Friday, May 11, 2012
RAG on WSJ.Com
Labels: 2012 campaign, Barack Obama, gay marriage, Jason Riley, Wall Street Journal
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Single-Mom Sanctimony
This started as a response to Tim Phares's comment over on Facebook, but it's important enough to flesh out why Bristol Palin's blog post on Barack Obama and gay marriage incenses me so much. For people who've been reading this space off-and-on since at least 2008, none of this should seem new.
I noted that Bristol said, "In general kids do better growing up in a mother/father home.." To which, I sarcastically responded, "Like, less chance of a teen pregnancy, right?"
Tim (mentioned above) said, "Go, Bristol." To which I said, "Bristol Palin can 'go' alright -- go STFU. Here's a girl who became a "celebrity" because she was the pregnant daughter of a vice-presidential candidate. She then got "rewarded" with a contract to be an abstinence spokesman, a People magazine cover, a spot on Dancing With the Stars and a book contract and, of course, her own "reality" show! "Life's A Trip" (oooh, see what she did there?)!
It should be noted that NONE of these benefits would have come her way had she either 1) not gotten pregnant or 2) gotten married and THEN gotten pregnant. She's the actual incarnation of "Murphy Brown" that conservatives of a previous generation condemned: A young lady who, because she was in the right place at the right time, far from "paying" for her mistakes -- like other teen girls of lesser circumstances -- has actually profited from it.
Indeed, she managed to perfectly game our modern corrupt culture -- but SHE now presumes make a case for a "mother/father home" and uses it as an attack line to go after Obama's lack of leadership? GMAFB!! There are any number of people -- from activists on the gay left to activists on the social right -- who can and should call him out on how he's handled the gay marriage issue.
Sorry, but Bristol ain't one.
This is 10th-level bullshit and no one should fall for it.
Labels: Barack Obama, Bristol Palin, gay marriage, hypocrisy watch, teen pregnancy
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Trump Towers Over All
From real estate magnate and best-selling self-help business-writer in the '80s to real-estate magnate and reality series star in the Oh-Ohs, Donald Trump has refused to recognize the expiration date on his 15-Minutes-of-Fame milk carton. Even a pretty mediocre second edition of "Celebrity Apprentice" couldn't quite eclipse The Donald's personal incandescence.
And, as it has in his past, his talent for picking the ladies managed to enhance his own profile. Sunday's "Apprentice" finale came down to 75-year old potty-mouthed QVC jewelry-hawker Joan Rivers and 40-something professional poker player Annie Duke. Last year, in the first "CA," Trump selected British reality icon Piers Morgan over country-singer Trace Adkins -- primarily because of Morgan's superior money-raising skill on the charity-supporting show.
This year, Duke was the clear front-runner in terms of money raised, but Trump selected Rivers based on other less-quantifiable criteria -- including that she brought the most "energy" to the show. Part of that energy was trashing Duke at every opportunity -- including famously calling her "worse than Hitler." But, Trump's instincts were probably correct. While Duke was ruthless in effectively playing the game, Rivers is/was by far the more self-promoting/attention-drawing person; she can be counted on to promote her winning the show, thus promoting Trump in the process. Duke would take her charity's winnings, go home and be barely heard from again, except within her own poker-playing community.
But ever on the lookout for the self-promoters -- even the relatively amateurish -- Trump then spun around to determine, Solomon-like, the fate of the controversial Miss California USA, Carrie Prejean. Her guileless honesty in answering a question on gay marriage probably cost her the Miss USA title three weeks ago. And youthful foolishness with regard to topless photos imperiled her keeping her Miss California crown. Trump bought the Miss USA pageant a few years ago, so he had the ultimate power to determine what should happen to Prejean -- suddenly thrust in the middle of the culture wars because of her belief in "opposite marriage" and getting trashed by pageant judge Perez Hilton.
Conservatives were positive that the organizers of the California pageant -- embarrassed over her views -- wanted to strip her of her crown. In fact, the Vanessa Williams incident a quarter century ago showed there is a precedent for a beauty queen losing her crown because of racy photos.
But Trump the wise overseer, tore through the cant on both sides. The Donald didn't give Prejean a "You're fired!" moment. Instead, he reminded everyone that she had the same views on gay marriage as, well, Barack Obama -- and, hey, kids, the president is cool! He dismissed the topless pics with a casual, "we are in the 21st century." In so doing, he put both the PC left and the faux-prudish pageant organizers in their place and, probably for the first time, Donald Trump became a mild hero to the religious right (who have adopted Carrie Prejean as something of a spokeswoman). Only in America could the thrice-married Trump become an odd defender of traditional marriage!
And why wouldn't Trump keep Prejean? Like Rivers, she has managed to create controversy and energy around a Trump product. She has gotten more ink and Google hits than the actual winner of Miss USA, who was Miss South Carolina, no, North Carolina...um, whats-her-name! Whatever. But Prejean's the real thing -- beautiful woman...controversial views...topless pictures...Yeah, Trump this, baby! No way is she going to be kicked to the curb!
That this is the fourth (or fifth) controversy involving a Miss USA contestant since Trump took the franchise over is, of course, just a coincidence.
After all these years, it's still good to be The Donald.
Labels: Carrie Prejean, Donald Trump, gay marriage, Miss USA
Monday, November 17, 2008
Is Obama's Black-Gay "Marriage" Doomed?
The easy answer is no. Indeed, Coates explains why that is clearly not the case. It may be more accurate to say that the combination of black and Hispanic votes provided the margin. Still, this fact has caused many gays to be disappointed that the same blacks who turned out to vote for Barack Obama also voted against gay marriage -- a movement pushed by a religion that blatantly discriminated against blacks until barely three decades ago.
Thus Andrew Sullivan's frustration over the apparent level of homophobia in the black community.
He today links to a New Yorker interview of Prince, suggesting that the once-symboled one is anti-gay because he's against gay marriage. Andrew links to another gay blogger who is stunned that Prince takes this position (so to speak) given his catalogue of explicit hits.
Andrew uses this as another example of homophobia in the black community. Now, we start to tread on shaky ground when we start using entertainers as "spokesmen" or "representatives" of one group or another. But, the clear mistake that both Andrew and Joe make is that they look at Prince's old songs and draw a straight (ahem!) line between that Prince and this Prince. Well, this shouldn't be much of a surprise, frankly.
When Prince became a Jehovah's Witness nearly ten years ago, he renounced his explicit past. He stopped playing songs like "Darling Nikki", "Sexy M.F.", "Head", and many more. As Ta-Nehisi says, isn't it more likely that this religious conversion has more to do with His Royal (Formerly) Badness' newfound sexual conservatism than his being black?
Well, duh. (Besides, his "Controversy" line, "Am I black or white? Am I straight or gay?" was about what other people say about him -- not what he was advocating about himself.)
Ta-Nehesi also links to the unique history of African Americans that would make them culturally hold onto the traditionalist view of marriage more than whites (those in California, at least) at large. Ta-Nehisi's right. Indeed, one should also keep in mind that, far from being contradictory, blacks voting for Obama and agains gay marriage makes sense if one considers that blacks weren't just voting for the man because of his color: They were voting for an intact black family in the White House. This was, arguably, an endorsement of a conservative black family structure. In that context, voting against gay marriage -- from the viewpoint of the black family -- is consistent.
However, there is a classic "forest for the trees" situation developing here. Gays rightly upset over losing on Prop. 8 launched protests across the country last weekend. There will undoubtedly be more in the coming weeks. But, ultimately, to what purpose? Do they want to draw Obama out on this hot-button issue? Will there be calls from gay leaders for Obama to "educate" blacks on this issue -- even though Obama himself doesn't support gay marriage (nor does Hillary Clinton or other top level Democrats)? Will there be moves to urge him to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act?
These questions are important because it was a gay rights issue that -- seemingly out of nowhere --- got the Clinton administration off on a rocky start. Biden talked about Obama being "tested" by a foreign leader. But as Clinton demonstrated in 1993, sometimes a new president can be "tested" by an unexpected domestic issue. A member of Clinton's own party -- Sam Nunn -- as well as Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell helped cut Clinton's "honeymoon" short by forcing him to back down on changing the policy on gays in the military.
It would seem to this blogger that it might behoove both the incoming Obama administration and pro-Obama gay leaders to figure out in what direction the gay marriage issue is going lest history repeat itself -- except in a potentially even more disastrous manner.
Labels: black vote, gay marriage
