Mario Piperni dot Com

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Well, well.

Ken Mehlman, President Bush’s campaign manager in 2004 and a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, has told family and associates that he is gay. [...]

Mehlman is the most powerful Republican in history to identify as gay.

Because his tenure as RNC chairman and his time at the center of the Bush political machine coincided with the Republican Party’s attempts to exploit anti-gay prejudices and cement the allegiance of social conservatives, his declaration to the world is at once a personal act and an act of political speech.

“I wish I was where I am today 20 years ago. The process of not being able to say who I am in public life was very difficult. No one else knew this except me. My family didn’t know. My friends didn’t know. Anyone who watched me knew I was a guy who was clearly uncomfortable with the topic,” he said.

I can only imagine what it is like to feel compelled to have to hide one’s sexual orientation. It can’t be pretty. Even uglier, I would think, is being gay and a high ranking member of a political party that actively pursued (and still does) an anti-gay agenda.

Mehlman said at the time that he could not, as an individual Republican, go against the party consensus. He was aware that Karl Rove, President Bush’s chief strategic adviser, had been working with Republicans to make sure that anti-gay initiatives and referenda would appear on November ballots in 2004 and 2006 to help Republicans.
Mehlman acknowledges that if he had publicly declared his sexuality sooner, he might have played a role in keeping the party from pushing an anti-gay agenda.

“It’s a legitimate question and one I understand,” Mehlman said. “I can’t change the fact that I wasn’t in this place personally when I was in politics, and I genuinely regret that. It was very hard, personally.” He asks of those who doubt his sincerity: “If they can’t offer support, at least offer understanding.”

The truth is that if Mehlman had declared his sexuality at the time, he would have been forced out of the chairman’s position. There is no possible way that Republicans would have allowed an openly gay man to be head of the RNC. Mehlman knew this and went along with promoting the GOP’s anti-gay agenda. Any way you wish to parse it, Mehlman’s actions make him a hypocrite of the worst kind.  But he’s come around, a bit late, and I’ll give him credit for having done so.

As for this part…

He said that he plans to be an advocate for gay rights within the GOP, that he remains proud to be a Republican, and that his political identity is not defined by any one issue.

“What I will try to do is to persuade people, when I have conversations with them, that it is consistent with our party’s philosophy, whether it’s the principle of individual freedom, or limited government, or encouraging adults who love each other and who want to make a lifelong committment to each other to get married.”

“I hope that we, as a party, would welcome gay and lesbian supporters. I also think there needs to be, in the gay community, robust and bipartisan support [for] marriage rights.”

…good luck with that although I have no idea what he thinks his party has done in the last decade to make him proud.  The Republican party has allowed itself to be defined by it’s southern, white conservative base but having someone working from the inside to try to enlighten these bigoted, narrow-minded jackasses can’t hurt.

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The purging of African-Americans, Hispanics, the LGBT community, moderates and non-Christians from the Republican party continues unabated.

“I don’t know if I’ll be a Republican a year from now,” says Seeme Hasan, who chairs the Hasan Family Foundation in Colorado, and has close ties to the Republican party leadership. Hasan’s frustration with the GOP was evident, and not just over their public opposition to the construction of a Muslim cultural center in lower Manhattan. “Every time a Muslim person becomes famous, they are viciously attacked,” Hasan said.

“The past few years in the Republican party has been constant humiliation for Muslims.”

I suspect that most Muslim Americans who have voted Republican in the past have finally seen the light.  As for millionaire Muslims like Seeme Hasan, maybe not.

She says she has only one reason to suspect she’ll put a great deal of effort into defeating Barack Obama: His policies are perhaps more anti-Muslim, Hasan says, as Bush’s were. “It’s like my son says, he’s been more hawkish than Dick Cheney.”

Wingnuttery apparently runs deep in some regardless of religious affiliation and as to how many in their current political party despise their very existence.

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After twelve years in the House, Republican Bob Inglis’ job as a U. S. congressman is over.  David Corn tells the story.

…this year, as Inglis faced a challenge from tea party-backed Republican candidates claiming Inglis wasn’t sufficiently conservative, these donors hadn’t ponied up. Inglis’ task: Get them back on the team. “They were upset with me,” Inglis recalls. “They are all Glenn Beck watchers.” About 90 minutes into the meeting, as he remembers it, “They say, ‘Bob, what don’t you get? Barack Obama is a socialist, communist Marxist who wants to destroy the American economy so he can take over as dictator. Health care is part of that. And he wants to open up the Mexican border and turn [the US] into a Muslim nation.’” Inglis didn’t know how to respond.

Refusing to go along with the avalanche of lies and misinformation tumbling down from his party, Inglis was defeated in the primary by a tea party favorite.

For Inglis, this is the crux of the dilemma: Republican members of Congress know “deep down” that they need to deliver conservative solutions like his tax swap. Yet, he adds, “We’re being driven as herd by these hot microphones—which are like flame throwers—that are causing people to run with fear and panic, and Republican members of Congress are afraid of being run over by that stampeding crowd.” Inglis says that it’s hard for Republicans in Congress to “summon the courage” to say no to Beck, Limbaugh, and the tea party wing. “When we start just delivering rhetoric and more misinformation…we’re failing the conservative movement,” he says. “We’re failing the country.” Yet, he notes, Boehner and House minority whip Eric Cantor have one primary strategic calculation: Play to the tea party crowd. “It’s a dangerous strategy,” he contends, “to build conservatism on information and policies that are not credible.”

Hearing a conservative like Bob Inglis speak should give one hope that all is not lost within the ranks of the Republican party.  The problem though, is that it might be too little, too late and even more important, who on the right cares to listen to the concerns of a Bob Inglis?

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Have they learned nothing?

For a couple of years, it was the love that dared not speak his name. In 2008, Republican candidates hardly ever mentioned the president still sitting in the White House. After the election, the G.O.P. did its best to shout down all talk about how we got into the mess we’re in, insisting that we needed to look forward, not back. And many in the news media played along, acting as if it was somehow uncouth for Democrats even to mention the Bush era and its legacy.

The truth, however, is that the only problem Republicans ever had with George W. Bush was his low approval rating. They always loved his policies and his governing style — and they want them back. In recent weeks, G.O.P. leaders have come out for a complete return to the Bush agenda, including tax breaks for the rich and financial deregulation. They’ve even resurrected the plan to cut future Social Security benefits.

But they have a problem: how can they embrace President Bush’s policies, given his record?

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You know the answer. There’s now a concerted effort under way to rehabilitate Mr. Bush’s image on at least three fronts: the economy, the deficit and the war.

Here’s the bottom line; give Republicans the chance to do it all over again and they will.  They are who they are.

To paraphrase W…

There’s an old saying in Tennessee.  I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee, that says a leopard can’t change…change its…its…stripes.

You see, once a leopard gets it’s stripes, you can’t change them to spots.

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