A great event in Iraq. Kinda like this one. You can barely find them in the papers. If hostages had been captured, or Zarqawi had killed again, it might be another story.
CREEPING SECTARIANISM: The attempt by Karl Rove to turn organized fundamentalist Protestantism into a wing of the Republican Party continues apace. It is as insulting to religious faith as it is counter-productive.
ANOTHER ANNIVERSARY: June 7 was the fiftieth anniversary of the suicide of Alan Turing, one of the forefathers of modern computing who was also critical in cracking the Nazi Enigma Code that helped win the war against Hitler. For these achievements, he was persecuted, given estrogen injections and threatened with jail because he was homosexual. Just another gay man fighting for his country only to be treated with contempt and cruelty – like so many American servicemembers today.
MORE ‘FATUOUSNESS’: Another writer – from California – sees some parallels between Arnold and Ronnie:
Reagan is gone but, perhaps fittingly, California’s new governor is a spiritual clone, another immigrant who sought his fortune in Hollywood, who ousted an incumbent Democratic governor with a color in his name (Gray instead of Brown) on the promise to clean up the mess in Sacramento, whose political skills are sometimes underestimated, and who out-Reagans Reagan in exuding can-do optimism.
Arnold is certainly far closer to Reagan’s spirit than Dubya.
EMAIL OF THE DAY I: “I think your points on Reagan’s AIDS record are well taken. But what about Reagan’s record on civil rights? What do you make of his opening the 1980 campaign by declaring his support for states rights in Philadelphia Mississippi, a town whose only claim to fame is the murder of three civil rights activists in 1964? There’s a reason the Republican Party hasn’t been able to win more than 10-15 percent of the black vote since 1964, despite the widespread social conservatism of many black voters. Reagan’s legacy is one of indifference or outright hostility toward African-Americans, a hostility signaled by his naked appeals to white Southern voters using racial coded messages. Imagine if George Bush opened the 2004 campaign by leading a rally against gay marriage in Laramie. No one would have to think hard about what kind of message he was sending to gay voters.”
EMAIL OF THE DAY II: “Schwarzenegger’s pro-choice stance as governor of a state that is overwhelmingly pro-choice, in a time when abortion remains legal in all fifty states, is admirable but can hardly be described as courageous. Ronald Reagan, on the other hand, signed into law a bill decriminalizing abortion as governor of California, at a time when such a bill was still quite controversial, particularly within his own party. He later said that he regretted his own decision to sign the bill into law, but actions in the end are what matters, no rhetoric. Reagan, like Nixon, Ford, and Bush Sr, all pandered rhetorically to the cultural populist instincts of the south and sunbelt, but were in practice for the most part cultural libertarians. George W Bush seems quite intent on reversing that trend, and it will be the downfall of the post-Goldwater conservative movement, and the Republican majority. Mark my word on it.”
The Dish 