If I read december’s post correctly, he believes that the Republicans verbal attacks of their enemies abroad for being homophobic are superior to the Democrats verbal attacks of their enemies abroad for homophobia. Perhaps this is because Republicans demonize their foreign scapegoats more than Democrats?
Well, this might not be what you mean, but the Mychal Judge PSOB act, which extended benefits to public safety officers who die in the line of duty from parents, spouses, and children, to anyone named in the officer’s latest life insurance policy, was sponsored in the house by Rep. Manzullo (R-IL) and signed by President Bush. It’s true that Dick Armey did at one point remove the bill from consideration, stating that it would cost too much, but he then put it back in the schedule/
I will concede that AFAIK the Republicans, the President, and the LCRs did less than the Democrats in this respect.
Now, a question for you, Polycarp. In the 9/11 attack, dozens or hundreds of gay people were killed horribly. Would you care to define exactly where (a) the Democratic Party. (b) its leadership, including Bill and Hillary Clinton, Tom Daschle, and Dick Gephardt, and © Liberal gay organizations played a role in preventing 9/11 or in preventing a repeat of 9/11 or an even worse attack with WMDs?
Not in charge of the military and domestic security like the Republican administration was. Stop trying to pass off 9/11 as even remotely anything to do with Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton was in Australia when 9/11 happened. Chelsea Clinton was in lower Manhattan. He had been out of office for several months. Protecting the borders was not his job, preventing attacks was not his job. That job belonged to a man who during the month leading up to 9/11, spent it on vacation on a ranch in Crawford, Texas, despite some dire warnings. That same Deserter in Chief spent the morning of 9/11 reading “The Very Hungry Catepillar” for the hundredth time, and then sucrrying his shit filled pants around the country to, as he put it: “get out of harm’s way.”
The job of defense and enforcement falls directly on the executive branch and the people in office, not on Congress, or people no longer in office. It is beyond despicable that Republicans would try to smear Bill Clinton with reponsibility for 9/11. It is also worth noting that the Clinton Administrations many efforts against terrorism and Al Queda in particular were dismissed by Republicans as “dog wagging”.
I think I am Sparticus is a little extreme in his response, but here’s mine:
The responsibility of protecting this country against attack is shared by all citizens, and by its political leadership to the extent that they can and do exercise leadership. Prior to 1/20/2001 we had a Democratic President with a Republican Congress; after that date we had a Republican President and House with a closely divided Senate.
As I recall, the Democratic Party as an organization closed ranks after 9/11 in standing firmly for identification of who was responsible and their neutralization and punishment. It asked valid questions about the invasion of Afghanistan and the proposed invasion of Iraq, related to the necessity, the consequences, and the morality of our proposed actions. In general, my impression is that it was satisfied with the answers it got.
William J. Clinton, President of the United States, bears some responsibility for not pursuing the threat posed by Al Qaida and its leaders more thoroughly – but that is hindsight. Should we, perhaps, have contemplated Pearl Harbor during the Washington Naval Conference of 1922 and therefore demanded the termination of the Japanese Navy and Air Force? Does the Harding Administration bear responsibility for World War II?
In addition to his questionable judgment regarding the degree of potential threat posed by Al Qaida, William J. Clinton was in fact facing some problems that I am sure impaired his ability to focus his attention on evaluating what actions he as Commander in Chief ought to take with regard to a then-little-known Arab extremist group. You may be reminded of them by the names Kenneth Starr, Linda Tripp, Whitewater, and Chief Justice Rehnquist’s four-striper robe worn when presiding over the Supreme Court or of the Senate sitting as the Court for the Trial of Impeachments.
Finally, I’d ask what in the world you think HRC, GLAAD, and the related groups might have done to help prevent 9/11? I recognize your post as a tu quoque rejoinder – but mine at least related groups with actual or claimed political power to a political action, while I fail to see why an advocacy group for human rights should be expected to have a stance vis-a-vis foreign national security issues. (BTW, I was hoping you or others could indicate that LCR did in fact bring some influence in favor of the Mychal Judge bill – it might make the case that gay people are being listened to by both parties, which seems to have been contended but poorly documented if at all in this thread.)
I don’t assert that these groups should have done anything. However, there are things they could have done, if they chose to. E.g.[ul][]They could have taken a public stand in favor of the War on Terror or the Afghanistan invasion simply because it’s such an important issue to everyone, including gays. Note that HRC opposed the confirmation of Michael McConnell to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit – an issue fairly peripheral to gay rights.[]They could have used the public relations clout to help make people aware of the mistreatment of gay people in many Islamic Arab nations. This would have given Americans an additional reason to support the war effort. They could have publicly disagreed with certain civil rights organizations who were publicly favoring civil liberties issues over anti-terrorism issued.[/ul]Again, I’m not saying that HRC or GLAAD had any obligation to do any of these things.
Yes, it’s true, I do not know for a fact that GWBush crapped his pants. It was overstatement to show my ever increasing contempt for him by suggessting that this AWOL/Deserter in fact lost control of his anal sphincter on 9/11. Were this not a casual message board where colorful language is sometime appreciated, I would owe my fellow SdMBers’ an apology. He was, however, once again, a running coward. (Does he have his own copy of The Very Hungry Catepillar, or does he borrow one from schools for such events? Actually, I don’t know that it was The Very Hungry Catepillar. I picture him on his quick tour of the southeast clutching his favorite bed time story and sucking his thumb, wishing he was giving the needle to some Texas inmate who couldn’t convince the judge to order DNA testing.)
Clinton undertook many efforts against terrorism and proposed many others. Many of these, such as the cruise missile attacks in the wake of the embassy bombings and proposals for greater action against OBL and Al Queda died in Congress. The Clinton administration people thoroughly briefed the incoming Bush people on the extreme dangers of Al Queda. While I have been critical of the Bush administration preparations and response to 9/11, this should not in any way be confused with placing full reponsibility for the actions with the terrorists themselves and their financial backers. This does not include the Bush administration by any stretch of any evidence I have seen. Nor do I believe that the Bush people actually knew of the exact nature of the attack. I do believe that they were derelict in their duties on their watch and are still derelict in their duties: we need to move up the timetables for checking all checked in luggage and hire more checkers so that passengers are not inconvenienced by waiting in long lines. We need to hire thousands more customs agents to inspect incoming cargoes thoroughly. We need more border patrol agents and abilities on North and South borders. We need more FBI survelliance teams to give 24 hour treatment to up to 1,000 targets simultaneously. We need to ban matches and cigarette lighters from airline flights.
Many of these, such as the cruise missile attacks in the wake of the embassy bombings and proposals for greater action against OBL and Al Queda died in Congress.
Sorry, meant to say the cruise missile attacks were criticized by Republicans in Congress as distracting from their all important blow job investigation.
Well, sure! Who has time for preventing future war when you could conspire to assinate the president’s characater? 
I already responded once, saying that in principle, a gay group could take a pro-war position, although that would be peripheral to their purpose. However, it turns out that a number of gay groups have taken an anti-war position.
The cited blog points out, as I did in my previous post, that if the war in Iraq is to be viewed as a gay issue, gays ought to be pro-war, because of the clear threat that Iraq represents to the United States, and to the world, and because of Iraq’s own treatment of gays.
I was glad to see that the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force rightly refused to take a anti-Iraq-war position.
One area where the Republicans are more gay-friendly than Democrats is opposition to regimes that happen to be particularly homophobic. Bush is more strongly opposed than Democrats are to Yassar Arafat, Saddam Hussein, the Taliban, and Islamofascism in general.
No, he isn’t. One can be just as strongly opposed as Bush is to Arafat or Saddam Hussein or al-Qaeda or the Taliban, without necessarily agreeing with Bush on the best course to take in dealing with them.
Moreover, Bush is quite careful not to criticize the “Islamofascism” of allies like Saudi Arabia. The Saudis, for example, punish homosexuality by decapitation, but I don’t see any threats from Bush to invade them.
The cited blog points out, as I did in my previous post, that if the war in Iraq is to be viewed as a gay issue, gays ought to be pro-war, because of the clear threat that Iraq represents to the United States, and to the world, and because of Iraq’s own treatment of gays.
Nonsense. War is not necessarily the best and wisest response to the Iraqi threat, nor would it necessarily make the region or the world safer for gays or anyone else, nor is it likely to impact other Islamic nations’ laws on homosexuality.
Gay people, like all other people, have to arrive at their own decisions as to whether they support the current war plans, but it would be extremely silly for them to imagine that the proposed war, or Republican support for the war, somehow counts as “gay-friendly”.
Village Voice columnist Richard Goldstein agrees with me.
Homebrew:
Yep. I said as much around the middle of the previous page. The “post-gay” “movement” sees themselves with plenty of pocket-change, a nice apartment/house, and having power lunches with the jet-set, and thinks all’s well with the world.
Jayjay: If you mean they’re a bunch of “sell-outs”, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head.
Something I didn’t see mentioned: The Dole Campaign returned a $1000 dollars from the Log Cabin Republicans, in 1995 for ideological reasons, which is the money politics equivalent of “Get fucked, jerkwads.”
Why they have anything further to do with the Republican party is still a mystery to me.
Clearly they thought it was a come on.