Is Virginia's No. 1 Political Whore, Eric Cantor Selling Out the GOP?

As I have noted before I CANNOT stand Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor. The man almost makes NOM's self enriching whore, Maggie Gallagher (she's making over $350,000 a year peddling anti-gay hate) look like an honorable charity worker. Cantor is all about promoting himself and to Hell with anyone else. I suspect he'd sell his own mother for not much more than pocket change. Belatedly, some in the GOP establishment are waking up to the reality that Cantor is out for himself first and last. Anyone who has followed cantor's career and behavior should have figured this out long before now, but then the GOP has embraced ignorance and an abhorrence of objective reality, so I guess these folks have been slow learners. Politico looks at the growing concerns within the GOP establishment. Here are some highlights:

The No. 2 House Republican, Rep. Eric Cantor, plans to help the establishment this cycle — and himself. The star fundraiser is throwing his weight behind a powerful new GOP super PAC backed by Speaker John Boehner, the Congressional Leadership Fund, and a second one, the YG Action Fund, launched by former Cantor deputy chief of staff John Murray.

GOP establishment players question whether Cantor is looking out for his own brand at the expense of the broader party effort after tensions have arisen repeatedly between the top two House Republicans during the past year.

“There’s some concern that Eric’s super PAC is a little too Eric-centric and that donors will support him,” said one Republican strategist, who is not linked to either of the groups. “The real fight is because the House is always third. There’s the presidential fundraising, the Senate, which is kind of sexy. Raising money for Illinois 15, for example, is very pedestrian.”

Another Republican lobbyist echoed those fears, noting that the GOP leadership-backed Congressional Leadership Fund is going to be funding get-out-the-vote efforts and other ground game political tactics, while the Cantor-backed group is expected to have a narrower set of goals that will ultimately benefit the Virginia Republican by expanding his fundraising base.

By going out on his own, Cantor is looking to advance his career, and he’s calling on his friends for help, Davis said. “You’re going to have people who give to Eric Cantor that might not give to leadership,” Davis said. “I don’t think that he’s not going to be doing things for the party as well, but this will help brand Eric.”

Those of us in Virginia who have watched Cantor over time understand that the man is an ego maniac who should not be trusted. His unbridled willingness to prostitute of himself to the Christian Right despite his supposed Jewish faith ought to be an alarm bell to the GOP establishment. Eric Cantor worships one God - his own advancement.

Obama Consults Advisers on Military Ban on Gays

I continue to be dismayed with Barack Obama's weak kneed approach to repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell ("DADT"), a policy that daily destroys the careers of honorably serving LGBT Americans for no purpose other than to salve the sensibilities of bigots and a backward thinking military brass. Now, the Associated Press is reporting that Obama is involved in worthless - can we say bullshit- consultations with Neanderthals within the military as he throws LGBT Americans under the bus. Here are some highlights from the AP:

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says President Barack Obama has begun consulting his top defense advisers on how to lift a ban on gays serving openly in the military.

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But the administration won't say how soon that might happen or whether a group of experts will be commissioned to study the issue in-depth, as some Democrats have suggested.

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The move enables Obama to say he's making good on his campaign promise to reverse the law, but doesn't lock him into doing so anytime soon. The carefully calculated statement, released this week by White House spokesman Tommy Vietor, leaves enough wiggle room to prevent the hot-button issue from consuming Obama's foreign policy agenda, which is dominated by ending the Iraq war and salvaging operations in Afghanistan.

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I am dismayed by this development for several reasons, one of which is that Obama plans to meet with the same group that helped engineer DADT in the first place. As a new book, Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America, reveals evidence has repeatedly been concealed or suppressed by the military when it concluded there was no rationale for the gay ban. A synopsis of the book reads as follows:

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Frank is one of the nation’s leading experts on gays in the military, and in his evenhanded and always scrupulously documented chronicle, he reveals how the ban on open gays and lesbians in the U.S. military has greatly increased discharges, hampered recruitment, and—contrary to the rationale offered by proponents of the ban—led to lower morale and cohesion within military ranks.

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Frank does not shy away from tackling controversial issues, and he presents indisputable evidence showing that gays already serve openly without causing problems, and that the policy itself is weakening the military it was supposed to protect. In addition to the moral pitfalls of the gay ban, Frank shows the practical damage it has wrought. Most recently, the discharge of valuable Arabic translators (who happen to be gay) under the current policy has left U.S. forces ill-equipped in the fight against terrorism.

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I live in an area dominated by the influence of the military and know first hand that much of the top brass is chauvinistic, bigoted, and has a dinosaur mentality. If one waits for them for innovation and an admission that change is needed, you will be waiting a long time indeed. Moreover, to progress up the ranks one needs to be an ass kisser and cow tow to the prejudices of senior officers who would be happy if nothing changed for a century or more (having an attractive wife who is good at entertaining is also an important requirement). Again, the deck is stacked against anyone speaking honestly and candidly. Yet this is the group that Obama intends to consult. Give me a break!!

Rick Warren Fall Out Continues

UPDATED: My friend Lyndon has an excellent post over at My Two Cents that does a great analysis of the message Obama is sending by selecting a Christo-fascist like Rick Warren. Here is a highlight:

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When Warren or anyone else for that matter, finds fault with a group of individuals because they don't fit into his stringent, bigoted views of lifestyle and perceived religious dogma, that can only give the perpetrators of the December 13 attack [the svage rape and brutalization of a lesbian in the San Francisco area] and others the attitude and view, that it is not only alright to carry out such an act, but is acceptable to do so "because they are different".

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As noted last night on this blog and others, including Pam's House Blend, Mike Rogers was on Hardball and went after the Warren apologists and did a great job of it. It increasingly seems that Warren is attempting to do damage control - Lisa Derrick's post, "Saddleback Site Removes Anti-Gay Statements, Warren Lies to Congregation looks at some of Warren's efforts. I believe that it is important that the scrutiny of his anti-gay rhetoric - and general intolerance to all who are not fellow Kool-Aid drinkers - remains ratcheted up. In today's Washington Post, Richard Cohen has a column that likewise looks at the negative fall out that continues from Obama's selection of Warren to give the inaugural invocation. It also suggests that Obama may not have the guts to do what's right when it comes to equality under the law for LGBT Americans. Here are some highlights:

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Not that he was planning to attend, but Barack Obama should know that my sister's inauguration night party -- the one for which she was preparing Obama Punch -- has been canceled. The notice went out over the weekend, by e-mail and word of mouth, that Obama's choice of Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation had simply ruined the party. Warren is anti-gay, and my sister, not to put too fine a point on it, is not. She's gay. She is -- or was -- a committed Obama supporter.

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"I'm opposed to redefinition of a 5,000-year definition of marriage," Warren told Beliefnet.com's Steve Waldman. "I'm opposed to having a brother and sister being together and calling that marriage. I'm opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that marriage. I'm opposed to one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage." Waldman asked, "Do you think those are equivalent to gays getting married?" "Oh, I do," said Warren.

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There you have the thinking of the man Obama has chosen above all other religious figures to represent him in this most solemn moment. He likens my sister's relationship -- three children, five grandchildren, so loving as to be envied and so conventional as to be boring -- to incest or polygamy.

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But the real problem has nothing to do with ministers and everything to do with Obama's inability or unwillingness to be a moral leader. Sooner or later, he just might have to stand for something. This was apparent to me almost a year ago when I reported that Obama's church, the Trinity United Church of Christ, had given a major award to Louis Farrakhan, the anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam.

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Now we have a repeat of that episode. This time it is not Obama's preacher who has decided to honor a bigot, it is Obama himself. And, once again, we get the same sort of rationalizations. . . . Sounds nice. But what we do not "hold in common" is the dehumanization of homosexuals. What we do not hold in common is the belief that gays are perverts who have chosen their sexual orientation on some sort of whim. What we do not hold in common is the exaltation of ignorance that has led and will lead to discrimination and violence.

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Finally, what we do not hold in common is the categorization of a civil rights issue -- the rights of gays to be treated equally -- as some sort of cranky cultural difference. For that we need moral leadership, which, on this occasion, Obama has failed to provide. For some people, that's nothing to celebrate.