Super Bowl Update

The Atlanta Constitution ran the news about the former first daughter's surprise endorsement yesterday in its column "Political Insider" with this bold headline: "Your morning jolt: Barbara Bush endorses gay marriage."

"I'm Barbara Bush,"  Ms. Bush says, "and I'm a New Yorker supporting marriage equality.  "New York is about fairness and equality and everyone should have the right to marry the person they love. Join us."

Ms. Bush taped the video for the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights group. It will be shown at their annual gala in Manhattan on Saturday, during which Ms. Bush and other notable New Yorkers will call for New York State to legalize same-sex marriages. 


The Washington Post's "Reliable Source" began its comments on Ms. Bush's public support of gay marriage by quoting  R. Clarke Cooper:

Another way to tell if you're old: how much you care that Barbara Bush supports gay marriage. It's a "non-issue" for most people under 30 years old, said R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, a group of openly gay GOPers.

The former first daughter, 29, taped a video for Saturday's Human Rights Campaign dinner calling for New York to legalize same-sex marriages. Most younger Republicans -- especially those like Bush with gay friends -- think equal rights is a no-brainer, said Cooper.

This was noted on Capital Tonight, "New York's only state-wide political program:"

Barbara Bush joins prominent Republicans like her mother, former First Lady Laura Bush, as well as former VP Dick Cheney and Ted Olson (a conservative attorney who represented the ex-president in Bush v. Gore in 2000) as supporters of marriage equality. 

As to the Bush family's reaction to BB2's video, The New York Times reported that:

Members of the Bush family seemed uneager to discuss her entry into the marriage debate. Ms. Bush declined an interview request. A spokesman for Mr. Bush said he had no comment. Her sister, Jenna Bush Hager, a correspondent for “Today,” has not publicly discussed the topic.

George Bush is certainly on record as opposing gay marriage. For example, he said the following in a speech given in Pennsylvania on October 22, 2004:

"I think it's very important that we protect marriage as an institution between a man and a woman. I proposed a constitutional amendment. The reason I did so was because I was worried that activist judges are actually defining the definition of marriage. And the surest way to protect marriage between a man and woman is to amend the Constitution."

This was the same conservative Christian politician who had said in a Washington speech on June 1st of that year, "I believe that God wants me to be president." 


Does claiming God's backing make it more difficult for a politician to change his/her views?  




Times marche, social change is relentless, children leave their parents' views in the playground dust of their childhoods. There's nothing harder for humans than realizing that what was once the acknowledged right way of doing or being or believing or marrying just may be right no longer.


I serendipitously did some reading last night that I think relates to the generational moral revolution within the Bush family. I picked up a rather dusty volume that my husband had unearthed in his office called The Improper Philadelphians: A dossier of investigative reporting from Philadelphia Magazine. Charlie had said he thought I'd enjoy the 1970 essay, "The Troubled See," by Bernard McCormick. And he was right, I did enjoy it.

St. Michael's Catholic Church, 1445 North Second Street, Philadelphia

Although many of the traditionalists welcome some aspects of renewal, they are, at the same time, more than a little disconcerted by what seems an irreconcilable picture of their all-knowing, unchanging Church struggling to find a way to reverse itself on key issues.

Incoming Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Speaker of the House John Boehner

Virginia Representative Eric Cantor is suddenly everywhere as a newly-anointed leader of  the Congressional charge to take down "Obamacare." This, just as some of the legislation's very appealing provisions (particularly for seniors) go into effect.

Cantor's bill to repeal healthcare reform is called the “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.” It's up for a procedural vote this Friday, and is scheduled to be considered by the Congress next Wednesday.


So, is this a good move for Mr.Cantor politically and, actually more importantly, for Americans?


Salon ran an article yesterday on "The GOP's risky bet to repeal healthcare reform" in which reporter Andrew Leonard asks:

If the real reason for voter anger is the economy, what happens to the Republican agenda if things get better?

Toward the end of the article Mr. Leonard writes:

More health coverage is good for Americans and good for the insurance industry. The latter fact may not offer much solace to progressives pining for a true public option, but it ought to be positively alarming to Republicans. As the new healthcare rules continue to be rolled out, both individuals and industries will have vested interests in maintaining the status quo. Meanwhile, Republicans are offering nothing more than a rejection of the bill, without any solution to the underlying problem -- rising healthcare costs. Who is going to buy that?

Legislation to repeal  "Obamacare" was promised by Michigan Representative Fred Upton on Fox News Sunday. In his capacity as incoming chairman of the  Energy and Commerce committee, one of the House committees that oversees health policy, Mr. Upton crowed, “I don’t think we’re going to be that far off from having the votes to actually override a veto.” If a take down fails, however, Congress, according to Mr. Upton, will go after healthcare reform "piece by piece," by refusing to fund provisions that require funding.


Fred Upton's district includes Kalamazoo, and the Kalamazoo Gazette is running an editorial today that, after also pointing out that Upton is making these comments just as attractive new provisions of the health care bill go into effect, concludes

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has been controversial since it passed. A Virginia judge recently struck down a provision in the act and further challenges are pending.

However, there are many provisions in the bill that are beneficial to consumers. It is also equally clear that steps must be taken to stop runaway health care costs. 

Why not keep the best, most beneficial, parts of the legislation and craft new legislation to address the problems? That would make the most sense.

The path Upton and other congressional leaders are choosing will just continue the dysfunction that has wasted time and taxpayer money for the past several years. 

They should reconsider this action and seek to strategically revise, not repeal, the law.

Yesterday, Michael Falcone and Amy Walter blogged  on ABC News bout "Risk vs. Reward On Health Care Repeal." They make the point that for new, ultra-conservative Tea Party House members, their "no government health care" rhetoric meets reality squarely on the issue of their own health care.

From the DCCC’s (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) memo: “House Republican candidates affiliated with the Tea Party ran strongly against ‘government health care.’ … Despite their campaign rhetoric and public opinion, most incoming Republican Freshman will not say whether they will accept government health care.  Their silence can only mean one thing: Republican Freshman will hypocritically take government funded health care even though they ran campaigns against it.”

What I wonder is, have those of us Americans who are quick to offer our opinions on whether or not health care reform should be repealed, taken the time to understand what we're supporting or opposing.

Politics is noise; health care is real. Talk is cheap; medical care is expensive.

So, are you in favor of repeal?

If you like to root around in exhaustive coverage of national and Virginia politics, there's no richer grazing ground than washingtonpost.com. And yesterday afternoon, while cruising the site, I came across three separate blog items that started me thinking about what it means to be a conservative Republican in 2010.

Blog item #1)  According to a new Gallup Poll, 73% of Americans who identify themselves as Republicans also identify themselves as  "conservative" or "very conservative."

Does that mean, I wondered, that all those "conservative" and "very conservative" people see themselves as pretty much in agreement about where this country needs to go and how to get there?

Blog item #2)  Virginia's attorney general Ken Cuccinelli has been invited to Alabama and Iowa next week to campaign for those states' Republican candidates for attorney general.

If Virginia has a politician who approaches rock star status (with fans as opposed to soberly simpatico supporters), it has to be our attorney general. Has any other Virginia attorney general ever generated so many in-state headlines or so much out-of-state name recognition?

As Rosalind Helderman puts it in her blog about Virginia politics,

The outspoken Virginia conservative, who is suing the Obama administration over the federal health-care law and EPA greenhouse gas regulations, has been in increasing demand nationally from Republican candidates and organizations.

Love him or hate him, Mr. Cuccinelli's certainly a very visible and vocal conservative Republican. But, surely, just because he attracts a lot of press doesn't mean that the 73% of Republicans who describe themselves as "conservative" and "very conservative" are in line with Ken Cuccinelli's way of thinking. Or does it?

Virginia's attorney general's national political clout pales beside that of the flamboyantly conservative Sarah Palin. I, personally, am not sure exactly what she's for, but I am sure that, whatever it is, she's for it adamantly every chance she gets.


Which leads me to blog item #3)  Ms. Palin's name always comes up when people speculate about who might be the 2012 Republican presidential nominee. However, a new Politico poll hints that the "Sarah for President" chatter is more about her celebrity than her political substance. Take a look at this question from the politico poll. . . .

As you may already know, Sarah Palin has been the Governor of Alaska and was the Republican nominee for Vice President in 2008. She resigned from her position as Governor in 2009 and currently runs a political action committee and works as a news commentator for Fox News.

Based on what you know, would you say that Sarah Palin's efforts since resigning as Governor in 2009 have made you more likely or less likely to support her if she runs for President?

More likely/strongly 17%
More likely/somewhat 14%
UNSURE 5%
NO DIFFERENCE 7%
Less likely/somewhat 13%
Less likely/strongly 45%

Greg Sargent interpreted this data yesterday on his blog Plum Line (also at washingtonpost.com.)

There's no quibbling with Palin's soaring popularity among Republicans or her rising influence in GOP primaries. But it seems a sizable majority, 58 percent, see Palin's decision to quit as governor of Alaska after a half term and her strategy of elevating her media profile on Fox and via an endless stream of attacks on Obama on Twitter and Facebook as a reason not to back her for president.

This seems to support the idea that her current strategy is working brilliantly to enhance her brand, but only in her current role of celebrity/quasi-candidate. It's rendering her completely toxic for the broader electorate as an actual presidential candidate.

"Her brand?" Is that how Ms. Palin, herself, views conservationism?

I do not, however, believe for one second that the 73% of Republicans who view themselves as "conservative" and "very conservative" see conservatism as a "brand."  And I, for one, am very interested in understanding how they do understand conservatism. Not their ideology's talking points or knee-jerk oppositions, but what conservatism is, what practical ideas it supports, how these will make the country work better.

So I'd love to hear from conservative Republicans who march to a quieter, more thoughtful, less self-promotional drummer than Mr. Cuccinelli and Ms Palin. What does it mean to be a  "conservative" or "very conservative" Republican?

Can anyone help me out?