CenterFeud

Obi-wan Lieberman

"If you strike me down, I will only become stronger." Barry Casselman has some thoughts on why a Lieberman defeat in today's primary will probably be good for Lieberman's stature -- and how it will force the Democratic party to make some hard choices:

In the worst case scenario, Mr. Lieberman could lose the November election. In that case, he becomes a profile in courage - as John F. Kennedy wrote about the bravest senators in history, and a martyr to Democratic Party extremism. He would replace Arthur Vandenberg as the modern symbol of American foreign policy bipartisanship, one of the nation's greatest political traditions. He would no longer be the footnote in political history as the first Jewish nominee for vice president; he would be remembered as well for something more important, a rare figure of guts and honesty in the history of the Senate. For a man at his age, this is not a small outcome.

More likely, Mr. Lieberman will be re-elected to the Senate as an independent. Although many of his colleagues, as well as former President Clinton, support him and have campaigned for him in the primary, most have indicated they will not support him if he loses the primary. This would result in Mr. Lieberman being a genuine independent in the Senate, beholden to no party and no set of ideas but his own.

The new Senate, by all accounts, is likely to be close to a tie. As a man free to go where his conscience leads him, Mr. Lieberman would often be pivotal vote. The new Sen. Lieberman would be able to speak out as he had not before. Remember, this man ran seriously for president in 2004. He did not come close to winning, but he is not without big ideas and goals.

The newest chemistry for an independent Sen. Lieberman would be his instant leadership nationwide of the political center. He was chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, an intellectually important but politically weak centrist organization. His new role would be of another political order.

Independent and centrist parties, already just beginning to spring up here and there in the country, would have someone to rally behind and speak for them. The chemistry of the 2008 election could be profoundly altered. I suspect it would not help the Democrats.

I think Casselman's second scenario is the most likely -- that Lamont will triumph in today's primary, and that Lieberman will flatten him in the general election in November, emerging as the new standard-bearer for independent centrists.

Reuters admits to faked photo of Beirut

First RatherGate, now ReutersGate. From Pajamas Media, whose co-founder Charles Johnson (of LGF fame) was instrumental in bringing both media scandals to light:

In an apology that should cast serious doubt on much of the credibility of the news service itself, Reuters has acknowledged that its war photography from Beirut had been altered and is officially withdrawing the photograph. In a carefully worded statement Reuters admitted that “photo editing software was improperly used on this image. A corrected version will immediately follow this advisory. We are sorry for any inconvience.”

Inconvenience? This display of media manipulation during wartime was uncovered by Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs who previously uncovered the forged memos of Rathergate. In the past, Reuters has often been accused of bias by the blogosphere, which the news agency has denied.

This clumsily doctored photo, which included cloned portions to "enhance" the smoke and destroyed buildings, is only the tip of a much larger iceberg, in which media outlets continue to live in denial regarding their role in the skillful propaganda war being waged by jihadist groups like Hezbollah, Hamas and Al-Qaeda. A recent example was CNN reporter Nic Robertson, who led his viewing audience through what he later admitted was a carefully staged Hezbollah propaganda piece.

No one is questioning the media's right to cover the destruction in Lebanon, and to provide the critical Lebanese perspective of the damage that is being wrought by Israel's attacks. But it is irresponsible to hand a megaphone to Hezbollah, or to report without establishing the motives of the people supplying the information. Part of Hezbollah's war-fighting strategy is to milk every possible casualty for its propaganda potential, and there is growing skepticism that some (certainly by no means all!) of the images of dead Lebanese civilans are manufactured or manipulated for consumption of both Arab and Western media. This technique of staging and manuipulating media imagery has been honed to an art form by Palestinian propagandists and was exposed in a 60-minutes segment titled "Pallywood".

It is certainly fair to point out that Israel's attacks are damaging civilian infrstructure and causing suffering and strife among the population, but not without noting that the airports, roads and bridges in question are targeted because they would otherwise be used by Syria and Iran to resupply Hezbollah.

It is also fair to say that Israel censors some of the reporting coming from its side of the border, but not without pointing out that such censorship is common in wartime, even among democracies, and is done to prevent disclosure of operational details that would damage the war effort and result in the loss of life -- and that Hezbollah exercises its own form of "censorship" by threatening the safety of those who might report less-than-favorably.

And it is fair to report the number of Lebanese civilans killed in the conflict, but not without mentioning that such casualties could be lessened if those civilans heeded the leaflets Israel drops as advance warning (not to mention that some of those casualties may in fact be Hezbollah fighters dressed as civilans). And, as has been noted elsewhere (but not repeated often enough in news reports), Israel regards civilan deaths as a tragic failure, while Hezbollah regards them as a victory.

All of the above factor into our understanding of the story and consequences of a victory by either Israel or Hezbollah (and by extension, its masters Syria and Iran). It is bad enough that the media reports the daily airstrikes and battles without supplying critical context; for it to rely on "journalists" who supply crudely doctored photos and act as shills for terrorist propaganda is unconscionable.

Cracking the code on Middle East coverage

Victor Davis Hanson offers a translation guide for the code phrases used by the press in its coverage of of the war between Israel and Hezbollah:

A “ceasefire” would occur should Hezbollah give back kidnapped Israelis and stop launching missiles; it would never follow a unilateral cessation of Israeli bombing. In fact, we will hear international calls for one only when Hezbollah’s rockets are about exhausted.

“Civilians” in Lebanon have munitions in their basements and deliberately wish to draw fire; in Israel they are in bunkers to avoid it. Israel uses precision weapons to avoid hitting them; Hezbollah sends random missiles into Israel to ensure they are struck.

“Collateral damage” refers mostly to casualties among Hezbollah’s human shields; it can never be used to describe civilian deaths inside Israel, because everything there is by intent a target.

“Cycle of Violence” is used to denigrate those who are attacked, but are not supposed to win.

“Deliberate” reflects the accuracy of Israeli bombs hitting their targets; it never refers to Hezbollah rockets that are meant to destroy anything they can.

“Deplore” is usually evoked against Israel by those who themselves have slaughtered noncombatants or allowed them to perish — such as the Russians in Grozny, the Syrians in Hama, or the U.N. in Rwanda and Dafur.

“Disproportionate” means that the Hezbollah aggressors whose primitive rockets can’t kill very many Israeli civilians are losing, while the Israelis’ sophisticated response is deadly against the combatants themselves. See “excessive.”

Anytime you hear the adjective “excessive,” Hezbollah is losing. Anytime you don’t, it isn’t.

There's more along these lines, leading to the question of why the coverage tends to stress Lebanese casualties and damage, while ignoring the fact that Hezbollah is committed to the destruction of Israel in the name of the same Islamist ideology that lies behind terrorist attacks around the globe. Yet Israel remains the blind spot. Why?

What explains this distortion of language? A lot.

First there is the need for Middle Eastern oil. Take that away, and the war would receive the same scant attention as bloodletting in central Africa.

Then there is the fear of Islamic terrorism. If the Middle East were Buddhist, the world would care about Lebanon as little as it does about occupied Tibet.

And don’t forget the old anti-Semitism. If Russia or France were shelled by neighbors, Putin and Chirac would be threatening nuclear retaliation.

But while it's useful for Hanson to point this out, this is old news. Europe long ago chose sides in the Arab-Israeli conflict, with even popular opinion in Britain largely critical of Israel's policies and actions. To some extent this was due to a tendency to see in Israel a reflection of Europe's own shameful colonialist history, and to a large extent it has to do with the continent's energy and economic ties to the Middle East. China and Russia are a different matter. In addition to economic interests in the region, they are still smarting from the defeat of Communism and the rising influence of the US, so will do anything to undermine its policy aims, including turning a blind eye to an increasingly belliigerent Iran.

We know this is the case. And we also know that this time no one can make the claim that the hostilities are about land. After all, Israel withdrew from Lebanon six years ago, uprooted its settlements from Gaza last Fall, and was on a course to withdraw from large parts of the West Bank. Rather than building on these actions as milestones towards a lasting peace, Hamas and Hezbollah are trumpeting them as proof of Israel's weakness and so are pressing the attack, believing they have Israel backed into a corner. That they don't care what happens to the innocent (and some not-so-innocent) civilians they hide among is reason to condemn these terrorist organizations, not those who are fighting them to defend their very existence.

Sadly, not so long ago it was not out of the question that Israel and Lebanon might have one day worked out a peace agreement, since Israel had demonstrated that it was willing to quit its occupation of Southern Lebanon. Unfortunately, the Lebanese government is divided and weak, and Hezbollah's influence was strong enough to drag that beautiful country into war.

So for those who are wondering about the prospects of restoring "stability" to this troubled region, here is a little reality check:

Israel will do whatever it must do to defend itself from a well-armed, highly discplined terrorist group that is ideologically committed to its destruction. Whatever the spin in the media, Israel has no choice.

Hezbollah will press forward at the behest of its sponsor, Iran and its surrogate Syria, who are determined at all costs to prevent the formation of stable democracies in either Iraq or Lebanon. Playing the Israel card through Hezbollah is a reliable way for Iran to rearrange the playing field more to its liking.

The EU and the UN will bleat on about the need for a cease-fire and an international solution, but are not willing to actually expose themselves to real danger, so they are not in a position to affect the situation on the ground. The UN fled Iraq after its headquarters was attacked, and the UN presence on the Lebanese border has merely given cover to Hezbollah. Any credible international force will have to include real soldiers who are willing to put themselves on the line to protect both Israel and Lebanon from Hezbollah.

The US will go along to an extent with the international call for a cease-fire, but refuse to broker one on terms favorable to Hezbollah. The Bush administration realizes that a "peace agreement" cannot be reached with a terrorist organization. Any agreements that are achieved will be made with the Lebanese government, not with its would-be puppet masters in Syria or Iran.

In the Arab and Muslim world, the steady stream of hateful anti-semitic rhetoric will continue unabated. Calls will issue forth for the "Zionist regime" to leave the field to the jihadists, but from their standpoint it will matter little what the Israelis do. If they defend themselves against and kidnapings, suicide bombings and rocket attacks, their response will be decried as beliigerent and "disproportionate"; and if they withdraw their forces or hunker down, they will be scorned by their enemies as weak, and so attacks against them will only mount, with deadlier weapons. The goal is nothing less than the eradication of Israel and the slaughter or ethnic cleansing of every Jew in the region to clear the way for a Taliban-style Islamist regime.

And sadly, the oh-so sophisticated and progressive Western press will cooperate - whether wittingly or unwittingly - in this shameful propaganda effort to demonize and deligitimize the Jewish state. It's up to the rest of us to keep Hanson's decoder ring close at hand.

"The highest form of a citizen"

Christopher Hitchens in the Wall St. Journal: "Memorial Day: Reflections on those who made the ultimate sacrifice":

Always think of it: never speak of it." That was the stoic French injunction during the time when the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine had been lost. This resolution might serve us well at the present time, when we are in midconflict with a hideous foe, and when it is too soon to be thinking of memorials to a war not yet won. This Memorial Day, one might think particularly of those of our fallen who also guarded polling-places, opened schools and clinics, and excavated mass graves. They represent the highest form of the citizen, and every man and woman among them was a volunteer. This plain statement requires no further rhetoric.

ASL Vlogging

You know videoblogging (aka vlogging) has really come into its own when you see Deaf vloggers like Joey Baer posting in ASL (American Sign Language) and linking to other vloggers for commentary and personal perspectives, also in Sign Language.

The focus of his blog is the current controversy at Gallaudet University in Washington DC, which is the only post-secondary liberal arts institution in the world specifically serving a deaf and hard-of-hearing student body (much like the role Howard University plays in the African-American Community).

For the uninitiated, some background: in 1988, Gallaudet's campus erupted in controversy as students protested the university Board of Trustees' decision to appoint a hearing administrator as President, bypassing a well-qualified deaf candidate, I. King Jordan. As a result of the protests (now known as the "DPN" movement for "Deaf President Now"), Gallaudet reversed course and appointed Jordan, who became the university's first deaf president. (To get a sense of the students' outrage, imagine the uproar if Howard University had since its inception consistently passed over African-Americans candidates to serve as its president).

Now, nearly 20 years later, a new controversy has erupted over Jordan's successor, Jane Fernandes who like Jordan is deaf but learned ASL as an adult. She is seen as problematic for reasons related both to cultural identity and the fairness of the selection process, as well as to assessments of overallcompetence. Go here for a side-by-side rendition of this argument in both English and ASL by Gallaudet faculty member Dr. Tom Holcomb:

Many of us do not see her as a leader. The first time many of us met her, we each walked away from the encounter harboring grave doubts about her abilities. So many of us did. You can go down the line. Each and every one of us have the same doubts. And we all love Gallaudet too much to accept this situation. We simply love Gallaudet too much.

Earlier this month, Protein Wisdom covered the controversy as a critique of identity politics. And got this comment from a deaf Gallaudet student, who echoes Holcomb's argument:

I know some do have the culturally deaf issue as a complaint, and I think it’s a poor one. I adhere to classical liberal values, and I would prefer that the best qualified person be picked for the presidency regardless of color, disability, religion, and so on. And while many of the protesters are of a liberal or Democratic mentality, which I’m not of, I also do know they’re focusing on the two demands reiterated above. Fringe elements of the protest are the ones pushing the culturally deaf issue.

The reason there is a protest against the selection of Fernandes is because she’s a poor academic administrator, and because the Board of Trustees did not listen to the protesters – the undergraduates, graduates, and faculty, in separate polls, voted overwhelmingly against her before the selection. In fact, it is now known that the Presidential Search Committee recommended someone else to the Board of Trustees.

The revival of the Deaf President Now controversy at Gallaudet, this time swirling around the twin issues of culture and competence, coincides with the spread of videoblogging as a phenomenon. It's an ideal medium for deaf bloggers and I hope to see more of it, even once the current controversy fades.

Bruce Bawer's wake-up call for the West

FrontPage Magazine has an excellent and thought-provoking interview with Bruce Bawer, author of While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within. Bawer, who is gay and had previously written Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity, had moved to Amsterdam in 1998, looking forward to living in a tolerant, secular country that embraced gay rights and other liberal values. Instead, he ran headlong into far more virulent form of fundamentalism:

Bawer: In 1998 I moved from New York, where I’m from, to Amsterdam. I loved the Netherlands – its tolerance, its secularism, its heritage of freedom and learning and culture. But in early 1999, living in a largely Muslim area called the Oud West, I saw another side of the Netherlands, and of Europe, that I hadn’t seen before, or even been particularly aware of. The Oud West seemed less a neighborhood than an enclave – a piece of another society that had been dropped down into the city and that lived apart from it and its values. Just to walk from downtown Amsterdam into the Oud West was to experience a staggering contrast.

I soon came to realize that Amsterdam wasn’t unique – virtually every major city in Europe had Muslim enclaves like this one. The people outside of them were living in a democracy, but the people in them were living in a theocracy, ruled by imams and elders who preached contempt for the host society and its values. They were against secular law, against pluralism, against freedom of speech and religion, against sexual equality. Husbands believed it was their sacred right to beat and rape their wives. Parents practiced honor killings and female genital mutilation. Unemployment and crime rates were through the roof.

Most remarkable of all, nobody was saying or doing anything about any of this. European politicians took a hands-off attitude. Journalists sang the praises of multicultural society. With very few exceptions, nobody in a position of authority seemed willing to stand up for basic democratic values.

Later in the interview, Bawer examines the dark side of European multiculturalism that has resulted in the emergence of fundamentalist Islamist enclaves in virtually every country on the continent. He contrasts it with the American ideal of assimilating immigrants into the larger society:

In Norway there’s a comedienne named Shabana Rehman whose parents brought her to Norway from Pakistan when she was a baby. On her website, she writes: “I speak strikingly good Norwegian. But most native Norwegians I meet wish that it was a little broken.” I’ve seen this attitude. Americans are delighted to hear immigrants speaking English. By contrast, many Norwegians are uncomfortable when they hear a Pakistani speaking Norwegian. One thing I still find remarkable in Norway is the frequency with which people use the expression “Like barn leker best.” It’s a very common expression and it means something like “Children play best with other children who are like themselves.” I’ve heard it being said a thousand times by people who think of themselves as devout multiculturalists.

The most successful immigrant group in the history of the world is American Jews. Why? Because they integrated enthusiastically into the mainstream of American society. They rejected the ghetto and embraced American pluralism. In Europe, this same eagerness to belong, to contribute, and to thrive – and not remain segregated and ghettoized – led to the Jews’ near-extermination. It seems to me that part of the reason why anti-Semitism is so widespread in Europe while Islam is often treated with kid gloves is that the European elite has a reflexive contempt for a group that blends in and a reflexive respect for a group that holds itself proudly apart and resists assimilation. That’s a formula for disaster.

Bawer's book is a compelling and disturbing read, and a wake-up call not only for Europe, but for the entire Western world.

(Hat tip: Roger L. Simon)

Reporting from Ramallah

Michael J. Totten continues to run rings around the MSM with his amazing reports on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His most recent post is from Ramallah, capital of Hamas-led Palestine, and it's not at all what he (or you) expected. He interviews a variety of Palestinians about Hamas' defeat of Fatah, the end of the intifada and the prospects for peace and a two-state solution. Even Palestinian legislator (and former spokesman) Saeb Erekat, whom in the past I have tended to view as a dissembling mouthpiece for the failed Arafat regime, comes off with surprising depth and not like the CNN soundbite I am accustomed to.

Totten is straightforward and disarming in his questioning, letting his subjects speak but not afraid to call them out if he thinks they are being disingenuous. He is not pretending to be unbiased - he is an American who has travelled throughout the Arab world and spoken to a wide range of people, both ordinary and extraordinary, all of whom have informed his opinions and impressions. He has sympathy for both sides and believes in a two-state solution, but no truck with Hamas, its support for terrorism, or its program of strict Islamic rule in Palestine, which is already seeing some backlash.

If you care at all about the fate of the Middle East and the prospects for reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians, you are missing a vital perspective if you are not reading Michael's reporting, which is entirely independent and reader supported. If you want a straightforward, no-nonsense reporter telling you what's really going on in the Middle East, you need to make his blog a regular stop.

The once and future quagmire

Military historian Victor Davis Hanson imagines (very convincingly) how World War II would have been reported if the media of that era were like our media today:

May 1, 1945—After the debacles of February and March at Iwo Jima, and now the ongoing quagmire on Okinawa, we are asked to accept recent losses that are reaching 20,000 dead brave American soldiers and yet another 50,000 wounded in these near criminally incompetent campaigns euphemistically dubbed “island hopping.”

Meanwhile, we are no closer to victory over Japan. Instead, we are hearing of secret plans of invasion of the Japanese mainland slated for 1946 or even 1947 that may well make Okinawa seem like a cake walk and cost us a million casualties and perhaps involve a half-century of occupation. The extent of the current Kamikaze threat, once written off as the work of a “bunch of dead-enders,” was totally unforeseen, even though such suicidal zealots are in the process of inflicting the worst casualties on the U.S. Navy in its entire history.

Worse still, our sources in the intelligence community speak of a billion-dollar boondoggle now underway in the American southwest. This improbable “super-weapon” (with the patently absurd name “Manhattan Project”—in the midst of a desert no less!) promises in one fell swoop to erase our mistakes and give us instant deliverance from our blunders—no concern, of course, for the thousands of innocents who would be vaporized if such a monstrous fantasy bomb were ever actually to work.

We are only now coming off even more terrible losses in Europe, after being surprised by a supposedly defeated enemy in the Ardennes where another 20,000 Americans were killed and another 60,000 wounded or missing—again, due to our continued strategic incompetence and abject intelligence failures. Macabre reports of American bazooka shells bouncing off German Tiger tanks and our Shermans ablaze like Ronson lighters have only now come to light as we plow the Belgium countryside for yet another new American war cemetery. Tragically, this is not the first, but the fourth year of this war, when victory rather than endless bloodshed has been long promised.

Hard to imagine actually winning such a war. And harder to imagine what there was to be gained by doing so. How will our attitudes about the first 21st century war appear several decades from now? In a recent widely-linked post, science fiction writer Dan Simmons conjures up a Time Traveler who tells us:

“Your enemies have gathered and struck and continue to strike and you, the innocents of 2006 and beyond, fight among yourselves, chew and rip at your own bellies, blame your brothers and yourselves and your institutions of the Enlightenment – law, tolerance, science, democracy – even while your enemies grow stronger.”

“How are we supposed to know who our enemies are?” I turned and growled at him. “The world is a complex place. Morality is a complex thing.”

“Your enemy is he who will give his life to kill you,” said the Time Traveler. “Your enemies are they that wish you and your children and your grandchildren dead and who are willing to sacrifice themselves, or support those fanatics who will sacrifice themselves, to see you and your institutions destroyed. You haven’t figured that out yet – the majority of you fat, sleeping, smug, infinitely stupid Americans and Europeans.”

Simmons vision of the unfolding "Century War" is harrowing, all the more because of it is suffused with a bitter nostalgia for our current era, wallowing in the luxuries of high-flown civil liberties debates. The Time Traveler knows that such liberties will soon be a distant memory in many parts of the world:

“At least understand that such decency goes away quickly when you are burying your children and your grandchildren,” rasped the Time Traveler. “Or watching them suffer in slavery. Ruthlessness deferred against totalitarian aggression only makes the later need for ruthlessness more terrible. Thousands of years of history and war should have taught you that. Did you fools learn nothing from living through the charnel house that was the 20th Century?”

And here we are, pondering whether Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's 18-page letter to President Bush is a "diplomatic opening" or in fact, as some experts warn, a pro-forma invitation to embrace Islam, a religious pre-requisite to open warfare. We shudder at the prospect of military strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities and instead attempt to rationalize living with a nuclear Iran capable of making good its threat to "wipe Israel off the map" and targeting Europe with its Shahab missiles. In the face of a genocidal madman who talks openly of ushering in an end-of-times religious war, we instead delberate on whether our own government is violating our privacy by trying to gather intelligence on jihadists already within our borders who may be preparing to wage that war against not our military but our civilian population centers.

Hanson's historical satire and Simmons' chilling history of the future are bookends of a cautionary tale about our own time, the war we find ourselves in, and the way we choose to see ourselves. Both deserve careful reading and consideration.

The (comforting) truth about US politics

In the Weekly Standard, of all places:

On the global political menu of ice cream flavors, if we called George W. Bush vanilla and Mahmoud Ahmadenijad New York Super Fudge Chunk (with extra nuts), our elections give Americans a choice between vanilla and French vanilla. Elections matter and ideas have consequences. But the American political system has already worked out the biggest questions--democracy, free market capitalism, individual rights, suffrage, etc. Even in the most polarized of times, the differences between the parties aren't so stark as to warrant a manning of the barricades. That's a very good thing.

Yes it is, and in spite of the bellyaching and alarmist notions about a looming Red/Blue Civil War (the topic of a recent novel by a Harvard professor) we're damned lucky.

Once upon a time, I bemoaned US politics as a sham because Democrats and Republicans were essentially two sides of the same coin (as my radical poli sci professor used to say), without the range of political thought that could be found in, say, Europe. Be careful what you wish for!

As of late, I have come to appreciate our "big tent" two-party system, even though I myself would like to see a centrist third party emerge (my ideal combo would be economically conservative, socially libertarian and unapologetically and non-selectively pro-freedom/human rights). It remains impossible to win elections by pandering to your base - you can start there but you have to convince the 60% of the electorate that falls somewhere in the middle that your party either has a better take on the state of the world, better policies, or a more inspiring leader.

The GOP did it in the 1980's by converting blue-collar voters into "Reagan Democrats" and Clinton did it in the '90s by taking up the cause of welfare reform, promoting a strong economy and balancing the budget (it didn't hurt that Ross Perot split the vote both times). And I am convinced Bush won in 2004, not by demonizing gay marriage (although that helped rally his base) but by convincing liberals like me (and Ed Koch, Martin Peretz and Roger L. Simon) that he understood the stakes in the long war against Islamofascism, while Kerry came off sounding like an American Neville Chamberlain.

And as Cliff May points out, even with today's "polarized electorate" and the current Republican monopoly on power, we don't have anyone in the mix here like London's mayor Ken Livingstone, who speaks favorably about people going to Iraq or Israel to become suicide bombers. No, instead we get as the warm-up for the 2008 presidential contest, Hillary Clinton infuriating her natural base with her triangulating on Iraq and John McCain taking heat from his own party for pushing campaign finance reform and questioning the Bush White House on its definition of "torture". Partisans may not like it, but in a sense, this is American politics at its best. As I've said in my initial post two years ago, the so called "Second Civil War" may be fought on the Left and Right, but it will be won in the Center.

Flying pig moment: MN GOP endorses openly gay state senator for re-election

Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Lori Sturdevant notes that openly-gay Republican Minnesota state senator Paul Koering has won his party's endorsement for re-election (after seven tortuous ballots):

You can tell a person by his friends," Koering told the 106 delegates to the Senate District 12 GOP convention, with a nod to the senators sporting Koering buttons. "I've got some great friends."

You also can tell a political party by the way it treats its Paul Koerings. Tuesday night, the stalwarts of Morrison and Crow Wing counties made their good state senator run a mean, seven-ballot gantlet. But in the end, they behaved like a political force that's serious about being this state's majority party, and endorsed Koering for a second term.

Important point: Koering himself would not care for the headline of this post. He is not running as a "gay Republican" - he is running as the senator who has represented the interests of Senate District 12, and his support is based on listening to his constituents. His sexual orientation is, in his view, irrelevant to the discussion.

Except that it's the elephant in the room in a roomful of elephants. As in 19 other states, social conservatives in the Minnesota GOP are pushing hard to amend the state constitution to prevent any possibility of same-sex marriage, or even its "legal equivalents" such as civil unions or domestic partner laws. So far, the state senate, dominated by the DFL (our Dems), has manuevered to defeat the amendment in the judiciary committee, preventing it from being placed on the ballot in the midterm election. This move was viewed by Republicans (including, notably, Koering) as preventing the people from having their say on this issue (Koering doesn't support the amendment but believes it should be it on the ballot as a matter of principle).

That nine of his fellow senators showed up at the District 12 Senate Caucus to endorse Koering speaks volumes to how well respected he is. It also, as Sturdevant points out, underscores that gay-bashing may not be a winner for the local GOP this Fall:

The back-of-the-room politicos at the VFW wondered: If these rural, mostly Catholic, mostly older Republicans can embrace a gay man as their senator, how will Bachmann's anti-gay-rights brand of social conservatism be received by a younger, more mixed crowd in the northern suburbs?

As an outright supporter of same-sex marriage, I am relieved that the amendment is not going to be on the ballot this fall. I acknowledge that a significant plurality, perhaps even a majority of Minnesotans, would like to see this put to the vote. And if the Minnesota GOP can gain a majority in the state senate this fall, I expect we'll see that vote - that's the policital process in action. But I am in no hurry. The proponents of the amendment don't link to the full text of the amendment, which reads (emphasis mine):

"Only the union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in the state of Minnesota. Any other relationship shall not be recognized as marriage or its legal equivalents."

It's those last four words, that make it a dealbreaker from my perspective. Like the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment during the 2004 election that never made it out of the Senate, the Minnesota amendment is discriminatory in nature. I would hope that my fellow Minnesotans, however they feel about the merits of broadening the concept of marriage, would not vote to deprive gay couples of any kind of legal protections or rights. I'd like to think that in a state where even conservative small town GOP caucus-goers are willing to endorse the gay senator who has worked hard for them, the voters would refuse to go along with this unnecessarily mean-spirited amendment.