Endorsing those who hate you
It’s almost painful to read the endorsement of the McCain-Palin ticket by the Log Cabin Republicans.
“Log Cabin Republicans is a grassroots organization and our membership overwhelmingly supports endorsing Sen. McCain,” said Log Cabin Board Chairman Pete Kingma. “Our board and staff members have spent recent months getting input and feedback from our members. The consensus among our members is strongly in favor of an endorsement because of his inclusive record. Our members also support him because he’s a maverick; a trait most recently on display with his decision to select Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.”
(Note: this single mention of Palin gives no indication of approval or disapproval)
I felt a little better reading Andrew Sullivan trying to make the best out of what even he has to admit is a ticket that guarantees the rights of homosexuals will not just be a low priority. They’ll be off the radar.
What we have learned about John McCain from his selection of Sarah Palin is that he is as impulsive and reckless a decision-maker as George W. Bush. We know this not because of what we have learned about this Pentecostalist populist since she exploded on the scene last Friday morning (and God knows we have learned more than we ever wanted). We know it because of how McCain made the decision. He wanted his best friend, Joe Lieberman, the former Democratic vice-presidential candidate for Al Gore. That pick would have been remarkable for its bipartisan nature, would have impressed independents, and signaled a centrist presidency centered on foreign policy. It would have been bold while not being rash.
But McCain is in charge of a party that is now, at its core, religiously motivated. Joe Lieberman, for all his political talents, is Jewish, pro-choice on abortion, gay-inclusive, and domestically liberal. McCain faced an insurrection in his party base if he picked him. Without the evangelical base, he wasn’t going to win.
So last week, McCain picked someone he had only met once before. I repeat: he picked someone he had only met once before. His vetting chief sat Palin down for a face-to-face interview the Wednesday before last. It’s very hard to overstate how nutty and irresponsible this is. Would any corporate chieftain pick a number two on those grounds and not be dismissed by his board for recklessness?
The recklessness was much more fatal in the new media world than in the old one. In the old media world, the Republicans could try to control the flow of information, browbeat the press and prevent the entire weird family background and series of scandals and rumors of quite incredible events from getting into the mainstream. But those days are over. Within minutes of the announcement, everyone reached for Google. I recommend for starters the two following stories that appeared in the Anchorage Daily News last March and April. Story 1 / Story 2
WIthin hours, the McCain campaign was under siege, as the vetting process the professionals didn’t do was done by thousands of bloggers and citizen journalists. Palin’s reality show family life, her vendetta against her ex brother-in-law, her endorsement of a mayoral candidate who ran against her own mother-in-law, her attempt to ban books in her local library, her friendship with one of her husband’s former business partners, and on and on: this was the first major campaign event that was covered by the underground media before it reached the mainstream. The American mainstream press spent a large part of last week wondering how much truth the public could bear to hear.
Who does John McCain think he’s kidding? And what on earth was he thinking? This was a rash, impulsive, reckless pick. We have no idea where it’s headed – and i wouldn’t hazard a wild guess what we will have found out about Palin in a week’s time. Maybe it will win some votes from evangelicals. Maybe Palin will reveal herself as something more than a former sportscaster who can deliver a speech. But it shows a deep unseriousness about governing the most powerful nation on earth at a time of great peril.
If you thought a president who went to war on flawed intelligence with no plan for the aftermath was reckless, then I have news for you. You haven’t seen anything yet. Imagine the kind of decision-making McCain has just demonstrated applied to ife-and-death decisions with respect to Iran and Russia.
Yes, you have permission to be afraid.
Too much of an issue has been made in this election of faith. All the attention paid to fundamentalist Christian interests has bestowed upon it a credibility it doesn’t deserve.
For the same reason I wonder how gays can be Christians (Muslims, whichever theistic hate group you can name) I wonder how any self-respecting gay person can vote for McCain/Palin. Hell yeah, we want to be treated like dirty perverts. We want everyone to think we all have AIDS and molest kids. We enjoy being less than human. Perhaps Palin can get gay-bashing accepted as an Olympic sport.
I’m not saying all gays should vote Democratic. This is not an endorsement of Obama. It’s a well-considered, passionately intentioned unendorsement of McCain/Palin. If you’re a member of, family to or friend of the LGBT community, consider well what that ticket would mean to you or the ones you love.