“A GOLD-PLATED BOLLOCKING”

Yes, I miss the English English language sometimes. Labour deputies have been haranguing their two major leaders, Blair and Brown, for their personal rifts. Brown is quoted in a new book, compiled with his cooperation, as saying to Blair: “There is nothing you could say to me now that I could ever believe”. I think the Tories have found their electoral slogan. They’ll lose anyway.

EMAIL OF THE DAY

“Andrew, re: Lincoln. I think the problem is that heterosexuals still don’t understand that “gay” isn’t only about sex. They think of homosexuals as defective straight people with uncontrollable sexual urges, and I guess a flair for drama. They don’t understand our emotional orientation towards members of our own sex. They can’t identify with this, or else they are scared of it (I’m not sure which). This is the source of the whole problem, I think.” I tend to agree. Of course, many heterosexuals have begun to understand. And, as I’ve said many times, homosexuality is very easy to understand. It is exactly the same as heterosexuality, with the gender reversed. Gays, however, cannot expect straights to understand this all by themselves. It’s up to us to explain, and keep explaining. One reason I have written sometimes painful accounts of my own life is not that I enjoy losing privacy, but that I feel it’s the only way to get people to understand what I’m actually talking about. Straights who don’t understand are not necessarily prejudiced. They’re just under-informed. Gay people should spend the bulk of their efforts in the difficult process of informing. And the most integral part of that informing is coming out.

THE LINCOLN QUESTION

My piece on C.A. Tripp’s Lincoln book, is now up at TNR. Having read the book closely, I’m struck by how obtuse some of the reviews have been. Gay journalist, Paul Varnell, in an email, put the process of assessment now unfolding thus:

1. It is simply not true at all, Tripp is all wrong.

2. It is almost surely wrong and the evidence is strained.

3. It could be true, but the evidence is insufficient.

4.There is something to Tripp’s case, but we can never know for sure.

5. It is probably true, but we must await further evaluation of the evidence. Meanwhile we should suspend judgment.

6. Tripp is, of course, right, but everyone knew this already this and it doesn’t change anything we think about his public career.

We are hovering now somewhere between 4 and 5. Read it yourself to find out. The data it collects are arresting to anyone not deeply resistant to the idea of Lincoln’s primarily homosexual orientation. And yes, of course it matters. If America’s greatest president was gay, it must play a part in the current discussion of gay equality in America. That’s why the Weekly Standard has pulled out all the stops to kill off the book. One thing none of the reviews says: the book is complemented by several essays at the end by leading Lincoln scholars, two of whom specifically differ from Tripp’s conclusions. It’s a very fair document: about as far from a “hoax” and a “fraud” as the Weekly Standard is from treating the open-ended question of Lincoln’s sexuality honestly.

THE END OF RATHER

He has to go now, doesn’t he? When all the people directly associated with this debacle have quit or been fired, on what basis does he stay? He fronted the report. He stood by it. He took responsibility for it. On his watch, CBS News became a laughing stock. Is he really going to let everyone else take the hit? Has he lost all sense of self-respect as well as loyalty? For goodness’ sake, Dan. Go. Even Howell did eventually. People will remember the rest of your legacy. But if you hang on to your job as long as you hung on to that “story,” all you will prove is your pride.

GENE THERAPY: My own view is that gene therapy will turn out to be far more important in arresting HIV than the futile pursuit of an elusive vaccine. And we have just had a break-through. (Hat tip: Pacopond.)

TIME FOR HEALING WATCH: Red America, as seen by a Village Voice cartoonist.

THE LIMBAUGH DEFENSE: Rush Limbaugh saw nothing wrong with Abu Ghraib. Now we hear the sickening psychopath, Charles Graner, push the same vile arguments in defending himself from the charge of torture. “You’re keeping control of them. A tether is a valid control to be used in corrections,” Graner’s lawyer said. “In Texas we’d lasso them and drag them out of there.” Ah, the Texas defense. Let’s review just one incident, reported by the ICRC, in which Graner featured:

One of those days the guards tortured the prisoners. Those guards are Grainer [sic], Davis and another man. First they tortured the man whose name is Amjid Iraqi. They stripped him of his clothes and beat him till he passed out and they cursed him and when they took off of his head I saw blood running from his head. They took him to solitary confinement and were beating him every night… After they brought six people and beat them up until they dropped on the floor and one of them his nose was cut and the blood was running from his nose and he was screaming but no one was responding and all this beating from Grainer and Davis and another man… And after that they beat up the rest of the group until they fall to the ground. Every time one of them fell to the ground they drag them up to stand on his feet. Grainer beat up a man whose name is Ali the Syrian and he was beating him until he gotten almost crazy … They hanged him and he was screaming but no one helped him.

Well, as long as they weren’t actually torturing anyone, eh, Bybee?

WHAT IS ENGRISH?

“Engrish can be simply defined as the humorous English mistakes that appear in Japanese advertising and product design.” Enjoy. Come croser, Mr Brix. A rittle croser.

THE LEFT AND IRAQ: The betrayal continues.

CAMPUS CONSERVATIVES: City Journal surveys the scene among young Republicans. They show remarkably strong support for many conservative ideals – lower taxes, strong families, fighting terrorism aggressively. The one exception: marriage rights for gays. They can’t see the problem with allowing everyone to have family values. Just don’t tell their elders.

MISSING IN ACTION: Nat Hentoff asks where the Congress is in exposing the use of torture by the U.S. military under the Bush administration.

THE STANDARD’S NEW LOW: Check out the cover-image on the new Weekly Standard: a text-book example of homophobia. We gays are always invited to reach out and have sane conversations with conservatives at places like the Weekly Standard. But how can you converse with people whose attitude is one of pure contempt?

PAGE 153

Yep, that’s the page in the CBS report where they declare that blog criticism of Rather’s lies was driven by a “conservative agenda.” All of it? How do they know? Meanwhile, the blatant partisanship of Mapes and Rather have that weasel expression “appearance of bias” attached to it. Grrrr. Rather should have been fired. But Bush-supporters in particular have some double-standards in this regard. Isn’t CBS actually being tougher on its miscreants than the Bush administration ever is?

WHO ELSE?

Armstrong Williams says he wasn’t the only conservative “journalist” on the government’s payroll. Hmmm. Who else? Williams should name names or shut up. I haven’t written anything about his pathetic role as a propagandist for the Bush administration, because it’s so self-evidently unethical it doesn’t need me to spell it out. But it says something about the cluelessness of someone in the Bush administration. I mean: why pay for propaganda when you can get it quite easily for free?

SPEAKING OF WHICH: I’m sorry, but I can’t help laughing at this paragraph from professional hysteric, Brent Bozell:

Loser: “South Park.” The producers of this curdled, malodorous black hole of Comedy Central vomit want to elicit only one sentence from viewers: “Did I just see that on television?” For anyone who thinks television today is not as offensive — and downright stupid as those “prudes” say it is, we suggest a look at the Dec. 1 episode. At the South Park “Whore-Off” competition, Paris Hilton inserts an entire pineapple into her vagina. A gay man in a biker vest then takes off his pants and puts the entire body of Paris Hilton up his rectum. Remember this episode the next time some TV critic raves about the “talent” behind “South Park.”

Actually, of course, the show is far smarter than that, as Tom Monster explains. South Park is the only show I know smart enough to defend being a total slut while wanting to keep it from being broadcast to children. Bad slut: Ms Hilton. Good slut: Mr Slave. You’d be surprised how many men in harnesses would never dream of broadcasting their sexual amusement beyond the tight confines of their own subculture. They’re subtler conservatives than Mr Bozell.

A STRAIGHT CONSERVATIVE: Who sees the real case for equal marriage rights.