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(Cartoon by Tom Tomorrow, used w/out permission)
Dan Savage is disappointed.
As well he might be. A prominent GLBT advocate, writing in The Advocate, Savage provides a snarkily inflected list of all the ways that Obama has let down the GLBT community: Remember when he practically spooned Melissa Etheridge during the Logo-Human Rights Campaign debate? Remember when he positioned himself to the left of Hillary Clinton on the Defense of Marriage Act? While Clinton came out in favor of a partial repeal, Obama said he favored -- and would fight for -- a complete repeal, and described DOMA as "abhorrent." Good times, good times.hen there was Barack Obama's open letter to the gay community. "Equality is a moral imperative," candidate Obama wrote, before reiterating his promise to repeal DOMA. He also promised to end "don't ask, don't tell," to pressure Congress to pass the Matthew Shepard hate-crimes act, and to lift the HIV travel ban. And then this line in particular jumped out at me, as it must have for other gay parents: "As your President, I will use the bully pulpit to urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in their family and adoption laws." Promises to keep...Ah, the hope! |
But the highlight of the campaign for me came during the vice-presidential debate. An Obama-Biden administration would support civil unions for same-sex couples, Joe Biden said, adding that there should be "no distinction from a constitutional standpoint or a legal standpoint" between same-sex and opposite-sex couples (except for the "marriage/civil unions" distinction). When Sarah Palin said that she didn't support same-sex marriage either and that she agreed with Biden that the federal government shouldn't "do anything to prohibit" visitation or other rights, Biden moved in for the kill: "I take her at her word, obviously, that she thinks there should be no civil rights distinction, none whatsoever, between a committed gay couple and a committed heterosexual couple." But of course we now know he's reneged on or backed substantially away from most of those promised relief. So now Savage, the unrequited suitor is disappointed, and asks: Is Obama A "One-Night Stand," the guy who tells you he loves you only to get into your pants?
Well, yes, yes he is, Dan.
From "jump-street," that's how it's been. Savage's complaint is echoed up and down the 'liberal/progressive' constituencies Obama co-opted and then abandoned, from gays to anti-war partisans, to health-care reform advocates, to climate-change activists, to financial reform advocates. He's betrayed 'em all, in ways large and small... Not merely a one-niter: A "One-TERM Stand," more likely.
Obama is president now because the Owners needed to put somebody in power who would deflect and distract attention, accountability, blame and responsibility from their "favorite/dominant" wing of the Party of Property and Privilege, the fascist GOP.
From the reactions out in Mid-dull Murka--the teabaggers, the birfers, the elimiinationists, the survivalists, the scores of thousands of unabashed racists occupying the headlines and the top stories in the Cabloids--you can see he was the perfect choice. By the end of this year, the "press" will totally have forgotten that Bush and the Pukes are the villains of this piece. Obama will own 'em all.
Not only will he be unable to reform or reverse ANY of the bushevik clusterfucks, but his race makes it possible for the Pukes to resurrect their "southern" strategy, but this time as a "50-state" plan.
One way or any other, Obama's toast, a designated one-termer: the Right's payback for GHWB.
Bush/Palin, '12 (Jebbie, this time)... bettabuck... |
