[Read "Burning Down the Log Cabin," by Eric Boehlert.]
As a self-respecting gay man, David Catania revolts me.
Apparently he hasn't learned that the only kind of gays and lesbians the Republican party likes are those who shut up and pay their taxes while not enjoying the benefits accorded straight people.
The simple fact of the matter is that as a gay Republican, Catania was a big fish in a small pond -- a big gay in a small sea of Republican queers. Republican's desperate to latch onto the "gay" vote could parade him out in their diversity pony show. Amongst all the gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered in the Democratic, Independent, and Green parties, he'd have to stand, and be judged, on something other than his sexual orientation.
-- Kelly Kinney
[Read " Shakespeare Turns a Spotlight on Bush and Iraq," by Arianna Huffington.]
Huffington's comparison between Bush and Henry V is apt but not complete. She is right that both wars were initiated under pretexts, and that both wars were wars of choice.
But there is one significant difference between George W. Bush and Henry V: when Henry waged his war he went with his soldiers and risked his neck in the battles.
George W. is afraid to face even the peaceful people who protest the war. Instead he hides behind armies of security people, while the protesters are kept far away in Secret Service "protest zones."
-- Earl McDonald
Huffington can argue with the Bush administration's moral calculus, but to simply declare "wars of choice" are inherently immoral kills all possibility of debate. I could just as well say in response, "All efforts to rid the world of dictators are moral" -- but then we wouldn't have a debate, we'd have an assertion-fest.
I also take issue with Huffington's hijacking of Henry V. The play is far more ambivalent about war than Huffington claims. While it's true that Henry agonizes over the morality of war on the eve of battle, the next day he gives the rip-roaring St. Crispin's Day speech, and declares that he's done God's work.
-- Rob Goodman
[Read " The Ugly American," by Charles A. Kupchan.]
I can't stand the generalization at the end of Kupchan's article that "Europe" is turning anti-American. Some taunts at school and a bouncer turning away someone at a club does not make a continent.
As an American living in Brussels for the last 3 years, I get no sense of a European wide anti-American attitude. Instead, as I travel across Europe, what I mostly find is a serious loathing for Bush and pity for ordinary Americans that its government has led it down its current path.
Most Europeans simply wish that the American people will vote out Bush in November and become, once again, the staunch ally and partner America has been to Europe for the past 60 years.
-- Gil Grant
Cheer up. We Europeans don't hate you Americanos.
But what we do feel is weariness and disappointment. You once showed us Europeans the light, how things can be, instead of how they are.
Now you show us how things will be for us too, if we screw up.
The United States still has a lot of friends, friends who worry about a dear friend who has gone into full self-destruct mode.
We want to help, we have tried to help. But how to help a friend that doesn't want to be helped ?
Just say "Sorry, we screwed up. Help us!" We'll be there in an instant.
-- Niklas Tötterman
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