The Equal Opportunity Big Mouth

-
Dick Cheney has placed himself prominently in the public eye once again, this time as an advocate for gay marriage. Speaking at the National Press Club yesterday, he said, "people ought to be able to enter into any kind of arrangement, (but) that it ought to be left up to the states."

He is consistent, I'll give him that. He's long been a steadfast supporter of torture - and he's been a voice for gay marriage since at least 2004.

Cheney did not focus his thoughts only on the rights of gays to enjoy matrimonial life. While at the podium at the National Press Club yesterday, he also took the time to:

- Defend the war in Iraq, despite the lack of evidence that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with 9/11.

- Say that the White House's refusal to declassify CIA memos on detainee torture was "foolish, deeply unfair and sets a dangerous precedent..."

- Call the closure of Guantanamo prison "a terrible mistake."

- Let the world know that "freedom means freedom for everyone. I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish, any kind of arrangement they wish."

The nation's strongest voice for torture is also the conservative movement's biggest advocate for gay marriage.

Now that, to borrow from Churchill, is a "riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The October Rose

-
Image
‘Tis the season to bring love and joy into the world – and here’s one of the loveliest stories of the year… It’s a story that begins in October 2008, when the economy is in a state of collapse; the culture is in crisis, and faith in humanity – at least, my faith in humanity – is at an all-time low. It is precisely at this time that my next-door neighbor, Annie Jennings, comes home from high school bearing an orange rose. She presents this flower to her mother, Ellen, with the announcement that she is one of the “Sweet 16,” a member of Libertyville High School’s Homecoming Court. Annie is not quite 18 years old, a high school senior with stick-straight, sandy blond hair, glasses and a big smile. We hire her to feed our cat whenever we head out of town and we leave knowing our cat is in very good hands. So when I learn of her selection as a member of the homecoming court, I am intrigued. This is the girl who watches my cat, after all. Ellen is curious about what it means to...
Read more

On the failure of "the invisible hand" to influence our financial sector

-
In Alan Greenspan's book, The Age of Turbulence , one of the issues he explores is the failure of economic populism in Latin America. Here are his thoughts: " The dictionary defines 'populism' as a political philosophy that supports the rights and power of the people, usually in opposition to a privileged elite. I see economic populism as a response by an impoverished populace to a failing society, one characterized by an economic elite who are perceived as oppressors. Under economic populism, the government accedes to the demands of the people, with little regard for either individual rights or the economic realities of how the wealth of a nation is increased or even sustained." So in Greenspan's view as a self-described Libertarian Republican, economic populism comes to life in "failing societies" that have significant income inequality and are dominated by an economic elite. And in Greenspan's mind, it is not the government that can make t...
Read more

"Good-bye to all that..."

-
Harry Patch died last week in England. It was the expected outcome for a man of 111. But it is a notable death because with Harry Patch goes the last living memory of trench warfare experienced nearly a century ago during The Great War - known now as World War 1. This story on CNN.com is a wonderful summary of Patch's life. He was a plumber before and after his stint in the trenches. He saw some of the worst warfare man has ever experienced: "He fought and was seriously wounded in Ypres, Belgium, in 1917 at the Battle of Passchendaele, in which 70,000 of his fellow soldiers died -- including three of his close friends." That's a placid little sentence to describe the slaughter of 70,000 men. A horror Patch refused to talk about until he turned 100 years old. Here's a YouTube video that shows some photos and film footage from the Battle of Passchendaele: You can hear the survivor's voice in this video shot at Passchendaele about two years ag...
Read more