More emails. Hundreds and hundreds of them. The theme is pretty consistent. Here’s one:
“This issue goes so far beyond politics, for many of us it is about fundamental fairness, compassion and even patriotism. I love my country, and was saddened as the president spoke this morning. This isn’t a liberal or conservative issue. It’s about our basic humanity, or lack thereof. Making political hay at the expense of both the Constitution and the Gay community smacks of Willy Horton, and is simply dangerous and wrong. People will be hurt, lives may be lost, and everyone loses with tactics of this sort. I cannot speak for all Americans, but there are millions of liberals, conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, Greens etc. who will stand with you on this issue. I get so angry when GWB speaks of compassion, to hell with compassion, All Americans deserve their place at the table with the rest of us, fully vested citizens of this country with no asterisk, hyphen or apologies required. I often find myself at odds with your conclusions on the issues, but I have respect for your thoughtfulness, and your lack of mean-spirited acerbity so common today.”
I wonder if the Bush administration even thought about how mean-spirited this was going to appear. And how nakedly political. Some journalists are reporting that White House sources are telling them that they do not expect this to pass but they need to fire up their base. They’d go this far for purely political reasons? I guess I really was naive.
The Dish 