Month: November 2010

The Lede complicates the story:

The idea that Nicaragua had relied on Google Maps for a military deployment, and stumbled across a frontier because of a mistake by the search giant, set off peals of laughter worldwide, sent Google scrambling to explain and fix the error, and led journalists to discover another mistaken Google Map that could provoke an international incident. What few people outside Central America seemed to notice was that there was a problem with the punchline: in the weeks since Google acknowledged that its map was in error, Nicaragua has refused to remove its troops.

"Willow called me a faggot in front of the whole world and my family… People are saying these are baby grizzlies defending Mama Bear … but how is she defending her family by calling us queers and low-lifes and faggots?"- Tre, the latest target of the Palins.

Still no comment from the matriarch. Does she approve of her children calling their peers "faggots"? Would she be silent if they had called a black kid a "ni**er"? And would the press leave it alone?

Weigel pinpoints a root cause:

Before 9/11, the prevailing conservative/libertarian/Republican opinion of the national-security state—of any government effort to protect Americans at the point of a gun and the touch of a rubber glove—was mistrust. The second most common opinion was fear. And the return of those emotions is a lagging reaction to the fact that Republicans no longer have to toe the party line on homeland security. They can say what they think, which is that the state can't be trusted.

Charles Krauthammer, a steadfast defender of government power during the Bush era, proves Weigel's point with his column today:

Don't touch my junk is the anthem of the modern man, the Tea Party patriot, the late-life libertarian, the midterm election voter. Don't touch my junk, Obamacare – get out of my doctor's examining room, I'm wearing a paper-thin gown slit down the back. Don't touch my junk, Google – Street View is cool, but get off my street. Don't touch my junk, you airport security goon – my package belongs to no one but me, and do you really think I'm a Nigerian nut job preparing for my 72-virgin orgy by blowing my johnson to kingdom come?

It's a long way from the Krauthammer of 2003.

He forgot five political donations when challenged by Phil Griffin a while back. He remembered three more when Politico followed up.

Ryan Streeter interviews Ross Douthat. What Ross would most like to change about the GOP:

I suppose I would just create a stronger interest in actual policymaking, among elites and the grassroots alike. … The Republicans just won an election promising to cut government without having to tell people what they'd cut. But it tends to be a problem across every public policy issue: Republicans just don't think as hard as they should about what the actual work of governing entails, and Republican voters too often reward politicians for mouthing slogans rather than substance.

It's great that Marco Rubio can give a stirring speech about American exceptionalism, for instance — but in the long run, actual American exceptionalism will stand or fall on whether Rubio and others like him can figure out a way to bring the budget back into balance. And that requires policy specifics, and hard work, and probably some messy compromises. Rhetoric is necessary, but insufficient.

Amen. We've gone from The Public Interest in the early 1980s to Mark Levin's radio show. Could the decline be any steeper? (Which is as a good a moment as any to say that Yuval Levin's new journal "National Affairs" is more than welcome.)

Dan Savage makes the salient point about Tory prime minister David Cameron's video appeal to gay youth. But ask yourself: why would a Republican politician not make such a video?

Why wouldn't Dick Cheney, for example?

You do not have to make any political argument for or against issues such as marriage or military service to oppose bullying gay teens and kids that can lead to suicide. Everyone should be able to agree on that, right? Even the Pope can agree on that. And yet no one has seized this chance to prove that their opposition to gay civil equality does not mean they're homophobes or unconcerned with bullying.

Imagine if Sarah Palin actually made a video directed at gay kids, encouraging them to hang in if they are bullied. What Republican principle would that even offend? Instead, when one of her own kids is publicly revealed using the term "faggot" against a peer, the kind of behavior that did indeed lie behind some of the recent suicides, Palin is silent.

Sometimes, the silence, uninterest and inaction are more eloquent than anything they actually say.

Closer and closer …

Dan Savage is overjoyed:

[T]his is the leader of the Conservative Party in the UK. Try to picture a Republican politician making an [It Gets Better Project] video—not one that I'm aware of has—much less the leader of the GOP.

But:

David Cameron isn't the first straight politician who has told bullied LGBT kids to go to their parents for support. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Nancy Pelosi—practically every straight politician who's made an IGBP video has said the same thing: go and ask mom and dad for help.

Between twenty and forty percent of homeless teenagers are LGBT kids and most of these homeless LGBT kids were thrown out of their homes when they came out or were outed to their families. It would be wonderful if all LGBT kids were lucky enough to have parents as supportive as Constance McMillen's are or as mine became. But all too often mom and dad are bullies too—they're usually the chief bullies, the worst bullies, the ones who do the most damage. (For an example of the bullying gay kids endure at the hands of their parents, check this out.)

Bullied LGBT kids should be encouraged to reach out, to find help, to seek support. But that support, sadly, can't always be found at home.