Friday, February 18, 2005

Rant of the Day

Regarding the Jeff Gannon affair, Digby lets it all out:
It certainly does seem as if the Bush White House is pretty darned tolerant
for an administration that mined millions of votes in the evangelical community
by being against gay rights. And the Dems and the mainstream press know very
well that this is a problem for the Republicans.

George W. Bush's carefully crafted mystique is built entirely on his
manufactured masculinity. In fact, the Republican Party has based its whole
image upon the idea that they are the party of macho straight men and the
fawning traditional women who love them. They have spent the last 35 years
impugning the manhood of every male Democrat and portraying every Democratic
feminist as a manhating bitch --- and winning the national security issue pretty
much on the basis of what that implied to their bigoted neanderthal base. It
never ends. Back in the day it was "I can't tell if you're a boy or a girl with
all that hair." Just last year they spent hundreds of millions of dollars
convincing a large number of people that a documented war hero (and killer) was
a mincing, vacillating "Frenchman." What do you think that that was all about?

I've always believed that one of the main reasons Clinton frustrated them
so much was that his womanizing protected him from the ongoing gay-baiting
subtext of the Republican appeal. It took one of their most potent arrows out of
the quiver. The best they could do was call Hillary a dyke.

Every time the Republicans are called upon to squeal "don't ask don't tell"
when asked about JimJeff Gannon, it puts another hairline crack in their
coalition. Don't ever think that this does not affect them. It goes to the very
essence of who they portray themselves to be.

You go, Blogfriend. He's not particularly nice to the Democrats in this post either. Fair and Balanced and all that. I'm also very much liking this thing being called "the Manchurian Beefcake scandal".

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Givem Hell Dave!

Of course, look what's being said about Lincoln.

ETK