Bush-man Gov. Mitch Daniels Not Hard Enough on Gays to Suit Indiana Talibanis

There’s trouble in the rightwing paradise of Indiana. Gov. Mitch Daniels – whose previous gig was director of the Office of Management and Budget for President Bush – is in disfavor with rightwing Christian extremists in the state who feel he is not being sufficiently abusive toward the civil rights of Indiana’s gay and lesbian taxpayers.

Micah Clark, leader of the 12,000 members of the American Family Association of Indiana, a conservative, pro-family group, used his Web site to call Daniels “a disappointment in the family values department.”

He criticized Daniels for not being out front in favor of issues such as a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and for having an office policy banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Family values spokesman Clark says he would prefer the GOP to remain the party of bigotry:

“I don’t believe in the big tent,” Clark said. “I don’t believe you get to be that big offending a large portion of your base.”

When forced to comment, Daniels accidentally revealed his real position – thereby permanently scuttling any hope of winning election to national office as a Republican:

“I don’t believe in discrimination, period. We had that (anti-discrimination) policy in our campaign. We left it in place. Basic rights of assembly, employment, housing and so forth ought not be limited based on a person’s race, creed, color or lifestyle,” [Daniels] said.

Making inclusive statements like that will get the governor nowhere in today’s GOP.

Why Jeb Won’t Run in ’08

US News & World Report “Washington Whispers”:

Here’s Why Jeb Bush Won’t Run: Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has for months sternly rejected running to replace his brother in the White House, but only now are we finding out why. Friends say it’s his wife, Columba, who closed the door. “His wife has just said no,” a close Bush Florida political pal tells us.

Poor Columba, she has a target on her back. She ought to know by now that nobody stands in the way of the Bushes.

Make Your Street Downing Street

How I decided to go into P.R. and marketing is a long story, but “We Are Everywhere” by Chicago 7/8 “conspirator” Jerry Rubin is tucked on my shelf between the A.P. Stylebook and Roget’s. What Rubin called “theatre” back then we now term “guerilla P.R.,” “word of mouth marketing (WOMMA),” and viral marketing, among other things.

That’s probably why I love this idea, posted in the comments at thinkprogress.org, so much.

1. Paint Cardboard White – Then Print ( DOWNING STREET ) On Cardboard

2. Then Tape SIGN To Your Local… Street, Road, Highway Sign – NOW – Repeat

3. Hang ( DOWNING ST. ) Sign Under Your Mail Box

4. Downing Street – On A Stick – As A Yard Sign – What-Ever

Inspired by: snowho. Let’s do it People… ECs

Help Make Every Street… ” Downing Street ”

Until Bush Is Impeached !

Paste… ( Downing Street ) Over Every Street Sign… Across America

OGC adds… And Around the Planet Earth (www.OneGlobalCommunity.com )

Add You & Yours… To this Listing…

Copy, Paste And

Pass It On

Repeat…

More info @ www.AfterDowningStreet.org

Thoughts on Fatherhood from a Man Named Jeb, Whose Kids All Ended Up in the Police Blotter

The big surprise is that Jeb seems to realize how fortunate he was to have been born a Bush. Certainly, like Paris Hilton, he never would have gotten where he is in life had he been say, Jeb Griswold.

Palm Beach Post:

“I thank God every day that when I was born on February 11, 1953, I came out with my mom who’s my mom, which meant that I got to have my dad, who has been an incredible inspiration to me in every way,” Bush said of his father, former President George H.W. Bush.

You kind of lost of me for a minute, but a big “duh,” there Jeb.

And didn’t George H.W. spawn kids to be proud of?

o George W. — nuff said

o Neil, the poster child for failing at both business (Silverado Savings & Loan) and marital fidelity (Chinese calls girls, divorce and paternity tests)

o Marvin, who was director of the firm that provided electronic security for the World Trade Center and Dulles International Airport, the airport where American Airlines flight 77 originated on the morning of September 11th

o Dorothy, or Doro, as her family calls her, whose husband #2, Richard Koch, is son of the founder of the John Birch Society. His family foundation funds Libertarian causes and conservative think tanks including the Cato Institute. During the Clinton administration, one of his companies, Koch Oil, was charged with 97 counts of covering evidence of a benzene spill in Corpus Christi and another 315 acts of pollution.

o Jeb himself, who is only too happy to give fathers credit for how children turn out.

The governor touted studies that indicate that a child with an involved father is “more likely to meet success, to live a healthier lifestyle, maintain higher self-esteem, and perform better inside and outside the classroom.”

Bush said his own parenthood has been “the most rewarding experience of my life.”

…Bush’s 27-year-old daughter, Noelle, graduated from a 16-month drug court program nearly two years ago after her arrest in 2002 for attempting to obtain the drug Xanax with a forged prescription at a Tallahassee pharmacy.

What dad wouldn’t be proud to take credit for raising his kids when they turn out like that? Makes me kind of tear up just thinking about it. Noelle lives with Jeb and Columba at the governor’s mansion but his sons, George P. and Jeb Jr. (does this family have any imagination at all?) have been exiled to Texas.

While still in Miami, George P. had the police called on him after he broke into his ex-girlfriend’s house at 4 a.m. and began arguing with her father. Twenty minutes after he fled the scene, he returned in his Ford Explorer and tore across the front lawn, grinding a path through the grass.

Jeb Jr. had Tallahassee police summoned after someone called mall security about a couple in the back of a Jeep Cherokee. They found them in the parking lot, both naked from the waist down although Jebby, as he is known, showed his fine Bush breeding by retaining his socks.

If Jeb is half the father that he is a governor, and judging by his kids, I’d say he is, it’s no mystery how they’ve turned out.