HOW DO THEY DO IT? a vote for Bush is a vote for dope, guns, and fucking in the street...

How do the Rape-ublicans get gays to go along with them? Is it sort of the Michelle Malkin syndrome--have the person pimping against a cause be the kind of person who would be hurt by it?

So David Dreier is gay...I hate to say it, but I had no idea. He really is a slick politician--his confident, party-line-toeing appearances on "Hardball" always annoyed me, but you have to admit the guy comes across as charming, knowledgable, and highly partisan. It's just so great that Mr. California Republican has been outed. But will this make Republicans see how disgraceful their party is? Of course not.

Michelle Malkin Blows

Speaking of disgraceful Republicans, Michelle Malkin's appearance on BookTV today was awesome...protestors outside the building caused quite a stir...the best question from the audience was "In the unlikely event that the U.S. goes to war with the Philippines, would you advocate rounding up and imprisoning Filipino-Americans (which is what Malkin is)?"

She wrinkled her brow in that way that she does quite often that makes her come off as really angry and sarcastically said "Yeah, if the 9/11 hijackers had been short Filipino women, then I'd volunteer..." or something to that effect. As if the question was so outrageous that it isn't even worth considering. Then she continued with a sarcastic, dismissive "PLEASE!! That is so ridiculous!"

Except that that question goes directly to the heart of what is wrong with her argument and what was wrong with the Japanese internment in the first place. And her argument is, OTHER people are bad and should be hounded by the police and locked up and beaten and interrogated. But when she is asked to consider a hypothetical situation in which she would be seen as the "other," it's absurd, impossible, and not worth a moment's consideration.

And what was wrong with the Japanese internment in the first place? Malkin cited the existence of many Japanese double agents working in America, and yada, yada, yada. Were there no German double agents or Italian double agents? We declared war on those countries as well--why didn't we imprison all the German and Italian immigrants?

Well, the obvious answer is because German and Italian immigrants are white (or could pass) while Japanese immigrants are very noticeably different and it allowed the government at the time to say, "Look, we're doing everything to protect you" even though they were rounding up the German and Italian double agents. That's the problem--Malkin's argument is based solely on race/ethnicity. She also blew off a question about Timothy McVeigh and why radical whites weren't rounded up after Oklahoma City.

Malkin and Dowd and "Civil Rights Absolutists"

Anyway, Malkin is also laughable because she wants to be Maureen Dowd so badly that Malkin brought Dowd's name up time after time. Everything bad in Malkin's world seems to come from Maureen Dowd. She's kinda like Jan Brady--it's always "Maureen, Maureen, Maureen!"

Malkin just needs to break down and ask Dowd out. Enough of this stalking Michelle! Just let Maureen know how you really feel...

Oh yeah, and everything bad not spewing forth from Maureen Dowd (which granted, is almost everything) comes from the ACLU. Malkin disparaged "civil rights absolutists" a few times during her talk, with her commentary adopting a leftist feel--talking about how kids aren't taught the real truth in school (about Japanese internment) and how she has "unpopular ideas" and how you'd think at Berkeley they'd understand what a "liberal education" was all about.

But isn't America founded on "civil rights absolutism?" I mean rhetorically, of course, given that the poor, women, slaves, etc. didn't have the same civil rights as rich white men for hundreds of years. But in principle--"all men are created equal," "the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, etc.--aren't those indicative of a strong commitment to civil liberties? The right to be free from unreasonable searches, the right to a speedy trial, the right to not have to testify against yourself, the right to not have to endure cruel and unusual punishment--don't these all suggest "absolutes" of civil liberties?

And people like Malkin and crazy right-wingers who suggest that in "this post-September 11 world" we'll all have to sacrifice some of our civil liberties are the real enemy. They would rather that this country go on intimidating the world, pre-emptively starting wars at our whim, and taking what we want when we want it from anyone in the world. These policies are why Sept. 11 happened in the first place, and don't let anyone tell you any different.

But rather than address these root causes (which are but a few), she'd rather deny U.S. citizens their rights to allow the corporatists to ravage the rest of the world when maybe a better thing for everybody would be to change our foreign policy so that people in other countries have no motivation to attack us, and then no one would have to try to curtail anyone's civil rights.