President Bush will be seen as a compassionate leader who used America’s power for good... History will see President Bush as a reformer who focused on modernizing important institutions... He is concerned with fundamental change that will — among other goals — strengthen the ways our children are educated and health care is provided... He will be seen as an innovative conservative thinker with a positive, optimistic agenda for action.

Permalink| Posted @ 7:53 PM | Comments: 1

What makes the Republican Party -- and the conservative movement more generally -- so attractive to closeted homosexual men?

Somewhere in the textbooks of psychosexual pathology there may be a straightforward answer, so to speak. Does the party draw closeted men because they can hide behind Republican homophobia? Or does the party promote homophobia as a political ruse while closeted men run the show? Whatever the answer, the result is routine humiliation and personal destruction. Even worse, the party's culture of concealment encourages right-wing gay-bashing, such as Tucker Carlson's grotesque boast that he and another adolescent thug beat up a gay man who "bothered" him in a bathroom years ago...

Murphy's star may no longer rise, but his tale is a portent for the future. So long as Republicans promote homophobia, the party's closets will be crowded.

Permalink| Posted @ 3:53 PM | Comments: 0

It seems logical that closeted men... would seek out anonymous, fleeting encounters, typically in the most transitory sorts of restrooms, at truck stops, airports and other areas of high pedestrian traffic. But this cultural phenomenon is not limited to closeted men or even Catholic priests. So why would openly gay and bisexual men who have access to more comfortable venues... indulge in restroom tricks?

Men are sluts. Gay men who have embraced their slut (not technically an "inner" one) may feel they have less at stake when participating in a bit of lavatory horseplay, but the transgression and fear of being caught add an extra thrill to the experience, as Michael has admitted. Some gay men are also turned on by servicing straight guys, perhaps especially while in service stations. And no one cares about your "orientation" in a lavatory -- in there, it's all business.

Permalink| Posted @ 11:06 AM | Comments: 3

"My attitude is this: New Orleans, better days are ahead. It's sometimes hard for people to see progress when you live in a community all the time. Laura and I get to come -- we don't live here, we come on occasion. And it's easy to think about what it was like when we first came here after the hurricane, and what it's like today. And this town is coming back. This town is better today than it was yesterday, and it's going to be better tomorrow than it was today."

Tim Grieve's take:

Translation: You don't see the progress because you live here. I come here once in a while, so I know better.

Permalink| Posted @ 8:51 AM | Comments: 0

While you guys are obsessing over Larry's bathroom breaks and whether he is family value oriented enough, you forget all the rotten things your leadership caused or let happen over the past 7 years.

Let's take a walk down memory lane, shall we?

• 9/11
• The Iraq War
• Destroying a US intelligence asset (Valerie Plame)
• Abu Ghraib
• Jeff Gannon
• The Desecration of New Orleans
• Bridge collapse in Minnesota
• Mine disaster in Utah
• The breaking of the mightiest military on earth
• Loss of privacy and anonymity for every US citizen
• The return of de facto segregation to our nation's schools
• 47 million uninsured
• The sale of our nation's assets to China
• The attempted desctrucion of our social safety net (Social Security)

This list was not exhaustive. I didn't even mention the corruption of the Department of Justice to rig the game next year for the 2008 election season. This is left as an exercise for the reader.

When you see it all together, it's a little breathtaking, isn't it? Just one president (and one co-president) is responsible for all of this. Just one of these items would have been enough to blacken the reputation of any of the other presidents we've ever had. If Bush got bad advice from his aides, he should have fired them. If he made all these mistakes on his own, YOU should have fired him. But you were too busy worrying about whether two gay guys were getting it on to be bothered with little things like national security assets.

This was YOUR president. You voted for this guy. You voted for his cronies in Congress. You are responsible for this. Not dirty f^&*ing hippies. Not Bill Clinton. Not Osama bin Laden.

YOU.

Permalink| Posted @ 7:10 PM | Comments: 0

The United States has 90 guns for every 100 citizens, making it the most heavily armed society in the world, a report released on Tuesday said.

U.S. citizens own 270 million of the world's 875 million known firearms, according to the Small Arms Survey 2007 by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies.

About 4.5 million of the 8 million new guns manufactured worldwide each year are purchased in the United States, it said.

Permalink| Posted @ 4:49 PM | Comments: 0

Why don’t we consider what would have happened if we hadn’t gone into Iraq or Afghanistan after 9/11. Don’t you think that quite a few radical Islamists would have joined the jihaad after seeing us attacked and doing nothing about it? After all, bin Laden hit us numerous times before that, and we did nothing…yet his organization grew, didn’t it? Why do you think that is? Hmm?

Permalink| Posted @ 11:28 AM | Comments: 4

Remember the long list of Why We Had To Start A War With Iraq?

Pick a reason: It was because of Saddam’s support for al Qaeda. It was because of Weapons of Mass Destruction. It was because Saddam wasn’t following UN directives. It was because Saddam tried to kill my daddy. It was because we left the job unfinished in ‘91. It was because of mobile biowar laboratories. It was because of 9/11. It was because of yellowcake from Niger. It was because of aluminum tubes. It was because Afghanistan didn’t have any good targets.

Finally they decided (long after we were already there) that it was to set up a beacon of democracy in the Middle East, so that the folks in other countries, seeing how wonderful it was, would want some for themselves and spontaneously become democracies too.

Not so much any more.

Permalink| Posted @ 11:25 AM | Comments: 0

The leftist pacifist nannies who currently control the US educational system are simply applying the same irrational wishful thinking they have to everything else they don’t like. If they pretend war doesn’t exist, never has existed, and even when it does occasionally happen because of the evil that is America, it is disastrous, why, maybe war will go away.

Permalink| Posted @ 12:35 PM | Comments: 0

Contrary to opinion, we do not have record high stocks. It would take 14,300 for the Dow Jones industrial average just to match for inflation the 11,750 under Clinton in 2000. We're now around 13,000, meaning, in real terms, a stagnant market with a loss for the past six years. Democrats empower the buyers, Republicans the sellers. Misdirected tax cuts, plus the Iraq war, have taken the money not just from America's working class but from America's businesses as well.

Permalink| Posted @ 12:28 PM | Comments: 0

The Bush administration, continuing its fight to stop states from expanding the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, has adopted new standards that would make it much more difficult for New York, California and others to extend coverage to children in middle-income families.

Permalink| Posted @ 8:51 PM | Comments: 1

• David Beckham, sore ankle and all, played the full game, and played very well.
• Beckham's famous freekicks produced 2 goals, and his awesome corner kicks produced another.
• Although he strolled for quite a few stretches of the second half, he played with the intensity and the desire to win befitting one of the best players in the world.
• There were a total of nine goals, most of them pure class!
• Juan Pablo Angel showed that although he doesn't have the name recognition that Beckham does, he is the best player in the league. The man was pumped, and it showed.
• The crowed was very vocal and very much into the game. I have no doubt there were a few Beckham curious only people, but the majority of the fans there knew their soccer.
• Beckham was challenged very early on with a studs up tackle and he didn't like. He pushed back, and a near skirmish nearly broke out among the players. This incident helped raise the game's level of intensity.
• The play was exciting end to end. Yes, we still saw some of the sloppy passing common in MLS, but we also saw that it only takes a few more talented players to raise the all around level of play. We saw wonderful stuff from the likes of Beckham, Angel, Donovan, Altidore, and Pavon.
  
• The New York fans greeted Beckham with much respect, but once the game started, many times the cheers by Beckham fans were drowned out by boos. And that's the way it should be. For 90 minutes, he was the enemy and NY fans rose up to the occasion.
  

Permalink| Posted @ 4:42 PM | Comments: 0

The chickenhawks want to win Iraq, not in the sense of some strategic victory overseas, but in the sense of winning the domestic issue and defeating domestic political enemies... And THAT'S why the chickhawk never feels like going overseas. That's not where the real fight is. Iraq the country could sink into the earth for all they care. What really counts is winning Iraq the issue. That's why you can't convince them to sign up, or even to coherently discuss strategy for fighting. They don't care. They really see there service as electing more republicans and using the issue to do so.

Permalink| Posted @ 1:52 PM | Comments: 0

Snow’s upcoming departure makes him one of a bevy of top administration officials who, since November, have left their posts. ThinkProgress has compiled a list of some of the key resignations:

- White House Senior Political Adviser Karl Rove
- White House Counselor Dan Bartlett
- White House Budget Director Rob Portman
- White House Counsel Harriet Miers
- White House Political Director Sara Taylor
- White House Director of Strategic Initiatives Pete Wehner
- White House Deputy National Security Adviser J.D. Crouch
- Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty
- Acting Associate Attorney General William Mercer
- Justice Department White House liaison Monica Goodling
- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
- Army Secretary Francis Harvey
- Joint Chief of Staffs Chairman Peter Pace
- Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson
- U.N. Ambassador John Bolton
- USAID Director Randall Tobias

I have this image of Bush alone in the White House, not even Barney around to keep up his spirits. He calls the kitchen for a peanut butter sandwich and the phone rings and rings…

Permalink| Posted @ 11:02 AM | Comments: 0

David Beckham wasn't recognised by White House staff when he took a tour of the home of the US President.

The English soccer superstar was enjoying a VIP tour of the Oval Office with his new Los Angeles Galaxy teammates last week, but despite the stir his move has caused Stateside most people were totally unaware of who he was.

The secretary to President George W. Bush even asked if David - one of the most photographed men in the world - was related to an employee.

A source said: "She didn't recognise him and asked if he was a relative of a staff member. It was all rather embarrassing."

Permalink| Posted @ 9:14 AM | Comments: 0

On December 28, 1958, the Colts and Giants played an overtime game that forever changed the NFL. Prior to 1958, the NFL was a 12 team league, it had never averaged more than 40,000 per game and it didn't have a national TV contract. Following a scintillating overtime win by the Colts in front of a packed house at Yankee Stadium that transfixed fans across the country, then NFL Commissioner Bert Bell actually had tears in his eyes as he talked with a reporter after the game.

That game changed everything. The following year the NFL began discussions with CBS about its first major TV contract, it quickly expanded into two markets (Dallas and Minnesota) and the new AFL was formed. Attendance zoomed and the sport was well on its way to becoming the richest in America. In truth, the groundwork was in place before that December night, but the game was the spark that lit the fuse.

Permalink| Posted @ 12:57 AM | Comments: 0

"For all the years he was president," Armey told me, "Bill Clinton and I had a little thing we'd do where every time I went to the White House, I would take the little name tag they give you and pass it to the president, who, without saying a word, would sign and date it. Bill Clinton and I didn't like each other. He said I was his least-favorite member of Congress. But he knew that when I left his office, the first schoolkid I came across would be given that card, and some kid who had come to Washington with his mama would go home with the president's autograph. I think Clinton thought it was a nice thing to do for some kid, and he was happy to do it."

Armey said that when he went to his first meeting in the White House with President Bush, he explained the tradition with Clinton and asked the president if he would care to continue it. "Bush refused to sign the card. Rove, who was sitting across the table, said, 'It would probably wind up on eBay,'" Armey continued. "Do I give a damn? No. But can you imagine refusing a simple request like that with an insult? It's stupid. From the point of view of your own self-interest, it's stupid. I was from Texas, and I was the majority leader. If my expectations of civility and collegiality were disappointed, what do you think it was like for the rest of the congressmen they dealt with? The Bush White House was tone-deaf to the normal courtesies of the office."

Permalink| Posted @ 5:28 PM | Comments: 1

Reconciliation with the Taliban. You remember them. Al Qaeda's protectors. Bin Laden's protectors. Apparently, all will be forgiven...

Because of Bush Administration failures, Bin Laden is still on the loose. Because of Bush Administration failures, Al Qaeda is growing stronger. And now, those failures are complete.

The media may spin the tough talk about Karzai and Musharraf confronting terrorists and extremists, but don't be fooled. The Taliban are the extremists. They enabled the terrorists. Because we failed to defeat them, Afghanistan and Pakistan are being forced to reconcile with them. It's over. There will be no justice for the September 11 attacks. Bush let the terrorists get away. Bush let them prevail.

Permalink| Posted @ 3:14 PM | Comments: 0

Tiger Woods, who is looking to win his first major of 2007 at this week's PGA Championship, would not have it yesterday that he is, as the American magazines are saying here, the most influential athlete in the world at the moment. To him, the suggestion is "funny" in the light of David Beckham's arrival to play for the Los Angeles Galaxy.

"I don't see how Beckham didn't beat me," he said. "As far as global figures go, he's probably far more global than I am. You know, golf is not played all around the world."

Permalink| Posted @ 1:12 AM | Comments: 0

When we argue about troops, what we're doing is we're playing on George Bush's home court... Take it away from George Bush's safe ground of troops and people in uniform and "How dare you question these Generals and these people in uniform that are so patriotic," and say, "No, we're not questioning the Generals. Mr. President, we are questioning you."

The only person who can make a difference is the person who controls the overall strategy in the region. We must make the debate about George Bush and his failure of leadership.

Permalink| Posted @ 12:01 PM | Comments: 0

Thrice-married, pro-choice GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani on whether he's a "traditional, practicing Roman Catholic": "My religious affiliation, my religious practices and the degree to which I am a good or not so good Catholic, I prefer to leave to the priests. That would be a much better way to discuss it. That's a personal discussion and they have a much better sense of how good a Catholic I am or how bad a Catholic I am."

Permalink| Posted @ 12:00 AM | Comments: 0

Some proponents of the surge may have rightly argued that an effort to take on the guerrillas and militias will produce higher casualties in the short term -- but some of them are also saying the strategy has already begun working and is producing lower casualties and more security for Iraqis, which is a blatant falsehood.

What has surged is not calm or political compromise, but rather the number of guerrilla attacks, the number of U.S. troop deaths compared to the same months in previous years, and the number of Iraqi casualties. That some of the U.S. media and the U.S. public have allowed themselves to be manipulated into thinking the "numbers" from Iraq are a cause for optimism echoes the sloppy and wishful thinking that got U.S. into this mess in the first place.

Permalink| Posted @ 4:02 PM | Comments: 0

• the Bush administration is waging a "phony war" on terrorism
• the country is losing ground against the kind of Islamic radicals who attacked the country on Sept. 11, 2001.
• A more effective approach would begin with a national energy strategy aimed at weaning the country from its reliance on imported oil and some of the regimes that petro-dollars support.
• None of you should believe we are winning this war. There is no evidence that we are winning this war
• [Republicans] were in charge for six years... I don't think you can look and say that was a great success.
• I believe we need to find leaders who are prepared to tell the truth ... about the failures of the performance of Republicans ... failed bureaucracies ... about how dangerous the world is
• We used to be a serious country. When we got attacked at Pearl Harbor, we took on Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy, and Nazi Germany... We beat all three in less than four years. We're about to enter the seventh year of this phony war against ... [terrorist groups], and we're losing.

Permalink| Posted @ 1:48 PM | Comments: 0

To read the prepared testimony of Adm. Mike Mullen, President Bush's nominee for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is to understand that the Bush administration's Iraq strategy requires U.S. troops to remain in that country for a long time, perhaps permanently. With unusual candor, the admiral explained in answers submitted before his appearance in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday that he and the president believe in the necessity of a "pragmatic, long-term commitment that will be measured in years not months."

How many years Mullen did not say, but he did offer a suggestion in this tangle of redundancies: "We must commit to a long-term security relationship with Iraq that facilitates political reconciliation, supports development of a stable Iraq, and is directly tied to our enduring long-term interests in the region." American forces will be there for the long term, just in case that wasn't clear the first few times.

Permalink| Posted @ 1:25 PM | Comments: 0

If she were not in the House--and not Speaker of the House--Nancy Pelosi says she "would probably advocate" impeaching President Bush... "The question of impeachment is something that would divide the country," Pelosi said this morning during a wide-ranging discussion in the ornate Speaker's office. Her top priorities are ending the war in Iraq, expanding health care, creating jobs and preserving the environment. "I know what our success can be on those issues. I don't know what our success can be on impeaching the president."