from emails and comments.

1. why do you hate the instapundit?

i like glenn, i have said that many times on this blog. i have met him, i have emailed him, i read his blog several times a day.

i have also criticized him several times just this month, and last month, and even way back in may.

so all those people in the comments who are today saying that they’ve read me for a long time and are now never going to read me again, you lie. what i wrote yesterday was nothing new.

and you’ll be back.

2. what right do you have to tell other bloggers what to do?

i dont think im *telling* anyone what to do, any more than glenn or any critic of john kerry *tells* the dems what to do. but as a fellow blogger it’s not only my right to criticize anything, but particularily things on the blogosphere and bloggers themselves. infact i might ask you, who better to question the way someone blogs than another blogger?

and who better than someone who has read the blog in question for years?

and who better to know what the most prolific blogger ever has left out than one of the most prolific readers, and fans, of his blog?

3. you are only on glenn’s ass because he’s a republican.

you can either choose to believe me or not believe me, but i couldnt care less about instapundit’s politics.

i like blonde girls and redheads, all i ask is that theyre really blonde or really redhead, and they really are girls. and if theyre not really those things that they tell me that theyre really not those things. in any relationship i dont think its unusual to ask for a certain amount of disclosure and truth.

i ask the same from the blogs that i read: be real, tell the truth, play fair.

4. you act as if there are rules to blogging. glenn can do anything he wants, its his blog!

instapundit knows as well as anyone that there are definately some unspoken rules to blogging. as he said yesterday regarding george soros’s blog, it’s not cool to delete things, for example.

when most of us add to blog posts, as another example, its generally a rule to not an addition with an “Update:”

likewise, i think it’s not cool to be a blog that has 99% pro-bush commentary and links and not identify yourself as a bush-backer or … omg… a republican.

5. anyone who reads instapundit.com for a day can clearly see that glenn is a republican, why are you trying to out him? that’s like making castro admit that he’s a commie. what gives?

you’d think that would be the case, but even after all this bruhaha for some reason, the professor, the world greatest and most popular blogger, refuses to call himself a republican. why is he ashamed to align himself with the grand old party, when he clearly supports them and derives a majority of his hits from blogs that are unabashedly conservative is beyond me.

maybe he feels uncomfortable publicly aligning himself with the party of rush, fox news, matt drudge, pat robertson, and george bush. but his links and posts say otherwise.

6. why are you now upset that he says he is not partisan? will you never be satisfied? the blogfather acknoweledged your petty complaints, isnt that good enough? why must you continue to beat a dead horse?

true, in his update he denies being partisan.

what then would you call a blog who has 150 links to pro-bush articles and blogs for ever one minor disagreement with the adminstration over secondary topics that few are debating about?

par·ti·san (pärt-zn)

n.

A fervent, sometimes militant supporter or proponent of a party, cause, faction, person, or idea.

adj.

Devoted to or biased in support of a party, group, or cause

is thirty posts a day fervent? and he himself today said that he was biased, so what part of these definitions is prof. reynolds not partisan?

and, by the way, there is nothing wrong with being partisan. i love james carvelle and bill clinton. i love pat buchannan and john mccain. theyre all partisan, and they not only admit it, but are also secure in claiming their allegence to their party. theyre not ashamed.

im a partisan tsar fan. you will never read a negative review of my favorite band. my metafilter username is tsarfan. i have had their cd cover on the top of my blog ever since ive had this blog. why would i be ashamed to call myself a tsarist?

but for some reason glenn doesnt want to admit to the world that hes a republican or partisan. and thats cool. he has his reasons.

but that doesnt mean that i cant invite him to have a better blog. just like theres nothing stopping any of you from doing the same for any blogger.

7. you’re only doing this for hits. you’re jealous of his hits. you’re only trying to cause controversy where there is none.

as someone else said in the comments, it’s blogger-sucide to take on the instapundit. how do you tell a guy like glenn, who, if he takes it the wrong way, will never link to you again, and you will miss out on that blessed instalanche? or those steady streams of instalanches, if you play your cards right.

but since ive gotten over a million page views a year in each of the last two years with no instalanches, and since im more than satisfied with my readership (which is far more popular and respected than most personal blogs that only dabble in politics and is mostly about LA, girls, and fiction), i might be the only blog who could question glenn without fear of being shut out from his attention/links.

8. why are you suddenly coming out against the instapundit?

as i said above, this isnt new. i’ve had my issues with glenn’s style for a while.

in fact, all of this started because i asked jeff jarvis in his comments why he was harshing on jon stewart for hiding behind his “dont attack me, i’m doing a comedy show” when he has never harshed on instapundit for hiding behind his “dont attack me, im not a news service, i dont have to say bush fucked up if i dont want to.”

if you dont want bloggers to check and balance each other, who do you want to do it? the fucktwits who write for newspapers?

when ken layne said that we can fact check your ass, didnt he mean everyones ass?

and i think we can all agree that our asses are better for this practice.

i dont think its wrong to wish aloud for a better instapundit.com, in my opinion theres nowhere else that i want to get my republican point of view from. and yes, i do want to hear that point of view.

i want to read it from intelligent people who arent just feeding me propaganda bullshit, and if possible, i would like to know how they really feel about it, and not predictable throwaway bs line like whoops guess kerry flip flopped again tee hee.

because of that i dont read kos or lgf or any of those others regularily, because just like in diving matches, you have to throw out the highest and lowest scores.

i dont want to throw out the instapundit because he didnt always only give 10’s to bush and didnt always only give 0’s to the dems.

9. admit it, youre jealous of his hits.

trust me, i am not jealous of his hits. not at all. good for him. hot shot political blogs with thirty posts a day should get a zillion hits a day, because at that rate, hate to say it, it is a news service of sorts. not to knock his fabulous life or writing skillz but i dont think people are going to his blog hourly for all those great pics of the ut campus.

theyre there for the politics, and they should be. half of whats going on in the political world is halfway covered.

1/4 of all you need to know you can find at one spot.

for free.

maybe thats all im looking for, a disclaimer that says

1/4 of whats happening in politics: the good news of the republican party.

if he doesnt want to put that disclaimer in there, fine. then just be better.

as a reader and a fellow blogger i can ask for a better product. similiarily he can chose to refuse to bring one.

10. I once made the mistake of putting my real e-mail address into a comments thread on a blog. I didn’t even post any thing incindiary (it was an arts and music blog for goodness sake), and that e-mail wound up on so many spam lists thanks to the bots that I had to discontinue using it. So, no thanks, I’ll decline.

as many of my readers know, i am particularily suspicious of anonymous negative commentors. i understand the fear of spam but i think its a lame excuse. nothing is stopping you from having a spam account on hotmail or yahoo or even gmail (heck i will even send you an invite if you want one.)

make your email address your real name like TonyPierce@gmail.com – if that account gets slammed with spam, who cares. what youre doing is identifying yourself with your comments.

this whole debate about the instapunidt is about integrity, believablity, and credibility.

the irorny of anonymous commentors who are obviously educated hiding behind the excuse of spam during a debate about credibility is laughable.

for the record i comment all over the web using several email addresses and i get some amount of spam, but not anything unmanageable, mostly because i leave my email address like this: busblog(at)gmail.com

it fools most of the bots you are concerned about.

11. The ENTIRE point of blogs is being the boss and controlling content. Instapundit isn’t under any obligations to anybody, neither are you. Glenn is up front about his point of view, and he articulates what many people believe. He also shares information/commentary that I find a great deal more credible than any of the large newspapers.

credibility is what this is all about. personally i have a hard time finding someone credibile who Only covers the negative side of one party and Only covers the positive side of the other. glenn wasnt always that way. if you think that his coverage is more credible than “any of the large newspapers” thats your opinion, but its a curious one.

and for the record, it wasnt until yesterday that glenn was up front about his point of view, and it was only after months of me posting about it on this blog, in emails to him, and in the comments section of a third blog. it is simply not true that he has been up front about his point of view, in fact he still refuses to be upfront about several aspects of his point of view.

12. I find it odd that you’d attack instapundit for being a Bush buttboy yet you leave poor “screw ’em” KOS alone. Aren’t his traffic numbers similarly high and isn’t he even more of a partisan than Glenn Reynolds? I think he is.

you guys on the right have sure taken ownership of that buttboy word, havent you?

i leave poor kos alone because i dont read him regularily. i have nothing personal against kos, but in a way i find his site unnecessary to me. i dont need the daily kos to tell me the faults of the president. all i have to do is listen to the things mr. bush says.

if i want intelligent bush bashing i need to look no further than metafilter, who not only bash wonderfully but provide links, self-criticism and opposing views (though not nearly enough, im sure even they will admit).

i agree with you that kos and glenn have equal amount of hits. but i would disagree with your assertion that one is *more* partisan than the other. in my opinion one is more comfortable with his partisanship than the other.

13. Ye gods, such hatred… Quite honestly, one of the reasons I am turned off by the left in general is that I see a lot of this hatred throughout it these days. My friends, especially (I’m from Chicago). Hatred hasn’t really helped anything, ever, just made people angry at each other.

You can disagree with technique and not hate. For the last time, I don’t hate Glenn Reynolds. He has done a lot for the blogosphere. When he is interviewed on tv on national shows he represents blogging in a professional respectable way.

My fear is if anyone went to his site after one of his appearances they might get the wrong impression that all bloggers are so blatantly one-sided while pretending to be partisan – and thus the credibilty of blogging/bloggers vanish.

But personally as a reader I would like for him to either be more fair in his posts or more clear in his bias. One can ask for these things without hating.

As the kids say, i have nothing but love for the blogfather, which is why i am willing to take the criticism that i have taken to get my point across to my favorite blogger.

next to raymi

and flagrant. 🙂

14. The constant sniping at Instapundit is pretty boring by this point. I think we all know how you feel and I don’t think you have anything new to say about him that you haven’t already said 20 times before. Unlike some of the other haters in these comments, I’m going to keep reading you no matter what because I’m fascinated by your passion and unique writing style. But the constant attacks on Glenn don’t seem to serve any purpose besides your own catharsis. I don’t think he or his readers give a shit what you think, and I’m pretty sure most of your readers are past the point of giving a shit about your opinions of IP.

but alas it did serve a purpose. before yesterday glenn hasn’t come right out and professed his bias. nor has he claimed to be non-partisan.

im sorry if you are bored with my criticisms but i think ive mixed it up with a variety of topics over the months that ive been critical of the instapundit.

i think the comments here, over at the buzzmachine, and the actions of glenn prove that they do care about what i am saying. they might not all be in total agreement, but even jeff jarvis himself today said that he believes that bloggers should be honest to their readers:

I think that blogs should admit their bias; they should set the example for transparency. Even though it was quite evident that Glenn was voting for Bush, it’s good he said so today.

so i gave him a link to the honest bloggers quiz, perhaps he will take it.

that I would have liked to have seen in Glenn’s disclaimer

4. Don’t expect me to ever tell the truth about the current administration. When they are wrong, fuck up, or have bad days I will bury it because if I don’t the republic might fall.

5. If you don’t share my political beliefs don’t expect me to link to you, even if I am writing about you directly.

6. Even if I make 30 posts in a day about the alleged biases and failings of newspapers, candidates, or journalists, don’t expect me to ever write about the alleged biases and failings of right-wing bloggers or the administration.

7. I don’t have comments because I don’t like people reminding me of my shortcomings.

8. I have never seen a slam on the Dems that I haven’t liked or linked.

9. I am happy with this war, this president, the debates, the lack of weapons of mass destruction in iraq, the lack of troops in afghanistan, the US economy over the last four years, and the gas prices here in the states.

10. I’m not interested in being anything more than a tool for the right and an echo of their propaganda.

11. I am proud of the fact that I am less-balanced than Matt Drudge.

12. Even though I am an intelligent, capable, young law professor at a major university, I would rather not use any of those skills to actually bring about real debate or analysis to this incredibly interesting political race – instead I would rather stay partisan and ignore anything that is in opposition to what I believe.

13. There is nothing that George Bush could have done this term, other than pandering to France, that would have moved me to vote for Kerry.

14. I don’t care about George Bush’s military record, but I care deeply about Kerry’s.

15. Dan Rather used inaccurate documents and I was on his ass post after post for weeks even though he apologized five days later. President Bush sent us to war over inaccurate information and even though tens of thousands of people died over it and it sent our economy into a tailspin I refuse to criticize him for it, even though he has never apologized.

16. It took a comment on someone else’s blog to get me to be upfront to my readers about *some* of my intentions and behaviors, but Lord knows this disclaimer will be buried in the archives within days, and next week newcomers to my blog will continue to think that I am not as slanted as I know myself to be, and finally declared today.

17. I secretly love the busblog and if he were a right wing tool i’d be linking his black ass as much as i link all the other mini-limbaughs.

18. The right need a warm n fuzzy blog of good news and only good news and Instapundit.com will never let them down.

19. I am a Republican.

oliver willis + hit & run + chokey chicken + kyle bunch

and karisa wants me to have a birthday party at my hollywood hills cabana.

she knows i dont like having parties at my place, but like any good friend, she wants me to break out of whatever weird shells i have.

so i am agreeing to meet her half way. tell me what you think.

if im going to have a party, i want it to be the sort of party that i would want to be at.

i want to have a catholic girl skirt party.

im pretty sure miss montreal will come, my truest will come, maybe we can get danielle up for it, and karisa since shes the ringleader will be there.

hopefully my dearly beloved will be there, moxie, although shes probably going door to door trying to get people to promise to re-elect bushie.

and of course my lawyer, fellow libra, will attend. and i can hand over her birthday present.

would kitty bukkake be there? we could only hope.

but the question is, do i make the fellas wear skirts too?

id be funny, but gross at the same time.

if coulter comes, you know he’d wear one even if it wasnt a theme party. fckr.

do i really wanna see mc brown in a skirt?

or basart?

i would want to see hezekiah in one, all 6’8″ 300lbs of him.

and you know some jackass is gonna make me wear one. and since i have beautiful legs of course i would accept the challenge.

and i want to invite my neighbors over, since they were nice enough to relinquish my parking spot back to me.

and i want to get tiffany over before she heads out to italy.

and i want to drain the remains of all that absinthe you see littering up my tidy apartment.

but i hate hosting my own parties. how do you tell people to get the fuck out when you want to go to sleep?

and then theres the cleaning the next day…

and the teens littering the bathroom floor the next day

and the cigarette butts in the full opened bottles of coors light.

ug.

so yes, its decided, the only thing that would convince me to host my own birthday party would be a tsar acoustic set, and all the babes in catholic skirts

welch and the boys included.

guinness and poker + aaron clemens + raymi + happy birthday umar

the film, has an extended remix rough cut

that you can now view, and i hope you do

more cursing, more actors, more lines from the original blog post

(click the link next to the !!!!!!’s)

with no hot chick next to me, with no cool job to go into, with no real life to slip away in

and i think, yeah but you had a good weekend

in san diego

with danielle.

miss montreal was out of town and she told me i could use her honda element. i said, can i take it down to diego? she said, as long as thats as south as you go.

she knows i cant stand san diego and i love meh-he-ko.

ah fish tacos and cerveza.

so friday night right after work i took the ten to the four oh five and i sped down the coast to the new home of our miss danielle who lives in the gay part of san diego.

which is something that hot girls tend to do, im noticing, since its usually nice, and clean, and safe.

danielles place is cool. she has decorated it wonderfully. i will have more pictures later.

i got there around 9:45pm and the plan was to see Matt and Trey’s new puppet movie “Team America”.

So we sped over to the mall next to Hotel Circle and it was sold out, so we went to the mall next to that mall and it was playing at 10:30 and 10:45. you know how i hate san diego, but i gotta tip my hat to them for that one.

we saw the film, it was good, not great great, but good.

problem is, despite the numerous good jokes – numerous – you end up not liking any of the characters. its weird. the puppetry is awesome. they even make fun of the genre a lot. the songs are great. the story isnt bad. but for some reason the thrill is gone about half way though.

hard to explain.

someone called it the best crappy movie ever.

rocky horror gets that award, plus this wasnt crappy. it was good. they just needed something in the middle to make it better. i dont know what. but something.

reading the interviews with trey and matt they pretty much hated the process, which ballooned the costs up to $30 mil. but im glad they did it and it was a fun friday night film for she and i to see.

we stayed up late reading some of the crazy emails that i have in my gmail account.

in the morn we ate at this bread place and went shoe shopping.

i miss danielle. i forgot how great we get along together. its freaky.

and this morn i have to return the car and go back to my dumbass life.

i cant say that i like san diego any better after this trip, but at least i have one more friend there that i can call if im ever on my way to baja.

btw, we used gmail on her mac laptop, i was under the impression that it didnt work on macs.

interesting.

danielle + panama jane + heroine girl

and calls bullshit on “crossfire”.

some excerpts:

STEWART: I made a special effort to come on the show today, because I have privately, amongst my friends and also in occasional newspapers and television shows, mentioned this show as being bad.

—

STEWART: See, the thing is, we need your help. Right now, you’re helping the politicians and the corporations. And we’re left out there to mow our lawns.

PAUL BEGALA, CO-HOST: By beating up on them? You just said we’re too rough on them when they make mistakes.

STEWART: No, no, no, you’re not too rough on them. You’re part of their strategies. You are partisan, what do you call it, hacks.

—-

TUCKER CARLSON (CO-HOST) : Is (Kerry) the best the Democrats can do?

STEWART: Is he the best the Democrats can do?

CARLSON: Yes, this year of the whole field.

STEWART: I had always thought, in a democracy — and, again, I don’t know — I’ve only lived in this country — that there’s a process. They call them primaries.

CARLSON: Right.

STEWART: And they don’t always go with the best, but they go with whoever won. So is he the best? According to the process.

CARLSON: Right. But of the nine guys running, who do you think was best. Do you think he was the best, the most impressive?

STEWART: The most impressive?

CARLSON: Yes.

STEWART: I thought Al Sharpton was very impressive.

(LAUGHTER)

STEWART: I enjoyed his way of speaking.

I think, oftentimes, the person that knows they can’t win is allowed to speak the most freely, because, otherwise, shows with titles, such as CROSSFIRE.

BEGALA: CROSSFIRE.

STEWART: Or “HARDBALL” or “I’m Going to Kick Your Ass”

—–

STEWART: Here’s just what I wanted to tell you guys.

CARLSON: Yes.

STEWART: Stop.

(LAUGHTER)

STEWART: Stop, stop, stop, stop hurting America.

BEGALA: OK. Now

STEWART: And come work for us, because we, as the people…

CARLSON: How do you pay?

STEWART: The people — not well.

(LAUGHTER)

BEGALA: Better than CNN, I’m sure.

STEWART: But you can sleep at night.

——

CARLSON: Kerry won’t come on this show. He will come on your show.

STEWART: Right.

CARLSON: Let me suggest why he wants to come on your show.

STEWART: Well, we have civilized discourse.

——

BEGALA: Let me get this straight. If the indictment is — if the indictment is — and I have seen you say this — that…

STEWART: Yes.

BEGALA: And that CROSSFIRE reduces everything, as I said in the intro, to left, right, black, white.

STEWART: Yes.

BEGALA: Well, it’s because, see, we’re a debate show.

STEWART: No, no, no, no, that would be great. I would love to see a debate show.

BEGALA: We’re 30 minutes in a 24-hour day where we have each side on, as best we can get them, and have them fight it out.

STEWART: No, no, no, no, that would be great. To do a debate would be great. But that’s like saying pro wrestling is a show about athletic competition.

—-

STEWART: Now, this is theater. It’s obvious. How old are you?

CARLSON: Thirty-five.

STEWART: And you wear a bow tie.

CARLSON: Now, come on.

STEWART: Now, listen, I’m not suggesting that you’re not a smart guy, because those are not easy to tie.

CARLSON: They’re difficult.

STEWART: But the thing is that this — you’re doing theater, when you should be doing debate, which would be great.

STEWART: It’s not honest. What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery. And I will tell you why I know it.

CARLSON: You had John Kerry on your show and you sniff his throne and you’re accusing us of partisan hackery?

STEWART: Absolutely.

CARLSON: You’ve got to be kidding me. He comes on and you…

STEWART: You’re on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls.

—–

CARLSON: You’re much funnier on your own show.

STEWART: You know what’s interesting, though? You’re as big a dick on your show as you are on any show.

full transcript + mtv covered it immediately + see the video + salon covered it + alleged audience members comment

1. We know that you started the busblog when you began working at the xbi, but what led you to start a blog as opposed to another form of release (i.e. alcoholism…Bukowski)?

A. im sure if they put a six pack of beer on my desk at the xbi i would have definately turned to a life of drink, instead they put a computer there with high speed internet access.

the question is, what would have happened if my job would have blocked access to blogger.com (shivvers)

either way i went to college for english, i graduated with a lit degree from the college of creative studies, and i wrote two-three stories a day for the daily paper for years – i was born to blog.

2. What satisfactions do you get out of your blogging, and would those change is your readership increased/decreased?

A. any time you write something good and you know in your heart its good it should bring about a pleasant feeling inside. that happens to me at least once a week and sometimes more. also when im in the moment of writing i laugh out loud even if what im writing isnt necessarilly funny.

neither of those has to do with readership. writers should seek pleasure simply from the writing itself.

however.

it is always thrilling when poeple fill up the comments with praise. im always really happy when people email me with nice words or say nice things in their blogs about me. especially when they say im their hero or other mind-blowing things like that. but even if i had no readers i would be writing.

3. Do you have a favorite subject to write about (girls, politics, the xbi, etc.)

A. if i could, i would start every blog post with “I …” but that would be tedious on the readers – who are there and shouldnt be entirely ignored. and if i would allow myself to i would only write about women, dating, love, and fucking. but i would hate to be pigeonholed.

therefore this year i have written more about poltics than ever before, despite the complaints of some of my readers. however, i think i have grown as a writer because of this practice. unfortunately it also increased my hits. so there are people who do respond when i write about that stuff.

4. How much of the busblog is actually true?

A. thats a great question.

5. What inspires and drives you to blog multiple times a day?

A. im totally addicted. i saw a tv show where they talked about people who were addicted to drugs. one woman said, “when i have it i want it, when i dont have it i think about how i can get it. when i am running out i think about how i can get more.” i can totally relate regarding blogging. my head has about 5x more ideas than i have time to blog. in a perfect world i would blog 10 times a day.

6. Why do you think blogging is becoming so popular so fast?

A. because real life stories written by real people are always far more interesting than fiction written by fakers. which of course is why i write so much fiction on the busblog.

7. What do you think is the future of blogging?

i see it spreading around more places than just the us, canada, and the uk. i know (and like) some of the int’l bloggers who are out there, but i can’t wait to see more of them.

its sad that it took this fucked up “war” to get people interested in the iraqi bloggers, but blogging is capable anywhere with internet access.

everyone has stories to be written down. the beauty of blogging is if you consistently write good stories eventually you will become more popular. this wasnt the case a few years ago when you would have had to get an agent, a book deal, and distrubition – and even then you still might not have gotten read by the average person.

i also expect to see more people learning how to use video editing software so that they can expose lying liars through their own words via video like what jim gilliam is doing to o’reilly.

and i also predict more big time web sites like espn, mtv, playboy, maxim, rollingstone, and maybe even the white house to have blogs written by their staff or by bloggers who are hired specifically to blog.

hint hint mr kerry.

saidy has the best video of jon stewart + tiffany + ken layne was in an article

my millionth pageview of the year yesterday

thank you from all of us at the busblog

and im on my way to the doctor for some physical therapy, so i will make this short.

last night karisa and i did laundry. over the years she has become increasingly less interested in taking pictures.

god only knows why.

i see her so infrequently though that i find it necessary to sneak a few pics out of her so i hope she understands.

we’re both getting old. i was rubbing my hands and arms, she was rubbing her neck due to a pinched nerve. there was a time when we were indestructable rock gods, but now we’re just simply old.

but we will rock for you one day, america.

trust me.

as we did our laundry we talked about many things as we watched most extreme elimination on the spike channel.

we debated the debates and she suprised me on the controversy surrounding her boy kerry who got some heat yesterday for bringing up the fact that dick cheneys daughter is a lesbian.

karisa thought it was in bad taste, and thought that edwards shouldnt have mentioned it in his debate either.

she believes that peoples family should be off-limits as far as debates go

even if their parents are hypocrites and try to pass constitutional ammendments that would limit their gay and lesbian children’s rights.

i took the stance that everything is fair game, especially when the child in question is an adult, out, and working for her father’s re-election campaign.

i believe that ms. cheney is probably happy that her rights are being debated, and since she is out, and unashamed about her sexuality, is worth whatever privacy she has lost personally to ensure that millions of americans will be treated as equally as the rest of the nation.

karisa wasnt buying it.

i wanted to show her what someone on the GayPatriot‘s comments section typed regarding the controversy:

I think the reason why Kerry brought up Cheney’s daughter is because the President had just sat there and said he did not know if [being gay] is a choice or not, he evidently has no thought on whether people choose to be gay or not…yet his right arm has a daughter, who has been very supportive and active in their campaign. So if he cared about the issue or about whether someone who is gay has a choice to be otherwise, why not ask a person who has been very active in your campaign?

I think Kerry was showing that the President was skirting the issue and has no excuse to skirt the issue. Mary Cheney is an openly gay woman who works for the campaign. She is fair play in my book. Besides the fact that Kerry made not ONE negative reference to her.

For the Republicans to construe it as distasteful merely shows their true feelings about the fact she’s a lesbian in the first place. As if by mentioning she is a lesbian has a negative impact. If it does, well then that shows the ignorance of the American people who evidently do think gays have a choice to be other than what they are.

As Lynne said, if it’s a cheap shot to praise her daughter for being honest about who she is, then that evidently shows what they think about who their daughter is.

Could he have avoided mentioning her? Sure, but the fact is the Bush Administration has been proactive about making gays an issue in this campaign and so if they are going to wage that war, their side is fair game as well.

I wish Kerry had gone where he should have gone and asked the President point blank why he would deny the Vice President’s daughter the right to receive benefits of marriage. Bush’s only argument was gays are deserving of respect. He made NO MENTION of whether they deserve any RIGHTS or BENEFITS in their decision to enter into a commitment with one another.

Yes, we all know on the issue of marriage, Kerry has the same view that it is between a man and a woman. The difference is that he at least speaks about the fact that they should NOT be denied the basic rights that every straight couple receives automatically when married. I’m sorry but on that point, Kerry spoke far more admirably on the issue.

Bush was the condescending one, saying we deserve respect no matter what relationships we enter into…as if there is something inherently wrong with those relationships to begin with. He completely avoided the question by saying he did not know if it was a choice.

if i was Kerry i would have answered the question thusly:

Q. Do you think homosexuality is a choice?

A. Ask the governor of New Jersey if he would have chosen to be a gay american while in office, I bet he would say no. Ask the vice president’s daughter if she could have picked a more convienent time to be a lesbian. As a straight man I can only speculate, but I would assume that if it was a choice when people could be gay they would only be gay on vacation or in a friendly country like canada.

andrew sullivan’s take + sk smith + zulieka

but truth be told it sort of fell in his lap.

gilliam, the co-producer of the scandalous Outfoxed, the documentary about the alleged republican favoritism of Fox News Channel. Its best moments, in my opinion was when they were exposing FNC’s biggest draw, Bill O’Reilly.

since gilliam had access to more Factor than is probably good for ones mental health, he was able to put together a cleverly done quicktime fisking if the need came up.

When O’Reilly was slapped yesterday with a $60 million sexual harrasment lawsuit after forcing a producer to listen to his sexual advice exploits and exaggerations,

the last person he wanted to have some free time would be jim gilliam

internet superstar

coproducer of the doc aimed right at him

who just happens to be sitting on hours and hours and hours of o’reilly being o’reilly.

enjoy the majesty.