I’m surprised that anyone is surprised that Obama came out in favor of gay marriage. When Joe Biden expressed his support of gay marriage, my assumption that Obama was about to announce his own support. I also don’t buy the notion that Biden broke the news of the administration’s stance without permission. I think Biden agreed to come out first (no pun intended) in order to test the waters and make sure no one was completely shocked. (I remember that Gerald Ford’s press secretary said that you should never completely surprise the press with anything; leak it before you announce it.) But however it happened, let me just say an “amen” to Obama’s decision. (Hint: No one who opposes gay marriage was going to vote for you anyway, Mr. President.)
I gather that Bristol Palin (poster child for Republican unwed mothers) has come out against the President’s view, stating that, “We know that in general kids do better growing up in a mother/father home.” Palin the Younger is even less deserving of serious attention than Palin the Elder, but I did enjoy the twitter comment from nolageek, who commented, “Let’s all bask in the irony of Bristol Palin talking about the importance of raising a child in a traditional marriage.” (Source.)
I get a lot of my political news from the thinkprogress.org site, which I read via its RSS feed to my mailer. I’ve learned some interesting things. For example:
- The Green County, VA, Republican Party newsletter has called for armed insurrection if Obama is re-elected, on the grounds that he is “an ideologue unlike anything world history has ever witnessed or recognized.” (Source.)
- Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, a Fox News Contributor and colleague of conservative commentator Sean Hannity, recently delivered a sermon in which he explained that, “I think that one of the greatest mistakes that America made was to allow women the opportunity to vote. We should have never turned that over to women. … Men in the good old days understood the nature of the women, they were not afraid to deal with them. … Wherever women are taking over, evil reigns.” (Source.)
- The loss in private-sector jobs due to Bushonomics has been more than made up under Obama. However, unemployment remains high primarily because of the loss of public sector jobs, such as firefighters, police, and teachers. Well, it’s not like we needed people to fight fires, arrest criminals, or educate our young people. (Source.)
I worry sometimes that, because an avowedly “progressive” website is one of my primary news/opinion sources, I suffer from confirmation bias. However, it has been difficult for me to locate a responsible conservative counterpart to thinkprogress.org. When I’ve tried to watch Fox News (and I have), the level of discourse is so unapologetically moronic that it just confirms my “liberal bias.” For example, I can no longer take anyone seriously after they assert that Obama is a “Marxist” or is listening to his “Marxist advisors.” You see, I’ve actually read Marx. Indeed, I took a course with a leading theoretician of Marxism. Now, I don’t think that Marx offers us a viable roadmap toward anyplace I think we should go. However, I do understand Marx well enough to know that Obama, whose economic policies would put him in the center of the Republican Party of the Nixon era, is hardly a Marxist.
So are there are conservative blogs, websites, or RSS feeds worth reading?
