"my hair doesn't make me look gay, does it?"

back when i first got into this business, in the first campaign i ever got paid to work on, i had to work with a republican.

it was a democratic campaign, and it was a full-blown crusade against a cro-magnon of a congressman. this congressman was a lunatic.

so the reep i had to work with was sacrificing his career. reeps working for dems can never go back - its like defecting from cuba. the reeps will get you AND your family. i don’t know why he did it, to this day. maybe he hated the homophobia, the racism, the misogyny of the congressman. maybe he was wildly ambitious. i don’t know.

all i know is i don’t care. the staffer was still a mouth-breathing hygiene-challenged right wing republican lunatic with a bad hair gel addiction.

i’m not sure what it is with republicans and hair gel. in the new york times on thursday they had a picture of the guy that sued SF to stop gay marriages. it looks like his neck should snap under the intense weight of his hair product.

i guess the eighties just laid its claws into these guys and won’t let go - that would also account for the persistent presence of big shoulderpads in republican suits. there was another republican staffer working with us in that race. except we didn’t know he was a republican at the time, but we should have known from his prodigious use of cheap hair gel and a pompadour that would have shamed a televangelist. we would find out he was a mole later, when my name, my partner’s name, and the name and address of every staffer in the race showed up on a document waved in my face by the cro-magnon congressman.

come to think of it, the cro-magnon had quite a head of hair gel happening too. i remember noticing it when he walked into our campaign headquarters two days before the election, right before he told me he knew who i was and where i lived.

also right before we had two brawny steel workers throw him out.

no hair gel on those guys. good dems.

this is fucking disgusting.

from thehill.com (the emphasis is mine, the disgusting exploitation of over 3,000 dead and a nation terrified is the REPUBLICAN PARTY's):

President planning NYC extravaganza
White House goal is unprecedented convention theater

“And now, direct from Ground Zero, heeeeeeere’s the president!”

Well, that’s not exactly how President Bush is likely to be introduced when he gives his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on Sept. 3, but it might be something equally dramatic and theatrical.

According to sources privy to convention planners’ discussions, the 2004 GOP conclave at New York’s Madison Square Garden will be unlike any previous quadrennial gathering of either party. In fact, not all of the main events will be held at the Garden, sources involved in planning the Aug. 31-Sept. 2 convention said.

“The entire format and actual physical setup could be radically different,” one GOP insider commented. “They might not even have a podium, or maybe a rotating podium or even a stage that comes up from underground. It would be like a theater in the round, with off-site events that are part of the convention.”

The source, a veteran official of past GOP conventions, said the 50,000 delegates, dignitaries and guests would watch off-site events on giant TV screens. “Now, we’ll go to the deck of the USS Intrepid as the U.S. Marine Corps Band plays the national anthem,” he said, pretending that he was playing the part of the convention chairman.

“Or, and this is a real possibility, we could see President Bush giving his acceptance speech at Ground Zero,” he added. “It’s clearly a venue they’re considering.”

William Harris, the former Alabama GOP chairman who is chief executive of the convention, did not return a phone call yesterday.

But with President Bush’s nomination assured, the GOP may be looking for ways to hold the attention of a worldwide TV audience and get the Bush-Cheney campaign off to a running start.

this was fun. you can email letters to the editor for newspapers in your area - direct from the bush website. heh.

here's the letter i sent, courtesy of Bush/Cheney/Rove 2004.

"I can hardly think of a more cynical, hate-filled response to declining political fortunes than to attack - yes, attack - our founding document to specifically DENY equal protection to a narrowly defined class of citizens.

"Have these people actually READ the constitution or do they see it only as an antiquated bludgeon to use against those that may disagree with them?

"If Bush/Rove 2004 had actually read our founding document they would understand that one of the primary goals of the constitution was to PROTECT minority views and beliefs from the kind of despotic attacks that Bush is perpetuating on gays and lesbians.

"Unfortunately for all of us, Bush is telling us that his reelection is more important than the integrity of our republic. singling out a small minority of citizens and attempting to exclude them from the rights and freedoms guaranteed all of us, and enumerating this denial in the most functional founding document in the western world (apart from the magna carta) is obscene.

"Bush should be ashamed of this opportunistic affront to all Americans.

"Sincerely,

"The Propagandist"

go do it yourself. thanks for the link, billmon.

from w's speech last night (sorry, i'm pissed off):

And we stand for a culture of responsibility in America. We're changing the culture of America from one that said, "if it feels good, do it," and "if you've got a problem, blame someone else," to a culture in which each of us understands we're responsible for the decisions we make.

you mean like drunk driving, neglecting to show up for your national guard duty, having your surrogates claim that you actually volunteered for vietnam when you didn't, lying about job creation, blaming the recession YOU CAUSED on bill clinton, admitting you lied about WMD's and your national guard record, defunding schools and veterans and health care; refusing to cooperate with the 9-11 and plame investigations, making recess appointments of racist judges, allowing the VP to fraternize with a judge soon to hear his case, pretending you don't know your friend kenny boy....

okay. i'll stop. it is just that despite my vocation, i really strive to tell the truth. this willingness to say ANYTHING to win really pisses me off.

i guess bush only supports an activist court when it is appointing him president.

"No, they're not racists and homophobes, why do you ask?" part 2

politics is a business for me. granted, a business that is driven by deep ideological beliefs, but still it is my livlihood. most of the times i discuss politics it is in abstract, strategic terms, usually about positioning, strategy, spin.

Sometimes, tho, something so fundamentally evil and immoral happens, or is uttered, or is used as a tool in such a cynical way that i become enraged and ill at the sheer injustice of it. i feel like most of the time i'm pretty well innured to the machinations and cynicism of politics, but sometimes it stops becoming an intellectual game or exercise and becomes a threat to my fundamental (if not always realized) belief in the fairness of our political system. racism often does this. so does moral posturing, especially when it has an anti-democratic taint to it.

this outrage has hit me twice in the last few days.

the illegal immigration debate in california.

i can't tell you how much i hate the white reep backlash against the exploited labor force in our state every time they feel the need to ramp up the troops. but i don't even need to describe it. here are some quotes from the la times story about the reep convention in california:

Millbrae Republican Barry Fellman, who wore a "No Way Jose" sign around his neck to display dissatisfaction with his party on immigration.

Next to the stage, two boys wearing Kaloogian T-shirts carried posters reading, "No Terrorist Driver's License." The signs showed a driver's license bearing a photo of Osama bin Laden. Tancredo, who flew in from Colorado for the rally, said that America had taken "rabid, overstated multiculturalism" too far.

Gloria Irwin, the Glenn County Republican Party chairwoman, said she agreed that Bush's plan was "terrible."

"The main street in our little town looks like Tijuana," said Irwin, whose hometown, Orland, is 100 miles north of Sacramento.

the constitutional amendment barring gays from ever getting married.

first, all the fuckheads that think this is a good idea should read this. but then again, anybody that believes that denying certain citizens' rights (because those citizens happen to be different) should be enumerated in the constitution probably wouldn't have supported the equal protection clause anyway. they probably think we should bring back the anti-miscegenation laws too while we're at it.

maybe they should also include a line item in the omnibus funding bill to fund these memorials too.

or maybe they can just question the sexual orientation of anybody that doesn;t hate the same way they do. *

sure, you can disagree with me on this, but i just think changing the constitution to deny a right to a narrowly defined class of citizens, is, uh, how to put it?

REPULSIVE AND UN-AMERICAN.

not to put too fine a point on it, but the people who want to mangle the constitution and demonize immigrants that travel across a political border ARE WRONG AND MUST BE STOPPED.

*[from the LA TIMES] Kaloogian was one of many at the convention who lashed out at San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, for granting marriage licenses to thousands of gay couples who stood in long lines at City Hall. Kaloogian also questioned the sexual orientation of Democratic Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, a married Democrat, as he joked about whether Lockyer was committed to court action to block gay marriage.

"I don't know where the attorney general stands on this," he said. "Perhaps he stands in line. I'm not quite sure."

"we cut off your johnson!"

i am soooo behind the times.

i just figured out that the second nihilist in the big lebowski was flea.

it's a blast

i'm wearing a t-shirt today that commemorates the trinity blast - the world's first atomic explosion. it was a gift from friends that visited the National Atomic Museum. the shirt has a large mushroom cloud on it.

while getting coffee downtown today, it took me a moment today to realize all those japanese tourists weren't looking at me because i'm especially handsome.