GOP Convention invocation to be given by woman who compares gays to Hitler - SO not kidding

As Atrios wrote about this, apparently Jerry Falwell didn't hate gays quite enough to get the opening invocation spot at the GOP Convention. Instead they chose Sheri Dow, a woman WHO COMPARED GAYS TO HITLER. I am SO not making this up, or even vaguely twisting her words. This is so despicable, so vile, that it's difficult to even express the approriate level of outrage.

Ms. Dow made her wonderful comparison of gays to Hitler in a speech she gave about her horror at having viewed a magazine in which two gay men were married in the presence of their twin "daughters" (the added quotation marks are HERS). She rails for a bit about how these girls will likely be scarred for life by their horrible dads, then says this about the threat gay families pose to the "traditional" family (read the entire article via the link to get the full horrifying context):

Lining Up With Hitler or Against Him

This escalating situation reminds me of a statement of a World War II journalist by the name of Dorothy Thompson who wrote for the Saturday Evening Post in Europe during the pre-World War II years when Hitler was building up his armies and starting to take ground. In an address she delivered in Toronto in 1941 she said this: ?Before this epic is over, every living human being will have chosen. Every living human being will have lined up with Hitler or against him. Every living human being either will have opposed this onslaught or supported it, for if he tries to make no choice that in itself will be a choice. If he takes no side, he is on Hitler?s side. If he does not act, that is an act­for Hitler.?

May I take the liberty of reading this statement again and changing just a few words, applying it to what I fear we face today? ?Before this era is over, every living human being will have chosen. Every living human being will have lined up in support of the family or against it. Every living human being will have either opposed the onslaught against the family or supported it, for if he tries to make no choice that in itself will be a choice. If we do not act in behalf of the family, that is itself an act of opposition to the family.?

At first it may seem a bit extreme to imply a comparison between the atrocities of Hitler and what is happening in terms of contemporary threats against the family­ but maybe not....

Ironically, Ms. Dow may have a point. The GOP is increasingly embracing the kind of social policy that Hitler loved. Perhaps some enterprising journalist at the convention will ask Mr. Cheney how he feels about the opening invocation being given by a woman who compared his daughter to Hitler. Not to mention, why is Ms. Dow even willing to appear at a convention where Hitler's dad is the VP? Read the rest of this post...

I'm off to NYC - I'll check in later tonight - this means a BIG ASS open thread :-)

Toodles. Read the rest of this post...

Laura Bush defends Swift Boat ads, say they're "fair"

Laura Bush now tells Time Magazine that she thinks the Swift Boat attacks on Kerry are fair. Her husband, meanwhile, says that John Kerry is a bigger hero than he, and that the ads should come off the air. Gov. Pataki, meanwhile, was on ABC's This Week this morning saying it's time to move on past Vietnam, then the throws in, but it isn't horrible that John Kerry lied about being in Cambodia on Christmas Even 36 years ago?

Bush has moved beyond using the Swift Boat liars, and now is using people even closer to his campain to continue the attack on Kerry while publicly pretending he's so over it.

Time to ask the president why his wife just attacked John Kerry on the very issue he said we need to stop discussing. Why does George Bush say John Kerry is a hero and the next day Laura Bush attacks Kerry's Vietnam record? It's time for the media to start asking the White House if they are going to stop using Vietnam as a political issue? Read the rest of this post...

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More polls from NBC/WSJ

Where the country is headed
Right direction 36%
Wrong track 50%

Bush's handling of the economy
Approve 43%
Disapprove 52%

Was removing Saddam Hussein worth the $ cost and US casualties?
Yes 43%
No 49%

Bush's handling of war on terror
Approve 53%
Disapprove 42%

When it comes to issues such as the economy, education and health care do you think President Bush has provided a clear set of goals?
Has 29%
Has not 63%

Bush is easygoing and likeable?
Yes 55%
No 27%

If election held today
Bush 47%
Kerry 45%
Nader 3% Read the rest of this post...

Falwell stands by his "gays caused 9/11" comments; gets VIP pass to GOP Convention

So Falwell stands by his incredibly offensive comments blaming gays and other liberals for September 11, he's getting a VIP pass to the GOP Convention, and he appears to talk a lot with the president. Why does this man continue to be embraced by the Bush White House?

SF Chronicle:

Falwell, the founder of the Moral Majority and a veteran in conservative evangelical politics, will be at the convention.

"I'm in New York right now," he said in a phone interview with The Chronicle on Thursday afternoon. "I have V.I.P. credentials, and I will be there.'' ....

Falwell said God was especially upset with pagans, abortionists, feminists, homosexuals, the American Civil Liberties Union and the People for the American Way, a liberal watchdog group.

In his interview Thursday, Falwell said he still stands by that statement, but wishes he had added "the sleeping church" to the list of responsible parties....

[Falwell] insists that he remains close to President Bush.

"We've talked many times,'' Falwell said. "I've had many photo ops with the president.''

"Listen,'' he added, "I've been doing this for 50 years, and I don't know of any president who is more beloved by conservative evangelicals than President Bush.''

Read the rest of this post...

'This administration believes the less known the better"

Sounds like some crazy lefty, right? Too bad it is a quote from Representative Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut and chairman of the Government Reform Committee's national security panel.

The problem is growing, said J. William Leonard, director of the Archives' Information Security Oversight Office, which monitors federal practices. Officials classified documents 8 percent more often in 2003 than in 2002.

''This administration believes the less known the better," said Shays, noting that he was speaking of a GOP administration. ''I believe the more known the better."

But in 2003, President Bush ordered officials to use the more restrictive level.

Steven Aftergood, director of a Federation of American Scientists project on secrecy, said some classification clearly aimed to conceal illegality or avoid embarrassment, even though that is forbidden.

Aftergood cited the ''secret" stamp on Army Major General Antonio Taguba's report of ''numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses" inflicted on Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib prison.

Read the rest of this post...

How did Bush blow such a massive lead?

Interesting analysis in the Washington Post today about Bush and his misjudgements. In 2000 he promised to be "a uniter not a divider" and on 9/11 he had the American public and even many parts of the world in his hands. It sickens me to think of what could have been around the world, considering how much support there was out there. If Bush had truly run an inclusive government as he promised, this election campagin would not even be close.

As Bush heads to the Republican National Convention in New York this week, the man who stood astride the political world at that news conference in 2002 is a distinctly more life-size figure. With the election just 65 days away, there is a puzzle: How did a leader who was so formidable become so vulnerable?

In small ways, the answer is an accumulation of miscalculations and missed opportunities that have marred the president's political operation this year... In a large way, however, Bush's predicament is less a reversal of his 2002 success than a natural progression of it -- the consequence of two confrontations he sought that autumn.

...his decision to confront Democrats directly and immerse himself in partisan electioneering ensured that he would face reelection with little of the rally-behind-the-leader sentiment that flowed to him after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Among the two biggest blunders:

• The enactment of a prescription drug benefit under Medicare in December
• The missed opportunity of the State of the Union address in January.

Read the rest of this post...

Is Bush interfering (and flip-flopping) with Iraq military policy because of the convention?

Despite past criticism of politicians who did not let the military fight the war, Bush appears to be tweaking military policy in Iraq against the will of the military in the field. (That criticism has always been a funny argument to me since we live in a democracy and not a military dictatorship.) I'm not even debating the issue of whether or not it was right or wrong to pull back from Najaf and the fighting, but he is certainly flip-flopping on this issue so he doesn't have to deal with the black eye of 1,000 US dead during his convention.

What many feared about pulling back was the Sadr militants would simply pick up the battle elsewhere and it looks as though it did not take them very long to do so. All of this from a man who doesn't read newspapers or follow the polls. Uh-huh.
Read the rest of this post...

Bush team duped by Axis of Evil as well as friendly nation. This is making America safer?

One can only imagine if this was all happening under Clinton or any other Democrat. This story has it all: moles for an allied nation, double agents who are invited to sit with the First Lady at a State of The Union address and secret meetings with Axis of Evil member. Why do I feel like I'm walking by a brutal crime scene and the police are saying "nothing to see here, keep moving?" If this was NCAA sports I believe the term would be "lack of institutional control" and everyone involved would be sent packing. Fortunately this is more serious so we should expect to see jail time and a change of political parties in November.

A few new interesting bits about Larry Franklin, the low-level desk jockey who absolutely had nothing to do with anything besides buying paperclips and sometimes new letterhead and who certainly had nothing to do with policy:

Questions have also repeatedly been raised about work done by members of Mr. Feith's staff that skirted the normal bureaucracy. For example, Mr. Franklin participated in secret meetings with Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian who had acted as an arms deal middleman in the Iran-contra affair during the Reagan administration.

The secret meetings were first held in Rome in December 2001 and were brokered by Mr. Ledeen. He said he arranged the meetings to put the Bush administration in closer contact with Iranian dissidents who could provide information in the war on terrorism.

Current and former defense officials said on Saturday that Mr. Franklin worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency until about three years ago, when he moved to the Pentagon's policy office, headed by Mr. Feith, to work on Iran and other Middle East issues.

Making America safer? Why does Bush hate America so much?
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FBI espionage probe goes beyond Israeli allegations

Rob and I SO called it. This espionage scandal is bigger than DOD is claiming. Mid-level official, my ass. Atrios found a new Knight-Ridder story that confirms our concerns. If the media is tenacious enough not to, yet again, fall for the Pentagon's lies, I truly believe this is going to turn into a very big scandal. Read the rest of this post...