I say they're ALL secretly gay

That's it! From now on, I am assuming that every single gay-bashing public figure is actually overcompensating to hide the fact that they're secretly gay.


Larry Craig, the renowned anti-gay rights Republican senator from Idaho managed to keep his arrest (and GUILTY PLEA!) for "lewd conduct" under wraps for all of two weeks (not bad in this day in age) before it came out...

Here's the (very detailed) police report... it is a gem.

Killer quote:

At 1215 hour, the male in the stall to the left of me flushed the toilet and exited the stall. Craig entered the stall and placed his roller bag against the front of the stall door. My experience has shown that individuals engaging in lewd conduct use their bag to block the view from the front of their stall. From my seated position, I could observe the shoes and ankles of Craig seated to the left of me. He was wearing dress pants with black dress shoes. At 1216 hours, Craig tapped his right foot. I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in luwd conduct. Craig tapped his toes several times and moved his foot closer to my foot. I moved my foot up and down slowly. While this was occurring, the male in the stall to my right was still present. I could hear several unknown persons in the restroom that appeared to use the restroom for its intended use. The presence of others did not seem to deter Craig as he moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot which was within my stall area.

At 1217 hours, I saw Craig swipe his hand under the stall divider for a few seconds.

'nuff said.

Well it would be...

Except that, when the story breaks, (along with the fact that he PLEADED GUILTY!!!) He goes ahead and does this:

note the unfortunate ;) opening sentence


So now it's loud(er than it had to be) and it's going to stay loud until his own party forces him to resign... which means it won't take them long.

I was glad to see the hypocrisy exposed in the Haggard and Foley affairs, but I have to admit this one is giving me sheer joy & pleasure (on an purely entertainment level) ...I mean, if satirists tried to make this stuff up, we'd find it implausible!

Oh, and here's the proverbial cherry on top:

Here he is on Meet the Press in 1999, talking about congress bringing a censure motion against Bill Clinton for the Lewinsky affair.


I always suspected that the worst homophobes were that way to hide or deny their own homosexual desires.

Now I know.

The Tenuous Case for Strategic Patience in Iraq

I was strongly against this war to begin with. I still think it to be the biggest wish-upon-a-star-while-you-shoot-yourself-repeatedly-in-the-foot geo-political strategic blunder it was ever given to me to witness. The proper fight was always in Afghanistan and it wasn't over (it still isn't)... I still have trouble understanding how folks who are obviously smart enough to climb to the highest peaks of influence in the world's most powerful nation really believed (as it appears they did) that all they had to do was "topple the regime" with as little troops as that took and then things would just ...take care of themselves. That and the tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of innocent civilian deaths that resulted from such tragically blind hubris is, on some level, quite simply unforgivable... no matter how much sympathy I have for the inherent tragic nature of the situation that those who hold power inevitably find themselves in.

But more and more, I find the it's-time-to-get-out-now-and-if-you're-still-supporting-this-war-you're-crazy narrative to be suffering from the same sin of pie-in-the-sky shortsightedness (a common sin with our neighbors to the south it seems) as the we-must-invade-Iraq-because-of-9/11-and-if-you-don't-get-that-you're-a-moonbat drumbeat did in the lead-up to this war.

Hopefully voices of reason like this are being heard in the right places.

This man, Anthony H. Cordesman, from the Center for Strategic and International Studies injects some much needed wisdom (in my opinion) in the debate and makes the case for a (very) slow, patient withdrawal that isn't just blindly focused on getting troops out but also doesn't ignore or squander what progress might emerge on the ground in the way of long-term stability.

Which, I believe, is in everyone's interest... at least more than just letting the place fall into (worse) chaos (than it already is).

Here he is on the Charlie Rose show
(no, that's not him on the thumbnail)

'08, The Race So Far

Like I said before, I'd be perfectly fine with a Clinton presidency... heck, after 8 years of this, almost anything would do.


The only thing I fear right now (and the more it seems possible the more my stomach churns) is that Giuliani might actually make it to the White House. My sense is that this would be the worst of all possible outcomes... I believe it would not only continue but accelerate the disfigurement, initiated by this current bunch, of a country I (and much of the world) so admire(d).


If it absolutely has to be a Republican, (and I hope it doesn't) the truth is I'd be fine with Romney... having someone who'll say and do whatever it takes (and flip... and flop...) to remain high in the polls would, at this juncture, be a welcome relief after this period of arrogant, stubborn and ideologically driven let future historians be the judge brand of hubris.


Mike Huckabee has also had a strange inexplicable appeal to me since the beginning of this marathon... for a religious guy who doesn't believe in evolution!!! ...I really hope he does manage to become the standard-bearer for the evangelical / social conservative wing of his party and maybe secure second billing on the ticket. (as it seems he may be on his way to achieving since this weekend's Iowa straw poll.) I find his brand of "I’m a conservative — but I’m not mad at anybody over it" rhetoric to be frankly refreshing (and much healthier) than the vitriol we've been accustomed to from that end of the spectrum for the last two decades. Here's an interesting nyt piece about him


But let's hope the GOP gets banished to the wilderness for a while... it needs to find itself ...or re-invent itself. My hope would be that it re-emerges as an updated, 21st century version of the hopelessly anachronistic brand of liberty based politics currently represented by Ron Paul. (I really like him, he appeals to my libertarian sensibilities. And he is reminding Republicans what they used to be about... but come on, the man wants to go back to the gold standard for Pete's sake!!!)

But we can all feel it, can't we? The near future belongs to the Dems, this next contest is truly the theirs to lose. And the real question on the minds of most Americans right now (the ones paying attention) is: Clinton or Obama?



In a Washington Post interview published this morning, Obama reminds me why, as a French-Canadian observer of American and world affairs who cares about where things are headed, I have such hope that he ends up in the White House:

He then challenged Clinton for accusing him of being "irresponsible and frankly naive" after he said he was willing to meet with leaders of nations such as Iran, Syria, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela without preconditions.

"Senator Clinton apparently disagrees with me on this issue of preconditions," he said. "I think she's wrong on that because if we continue to set preconditions for discussions that are hostile to us, I think that's what loses the PR battle worldwide because it implies the United States is the superior power and other states have to give in to our demands before we even deign to meet with them. And that reinforces the sense of the arrogance of U.S. power around the world, which is a source of great damage -- and makes us less safe."

Though I tend to agree with what he's saying, conventional wisdom suggests that, in American politics at least, this is a very risky, if not suicidal, position to take. It can be defended as a sound strategic position (and Obama is doing a decent job of that) but I find it a hard sell, seems to me it's not self-evident to most people. And he's opening himself up to all kinds of easy accusations of being a naive lefty paecenik... and enables Clinton to position herself (as she brilliantly seems to be doing) as the "safe" steady conventional (almost conservative) choice...

But then again, I have a growing sense that conventional wisdom is fast becoming an obsolete commodity... the landscape is changing... and not just in the U.S. Everywhere I look these days (including here at home) it seems like traditional constituencies are up for grabs like I've never seen in the 20 years I've been following politics. Almost every recent election in a western country these last couple of years has been one with a strong component of change... often defying the formulas and predictions of pollsters and pundits relying on the past to analyse the present. (That goes for me too)

Obama is betting that the 'center' in American politics has moved and that, humbled by the lessons of Iraq, it is now in sync with his views on questions of war and diplomacy. A bold assumption, I find. But my sense of things comes from the filter of MSM talking heads and 'beltway-centric' bloggers. I don't really have a good sense of actual feelings on the ground.

My hope is that Mr. Obama does.

How disapointing...

Now, I really like Barack Obama... I bought his last book... I think he's really smart... my kind of pol... In fact, I'm really hoping he wins... I'd be very comfortable with Hillary too... but I'm rooting for Barack...

Here he is delivering standard boilerplate union-friendly shtick about NAFTA at yesterday's AFL-CIO Presidential Forum.

But please... Barack... say it ain't so... surely you know we don't have a president up here!

Maybe he meant the Queen...

;)

Playing to your ennemies...

All right, I guess I'm becoming a big fan of this guy Reza Aslan... I suppose it comforts me to hear someone who obviously knows more than I do about all this stuff validate exactly the conclusions my feeble mind intuits...

Here he is reviewing the latest collection of al-Qaida "writings" for Slate.

The Al Qaeda Reader. - By Reza Aslan - Slate Magazine

His main point concerning most of al-Qaeda's pointed rants about the west (and more specifically the U.S.) is that...

They are a means of weaving local and global resentments into a single anti-American narrative, the overarching aim of which is to form a collective identity across borders and nationalities, and to convince the world that it is locked in a cosmic contest between the forces of Truth and Falsehood, Belief and Unbelief, Good and Evil, Us and Them.

...and the incisive conclusion:

In the end, this is the most important lesson to be learned from these writings. Because, if we are truly locked in an ideological war, as the president keeps reminding us, then our greatest weapons are our words. And thus far, instead of fighting this war on our terms, we have been fighting it on al-Qaida's.

Don't believe me? Ask Bin Laden:

Bush left no room for doubts or media opinion. He stated clearly that this war is a Crusader war. He said this in front of the whole world so as to emphasize this fact. … When Bush says that, they try to cover up for him, then he said he didn't mean it. He said, 'crusade.' Bush divided the world into two: 'either with us or with terrorism' … The odd thing about this is that he has taken the words right out of our mouths.

Odd, indeed.

Tom Freedman's Addicted to Oil

...retired this from the 'Things I Feel Like Promoting' section of my myspace page... but I still wanted to keep a link to it.

It remains one of the important propadocs of our time.
[ ftr: I think just coined the term ;) ]



watch parts 2, 3, 4 and 5