Look at all the fun stuff I miss when I spend an evening napping and watching "Battlestar Galactica...."
Rupert, can your posts be any more hyperbolic? To say that I, or anyone, would defend someone purely for being a moslem is absurd. Since you don't seem to know much about radical Islam, let me enlighten you-- Radical Islam has the same position on women and gays as radical Christianity-- that the former is inferior and the latter is evil. Why in the world would I defend a radical Moslem who openly attempts to influence elections against gays? For that matter, why would I defend a fundamentalist of any religion? Do you even READ any of my posts? Of course not, I'm not on the Drudge Report...
Because that is what the deal with Haggard is-- he actively campaigned to deny gays rights. That's why this little "massage" buddy came out, if you'll pardon the pun, against him. If the massage guy wanted to make money, he'd have blackmailed him, and those evangelist mega-churches have some serious coin, so I bet he would have gotten a lot of moola. But he didn't. He came forward because of Haggard's pushing for the gay marriage ban in... criminy, I can't remember which state. Which state? There are a lot of them being voted on lately...
And that's why it's news. And frankly, the reason Dems are bringing this stuff up is because the Republicans seem to think they have a right to tell everyone what to do in their own bedrooms, and then again and again, prove that they also think those laws they push for don't apply to them. If the Republicans would STOP legislating morality, this wouldn't be news. If these damn mega-churches weren't lecturing about gay sex, they wouldn't be caught with, um, egg on their faces when their leaders turn out to not be as heterosexual as they claim people must be if they want to see Heaven. It's not the crime; it's the coverup. And the hypocrisy. The reason Dems don't care about what other Dems are doing in the bedroom is because the average Dem knows it's not his fracking business! But quite frankly, it's really good theater when the puffed-up moral crusader turns out to be just as human as the people he rails against.
Rupert, the stuff you post is from Drudge and Fox and sources that are well-known Republican spin machines. That's why they're not being taken seriously. You can protest all you want that they are "unbiased" but that doesn't make them unbiased. You WANT them to be unbiased because they tell you what you want to hear. But they're not; they're spin machines. And reading them doesn't make you a conservative; it makes you a Republican. Small c- conservatives are livid at the way Bush has trashed the conservative legacy.
You'll notice, I never post stuff from Daily Kos or Michael Moore or any of the sources I consider left-wing spin machines. Look, I enjoy Michael Moore's stuff-- it's entertaining and once in a while he makes a good point, as he did in "Bowling for Columbine" in fingering the media for encouraging a culture of fear in the US that contributes to gun violence (it's not the guns; it's the media!). But I'd never, ever use him as a source if I'm trying to prove a point. I can't count on the information to be completely factual, just as you cannot expect Fox and Drudge to be factual (Fox listed Foley as a Democrat, for God's sake, and then refused to correct it).
If you really want to open your own horizons, take some time to see what's out there on the web-- I highly recommend andrewsullivan.com,
http://www.balloon-juice.com/ (John Cole), slate.com and salon.com. Salon is a progressive-leaning site, but their news is usually fair (they posted articles denying Ohio was stolen, even though their readership would have preferred an article saying it was). And their Daou report will give you links to oceans of right- and left- leaning blogs.
And in the end, Rupert, it's easy to slam the Republicans because quite frankly, they're doing a piss-poor job in every conceivable area of government right now-- Iraq is a mess, the deficit is ballooning, jobs are oozing overseas, and we are no more ready for a terrorist attack on our soil than we were in 2001. And they're the ones in charge-- the Dems are the minority party. Dems can yell and scream, but they can't force any changes in legislation-- and to read the Rolling Stones article I posted a while back, they're being kept out of legislation sessions entirely.
Which isn't to excuse the Dems for being cowards when Bush and Rove first started the reprehensible "Democrats are soft on security" crap they began in '02. I wish the Dems had come out swinging, instead of sitting around and letting themselves get beaten up. But in the wake of 9/11, I think we were all willing to trust what our govenment told us-- I know I thought the Iraq intelligence seemed fishy, but I just couldn't believe my government would lie us into war, and I couldn't believe all of Congress would fall for it. I'm not that naive anymore, and I never will be again. I learned from trusting Bush once. Never, ever again.
If the Dems were in charge right now, and this were going on, I'd be voting them out. I'm not a blind partisan; I think the Republicans are in bed with big business and that's not good for the average Joe. And I think single-party rule is bad. It was good for the country when the Dems lost in '94 and it will be good for the country if (please, God, please) the Republicans lose on Tuesday. But that's going to take people being willing to see beyond their "team" and honestly do what's good for their country. And indeed, their party. If you keep voting your party, no matter how corrupt, back into power, where is the motivation to clean up their act? All you're doing is enabling. Time for an intervention, Republicans! Take your damn party back by sticking them in the naughty corner for a few years.
Dear God; I need to go handicap! Later, everyone!