Year: 2007

Wyoming: Bang! Your Gay Marriage is Void

Buck Banks

Head ’em off at the pass: So let’s just say a couple of guys from Boston who were legally married under Massachusetts law decided to move to Wyoming to live out their Brokeback Mountain fantasy. According to a bill being considered by the state legislature, as soon as they crossed the border into Wyoming, their marriage would cease to exist in the eyes of the state. Seems lind of silly, don’t it?

I cannot envision hordes of married gay couples from Massachusetts, England, Canada, Amsterdam or any place like that thronging to Wyoming at any point in the near future.

Massachusetts is the only state that currently grants marriage licenses to same-sex couples; others permit civil unions but the proposed law only pertains to gay marriages. Wyoming already has a law in place that mandates marriages conducted in the state must be between a man and woman.

“All the bill does is say that we don’t have to honor the same-sex marriages that are performed in other states,” the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Gerald E. Geis, R-Worland, said. “If a couple came from Massachusetts, or wherever they allow same-sex marriage, we would not have to recognize it here.”

Gay rights groups say the measure is unnecessary.

“I don’t know where the fear of a mass influx of married gay people entering Wyoming and demanding recognition comes from,” said the Rev. Bob Spencer, social change coordinator for Wyoming Equality. “I cannot envision hordes of (married gay) couples from Massachusetts, England, Canada, Amsterdam or any place like that thronging to Wyoming at any point in the near future.”

Carrie Evans, state legislative director for the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights group, echoed that: “Surely the Wyoming legislature has real problems to deal with.”

But a co-sponsor of the bill, Rep. Owen Petersen, R-Mountain View, said the measure is extremely important. “In the past 30 years, most of the statistics support the fact that with the loss of marriage and a stable home environment there are more adverse impacts on society with crime and with various other things that cause a deterioration of our whole country,” Petersen said.

Note that Wyoming is the least populous state in the union, with just over 500,000 residents. Seems like there would be enough room in the Big Sky country to accommodate a few gay and lesbian married couples without undermining the fabric of Wyoming society …

Libby: ‘I Will Not Be Sacrificed So Karl Rove Can be Protected’

Jon Ponder

In his opening statement to jurors today, Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s lawyer said Libby believed his colleagues in the Bush administration were setting him to take a fall for Karl Rove in the CIA Leak investigation:

I. Lewis Libby’s attorney countered with a White House effort of his own, one in which Libby was blamed for the leak to protect Bush political adviser Karl Rove’s own disclosures.

“They’re trying to set me up. They want me to be the sacrificial lamb,” attorney Theodore Wells said, recalling a conversation between Libby and his boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, as the leak investigation heated up in 2003. “I will not be sacrificed so Karl Rove can be protected.”

In laying out his case against Libby, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald told jurors he had eveidence that at the time of the leak, Libby learned the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame, a spy assigned to monitor the black market for weapons of mass destruction, from five different sources inside the government, including his boss, Vice Pres. Dick Cheney.

But later, when he was interrogated by the F.B.I. and a grand jury, Libby did not mention any of the five sources:

Libby told investigators he learned about Plame from NBC News reporter Tim Russert. But Fitzgerald told jurors that was clearly a lie because Libby had already been discussing the matter inside and outside of the White House.

“You can’t learn something on Thursday that you’re giving out on Monday,” Fitzgerald said.

The Urge to Surge Versus the Action-Reaction Scenarios

Buck Banks

Vietnam all over again: Congress Daily’s Charles C. Wilson was a Vietnam war correspondent in 1968 and he was embedded with the Marines in Iraq in 2003. His take on the potential response is chilling — what if the surge in troops turns the Sunni and Shia militias against the American invaders? It’s a worse-case scenario that is in the back of the minds of many whenever we hear the Commander-In-Chief start talking troop “augmentation.”

Note how easy it would be for suicidal Sunni or Shia mortar crews to fire shells into the Green Zone or into a slow moving American truck convoy out of Kuwait, perhaps inflicting heavy American casualties and making headlines around the world, just as the Tet offensive did in 1968.

What will Congress do in the likely event that the warring forces in Iraq respond to President’s Bush’s troop surge and anti-militia attacks by shifting their fire away from each other and onto Americans in their midst, inflicting heavy casualties in an Arab-world version of the Vietnam War’s Tet offensive?

“You are the first person to ask me that question,” Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Joseph Biden, D-Del., told me, acknowledging that he has been worrying about that possibility while pondering possible unintended consequences of Bush’s decision to send an additional 21,500 American troops to Iraq with orders to take on the armed militias, including the Mahdi Army controlled by Shia cleric Moktada al-Sadr.

If Sadr’s militia, or any other one in Iraq, inflicts heavy casualties on American soldiers or civilians, “this place will go nuts,” Biden said, referring to Congress. In such a case, he predicted lawmakers would demand “complete withdrawal” of U.S. troops from Iraq.

Up to now, the Shiites and Sunnis have been more interested in killing each other by the score rather than Americans by the score. But hit-and-run wars such as Vietnam and Iraq have an action-reaction dynamic because, at bottom, they are a struggle for men’s minds, not territory. So militia leaders like Sadr would feel compelled to strike back in a telegenic way to stepped-up American attacks against them.

I saw this action-reaction phenomenon play out as a combat correspondent covering a slice of the country-wide Tet offensive in South Vietnam in 1968. Thirty-five years later, as a reporter embedded with the Marines during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, I wondered why the same phenomenon did not take hold.

Looking back, the reason was that tribal leaders and their militias were waiting to see how long the invading American forces would stay in Iraq and what they would do there. Now they know, from Bush himself, that he intends to raise the stakes.
[…]

McCain Blames War Failure on Rumsfeld, Cheney

Jon Ponder

The buck does not stop at Pres. Bush’s desk when it comes to taking responsibility for the failed war in Iraq, according Sen. John McCain, the GOP 2008 frontrunner. Instead, McCain lays blame on his old nemesis, former Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and a new target, Vice Pres. Dick Cheney, whom he once called “capable and “experienced.”

“The president listened too much to the Vice President . . . Of course, the president bears the ultimate responsibility, but he was very badly served by both the Vice President and, most of all, the Secretary of Defense.”

Apparently, the president gets a pass because McCain, like everyone around him, believes George Bush is too guillible to know when he’s being given bad advice, too lazy and incurious to seek counterbalancing views and not smart enough to make up his own mind even if he did:

With his presidential hopes tied to an administration whose Iraq policy he supports but cannot control, John McCain for the first time blamed Vice President Cheney for what McCain calls the “witch’s brew” of a “terribly mishandled” war in which U.S. forces are on the verge of defeat…

Although McCain had once lavished praise on the vice president, he said in an interview in his Senate office: “The president listened too much to the Vice President . . . Of course, the president bears the ultimate responsibility, but he was very badly served by both the Vice President and, most of all, the Secretary of Defense.”

McCain added: “Rumsfeld will go down in history, along with McNamara, as one of the worst secretaries of defense in history.” Donald Rumsfeld served as President Bush’s secretary of defense from January 2001 to December 2006. Robert McNamara was Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War.

McCain has long criticized Rumsfeld, but in July 2004 at a campaign rally in Lansing, Mich., McCain said he had “known and admired” Cheney for more than 20 years and described him as “one of the most capable, experienced, intelligent and steady vice presidents this country has ever had.”

If McCain were a Democrat, the Gang of 500 would be calling this a “flip-flop.” He supported Cheney before he no longer supported him.

ABC/WaPo Poll: 40% Still Believe Bush Is Honest

Jon Ponder

We are surrounded by idiots:

56% of Americans do not trust their president in a crisis.

Forty percent describe Bush as honest and trustworthy, equaling the low point of his presidency.

Thank goodness 57 percent of us have realized he’s a liar; unfortunately 3 percent aren’t sure.

Other numbers:

  • Right track: 26 percent. Wrong track: 71 percent. Post says this is the worst these ratings have been in more than a decade.
  • Overall approval of Bush: 33 percent positive (lowest in this poll since he took office) and 65 percent negative.
  • Job performance: Only 17 percent strongly approve of the way he is handling his job; 51 percent strongly disapprove.
  • Handling of war: 29 percent approve; 70 percent disapprove.
  • Trust Bush in a crisis: 42 percent yes; 56 percent no.

State of the Union:

Only two presidents have had lower approval ratings on the eve of a State of the Union speech. Richard Nixon was at 26 percent in 1974, seven months before he resigned in disgrace because of the Watergate scandal. Harry S. Truman was at 23 percent in January 1952, driven down by public disapproval of the Korean conflict and his firing of Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

Air America May Have Buyer

Jon Ponder

Reuters:

The bankrupt parent of talk-radio network Air America is close to being bought by a group of investors led by a New York-area family, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing sources.

The French family of Westchester, New York, owner of New York City-area television concern WRNN, is leading a group of investors in a bid to buy the assets of Piquant LLC, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the situation.

Richard French Sr. has owned WRNN since 1993.

Is St. McCain Depressed?

Jon Ponder

Sen. John McCain’s performance on “Meet the Press” yesterday was decidely lackluster. The current GOP 2008 frontrunner and former maverick’s snap and crackle seemed to be replaced with a sodden doughiness. Perhaps it was the topic of the Iraq civil war and the “McCain surge,” which has been dragging Pres. Bush’s numbers lower since it was announced a few weeks ago.

The senator also made a wildly inaccurate reference to polling data ahead of the first Gulf War, which was caught by C&L. Sen. McCain said:

Only 15 percent of Americans supported the first Gulf War at the beginning.

But the actual data, from January 18, 1991 was the opposite:

The initial reaction by the American public to President Bush’s decision to go to war with Iraq is positive, according the Gallup Poll.

Seventy-nine percent of those interviewed on Wednesday night said they approved “of the U.S. decision today to go to war with Iraq in order to drive the Iraqis out of Kuwait,” while 15 percent disapproved, and 6 percent had no opinion.

We all make mistakes. But why so glum, Senator? Perhaps you’ve seen polling about how the war would affect your chances in 2008 if it is still raging? Or maybe you know some (new) dark truth about the current administration that is about to be revealed.

Florida’s New Jeb Trying to Befriend the Press

Trish

The man who pledged to voters to be as much like Jeb as possible without surgical alterations is making some changes. Gov. Crist-Crossin’ Charlie has changed his mind again, this time for the better.

Reporters’ comfort and happiness were rarely concerns of Bush, who notably locked reporters in his office in 2000

Crist also ended Bush’s tradition of meeting with the media at the bottom of a spiral staircase in the Capitol basement before the biweekly meetings of the Florida Cabinet. The meetings became mini-melees as a dozen or more TV and newspaper reporters crowded Bush. The image on TV stations around the state was similar to a “60 Minutes” encounter, complete with a sense of tension.

Crist has moved those meetings to an office where reporters can sit and the governor can appear more statesman-like with a new sign containing a picture of the Old Capitol behind his podium.

“A little change of venue,” Crist said Thursday. “I wanted to have this [room] open to visit with you, make sure you’re comfortable and you’re happy.”

Reporters’ comfort and happiness were rarely concerns of Bush, who notably locked reporters in his office in 2000 when they wouldn’t leave lawmakers who were staging a sit-in to discuss an issue with Bush.