WTF is going on in the White House

why be holier than one party when you can be holier than two?

Well if both parties are behaving the same way, aren't they really just one party?

"Many have died, and hundreds of thousands died under the previous regime," Tony Snow told reporters at a White House press briefing. "This is a place that has too long been wracked by violence."

A recent report compiled by 30 NGOs found that nearly a million Iraqis have died due to the effects of the occupation and a dozen cities have been destroyed by US attacks.

An estimate at 1.5 million people perished under Saddam Hussein's 25-year dictatorship, with half a million of them being killed during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

"Unfortunately, if we fought evil guys who simply would say, you caught us, we're evil, we give up, we'll be good -- that would be great, that would be wonderful," Snow replied when asked whether it is right for the United States to compare itself with a dictatorial regime.

But Snow said that he was not sure whether or not US forces were killing Iraqis who were opposing American presence in their country, saying "that requires the kind of canvas of those who have died that I'm not capable of doing."

keep it up with the strawmen, tho, never mind showing me a dem official, candidate or staffer who's talking about karl rove's dad's cock ring (or who has ever talked about karl rove's dad being gay)

Graham played down the administration’s purge of U.S. Attorneys, calling it perfectly within President Bush’s authority and merely “poorly handled”. He also repeated that President Clinton also purged attorneys. “Clinton let them all go when he took over,” Graham said.

and try reading what i'm saying first

(xxpost)Whose creating the strawmen now? Who said anything about Dem officials other than you? We can lament the fact that rank and file Dems and bloggers are behaving badly or is that against the rules?

gabb i'll remember your 'show me one official or candidate' rule next time you're whining about limbaugh/savage/coulter/malkin/oreilly/etc

Haha right Ethan let's pretend that anonymous blogger #5 is exactly the same as the #1 radio/tv/news personalities. Jesus you two are both dipshits.

i'll be waiting here for you to disown any rapper who's used "faggot," ethan.

Who said anything about Dem officials other than you?

ethan and john, both before me

Did they? Can you quote them saying that Dem officials are using Karl Rove's dad cockring for political purposes? Cuz I appear to be missing the reference.

i said "dems", dummy

ethan talked about dems who win elections; john talked about dem activists

maybe ethan can defend ann coulter again

or disown all rappers who use "faggot"

Activists = officials, candidates, or staffers? Since when?

people other than staffers and candidates "win elections"

right, markos moulitsas wins lots of elections

are you saying official dems didn't use foley?

Richardson sorry for 'maricón' moment
Posted: 7/10/2007, 11:11 AM

By KAREN OCAMB and CHRIS CRAIN

Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Richardson apologized this week for using a Spanish-language slur for gay people.

Almost exactly one year before Imus was to lose his show for using a slur to describe the Rutger’s women’s basketball team, the shock jock used the Spanish word “maricón” in an on-air exchange with Richardson.

“Bernard on the staff here has been claiming you’re not really Hispanic so-- that you're just claiming that for some sort of advantage or something,” Imus said to Richardson, tongue clearly in cheek. “You can just answer this yes or no and this will answer that question. Would you agree that Bernard is a maricón?”

Without missing a beat, Richardson replied in Spanish, “Yo creo que Bernardo, sí — es un maricón si él piensa que yo no soy hispano. [General laughter] Was that good enough or what? [General laughter]”

“That’s good enough for me,” Imus replied.

Most gay Latinos interviewed for this story agreed with the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation that the word “maricón” means “faggot” in Spanish. So, translated to English, Richardson had replied: "I believe that Bernard, yes – he’s a faggot if he thinks that I am not Hispanic."

One year later, news of Richardson’s “maricón” moment comes as he has relied on his strong record on gay rights to reach out to gay Democrats for money, support and votes in his presidential campaign.

Sixteen months ago, Richardson’s Imus appearance flew under the media radar, and the Democrat has never publicly acknowledged or apologized for using the word. That has bothered Denver, Colo.-based Christopher Hubble, a member of the spiritual activist group Soulforce and a blogger.

Hubble was listening to the Imus show that morning, and afterward alerted Shana Naomi Krochmal, then GLAAD’s media strategist for the Southwest region.

“I was shocked that an elected official would think he could use a derogatory epithet simply because he is speaking Spanish and is perhaps assuming we don’t understand what he is saying,” Hubble wrote later in an email describing his reaction at the time.

Krochmal told Hubble she would pass the email along to Monica Taher and Carlos Macias, GLAAD’s “excellent Spanish-language media advocates.” Taher would say later in an interview for this story that another GLAAD employee decided instead to go to Equality New Mexico with the information.

“The statewide organization in New Mexico asked us not to contact Richardson because that would jeopardize the domestic partnership bill that the governor was supporting and working on at that time,” Taher said.

Alexis Blizman, executive director of Equality New Mexico (EQNM), acknowledged that she asked GLAAD not to “go after” Richardson because of his strong gay rights record, but said the domestic partnership bill was not under consideration at the time.

this thread sure went classic in a hurry.

Can we go back to talking about butching up Hillary's campaign again yet?

and what exactly are we fighting about here? it's news that the dude's dad is gay? john doesn't want some people to put links on their blogs?

"disingenuous," adJ: adj.
1. Not straightforward or candid; insincere or calculating: "an ambitious, disingenuous, philistine, and hypocritical operator, who ... exemplified ... the most disagreeable traits of his time" (David Cannadine).
2. Pretending to be unaware or unsophisticated; faux-naïf.

srsly dude what I want is for people who like to imagine they're holding the high ground to either walk it like they talk it or STFU

anyway, afaic john's distinction is one without a difference, as they say in my arena. he's basically saying that it's acceptable to attempt to point to a politician's own behavior, because that could demonstrate that a politician doesn't believe what he preaches, but it's unacceptable to point to a politician's family member's behavior contrary to the politican's preaching, because that can only be motivated by hate for, or an attempt to make use of hatred for, the behavior itself. never mind that:

1) demonstrating that a politician doesn't believe what he preaches by pointing to his own behavior is in this case necessarily an attempt to make use of hatred for the behavior

2) the politician's love for his family member might identically demonstrate the politican's hypocrisy, either because a) it demonstrates that the politician doesn't believe what he preaches at all, or b) the pollitician's preaching stops at the family line, which is different from the one the politician's supporters would draw

3) the politician's preaching might be expressive of self-loathing more than hypocrisy, which might in turn be echoed in more than a few of his supporters

4) the politician's preaching might be motivated by self-loathing derived from the family member's behavior or loathing of the family member's behavior

don, if this thread gets any 'classic'-er, will you 'bet your balls' on something? you've already done the requisite hillary post.

xp - without endorsing any of the tactics ascribed to me, i don't believe i've ever put myself on any specific high ground as far as putting the higher-grounded team over the top, so you can revise your imagination there

gabbneb on lefty fagbaiting: "I got a whole host of reasons why shit than would be outrageous if it came from the other side of the aisle is totes kewl when it scores points for my side"

than=that

"totes"

i mean, from here your position looks just like dick cheney's - it's more not-ok to play rough with family members than to prevent some rough policy from being enacted (oh i forgot, the governing party makes exactly zero difference regarding which countries are invaded, the top marginal tax rate, SChip coverage, FDA enforcement, etc etc etc)

gabbneb, the Cheney line doesn't work because (a) he has publicly spoken against the adminstration on this issue; (b) Mary Cheney by all accounts has such a happy relationship with her father that she and her partner appear on stage with him at political rallies.

yes gabbneb I am pretty indistinguishable from Dick Cheney in my belief that people don't have any business using "your dad's a fag! a kinky fag!" as a political trump card

I'm tappin yr phone also

al - that was self-parody, right?

I had to match the stuff you've been posting the last hour.

I'm the fag on this thread, and it's enough for me to despise Rove's tactics without my constructing hopeless psychonanalytic and biographical explanations for his behavior.

yes, it should be verboten to discuss psychonanalytic and biographical explanations for the behavior of very powerful people

shut up Alfred, The Party will tell you when to be offended or delighted

haha xpost yes gabbneb VERBOTEN, that's what people are talking about: CENSORSHIP!!!

looooooooool

alfred is not part of the party; he seems convinced that he is required to show some deference to the other side at regular intervals to be assured of his intellectual honesty

sounds like a pretty good rule to me

I can't believe gabbneb is as cynical as he pretends. I suppose it's fitting that he resort to GOP fag baiting when in today's NYT his party just gave yet another reason why they're as stupid as the one filled with sons of fags.

The Party knows better than gay men whether The Party is selectively homophobic

gabbneb, I'll never ever forget your post where you wanted to butch up Hillary. You can bet your balls on that.

I don't think gabbneb is nearly as cynical as he is a poltical realist. It's nice to crusade for a world where ethics and bigotry aren't situational but shit, we got us some elections to win before we can start the moral cleansing process.

alfred is not part of the party; he seems convinced that he is required to show some deference to the other side at regular intervals to be assured of his intellectual honesty

Please to show how being a pol is preferable.

THE HEALING HAS BEGUN

yeah Don if you think that this kinda thing will attract more voters/donors than it repels then I'm the guy who gets to holler "impractical"

Put it to you this way John, it's not going to repel nearly as many as you or I wish.

The Party knows better than gay men whether The Party is selectively homophobic

http://static.flickr.com/32/54268941_d274cb5008.jpg

brilliant comparison, bozo

that "if only we'd stayed in Vietnam LONGER" narrative never gets old, does it

(besides, I thought we were fighting WWII over, not Vietnam...? Sadaam worse than Hitler etc)