Fox News Sunday: Barnes Suggests McCain Use Gay Bashing To Energize Base
Gay bashing worked for Republicans in 2002 and 2004, and on this today's Fox News Sunday, The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes suggests that it's a winning issue for John McCain in 2008:
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"He needs to touch on, and - some of the social issues which energize the right. In particular, gays in the military for one. We know Barack Obama is for allowing gays in the military, and Bill Clinton tried to do and then backed off. This is not a popular issue. Gay marriage is another one. These are both issues that I think McCain's gonna have to use. He can't ignore the right. If he does, he'll lose."
I'll agree with Fred, this kind of bigotry will win McCain a few points with the fringe haters that make up the shrinking base of the GOP, but the climate in 2008 is much different than in previous election years. I don't see gay bashing as a strong issue this year as voters are much more focused on issues such as their empty gas tanks and bank accounts, as well as the overwhelming need to find a solution to get our troops out of Iraq and a strong desire to avoid war with Iran.
You know Barnes realizes what he says is laughable. He almost always has his arms defensively crossing his chest when he speaks. 'nuf said.
Good gracious! Did Kristol just say something true? I'm very frightened. Check the sky.
The gay bashing campaign could also be complicated if McCain places Charlie Crist on his ticket. Nobody is fooled by Crist's new beard, and the whole thing could come of as a little... uh... queer.
I guess a Log Cabin Republican is out of the question for V.P. now.
Obama said he's for allowing gays in the military?! This is news to me. Did he actually say this, or is Barnes just pulling things out of his ass?
Though Barnes may have a point: I wouldn't be at all surprised if gay marriage bans are on state ballots again in 2008. The tactic seemed to work to get the looney base of the GOP to the polls in 2004, and I wouldn't be surprised if they try to pull this rabbit out of the hat again.
Uh yeah the Military is broken! Whatever happened to Why can't gay people get married and be miserable just like everyone else? What the hell ever happened to "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." ?
How do Madonna and Britney Spears "defend" marriage? Uh didn't John McCain divorce his first wife? After a terrible accident?
WWJD? Would Jesus really go around throwing stones at the gays and the abortionists? No one really want to get an abortion, it's about the Freedom to have the Government stay the hell out of it. The cognitive dissonance of the red states is shocking. They go around bleating Hussein Obama, Hussein Obama, listening to Rush, clicking on Drudge, watching the Fox Nothing Channel. No one wants to notice, for fear of being called A Liberal, fanitical, criminal? Yeah, tcch, tcch, tcch, yeah!!!
Pogroms are such patriotic, team-building experiences. After the pogrom we can shoot some detainees in the head, lynch a few negroes, whatever. Gott mit Uns - I mean God Bless Amerikkka!
Anne @ 3:
But, um, Crist is getting married.
I think Fred Barnes is GAY or he has something up his ass! oh! it's his head...
What a scumbag he is... LOSER LIKE ALL THE REST OF FAUX NEWS
TRULY PATHETIC>>>
McPanderer couldn't win if he was running by himself...
On an encouraging note, the 30 June 08 New Yorker has a very good article on changes in the evangelical attitudes toward voting, and more of them seem to be awakening to the fact that The Golden Rule is more important than gay bashing.
I'd personally like to thank Barnes for his role in helping to reveal just how asinine, corrupt, played out, used-up, pathetic, and venal this kind of nonsense is in today's world. If this is the best the GOP has to offer an America worried about economic upheaval, global warming, and America's lost moral leadership in the world, then I count it as having modest value.
Barnes to universe: The GOP is dead! Used up! Eaten from the inside out by greed, corruption, criminal conduct, sadistic leadership, authoritarian nutjobs, and economic stupidity.
God, I've been waiting at least seven years to see this.
I won't gloat too long, but I'm allowing myself a few minutes of sheer, unadulterated gloating.
The icing on the cake would be if Barnes loses his job, his house, and his sense of privilege. I don't wish it on him; but if it happened, it would be poetic justice given his role in helping lead Americans off the cliff of political disaster.
Back to gloating...
Little Freddie millionaire still thinks the GOP has done a fine job on the economy. So why not go ahead and use those hate-bating issues repukes have excelled at in the past?
Freddie (like his co-editor "clueless Billy Kristol") will still be thinking everything is just great in Bushville; even while those filthy masses are stuffing his head into the guillotine. He just doesn't get what a dinosaur he is. It would be funny, if it were not so transparently pathetic.
Beating up on Martin Prince won't win you any brownie points in the school yard
You have to whale on Nelson Muntz,
I'll have hash browinies please.
I bought some brownies cookies the other day]
But I was disappointed
They didn't taste like brownies at all.
4 Peter G Says: I guess a Log Cabin Republican is out of the question for V.P. now.
Is it true what I heard Log Cabin Republicans do with Log Cabin syrup?
Did I just hear Mr, Kristol actually put down Mr. McCain and praise Mr.Obama? :O
Jo @ 8:
What he's doing couldn't have been more obvious if he'd chosen Liza Minelli as his bride.
The younger voters are especially intolerant of these hate filled fear-mongering tactics - even in the evangelical communities now. In addition to which thoughtful, sensitive and intelligent voters in general are disgusted by the fear-mongering mentality. Re-PIG-lics might shore-up a modest fraction of their votes - but nothing significant.
I agree that the focus is on the economy and personal issues. The re-PIG-lic party has always relied on their "talk" there too. They always seek to increase their votes just by talking the talk without walking the walk.
People are hurting. They know the re-PIG-lics have been leading them around by nose-rings for the past 8 years while the country has gone to absolute hell with no end in sight and that they have no intention of helping the average American.
This is what Americans care about now. You can't run on Hate forever.
They aren't fooled anymore. Bash away to your hearts content. It won't help you.
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ysbaddaden @ 13:
This is sad.
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Anne @ 16:
LOL!!!
A better idea would be for Fred and the GOP apologists to have something other than hate and wedge issues for America. It's going to be tough enough to be Republican in November without Barnes and his hate.
It is just me, or does the GOP lately look like the party of bigoted, white, billionare/millionare, dimwitted, old men?
keepyourheaddown @ 9:
He's Gay. Look at that jacket.
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Anne @ 16:
LOL! Anne, you made my day...
They're not gonna do the gay-baiting thing again.... Unless they are bigger idiots than any of us have imagined to this point. The population base has had four years to shift further from being weighted towards it being a motivating issue... and not only that, aside from it being morally hideous... it's also stale, boring and an old shirt.
You don't win in America by boring people. As unfortunate as that is, that's really the main reason they can't do it this year.
Oh no
A crime fighter more frightening than the Green Hornet
It's Yellow Jacket!!!
tz @ 21:
Let me check my dictionary . . . .
Re-PIG-lics -- the party of white doughy males, liars, bigots, perverts, pedophiles, murderers, war criminals, homophobes, misogynists and troglodytes.
Nope - you were right.
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tz @ 21:
Lately? It's always been that way. They have never had to look for a real job because their family had connections somewhere. It's called nepotism.
Trittydi @ 22:
Yeah, he's probably one of them elitist gays who you would not find at a gay Applebee’s salad bar because he thinks he's better than the rest of the gay-gays.
GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY
Republicons: The gay obsessed party of Larry (toe-tapper in a public shitter) Craig & Lindsay (I just haven't found the right woman yet) Graham..... And now they have Crist.... You just can't make this stuff up...
I feel bad for Paul Lynde. At his Academy For Confirmed Bachelors, Crist was his prized student. Now, with Crist's engagement, all of that work has been derailed. Lynde must be rolling over in his grave.
While gay-bashing might not win much additional support for McCain, it would provide a great opportunity for Obama to backtrack again in his flight towards the "center."
It, therefore, seems a wise move. And I wouldn't put it past Barnes to be thinking this way.
McCain won't have to do it; cable news will do it for him.
In 2004, they put the anti-gay marriage acts on the ballots from coast to coast, then we watched the endless clips of men kissing on all of the "news" shows. That's the strategy that worked for them, and merely needed a compliant media to cinch it.
Blue Buddha @ 5:
I am guessing Mr. Barnes has not talked to the average soldier in the field. They could give a rats ass if someone is gay or not as long as they can help kill the enemy. Period.
If McCain does this, it may actually help him win. Americans are notorious for being anti-gay. Carl Rove vaulted GW to the Texas governorship with a strategy of gay rumors against Ann Richards, and surveys for years have indicated that preteen and teenage Americans consider gay to be one of the worst things you can possibly be. They'll probably do it and it'll probably work.
He's just saying that because he wants SOMEBODY to spank him.
Literally.
HEY!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsWpvkLCvu4
evidently barnes has become to comfortable with
the two hands clapping up his ass. the reichwingneocon
conservative bat-brains are desparate and will
resort to anything. why don't they just enter one of
those concentration camps of their minds and
commit suicide? it will save them all a lot of grief
and we can use the
shitfodder to rebuild the mid-westafter the flood recedes.
Fool me once shame on you....three time a charm?
2000, 2004, and 2008?
Fred doesn't know his outfit is too gay for an actual gay man.
Well I don't think it is that much of an issue this time around. I think any negativity will back fire on the republicans.
Who slapped Bill Kristol upside the head in the greenroom before this segment was recorded? He didn't sound like himself at all...
Why is this about Barnes? It's KKKristal who has the most moronic statement and "snipes" at Obama.
BTW, WTF is it OK to change the chair of the "debate" for one of the participants? Isn't this just further proof that this dog and retard show is nothing more than programmed propaganda?
Peter G @ 2:
Still checking!
They don't want the gays to have marriage rights or freedoms because it would cut into their crusing base.
Fred Barnes is an idiot! Let me repeat, Fred Barnes is an idiot!
Fish gotta swim, Republicans gotta hate.
[Deleted. Off topic. Please take it to an Open Thread. Thanks. Site Monitor]
They complain when we call them Nazis. I can't tell them apart.
xoites defends Constitution @ 48:
they don't wear armbands
Pat J @ 45:
Fred Barnes is an idiot! Let me repeat, Fred Barnes is an idiot!
I could have said 'DITTO!', but it was too easy.
He may have a point. My house was demolished in Katrina, then I got a new house but it was repossesed. Then my boy in the Marines came home dead, the next day I lost my job, I had another job interview but couldn't afford the gas to get there. But stopping gay marriage is really important to me.
Someone tell Barnes that his easter yellow jacket doesn't shout "heterosexual".
I'm so sick and tired of being made a talking point or a political issue. Will you all please just leave us alone and go back to your unhappy and broken marriages? If you really think I'm going to rot in hell for being gay, what's the point? Let me rot in hell. God made me this way so blame him/her. You're targeting the wrong person. Your God is to blame for your own fear. Go figure.
Republicans cannot win arguments on merit alone. They know that emotions must be triggered and the idiot-base must not use logic or reasoning, they must be heavily invested with their emotions when they vote. (i.e scary black man seducing another blonde).
Why is Fred Barnes even on TV?
Even the guys I hate more can at least put a sentence together. With Fred it's nothing but fidgiting, muttering and stuttering his way to the next pointless observation.
I can see Fred Barnes is having a tough time supporting our (gay) troops.
Before Fred attempt to rant on Gays, would someone please tell him to take off the Easter girl's yellow colored jacket.
"Rebel in Chief" still available starting at $.01.
Coming soon, "Maverick in Chief."
On Friday when Jesse Helms died, I paused to remember that in his last two senate races when the polls were close he would say that "the homosexuals were after him" and link his opponent to homosexual cases. Of course it worked like a charm. The more things change the more they stay the same. Jesse's spirit lives on in Barnes and McCain.
What's the saying about old dogs?
djr @ 53:
Amen
Hey, Beavis, he said McCain needs to 'touch on' gays. hehhehheh.
He's stupid.
McCain/Crist '08
meh mehhehheh eh
Gay bashing, right on TV. Are we the only group left that's "it's OK" to talk about, with hatred, openly, on TV? (Again, insert any other word: negro, Jew, Hispanic... etc.)(If they could insert those others words, believe me, they would.)
94% of gay men in this country vote, this could very well sink the GOP in November and every November for the foreseeable future, Fred Barnes is an idiot. The Republicans have finally painted themselves into a corner with their ignorance and thank god they are not getting any smarter.
Well I worked in a recruiting office for active duty soldiers. A lot of guys new the gay person but had to problem with them because they did their job. Most are hard workers and have important jobs. The military has spent a lot of money on these soldiers only to throw them out. Gee what a f king shame. Usually the people that have problems like Senator Wide Stance are the one that question the own sexuality.
Fred Barnes is one of the biggest idiots in the conservative ranks (which is really saying something given the lack of usable grey matter over there), so I really hope McCain takes his advice. The GOP still hasn't realized the whole "bash the gays" approach is losing its usefulness. It failed in 2006 and 2008 looks no different. It may still mean a lot to the homophobes in the GOP base, but the rest of us are too busy worrying about our pocketbooks to give a damn.
What can I say? They are all fuckeduplicans.
BlueEgpytian @ 41:
Barnes "gay bashed" Kristol's man-ass before the show. The tension was so high in the faux studio, Humes could taste it. If they could only get out of the closet. The truth shall set them free.
who cares, at least the gays will bring humanity back to the military. such a non issue to me. dumb, dumb,
"it was this big ! and then I sucked on it"
ah the wonders of sign language
Peter G @ 4:
Log cabin, BBQ, its all the same.
Good grief, I had to actually watch that twice to hear Mr. PNAC'er himself give begrudging praise to Obama.
What a monster. These men and mannish-looking women must be stopped.
Homo say Whaa? @ 58:
I know its hot in Carolina in July, but I'll bet ole' Jesse is really feelin' the heat now.
SouthernYankee @ 63:
BINGO! We have a winner!
Edwin Hussein @ 61:
If the republicans would let all of these self-loathing GOP closet cases go out and suck a little c*** every once in a while without having to worry about their lives being destroyed; maybe they wouldn't spend the rest of their time being such viscious assholes to the rest of us?
Just a thought.
FOR 30 YEARS the republicans have been promising the christian-right laws to end the abortion murders and stop gay marriage. Even with the republican controlled congress, during Bush's first term, we got NOTHING beacues they were afraid to offend Cheney and the paties money machine, who thinks the elimination of the "right of free choice" for abortion is a step toward the christian-rights particular theoogical convictions being forced on the nation. What did the christian-right get for 30 years of empty promises and manipulaion of their vote? NOTHING - not even when the congress could have passed the laws! What did they get during the last 7years of the Great George Bush Reign? 3 TRILLION in debt and increasing daily; 34,000 dead and or wounded in a war based on (more) lies, deciet, twisted truths; the Katrina dissaster; $4.10 gallon gas; records profits for oil companies; the largest tax break in the history for the wealthy; and the grestest loss of the average persons buying power in history; run away cost of goods and service increasing daily; 27,0000,000 with no health care; reduced funding for health care clinics over the nation. Barnes is correct the gay/abortion issues and the hate-mongering, war-mongering, hypocracy of the christian-right will get get on board an give us 4 more years of war, lost jobs, devaluation of the dollar, lower buying power, a lost future for every ones child in this nation...and the still WILL NOT GET abortion and gay laws they crave in their efforts to legislate their convictions of morality. My families furture trumps the republican parties agenda to (now) correct the mistakes of their 7 years in office on a platform of "real change..posperity...Ha Ha Ha" I AM SICK THAT I HELPED PUT THESE PEOPLE IN POWER. Free thinkning, intelligent people, know the parites very own platform condems their 7 years of reign...and they want us to let them correct it. The only way McBush will go in office is to energize the christian-right with gay bashing and the abortion murder debate. In the last 10 days I have received 54 emails from "christians" with lies about Obama. Thats the christian-right...kill a man's reputation, tell lies on him, destory his characters..show your love for your neighbor. As long as your a member of their denomination and repubican the sins they commit in lying are ok...GOD knows the democrates are sinners. God have mercy on this nation and protect us from more years of the Bush Republican reign with John McBush.
JR @ 1:
What are we waiting for to take Foxnews down? they are advocating discrimination against more innocent people. They have already helped to advocate the deaths of 4000 American soldiers and thousands of innocent Iraqis.
I like how Fred Barnes comes right out and admits that "the right" is homophobic. We all knew it, of course, but it's interesting to hear them own up to it.
Hey, if I had the unfortunate luck of being Fred Barnes, I'd be angry about it too.
wow, bill kristol, at the end of that clip, actually said something i agree with. obama IS more "presidential" and mcbush isn't even close...
#75 boy you said lot. That is what kills me that people of faith would believe such trash. They think only republicans have god on their side. I think god would be very upset what is going on now. Good people of faith will give their hard own money to these mega Churches that could care less about them. There is something troubling when you see these ministers flying their own planes around the world, having money to buy fab cloths for their families (maybe a girlfriend or 2), cars and paying for their own kids to go to college. I don't understand why anyone would give their money to these kinds of Churches. I don't care who will be in congress or senate they will never pass an abortion bill because people on the left will fight for the privacy rights. Look when the republicans stepped to far in FL case trying to take the women's husband right to choose. Even republicans who thought they had an edge found out pretty quickly that they didn't. They felt the backlash. People don't want government in our bedrooms period.
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