Rove readies to ride the backlash.
Calling Condoleezza Rice "fabulous" is twisted enough, but when George W. Bush, in his Rose Garden press conference last week, labeled everyone "sinners," all I could think was: Speak for yourself. He and Condi and Rummy and Colin and Dick and Wolfie and the rest of the gang (including freaky little Poindexter), after all, may well have committed the gravest of sins: lying and distorting facts so as to invade a country, killing thousands of people in the process, including increasing numbers of American service people. Ain't nothing "fabulous" about that.
The reporter who elicited the "sinners" line seemed like a religious-right plant, asking Bush for his moral views on homosexuality. Our pious president then spewed a series of well-rehearsed statements, first noting that he's "mindful that we're all sinners" and then cautioning "those who may try to take the speck out of their neighbor's eye when they got a log in their own." Then came this feel-good, throwaway line: "I think it's very important for our society to respect each individual, to welcome those with good hearts, to be a welcoming country."
As welcome as we might be, however, Bush nonetheless went on to explain that he had White House lawyers looking into ways to legally discriminate against gays so as to protect the "sanctity" of marriage. The entire affair was interpreted oddly in much of the so-called liberal media, which is not a very good sign for things to come. The New York Times, in a mind-boggling editorial headlined "Playing It Safe on Gays," actually seemed to think Bush was exercising tolerance. Suckered completely, the editors called Bush's statements a "careful attempt to brush back?bigotry," though they wished that he'd "been just a tiny bit braver" and not come out against same-sex marriage. Gee, sort of like how Joe McCarthy should have been a tiny bit braver and not actually blacklisted people for his own political ends? Or maybe like Stalin should have been tiny bit braver and not actually engaged in mass murder for his own political purposes too? What are these people thinking?
It's at critical moments like this-when you're about to be used as political football, kicked from here to kingdom come-that you realize that even your supposed friends just don't get it. On the same page, the Times editors, with clarity and vigor, zeroed in on Bush's shams regarding the other items the tepid White House press corps gently pressed him on in that press conference.
"Mr. Bush should have been able to come up with better responses to two big and obvious questions: why he ordered the invasion of Iraq and why he pushed for tax cuts that have left the nation sinking into a hopeless quagmire of debt," the Times wrote, chiding him for his "vague and sometimes nearly incoherent answers" and accusing him of perhaps being "bedazzled by his administration's own mythmaking."
But when Bush offers similarly confused answers on gays and speaks in code, they describe it as a "careful attempt to brush back...bigotry" rather than as a careful attempt to make it seem like he's brushing back bigotry. When the Republican Party-including Bush-speaks in code about racial issues as part of that much-discussed southern strategy to appeal to racists, the Times is quick to expose it. But when he offers code on gays and lesbians, they're cowed by his performance, which one Times reporter dutifully described as being borrowed from "Jesus' Sermon on the Mount."
By claiming that "we're all sinners" in response to a question about homosexuality, Bush is really telegraphing to his religious- right base: "Homosexuality is a grave sin, but we all commit some sort of sin, even if it's not as bad as that of homosexuals. Let's let them live, even though we shouldn't treat them equally." The proof of that lies in his contention that those who engage in the sin of homosexuality are to be banned from marriage, while the rest of the sinners are free to marry to their hearts' content. And need it be pointed out that Bush is not our spiritual leader but the president of the United States? Why is he pontificating about sin in the White House Rose Garden, in the context of having his lawyers look into possible legislation?
For the gay marriage debate, it doesn't bode well that much of the media is no longer fazed by the religious mumbo jumbo and the clear erosion of the separation of church and state that this administration has advanced. Bush's sudden leap into the same-sex marriage fracas-now floating the possibility of backing the federal marriage amendment banning same-sex marriage-can only mean one thing: It's all going pretty badly at the White House, from the continued meltdown in Iraq to the uranium lies to the sluggish economy. Bush's re-elect numbers continue to plummet, so Karl Rove now pulls out a contingency plan, aimed at changing the subject, firing up the party's base as we head into the election year, and creating a wedge issue with the Democrats. When people are desperate, they'll go to dangerous extremes, including amending the Constitution of the United States and subverting their own claimed belief in states' rights.
Only a few weeks ago, Bush distanced himself from the federal marriage amendment that some in the House have been pushing for over a year, after Senate majority leader Bill Frist said he would support it. But that was before the 16 words in the State of the Union address blew up into a debilitating and ongoing story and began to eat away at the president's standing in the polls. Meanwhile, a USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll showed that some Americans, in the wake of the Supreme Court sodomy decision-and the sensational media attention that followed it, which claimed marriage was coming next-were now reticent about supporting gay rights. Throw in the Vatican's launch of a global campaign against gay marriage (the Pope's men can't seem to act quickly when priests are molesting children, but they've worked feverishly on a master plan to save the world from same-sex marriage), and what you have is a perfect storm for Rove and the other political operatives to capitalize on. With the Democrats' track record, they'll be either useless or detrimental in this fight, running for cover or trying to emulate Bush rather than stand up to him. And the media has done nothing to take on the administration, particularly on this issue freighted with religion and morality. It could be a very mean season ahead.