politics – Page 124 – Warren Throckmorton

Gibbs: FOX News is unfair (sniff)

I have not followed the White House whining about Fox News very closely but I took notice of this:

White House officials once again advanced its contention that Fox News and its commentators are not journalists, rather a propaganda wing of the Republican Party. During the gaggle, an informal on-the-record but off-camera briefing between the White House press secretary and some members of the media, Robert Gibbs and ABC’s Jake Tapper had this conversation:

Tapper: It’s escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations “not a news organization” and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization. Can you explain why it’s appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one –

(Crosstalk)

Gibbs: Jake, we render, we render an opinion based on some of their coverage and the fairness that, the fairness of that coverage.

Tapper: But that’s a pretty sweeping declaration that they are “not a news organization.” How are they any different from, say –

Gibbs: ABC –

Tapper: ABC. MSNBC. Univision. I mean how are they any different?

Gibbs: You and I should watch sometime around 9 o’clock tonight. Or 5 o’clock this afternoon.

Tapper: I’m not talking about their opinion programming or issues you have with certain reports. I’m talking about saying thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a “news organization” — why is that appropriate for the White House to say?

Gibbs: That’s our opinion.

Read the whole report. The White House and the left-leaning press is unhappy. Moveon.org wants Dems to stay off Fox, a kind of boycott.

I have trouble getting worked up over this given the savaging that Sarah Palin took during the campaign, especially from MSNBC. As noted in this blog report, an unnamed White House contact said the purpose of the FOX war is to get journalists to think twice about what to cover.

“We’re doing what we think is important to make sure news is covered as fairly as possible,” a White House official told POLITICO, noting how the recent ACORN scandal story started because Fox covered it “breathlessly for weeks on end.”

Yeah, that’s going to work. When an administration actively attempts to control the press coverage in this manner, they expose their real objective. FOX News will probably work a little harder to find the stories which the other networks ignore. And perhaps, one hopes, the real journalists in the other organizations will wake up.

Additional thoughts: I should have paired this story with the one about the unnamed White House advisor telling the liberal left to take off their pajamas and get dressed. Message to right or left who question the big boys: How’s your cat?

UPDATE: David Axelrod tells the New York Times Thursday:

“This is a discussion that probably had to be had about their approach to things,” Mr. Axelrod said. “Our concern is other media not follow their lead.”

Exodus comments about Ugandan situation on blog

On their blog, Exodus International commented today about the proposed “Anti-Homosexuality 2009” bill.

The Ugandan government is seeking to further stigmatize and criminalize (to death or extreme punishment) people who deal with homosexuality. It seems that the government has no respect for freedom. Especially as it pertains to free will or self-determination on what a person does with their own same sex attractions. This sweeping, hateful, public policy being promoted threatens anyone struggling with same sex attractions, and their loved ones, with death or imprisonment.

Then the post refers to Don Schmierer, one of the American participants in the infamous ex-gay conference in Kampala, Uganda back in March.

I asked Don, who travels all around the world, about his thoughts on what is happening now in Uganda. He responded:

“What this David Bahati is introducing does not reflect the Ugandans that I have ministered too. The only place where I have run into this thinking is from some former Russian hardliners and that was only a very small percentage of the participants attending my seminars. After some challenges from me (except for one person) they softened up and came around to a more redemptive position.”

Hard to see where anyone softened.

The individuals who hosted the conference where Mr. Schmierer spoke, Family Life Network, were identified today by conservative Ultimate Media as “fighting against what they call a proliferation of homosexuality in the country…”

We can agree with Thomas when he writes:

We definitely need to be praying for Uganda and working with whatever contacts we have there to try and stop this horrible legislation from passing.

Additional links:

Uganda’s strange ex-gay conference

Crashing the pajama party

I am pretty sure Andrew Malcolm nails it here.

Saturday night before he was asked about “don’t ask-don’t tell” Obama told the banqueting but impatient Human Rights Campaign crowd (full text right here) all the Democratically-correct things it wanted to hear before the big march for LGBT equality the next day.

So it was very surprising — even jarring — when on Sunday CNBC’s John Harwood, long a respected political journalist, reported a conversation with an anonymous White….

… House “adviser” about the growing grumbling coming not from the predictable party of No but from, oh my, Obama’s own political left, described as the “Internet left fringe.”

Here, just hours after Obama’s warm remarks to his applauding gay constituency, is how Harwood described the conversation on-air:

For a sign of how seriously the White House does or doesn’t take this opposition, one adviser told me today those bloggers need to take off their pajamas, get dressed and realize that governing a closely-divided country is complicated and difficult.

As it turns out, the “adviser” was talking about the entire internet-left, but gay bloggers went off.

AmericaBlog’s thoughtful John Aravosis wrote:

So the gay community, and its concerns about President Obama’s inaction, and backtracking, on DADT and DOMA, are now, according to President Obama’s White House, part of a larger “fringe” that acts like small children who play in their pajamas and need to grow up. (And a note to our readers: The White House just included all of you in that loony “left fringe.”)

I wonder how the Human Rights Campaign is going to explain how the White House just knifed our community less than 24 hours after he went to their dinner and claimed he was our friend.

Malcolm sees a method to the madness of giving first and then taking away:

Also, Obama enjoys overwhelming support generally among the nation’s Democrats. So what if his popularity there plummets to 80%?

Now, who’s the president gonna need to support healthcare reform and bandage this Afghan mess heading into the 2010 midterm election year when history says he’ll likely lose seats on the Hill? Bingo, those same conservative/centrist House pals of Emanuel’s whose incumbencies are a main shield against any Republican resurgence.

Oh, and about those crucial independents who elected Obama last November and then started falling away all summer as Obama’s liberal spending, reforms and deficits metastisized? What better way to let those swayable folks come back home than by asking the helpful question, how can Obama possibly be an ultra-liberal if he’s being so publicly vilified by angry ultra-liberals?

So it was no accident whatsoever when that wily White House “adviser” explained, “governing a closely-divided country is complicated and difficult.”

Or, as that wily, briar-patch denizen Br’er Rabbit pleaded of his ursine captor in the old Uncle Remus tales, “Please, please don’t throw me in that briar-patch over there!”

What he said. Conservatives can’t crash this party alone. If moderates and conservative Dems view Obama as a moderate, then we’ll have the pajama party for the duration.

Harry Hay, NAMBLA and associations

For the last couple of weeks, Kevin Jennings has been at the center of controversy over his handling of a high school boy who came to him for advice about involvement with an older man. More recently, conservative bloggers have been attempting to make connections between Kevin Jennings and Harry Hay. Harry Hay was the founder of the Mattachine Society, the first gay rights organization in the country.

The reason Jennings’ critics want to make this connection is because Harry Hay was a supporter of the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). NAMBLA is widely regarded as a front group for those with sexual interest in children and teens. Currently, NAMBLA has a feature on Hay linked on the front page of the website titled, “Harry Hay and the roots of the gay movement.” As these links document, Hay spoke at their conferences and supported their aims.

Jennings has spoken positively about Hay and wrote about him in a book titled Becoming Visible, which is a gay history book for teens and college aged adults. In this book, Jennings referenced a biography of Hay (The Trouble with Harry Hay, by Stuart Timmons) which mentioned Hay’s support of NAMBLA but Jennings did not disclose this to his readers. Anyone seeking to learn more would find the reference but then learn that Hay was an advocate of boy lovers. Is it fair to fault Jennings for this? Watch this video from Scott Baker at Breitbart.tv where this is laid out in detail.

Below is the picture Scott Baker is referring to with Hay supporting NAMBLA in 1986:

Harry Hay clearly supported NAMBLA even though he said he was not a member. Here (part one, part two) you can read the section of the book by Timmons which references the event where Harry Hay attempted to wear this sign.

This seems to establish that Jennings was aware of Hay’s involvement with NAMBLA. Now the question: is it fair to criticize Jennings for lauding Harry Hay when he knew Hay was a supporter of NAMBLA?

Some related questions come to mind. When is an icon not an icon? In the Timmons book, it seems clear that Hay viewed the gay establishment who tried to silence his support of NAMBLA as “self-righteous.” Was it? Should gay leaders speak out about this now, especially during gay history month? When conservatives refer to someone like Paul Cameron or Scott Lively, they are criticized (and rightly so, to my way of thinking). Should those who laud Hay be questioned about their support for someone who walked with NAMBLA?

Discuss…

Harry Hay describes his coming out as his “child molestation speech.” Describing his sexual debut at 14 with a 25 year old young man, Timmons wrote about Hay (Read it in context here):

When in later years he told his favorite coming-out story, he referred to it ironically as his “child molestation speech,” to make the point of how sharply gay life differs from heterosexual norms. “As a child,” he explained, “I molested an adult until I found out what I needed to know.”

This same story was told in a 1983 speech in support of NAMBLA and is archived on the NAMBLA website.

The point is that I was perfectly capable of handling myself and knowing exactly what I wanted. But this year I knew that I wanted to find a man to tell me what I wanted to know. So, at fourteen, you realize, I’m a child molester. I’m a child, and I’m molesting an adult till I find out what I want to know. And I found him, and he was shocked. Then he discovered that, rather than being a man, as he suspected that I was from the way I looked—my callouses on my hands, and the way I handled myself, and my clothing—that I was only a fourteen-year-old kid, and if anybody found out about it he’d be in jail for life, or, at least in California twenty-three years in that period.

I’m telling you this story, and I’m saying it tonight, in memory of a man—all I can remember is that his name was Matt. And I send to all of you my love and deep affection for what you offer to the boys, in honor of this boy when he was fourteen, and when he needed to know best of all what only another gay man could show him and tell him.

I also would like to say at this point that it seems to me that in the gay community the people who should be running interference for NAMBLA are the parents and friends of gays. Because if the parents and friends of gays are truly friends of gays, they would know from their gay kids that the relationship with an older man is precisely what thirteen-, fourteen-, and fifteen-year-old kids need more than anything else in the world. And they would be welcoming this, and welcoming the opportunity for young gay kids to have the kind of experience that they would need.

So, again, as I said, my offering is not as a member of NAMBLA, but in memory of that fourteen-year-old boy who was handled by Matt so long ago. And in memorial to Matt, I offer you my love.

Harry Hay is one of the icons celebrated this month by GLBT History Month. His day was October 8th.

Obama: Prince of Peace?

President Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

OSLO – The Nobel Committee stunned the world today by awarding US President, Barack Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize.

Committee chair, Thorbjoern Jagland, said it was kind of a consolation prize since Chicago didn’t win the 2016 Olympic games.

“We just all felt sorry for Obama,” Jagland said. “He was all sad and stuff, you know, over the Olympic thing, so we thought it would be a nice pick-me-up.”

Hearing the news, Nobel Laureate, Al Gore said, “What the…? What has he done? At least I invented the Internet.”

The White House had no comment.

(The second part is lame parody; the first part, strangely, is not.)

UPDATE: Comedians give the event two thumbs up!

Best Obama-Nobel Jokes

October 09, 2009 10:09 AM

Courtesy of conservative activist Keith Appell:

Barack Obama’s Teleprompter: Big Guy says Bill Clinton called and was gracious in defeat; offered to fly Kanye West over 4 the Nobel awards ceremony.

Erick Erickson: Obama is becoming Jimmy Carter faster than Jimmy Carter became Jimmy Carter.

Ana Marie Cox: Apparently Nobel prizes now being awarded to anyone who is not George Bush.

Headline over AP analysis by White House correspondent Jennifer Loven: He Won, But For What?

Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review: I want to buy the world a coke.

Ezra Klein: Obama also awarded Nobel prize in chemistry. “He’s just got great chemistry,” says Nobel Committee.

Adam Bromberg, CRC: Nobel Prize Committee must be staffed by out of work comedy writers.

Kristina Hernandez, CRC: It was the Beer Summit that put Obama over the edge.

– George Stephanopoulos

Various Blog Additions:

Cecil: Miss America was robbed. She was for world peace way before Obama was for it.

Tony Ramirez: The Cook County Democratic machine ain’t what it used to be. They were supposed to bribe the Olympics Committee.

Mesquito: Was he, like, the tenth caller or something?

Ron: I thought I should have won, I haven’t fought with my wife in more than a year.

US Veteran: Obama Wins Heisman Trophy After Watching Football Game

Add Your Own!