{"id":1586,"date":"2008-09-05T06:23:44","date_gmt":"2008-09-05T11:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/?p=1586"},"modified":"2008-09-05T06:26:12","modified_gmt":"2008-09-05T11:26:12","slug":"useful-idiotscontinued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/1586","title":{"rendered":"Useful Idiots&#8230;(continued)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So the other day a senior McCain   campaign strategist, Steve Schmidt, took a stroll over to the Log Cabin Club and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.advocate.com\/exclusive_detail_ektid60725.asp\">commended them for all their hard work on behalf of gay civil rights<\/a>&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&ldquo;I just             wanted to take a second to come by and pay my respect and             the       campaign&rsquo;s respect to your organization and             to your group,&rdquo; said Schmidt,       who many view as             the new architect of the Republican Party. &ldquo;Your             organization is an important one in the fabric of our             party.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>In his brief             remarks, Schmidt weaved in a personal anecdote about his             lesbian sister and her relationship to him, his wife, and             his children.       &ldquo;On a personal level, my sister             and her partner are an important part of       my life and             our children&rsquo;s life,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I             admire your group and your       organization and I             encourage you to keep fighting for what you believe in             because the day is going to come.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The Log Cabin members there in attendance immediately began questioning him on McCain&#8217;s record on gay equality, pressing him repeatedly on his stance on same sex marriage.&nbsp; Finally concluding that they&#8217;d come there looking to see a leader and they didn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>Hahahahaha&#8230;.&nbsp; No.&nbsp; Actually, that was a high school student in Concord New Hampshire, speaking directly to McCain himself&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.abcnews.com\/politicalradar\/2007\/09\/high-school-stu.html\"><strong>High School Student to McCain: You&#8217;re No Leader<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>William Sleaster, a student at Concord High School rose to ask McCain a question about gay rights and, ultimately dissatisfied by the answer he received from McCain, told the Republican presidential contender that he&#8217;d come looking to see a leader and didn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>McCain first answered the high school student by talking about his support for Don&rsquo;t Ask, Don&rsquo;t Tell, the military&rsquo;s policy regarding gays, and about his belief in the sanctity of marriage.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Discrimination in any form is unacceptable in America today,&rdquo; McCain said.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I understand the controversy that continues to swirl around this issue,&rdquo; McCain said. &ldquo;That debate needs to be continued.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Sleaster pressed on. &ldquo;Do you support civil unions or gay marriage?&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I do not,&rdquo; McCain answered. &ldquo;I think that they impinge on the status and the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;So you believe in taking away someone&rsquo;s rights because you believe it&rsquo;s wrong?&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t put that interpretation on my position, but I understand yours,&rdquo; McCain said diplomatically.<\/p>\n<p>Sleaster went on to ask another question about how to help the working class in America, which McCain fielded by talking about the country&rsquo;s need to figure out education and health care, and to secure the environment.<\/p>\n<p>Sleaster indicated that he wanted to follow up again.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;You have one more? Go ahead you&rsquo;re doing good,&rdquo; McCain encouraged.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I came here looking to see a leader,&rdquo; Sleaster said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The assembled students murmured, and a teacher started to step in.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I understand,&rdquo; McCain said. &ldquo;I thank you. That&rsquo;s what America is all about.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8230;and Homeland security immediately began tapping his family&#8217;s phones and intercepting their emails.&nbsp; I sure hope that poor kid doesn&#8217;t need any student loans to get himself through college.&nbsp; Anyway&#8230;here&#8217;s what the Log Cabin members actually did.&nbsp; They&#8230;uhm&#8230;cheered as Schmidt rose to the defense of Sarah Palin&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&ldquo;You saw             one of the great speeches in the history of political             conventions last night by an accomplished governor of a             state who has       just announced herself as a major force             in the Republican Party in her       own right, and I think             the other side this morning, when you consider the             backlash that is likely to occur after all the vile filth             that&rsquo;s been       thrown at her, they ought to be             sitting on the other side saying, Oh &ndash; My             &ndash; God,&rdquo; Schmidt said to the cheers of some 50             attendees.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Vile filth&#8230;???&nbsp; You mean&#8230;like this&#8230;?<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"336\" width=\"449\" alt=\" \" src=\"\/bible_ban.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Like&#8230;this&#8230;?<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"391\" width=\"450\" alt=\" \" src=\"\/images\/GMflyer1a.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">This&#8230;maybe&#8230;?<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"402\" width=\"450\" alt=\" \" src=\"\/images\/GMflyer2a.jpg\" \/>\n<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">That kind of vile filth?&nbsp; Meanwhile the Log Cabin cheered for the lady who tried to eliminate domestic partner benefits in her state by referendum when she couldn&#8217;t get it via the courts, and told the Eagle Forum in <a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20070501192322\/http:\/\/eagleforumalaska.blogspot.com\/2006\/07\/2006-gubernatorial-candidate.html\">a 2006 questionnaire<\/a> that her No. 2 priority as governor would be &quot;preserving the definition of &#8216;marriage&#8217; as defined in our constitution.&quot;&nbsp; They cheered.\n<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">If sixteen year old William Sleaster had been there to see it, he might not have bothered challenging McCain on his gay rights positions.&nbsp; If we don&#8217;t stand up for ourselves, no one will stand with us.\n<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">The Log Cabin Republicans: Breathing new life every election year into Truman Capote&#8217;s saying, that a faggot is the homosexual gentleman who just left the room. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So the other day a senior McCain campaign strategist, Steve Schmidt, took a stroll over to the Log Cabin Club and commended them for all their hard work on behalf of gay civil rights&#8230; &ldquo;I just wanted to take a second to come by and pay my respect and the campaign&rsquo;s respect to your organization [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[20,6,101],"class_list":["post-1586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-the-american-gutter","tag-the-right-wing-mindset","tag-useful-idiots"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}