Jake Tapper at ABC News
reports on President Obama's "transgender appointee" to the Commerce Dept.:
"[Amanda Simpson (photo left)]
recently served as Deputy Director in Advanced Technology Development at Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson, Arizona.
"At Raytheon, Simpson -- a former test pilot who had worked for the company for more than a generation -- transitioned from male to female and was instrumental in convincing the military contractor to add gender identity to its equal employment opportunity policy."YRHT says "Congratulations!" Unfortunately,
Pamela Geller from Atlas Shrugs is less sanguine about the appointment:
"Does Obama know anyone who isn't wacky, radical, militant, judeophobic, socialist, marxist, pedophilic? ...... Does he chill with anyone who is normal? ...What a freak show this presidency is."===
The New Mexico Independent summarizes some other news:
Same-sex couples were officially wed last week in New Hampshire, the fifth state to legalize same-sex marriage, the Concord Monitor reports.
Again, YRHT extends its congratulations to couples in New Hampshire.
Meanwhile, on the international front, for three days, according to participants and audio recordings, thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians, listened raptly to three American evangelical Christians who were presented as experts on homosexuality. The visitors discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” whose goal is “to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity,” reports the New York Times.
That seems extreme, but such hysterical rhetoric is all-too-common among the Christianist Right these days. I hope the Ugandans didn't take their alarmist rants about the existential threat of the radical gay agenda seriously, and take a step towards eliminationism.
Now the three Americans are finding themselves on the defensive, saying they had no intention of helping stoke the kind of anger that led to a bill to impose a death sentence for homosexual behavior.
Whoopsy daisies! Though they consulted on the legislation, the Christianists now act aghast and backtrack--
How'd those silly Ugandans ever come up with that noose idea, anyway? All we said was "criminalization" one time, and they just took the idea and ran with it. What can you do?Labels: gays, Obama
11 Comments:
Over on my blog, I had to give Cao kudos for his letter opposing the potential Ugandan genocide of gay people.
Anyone know if Vitter, Landrieu, Scalise, or Obama has given any public statements opposing the byproducts of extremist evangelism over there?
I, too, give Cao props for being one of only 5 House representatives to sign that letter sent to the President of Uganda opposing the bill. (As reported on Rachel Maddow: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#34555183)
If I didn't watch Rachel I daresay I wouldn't have heard of this at all.
I think Amanda is hotter than Pamela...yeah?
It was all worth it just for the supreme irony of hearing Pam "Atlas Juggs" Geller use the phrase "freak show."
Medium Jim's making yet another appearance (second in one week) to piss in the YRHT punchbowl. Lemme just say: I have no clue who Pamela Gellar is. From the looks of her and the intellectual depth of her comments, I suspect she would fit into the same category for me as Palin; i.e., someone with whom I could stomach a magical 3 or 4 minutes and nothing more.
Gellar is right about one thing, though. Obama is a radical liberal who, through the years, has associated himself with radical elements of society. Here's a partial list: Rev. Wright, Prof. Ayers, Van Jones (Communist, green jobs Czar), Kevin Jennings (quasi-pedophiliac safe schools Czar), Rasid Khalidi (former PLO spokesperson)... not to mention all of the pro-Chavez/Castro nuts in academia and Hollywood.
I couldn't care less what two consenting adults do behing closed doors or whether one consenting adult chooses to lop off his own gear. Gay marriage is fine with me. And I'm sure being a woman is cool. But let's not miss the larger point: Obama is a radical leftist with extremely radical associations. Don't dress him up as a mainstream or moderate Dem. He's not a liberal realist like Clinton. Call him what he is: the most radically liberal president in American history.
Some will probably respond with examples of Bush's radical right wing ties. I don't doubt he had them. But Bush wasn't a radical conservative. As much as the left hated him for his hawkish foreign policy, his well-documented inability to speak English and his awful, inept reaction to Katrina, Bush was (for me, disappointingly) moderate, particularly in terms of fiscal policy.
Medium Jim
Charlotte: "If I didn't watch Rachel I daresay I wouldn't have heard of this at all."
That just means you have to watch my blog more often ;)
Medium Jim: What are Obama's "radical" policies, again? Provide a few examples of ones that even a sensible liberal like myself would find obviously "radical" in the vein of the radicals you tie him to.
Remember, just prior to when Clinton was first elected, we didn't hear from the right that he was a liberal realist. No, we heard much the same talk that we're now hearing about Obama. We heard that Clinton renounced his citizenship in Britain when he was a Vietnam protester who hated america, and that he used the Mena airport to fly in drugs, that Hillarycare was socialism, his administration taught masturbation, Vince Foster was murdered and Clinton's tax increases on the wealthy would sink the economy into a Depression.
So, again, give us a few examples of how Obama is radical-- that is, different IN KIND to Clinton. And for bonus points you can differentiate why the conservative caricature of Obama, which isn't disimilar to the extreme conservative caricature of Clinton circa 92/93, is accurate this time around, rather than cartoonishly wrong.
Yim Yim: and since you mentioned Bush's "hawkish" foreign policy, I could easily argue that Bush's neo-con inspired Doctrine of pre-emptive war against enemies who might one day become potentially threatening (ex: Iraq) is a truly radical doctrine. In fact, I could argue that it's one of the most radical ideas ever proposed and delivered by the executive branch.
But I'll let you fill me in on how Obama is already more radical than the Bush Doctrine.
(A gold star if you can explain the phrase "radically liberal", too.)
Erster:
Convincing your readers that Obama is a radical liberal would be tantamount to convincing Shaq that Kobe is really tall. It's a matter of perspective, and nothing I say is going to change your perspective.
All of those things very well may be true about Clinton and his radical early years. What first convinced me of his liberal realism, or perhaps sense of self-preservation, was his wise decision to ditch Hillary-care. Unlike Obama, who is sending members of his own party over a cliff by pushing ahead with this monstrosity, Clinton saw the writing on the wall and lived to fight another day. Not Obama. His goal all along has been to reshape America, at whatever the political costs. Remember, after taking his medicine in 1994, Clinton pressed ahead with conservative policies like welfare reform and (some) tax cuts. Sure he might have been a draft-dodging idiot at Cambridge, but he ran to the center after losing both houses of congress.
Where to start with Obama's radical policies? In no particular order, and saving lenghty discussions of each for another evening:
1. Cap and Trade: An act of treason. Granting control over our entire economy to a carbon board run by Marxist thugs and dictators is radical... putting aside the farcical nature of the man-made global warming theory (or is it being re-branded as climate change, now that the entire northern hemisphere is frozen solid).
2. Closing Gitmo: Brilliant idea to transfer many of those jihadists to Yemen.
3. TARP II, Auto Bailout, Cash for Clunkers, you name it. I'll save you the time. I was just as hard on Bush about TARP I. Obama upped the ante $1t+.
4. Health reform: See above. He's not the first president to try it. Teddy first brought it up decades ago. Got me there. He's just the first one radical enough to push it through in spite of the politcal and economic consequences.
5. Setting a timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan-- "the right war, the war we should have been fighting all along" -- see, Obama Summer- Fall 2008. If it's the right war, shouldn't our goal be victory, not an 18 month exit?
6. Allowing Iran to acquire nukes. Clinton went a long way towards giving N. Korea the technology. Obama's taking it one step further by letting Iran make a mockery of the US and world community. Either they'll have nukes in 2 years, or Isreal will start WWIII. Obama's lost control of the situation, and doesn't seem to care.
7. I am also deeply disturbed by Obama's obvious disbelief in American exceptionalism. Others have written extensively about this topic. Obama views the US as just anther country between Uganda and Venezuala in the roster of nations... he said as much in his speech to the UN. I view this as radical.
I'm running out of time and space (only get 4,000 characters in a comment). I'll try to tackle some of your other questions another day. MJ
While I appreciate the attempt, I'm going to have to say that you didn't quite make your case about Obama being a radical. Here are some quick thoughts on the examples you offered:
1. Cap n' trade: I guess then that you'll have to call radicals like Lieberman and John Warner traitors, too, as well as many big corporations that support various forms of the idea. But using words like "treason" is always a good way to put your thumb on the scale.
2. Closing Gitmo is a good policy, will hurt global recruitment of terrorists. Transferring jihadists to Yemen would be similar to Cheney's decision to transfer the X-mas bomber's mentors to "art therapy" classes in Saudia Arabia. I presume that Cheney is not a radical, though if Obama did this it would be evidence of his radicalism, right?
3. The auto bailout has precedent and appears to be working pretty well, actually-- it was less expensive than anticipated, the U.S. is getting money back and GM is finally situated to sell and market decent products. While imperfect, Cash for clunkers accelerated demand in the industry during Bush's Great Recession. Tarp 2 is an extension of Bush's policies, but I asked for differences IN KIND not degree. Unless you consider Bush a "radical".
4. "Teddy first brought it up..."
False. Try FDR and Truman. Also, merely finding a legal way to pass an extremely watered down idea is not evidence of radicalism.
5. He's correct that Afghanistan was the right war. We're still in it because of Bush's failures, and his "radical" decision to begin a preemptive war doctrine against a country that wasn't involved in 9/11 or Afghanistan. "Victory" in the basket-case known as Afghanistan defined in some utopian neo-con sense may be achieved in 18 months, but it is unlikely, and very pragmatic to realize that fact. Special forces missions in waziristan will continue.
Please tell me that you don't think "Victory" in Afghanistan in the way you mean it was Bush's goal-- there is no evidence of that, at all. But Bush is not a radical in your book. The public won't tolerate an indefinite commitment and expense in that hopeless basket-case. Obama is bending toward the grotesque reality of the situation. Killing our enemies is fine enough for me; transforming that corrupt warlording narco state into a western style democracy from which terrorism will never again foment... well, I don't want to be labeled a defeatist appeaser, but let's just say the odds are against it.
6. "Obama's lost control of the situation, and doesn't seem to care."
Oh, the Iran situation was "in control"... when was this-- when we were empowering them by taking out their worst enemy? As far as Obama not caring, I think that is just an incredibly cynical and poisoned view. The issue is too immensely complicated to argue here and there are too many unknowns (in terms of what is going on through backchannels... etc).
7. Just plain false. Obama literally incorporated American exceptionalism into every stump speech he campaigned on. He's literally spoken the "only in America" line thousands of times. And here's a quote directly addressing the issue he made in the spring:
"I believe in American exceptionalism...
"And if you think of our current situation, the United States remains the largest economy in the world. We have unmatched military capability. And I think that we have a core set of values that are enshrined in our Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our belief in free speech and equality, that, though imperfect, are exceptional."
Also, I'll have some posts touching on some of these issues and arguments in the days and weeks ahead. We can pick it up there.
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Jake Tapper at ABC News reports on President Obama's "transgender appointee" to the Commerce Dept.:
