9/11 Investigation vs. Evil Gay Marriage: George W. Bush's fucked-up priorities

The BBQ Pit
1

So let’s get this straight: according to Bush’s warped set of values, it is absolutely vital for him to focus what he is pleased to call his “attention” on incredibly urgent stuff like gay marriage bans, moon trips and steroid usage in sports … but can only spare one fuckinghour with the 9/11 investigation panel?

Of course, our illustrious, industrious president does have plenty of time for flying around to one Republican fundraiser after another. Meanwhile, finding out whether our own security and intelligence lapses might have enabled a group of bastardly terrorists to cause irreparable harm to this country’s citizens who were killed, injured and traumatized on 9-11 … well, that’s only worth the time it takes to watch an episode of “Seventh Heaven.”

Actually, it’s even worse than that: considering that Bush’s hour with Tim Russert on Meet the Press consisted mostly of obfuscation, stuttering and “Ummmmmmmmmmm …” hesitations, his time with the 9-11 Commission will end up amounting to about five minutes’ worth of info.

Did I mention that he’s not actually deigning to meet with the whole panel, as the Commission requested? Just its (Republican) chair, Thomas Keane, and vice chair Lee Hamilton. I’m willing to bet that this won’t be sworn testimony, either; if Condi Rice was too afraid to testify under oath, I’m sure Shrub will refuse as well.

Gee, remember how the Republican Congressasshats demanded that Bill Clinton testify for several hours about a goddamned blow job? I wonder if they’ll put up a hue and cry about Bush’s craven, cowardly decision and his lack of even pretending to care about finding the truth about 9-11. Oh wait, no I don’t wonder, 'cause the answer is obvious: they don’t care either.

After all, Republican Dennis Hastert had to be embarrassed into extending the deadline of the panel’s findings even a measly two months (less than the Commission asked for); meanwhile, even though the Senate Intelligence Committee agreed to the extension that the Commission wanted, it’s quite possible that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (yep, another Republican) may refuse to allow the issue to come to a vote in the Senate.

For that matter, the “independent” Commission itself is weighed down from its boneheaded Caspar Milquetoast decisions. Why is it willing to accept unsworn testimony? Why are none of these hearings public? Why isn’t it using its subpeona power?

Why are the families of 9-11 victims seemingly the only ones demanding the answers to some vital questions? Where are these “tough on terrorism” Republicans now?

Christ, how I hate this administration and all its cronies.

Anyone who dares to claim to this NYC resident that Republican politicians give a rat’s ass about fighting terrorism – considering that they’re certainly not willing to find out what we did wrong so we might prevent a reoccurance of the 9/11 tragedy – can go straight to the fiery sulphurous bowels of hell, where they’ll surely be joined in short order by Bush, Cheney, and every other scum-sucking Repug politician / media whore aligned with them.

Mr. Bush, you are despicable. Until you explain your actions and start answering those unanswered questions, the blood of 9-11’s victims, along with that of the soldiers and civillians who died in your faux War on Terrorism, will forever stain your money-grubbing hands.

2

Great rant.

It only reinforces my belief that any asshole who votes for that man is a blind ignorant buffoon, and a detriment to this country.

3

your (and my) opinions are not what he’s concerned about. AFter all, he was unlikely to get either of us to vote for him (given even his more moderate positions), but in the eyes of his (especially more extreme supporters), the issue of 9/11 investigation isn’t vital - after all, they’ve got Ashcroft, Homeland Security and the Patriot Act to protect us now, leaving sufficient time to focus on those other issues that ‘attack’ marriages etc.

his job currently is to hold on to his core supporters sufficiently to get reelected. (yes, pretty much similar to most politicians). While I do not believe that all Bush supporters are in favor of the call to add to the Constitution, I also don’t believe that many of them care enough about the issue (in terms of wanting some level of recognition of gay unions) to justify changing their vote. When I saw the continued support of Bush admin from some of the notables here, as well as the morning DJ and his crowd after discovering the lack of WoMD, the numbers of killed and wounded, Enron, Halliburton etc, and hear them continue to extol the virtues of the Bush administrations’ virtue, and the tax cuts etc, well, I can’t imagine anything short of Bush being caught selling the mining rights to Fort Knox to Cheany would stop them from supporting him.

4

Well, I can’t defend the 9/11 panel stuff, but I do think that the recent court decision in MA and the actions of the mayor in SF are sort of forcing his hand in the whole gay marriage thing. Like most politicians, I think he would prefer not to have to deal with it beyond mentioning that he’s behind the amendment every now and then; but he now faces a country where one state is going to allow gay marriages by May, and he does seem to genuinely feel that it’s unfair for the MA Supremes to have done something like that without having the people’s input.

I happen to disagree with him on that, but all this frothing about his pandering to the fundies seems really overblown.

5

See, the thing is, the MA court was anything but activist. The statute says “persons”. The statute is gender neutral. Perhaps they acted somewhat “tongue in cheek”, in the droll fashion of jurisprudence, but they did nothing more than read the plain text of the statute.

The term “activist” carries an unfortunate, and intentional, association. To my aging ear, it sounds the same bell tone, the same toxin as “Things would be all right down here, weren’t for them Northern agitators, down here stirrin’ things up!”

Anybody who bases his vote on whether or not a candidate has precisely the right stance on “gay marriage” is too stupid to make oatmeal, much less vote.

6

[Jon Stewart]

An activist Judge is one that disagrees with you.

[/Jon Stewart]

7

You can find a list of folks here.

Air-sickness bags are recommended.

8

I disagree with the OP inasmuch as it ignores the fact that traditional marriage is really important to a whole lot of people, and there is a very good case to be made that if gay marriage isn’t stopped in a big way soon, it will be inevitable.

You may not agree that stopping gay marriage is a good thing (I certainly don’t), but it clearly IS something that people who do care about stopping it would feel a great deal of urgency about doing so.

9

Kerry is right when he says, well, you can’t focus on the economy, Iraq, etc., so you find a convenient scapegoat, ideally a group which is the most unpopular and vulnerable, and bash them for political points and also as a way of distracting people from discussing his failures. But he has to be careful because his VP’s daughter is openly gay.

10

Nope, nisosbar, he doesn’t have to be careful. Chaney is willing to sacrifice his daughter. He’s already said he’ll support the president’s decision. Lynne continues to deny that her daughter is a lesbian.

11

I do see Bush’s POV. Bush is a Christian. The (Protestant) Christian marriage rite specifies that marriage is for the raising of children. Absent a third party, homosexual couples don’t produce children. QED.

Therefore your ranting is like pissing into the wind. You’ve got to attack it calmly and logically from the other aspects of marriage.

12

I think the OP’s point is that people who think that this matter trumps the 911 investigation (or any other problem facing our nation) are ignorant assholes. It may be true that the prez is acting on this because most of his constituency would be upset otherwise, but that doesn’t give him a pass. A person who panders to assholes is an asshole too.

It’s my hypothesis that many people don’t care one way of the other because they don’t have the intelligence to formulate their own opinion. But they see Bush ranting about the “sanctity of marriage” on TV and suddenly they think gay marriage is the biggest threat facing our security. Why? Because they’re too stupid to open a newspaper and find out about the 911 investigation and the equivocating White House and the ongoing civil violence in Iraq precipitated by our unjustified presence. But they can understand “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”. It’s hard to wrap your head around a lying president, especially one that’s so “religious”, but it’s easy to accept that the Gays are taking over. See? They even have their own show on television! And now they dare to think they’re people. Jay-sus save us!

These people worry about how gay marriage will make us look in the eyes of the Lord, but they don’t care about how our bloodlust, megalomania, cultural insensivity, and hypocrisy make us look. And our president is aligning himself right along with them, even though he should–as the leader–be directing their attention to more pressing matters. It’s one thing to be wrong. It’s another to be loud and wrong. That’s what the president is being by having such skewed priorities. Loud and wrong.

13

In reviewing the text of the Protestant vows I find the word “children” does not appear. Even if it did, given that bush is not pushing for a Constitutional amendment which would outlaw the marriage of infertile people, and given that we live in a nation which is not supposed to write any religion into its laws, your suggestion that bush’s supposed reliance on the raising of children (something bush has not to my knowledge said, and something which is distinct from the creation of children) as his reason for supporting this revolting amendment is bullshit. Further, since by some estimates a million children are being raised by gay people, the logical position if one is interested in the well-being of children would be to allow, if not encourage, the parents raising those children to marry.

14

That’s not exactly a decent cite.

My Googling skills aren’t up to much but look here for a cite. Further, it was definitely present when my brother got married.

15

RE: Bush’s new “improved” stance against gay marriage

Personally, I’m glad that Bush has come out so strongly against gay marriage in the last couple weeks. I myself am firmly in support of full rights of marriage for everyone, including homosexuals.

But Bush has finally dropped the other shoe on this issue, and anyone who has eyes to see it can finally see, once and for all, that Bush is little more than an ignorant bigot.

Honesty is a good thing. I’m glad Bush has finally come clean and shown his true colors. All the more reason for folks not to repeat the same mistake they did just over 3 years ago, and all the more reason for them to vote for someone other than Bush, or just not vote at all.

16

The Gay Marriage Amendment is going to fail. www.politics1.com has a list of 45 members of the Senate that have either pledged to oppose it or whom are leaning against voting for it.

All it takes are 34 votes, and that Amendment is stopped.

(Yes, I’m aware of the hijack)

17

You are forgiven, egotist te absolvo.

I don’t think the Bushiviks really care that the Amendment will not pass. There was no chance whatever that the Amendment could have been passed and ratified by the states in time for the election anyway. This bit of political theater accomplishes two tasks, and accompishes them rather neatly. One, it energizes Geedubya’s rightard base and two, it distracts attention from all the miserable news of late.

Mr. Rove is a loathesome pustule. But Mr. Rove is a smart loathesome pustule.

18

Even if the court is activist, it is no concern of Mr. Bush’s. The people of Massachusetts have the right and the power to either rein in their activist judges and correct their interpretation of Massachusetts law, or celebrate their judges’ correct understanding OF Massachusetts law. In either event, it’s not a federal issue, and Mr. Bush has no business getting involved.

  • Rick
19

I have letters from Senators Warner and Allen of Virginia. Both say they will support the amendment. The link above says they’re both against it.

Since the letters came directly from their offices, I tend to believe that the letters are a more accurate representation of their views. And that error suggests to me that “politics1.com” is shading the truth a bit.

  • Rick
20

I do not fucking believe what I’m reading.

I do not fucking believe that my post has devolved into yet another goddamned discussion over gay marriage.

Incredible. Apparently Bush hasn’t underestimated the American public. He’s pulled out the perfect “bread and circuses” issue to distract the masses – yes, even the smart, supposedly cynical people here at the SDMB from the issue of 9-11 and this administration’s astounding failures (or worse, purposeful inaction).

What is it, are you all bored of the topic of 9-11? I know it’s been 2.5 years and all, and has been hammered at us for some time. Gay marriage banning, OTOH, is new, and best of all, involves sex and religion, two hot-button topics we all love to debate.

Not that it isn’t important to keep Bush’s slimy hands off our Constitution (especially since the Bush family evil empire seems intent on using the Constitution to remove freedoms, instead of ensuring them). But that isn’t what I’m talking about. Please, guys, if you want to hash and rehash this issue, please take it to one of the 3934746482378364 other threads dealing with this topic.

What I was talking about (and btw, thanks to monstro and WorldEater for staying on topic) is Bush’s decision yesterday to spend only an hour with the committee investigating the crime of 9-11, a huge tragedy that caused death & dismemberment in three states and untold trauma to the country as a whole. A tragedy that Bush himself has mentioned over and over again, exploiting it for all its worth in order to cause a war, abridge our freedoms, brand those who oppose him as traitors, and make his pals richer through the wonders of undisputed noncompetitive military and energy contracts.

And yet, when it comes right down to finding out what actually happened on that fateful (and ever so useful to this administration!) day and the months leading up to it, George Bush continues to lie, obfuscate, ignore questions, hinder the investigation by not fighting for an extension, and avoid going under oath to testify.

Now he’s choosing to spend only an hour with the 9-11 Commission – probably less time than it took him to stumble through reading “The Frog and the Catapiller” or whatever fucking book he was too engrossed in reading on September 11 to get up off his ass after hearing that his country was being attacked.

What are you so afraid of, Georgie? What don’t you want us to find out?

Whatever it is, looks like you’ll be safe. The American public prefers to watch you give your latest fiddle concert while our country burns.