Month: June 2006

Banking on the Bigot Brigade.

“‘He couldn’t not do it,’ explained Richard Viguerie, a prominent conservative activist who believes that gay marriage will not have much of an impact in 2006. ‘He’s got an election coming up and he is 30 percent in the polls. Nothing, Dr. Samuel Johnson told us, focuses the mind like an impending hanging.'” The conservative coalition collapsing in historic fashion around their ears, Dubya and Rove invoke an old standby and attempt to shore up the bigot vote in November by publicly coming out for the anti-gay marriage amendment. Unfortunately for them and the GOP, the same old freak-baiting trick — however carefully worded — doesn’t seem likely to catch fire amid all the war and scandal, and the Senate, as well as GOP moderates, want none of it. Update: As expected, the Senate spike the amendment, with 2 Dems (Byrd, Ben Nelson) backing the bigots and 7 Republicans (Chafee, Collins, Gregg, McCain, Snowe, Specter, Sununu) joining the rest of the Dems in voting against the measure.

The Family Business, II.

“[T]here is a distinction between what is legal and what is right. . . . What was DeLay doing for all that money? Even Ed Buckham was not paying DeLay and his family out of the goodness of his heart.” The Washington Post reports that Boss DeLay and his lobbyist cronies were funneling even more money through his wife Christine, bringing the total the DeLay family received from Buckham to — another — half-million.

Horrors of Haditha.

“‘I was sorry for staying in the bathroom. I should have died like them,’ recalls Safa, who now lives with a cousin. ‘The Americans are murderers, criminals. They have no mercy.'” So much for hearts and minds. Obviously, the big news over the past week has been the nightmarish revelations of the atrocities at Haditha, which have moved the Senate to hearings (and some moderate Senators to consternation with Rumsfeld), re-fueled anti-American sentiment around the world, demonstrated once again the corrosive consequences of this administration’s pathetic lack of planning and leadership in Iraq, and forced us all to wonder anew exactly what the hell is going on over there that’s led to the deaths of approximately 40,000 Iraqi civilians. “‘People were taking steroids, Valium, hooked on painkillers, drinking. They’d go on raids and patrols totally stoned.’ Hicks, who volunteered at the age of 17, said, ‘We’re killing the wrong people all the time, and mostly by accident. One guy in my squadron ran over a family with his tank.‘”

Surfacing.

Hey all. So, as you may have noticed from the radio silence, it’s been hectic in these parts of late, what with trips out of town and around town, guests visiting, my sister Gill‘s ABT season at the Met, and many errands to run and a rather large work project to complete before I hit the road for a dissertation research trip later this week. That being said, the work wave seems to have crested, so hopefully normal update patterns should resume around here in very short order.