college classmate of mine ensconced on the editorial page at the New York Times.

Now blogging on his eponymous site, this smart and insightful young man recently commented on that editor’s decision not to run an Op-Ed by John McCain because the presumptive Republican presidential nominee didn’t address U.S. policy toward Iraq the war the Times wanted him to. Mitchell, my nephew, wrote:

Whatever their [the Times'] policy is, it’s hard to give them the benefit of the doubt, when they already have a track record of liberal bias, for example giving Move On.org a $100,000 discount on the political ad they ran last September calling General David Petraeus “General Betray Us”.

Not only is he aware of the Times‘ bias, but he takes pleasure in taking on Chris Matthews for his.  Noting how the MSNBC host fawns on the presumptive Democratic nominee, my nephew is honest enough to highlight a moment when Matthews got “tough on Obama,” well, in this case an Obama surrogate.

Mitchell provides a great clip and I encourage you to watch it as Matthews pressed that surrogate, Texas state senator Kirk Watson, to identify an Obama legislative accomplishment. The Lone State Star state politician failed to do so.

In his post, my nephew both exposes Obama’s paucity of accomplishment and shows Matthews rare moment of objectivity.

A great blogger in the making. Let us hope he represents the future of journalism. It could really use a change from those smug reporters certain of their own detachment, convinced they can rise above their own partisan leanings.

At least Mitchell knows where he’s coming from. Journalism school will serve to develop his nascent talents. And his blog will provide a forum where readers outside Bloomington can become aware of his humor and his insight.

Back in the 1980 presidential debate, Ronald Reagan brushed aside Jimmy Carter’s attacks with the remark, “There you go again.”  While the Gipper used the expression to dismiss the then-President’s baseless accusations, perhaps we should use it in this campaign to highlight the attempts of Carter’s candidate to rewrite his record.

Just today, the presumptive Democratic nominee claimed, “What I said even at the time of the debate of the surge was that when you put 30,000 American troops on the ground, of course it’s going to have an impact. There’s no doubt about that.”  (Statement at 6:05 minute mark.)

What he actually said at the time:

I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse. I think it takes pressure off the Iraqis to arrive at the sort of political accommodation that every observer believes is the ultimate solution to the problems we face there. So I am going to actively oppose the president’s proposal. . . . .I think he is wrong.

I guess since the “surge” succeeded, Obama now wants us to believe he always supported it, even if he refuses to acknowledge its success.

The guy misrepresents his own record — and not for the first time.  If he were a Republican, this rewriting of history would headline the news.

Once again, Obama does stand for change, changing what he stands for to suit the needs of the moment.

UPDATE:  Editors at USA Today ask: Why can’t Obama admit the obvious? The surge worked. (Via Instapundit.)

UP-UPDATE: Obama, a “serial liar“? One blogger speculates . . . .
 

I had always believed Hillary Clinton put on the centrism which defined the better part of her Senate career (well, until she started seeing challenges emerging in the contest for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination) as a guise to grease the wheels for this fall’s general election.

After all, before her election to the Senate in 2000, she often seemed the liberal ballast to her husband’s leadership in the Democratic Leadership Council which tried to move their party to the center.

In the Democratic campaign this year, she first moved to the left to try to outflank Senator Obama, then later to the right to appeal to blue collar constituencies in the states whose primary contests came late in the game.

Once she had lost that game, she seems to have reverted to her pre-2000 form, voting against the FISA reform her erstwhile primary opponent had long opposed, but suddenly backed as he felt the need to move to the center in anticipation of the fall campaign.

Now that her presidential hopes seem perpetually dimmed, she’s back to voting her liberal conscience. A conscience she once scorned in pursuit of political advantage.

I haven’t really had the chance to follow the hearings conducted by the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel concerning the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, banning gays and lesbians from openly serving in the military. From the video clips I’ve seen on You Tube and press reports (e.g. this National Review column), it appears that I’ve been missing some dramatic political theater. I guess part of the reason I haven’t been following this more closely is that the status of DADT will not change this election year and the same tired arguments from the pro-ban side can be overly tedious. I suppose hearings like this one though do help lay the groundwork for eventual repeal, which I hope happens soon. Yet I read today’s column by Dana Milbank and think he makes a good point: pro-ban advocates like Elaine Donnelly hurt their cause more and more each time they open their mouths. From what Milbank and others report, along with Donnelly’s own testimony, I’m somewhat encouraged that the policy’s days are numbered. While Donnelly’s performance yesterday enraged folks like disabled Marine veteran Eric Alva, who opposes the ban, it also helped in “torpedoing her own ship”. I do not know Alva personally but was privileged to meet him at a SLDN event last year. My impression of him is that he is a good man who has sacrificed a lot in service to our country. Donnelly’s inability to show discretion and tact in defending her position was unwise and insulting to veterans like Alva, which perhaps in the long-run will help in repealing this stupid ban.

Perhaps most interesting to me though from Milbank’s column is this exchange between Donnelly and a Republican Congressman, who was very unimpressed with her shoddy performance:

Rep. Chris Shays (R-Conn.) pointed a finger at [retired Navy Capt. Joan] Darrah and glared at Donnelly. “Would you please tell me, Miss Donnelly, why I should give one twit about this woman’s sexual orientation, when it didn’t interfere one bit with her service?”

Donnelly said something about “forced intimacy.”

Shays cut her off. “You’re saying she has no right to serve her country because she happens to have a different sexual orientation than you.” [...]

Shays, his voice rising with Yankee indignation, continued to lecture Donnelly: “I think the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy is unpatriotic. I think it’s counterproductive. In fact, I think it is absolutely cruel.”

Donnelly said something about her respect for the service of gay veterans. “How do you respect their service?” Shays demanded. “You want them out.”

Donnelly seemed to have unified the lawmakers — against her. The next questioner was Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.), a retired Navy vice admiral. “I couldn’t ask it better than you did,” he told Shays. (Washington Post)

Not bad Congressman, not bad at all.

UPDATE: Pepe Johnson from Integrity in Service has an interesting post composed of notes he took of the hearings.

– John (Average Gay Joe)

Is it possible? Could it be true? Has public anger over sky-rocketing gas prices finally instilled some backbone into Senate Republicans?

Senate Republicans have threatened to block nearly all other bills pending before the August recess if Democrats refuse to vote with them on expanding offshore drilling.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said bills that do not pertain to energy can wait until after the August recess, with gas prices now surpassing $4 per gallon. McConnell and top Republicans indicated Wednesday they would oppose any procedural votes to take up other legislation, which require 60 votes to succeed…

Following swift Senate action on the narrow energy bill, Reid wanted the Senate to approve a massive defense authorization bill, an overhaul of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, legislation to protect reporters’ sources, an extension of expiring energy tax incentives, and a major package of 33 bills held up by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.).

But Republicans are planning to keep the Senate on the energy issue until their demands are resolved. The massive housing-rescue package might be the only other measure that gets valuable floor time before the August recess. (The Hill)

So in other words, Reid planned on only offering an ineffective CYA bill on energy for his fellow Dems while doing nothing to address the problem. Considering the number of filibusters that Senate Democrats employed prior to gaining the majority in 2006, Reid’s complaints are not only hypocritical but truly pathetic. Yes, use wind, solar, geothermal, etc., but let’s not forget the lifeblood of our economy. Drill NOW!

h/t – Hot Air

– John (Average Gay Joe)

Welcome Instapundit Readers!!

So regularly do gay liberals (not just gay people, others on the left as well) misrepresent gay conservatives that I often forget how social conservatives also engage in the same sort of deception.  While it seems those on the left misrepresent this blog (and its bloggers) on a regular basis, it’s been a while since a social conservative has so misunderstood us (or at least since a reader has drawn their criticism to my attention).

That changed with an item yesterday’s Inside Blogotics column in the Washington Times. Writer Victor Morton reported that Robert Knight, director of the Culture and Media Institute, took issue with Morton’s defining me as a “conservative blogger” in a previous post:

Conservatives understand the central importance of family and the threat that gay activism poses to the freedoms of speech, association and religion. Just ask the Boy Scouts. Or the pastors in Canada who have been hauled before human rights tribunals for daring to publicly criticize gay ‘marriage’ or taxpayer-funded promotion of homosexuality. A gay activist from West Hollywood, whatever else he writes about, is not a ‘conservative’ but a libertarian.

WOW. Where do I start? I ask Knight the same thing I ask some of my liberal critics: do you even read my posts? This guy hasn’t a clue about my ideas.

It’s amazing how many errors I can find in that short quotation.  What drives Mr. Knight’s need to paint all gay people with such a broad brush, assuming we are anti-family or favor “taxpayer-funded promotion of homosexuality”?

How eager Robert Knight is to deny my conservatism at the same time he misrepresents my ideas.

While I do lean libertarian (with a small “L”), I am definitely a conservative.  I would hardly call myself a gay activist. I do write about gay issues, but don’t militate for political action, not seeing government as appropriate institution to promote the social changes I seek.

I oppose the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) for a great variety of reasons (basically, it’s a solution in search of problem), including a recognition of the dangers it poses to freedom of religion and association. It may make it difficult for social conservatives to exclude gays from their groups, just as it would make it difficult for gays to exclude non-gays from our groups. I may disagree with such exclusion, but do believe citizens should remain free to associate with whomever they choose.

I’m a member of a gay group which filed an amicus brief on behalf the Boy Scouts.

Knight’s notions notwithstanding, I recently wrote a piece defending the right of Canadian pastors to express their views of homosexuality, even when I disagree with those views. I took a Canadian Human Rights (sic) Panel to task when it punished a pastor for saying things I thought were just plain wrong. That wasn’t the only time I defended the right of a prominent person to make anti-gay statements.

(more…)

If you are Ron Paul or one of his supporters, what other possible reason could there have been?

A Continental Airlines flight carrying seven members of Congress from Houston to Washington was forced to make an emergency landing after it lost cabin pressure Tuesday afternoon.

Flight 458 was bound for Reagan National Airport, but was diverted and landed safely in New Orleans, a spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Ted Poe told 11 News.

Poe and fellow Texas Congressmen Nick Lampson, Ron Paul, John Carter, Ciro Rodriguez, Solomon Ortiz and Henry Cuellar were aboard the flight, said Poe’s press secretary DeeAnn Thigpen.

Ironically, the seven congressmen were trying to get back in time for a Tuesday night vote on an aviation safety bill, a spokesman for one of the representatives said.

Silly, reporters!  There’s no irony in politics!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

When I learned that advocates of gay marriage in the Golden State were intent on rhyming the ballot number (8) of the proposition to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman with “hate” in their campaign against the measure, it reminded me (yet again) of the alacrity of all too many on the left (particularly the gay left) to label their ideologically adversaries as hatemongers.

Recall, the slogan which sprung up in 1992, “Hate is not a Family Value,” (then, given Pat Buchanan’s rant at the Republican National Convention, not without justification).

Note the irony: how eager some leftists are to accuse conservatives of being haters or purveyors of hate (or some such), yet how much hatred they harbor for conservatives. No sooner did John McCain secure the GOP nomination, then they turned their ire against him. Just as Obama seems to be some kind of savior they “need” to worship, McCain is rapidly assuming the role George W. Bush has long had for them, the demon they “need” to vilify.

(With W on his way out, the author of the The Bush – Haters Handbook has published The GOP-Hater’s Handbook.)

Just look at their treatment of certain Bush Administration officials. They define them not as public servants with a different political viewpoint than they, but as villains eager to shred the constitution.

To be sure, this attitude does not define all those on the left, but a significant — and ever-growing — number.

What explains this obsession with hate? They define us as hate-mongers (or self-hating) while eager to label their own selves as haters of leading Republicans.

Dr. Freud? Dr. Jung?

Awwwwww, puppy love! Doesn’t this just give you a tingling feeling up your leg?

– John (Average Gay Joe)

UPDATE (from Dan):  Charles Krauthammer on the phenomenon: 

I think that the coverage [Obama is] getting is beyond presidential. It’s papal. I mean, a president never has all three anchors on the way with him this guy is being treated like . . . if you needed any evidence of how much in the tank the mainstream media were, are, this is it.

(H/t: Wall Street Journal Online’s Political Diary (available by subscription))

I’ve been listening to many differents shows from Mormon Stories Podcast lately, which may seem ironic given my strong disagreements with the Mormon religion. Yet John Dehlin has provided a very interesting and critical examination of Mormon history that I find to be quite appealing. I’ve just finished listening to 3 shows that deal with an infamous chapter of World War II: the Bataan Death March. Japanese soldiers brutalized and murdered thousands of Americans captured after the fall of the Philippines in 1941. Dehlin interviews his cousin, lawyer James Parkinson, and his efforts on behalf of surviving veterans like Harold Poole. A fascinating and moving 3 shows I highly recommend.

Part I, Part II, Part III.

UPDATE: Parkinson co-authored a book discussed in the podcast called Soldier Slaves: Abandoned by the White House, Courts and Congress about the Bataan Death March and surviving veterans like Poole, along with the legal challenges seeking redress.

– John (Average Gay Joe)

A whopping 75% support among the general public according to new polling by The Washington Post & ABC News. Combined with the recently released study by retired military officers that “allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly is unlikely to pose any significant risk to morale, good order, discipline or cohesion”, and we’re seeing a seismic shift in public attitudes that DADT simply cannot hope to withstand much longer. God willing, gays & lesbians will be able to freely and openly serve in the military one day soon…

– John (Average Gay Joe)