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Andrew Sullivan articulates beautifully what it means to have the President of the United States say there is no difference between the two of them, that they are equals, that Sullivan and by extension, the LGBT community as a whole, are not outsiders.

I had someone ask me via email this week how I could possibly defend President Obama's Christianity in light of his endorsement of marriage equality. The exact questions were:

Can you reconcile, using scripture, Christianity with same sex marriage? This is not an issue on which a Christian can ride the fence because God calls unnatural affections an abomination. What do you say?

My answer is that I absolutely can reconcile it with Scripture. As Stephen Colbert highlighted this week, the Bible says nothing about marriage equality. It does have plenty to say about what we're supposed to be doing, but says nothing about passing judgment on our brothers and excluding them or hurting them based on our differences. It says nothing about barring people from access or shoving them into an exclusionary category, but does say that as far as it is possible, to live in peace with one another, to love one another, to treat others as I want to be treated and to care for the least among us as if they were our brothers and sisters.

Andrew Sullivan's moving answer to Chris Matthews' question just affirms that for me. I'd like to think I spent my time on this planet doing good for others, not pushing them into categories that stigmatize and exclude them.

They Gave Us a Republic: Big bank execs make out like bandits.

Majikthise: Nicaragua's shocking abortion ban, and the deadly consequences.

Sadly, No: Megan McArdle argues against health care reform, ignoring pesky facts, including an important medical innovation.

Cheyanne's Campsite: Celebrate Pete Seeger's 90th year and the Newport Folk Festival's 50th.

Guest post by Batocchio. Temporarily send tips to batocchio9 AT yahoo DOT com. Thanks.

The Washington Post is dead to me:

(T)he Washington Post has terminated its relationship with liberal columnist/blogger Dan Froomkin. Froomkin authored the "White House Watch" blog and was told today that the blog had essentially run its course.

Washington Post Media Communications Director Kris Coratti tells POLITICO that "our editors and research teams are constantly reviewing our columns, blogs and other content to make sure we're giving readers the most value when they are on our site while balancing the need to make the most of our resources. Unfortunately, this means that sometimes features must be eliminated, and this time it was the blog that Dan Froomkin freelanced for washingtonpost.com."

"Run its course"???? WTF? But David Broder, who has been at WaPo since God was a little boy and whose never been in a coffeeshop he couldn't find some colorful local to confirm his preconceived (and generally wrong) notions, is still relevant? Bill Kristol, for whom the Washington Post had to issue not one or two, but THREE retractions for direct misinformation he tried to squeeze into his typical hack op-ed, is still worth holding on to. Charles farkin' Krauthammer, who has no business opining anywhere he has gotten so much wrong, is still collecting a WaPo paycheck.

But Dan Froomkin, whom Andrew Sullivan calls the "best blogger" at the paper and who is the author of 3 of the 10 most linked to articles at WaPo, is not someone worth keeping on staff?

Glenn Greenwald suspects that Froomkin was on the losing end of some internal power struggles:

Notably, Froomkin just recently had a somewhat acrimonious exchange with the oh-so-oppressed Krauthammer over torture, after Froomkin criticized Krauthammer's explicit endorsement of torture and Krauthammer responded by calling Froomkin's criticisms "stupid." And now -- weeks later -- Froomkin is fired by the Post while the persecuted Krauthammer, comparing himself to endangered journalists in Venezuela, remains at the Post, along with countless others there who think and write just like he does: i.e., standard neoconservative pablum. Froomkin was previously criticized for being "highly opinionated and liberal" by Post ombudsman Deborah Howell (even as she refused to criticize blatant right-wing journalists).

Seriously? Does the Washington Post not realize that all these neo-cons they give endless column inches to are what's ruining this country? Steven Benen:

If Froomkin is leaving the Post, it’s a real loss. Froomkin has been a great writer with keen instincts, often picking up on a burgeoning story before it’s gained traction elsewhere. Froomkin was one of the media’s most important critics of the Bush White House, and conservative bashing notwithstanding, was poised to be just as valuable holding the Obama White House accountable for its decisions.

If you like to share your opinion of the Washington Post's hiring choices, you can contact Ombudsman Andrew Alexander at ombudsman@washpost.com. Me, personally? I'm just deleting the bookmark. If I wanted neo-con and fact free tripe from Will, Kagan, Kristol and Broder, I'll just watch Fox News.

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There's an ambiguity in the rhetoric used by people who fight bigotry that people like Bill O'Reilly -- people who couldn't care less about fighting bigotry, and indeed do their best to undermine such efforts -- love to exploit. It involves the word "hate."

We use "hate" generically as a stand-in for "bigotry", in part because the word better conveys the sewer of hatefulness that is part and parcel of bigoted attitudes and behavior, and it wraps up the concepts of racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism and ethnic bigotry all into a neat bundle.

So what properly should be called "bias-motivated crimes" we call, more handily, "hate crimes". Deeply racist and/or bigoted organizations like the skinheads and neo-Nazis, we call "hate groups." What is more precisely labeled "violently bigoted speech" we call "hate speech."

However, "hate" is a much broader term that encompasses a great deal more than just violent bigotry. So what happens then is that people like Bill O'Reilly -- right-wingers who do their best to undermine the work of fighting such bigotry -- exploit the resulting ambiguity.

We've seen this regularly over the years as part of the debate over hate crimes. (One of right-wingers' favorite dumbass retorts: "I never heard of a love crime.") Andrew Sullivan once even devoted an entire, maundering 7,500-word piece in the New York Times Magazine devoted to the argument that we cannot hope to regulate hate.

And then there's Bill O'Reilly, who regularly calls the DailyKos, MoveOn and other liberal organizations that merely criticize him "hate groups" -- which, as I've pointed out, not only is a gross overestimation of what the liberal groups say and do, it even more grotesquely minimizes what real hate groups say and do.

So last night on The O'Reilly Factor, he was up to the same thing: Comparing the cases of the six Americans forbidden from entry in the U.K. because of their propensity for hate speech -- including Michael Savage. O'Reilly says that's fine -- but wonders why not the people who attacked Carrie Prejean, too?

Let me stipulate: Some of the ugliness uttered by Prejean's critics was appalling, disgusting, and every bit beyond the pale as the horrified right-wingers shrieking about it since have made it out to be. (It's worth noting, however, that none of the people uttering this crap were identifiable liberals in any serious sense.) Some of it was very hateful indeed. (OTOH, while I thought Janeane Garofalo's teabagging remarks were unwise, there was nothing particularly hateful about them. Harsh criticism is not hate.)

In any event, that's not hate speech. Here's the dictionary definition:

Bigoted speech attacking or disparaging a social or ethnic group or a member of such a group.

That's why the British government is barring Savage and his far-right buddies: They routinely engage in the demonization of entire blocs of people, typically brown-skinned minorities, and ultimately argue for their suppression or elimination from society.

That's not what the hatefulness around Prejean was about. It was focused strictly on her and the words she spoke publicly. It wasn't about demonizing white people or Christians, it was about what a schmuck they thought Prejean was.

What O'Reilly's doing, of course, is intentionally muddying the waters -- twisting the meaning of the term "hate speech" to be used as a weapon against its opponents. There's a word for that, too: Newspeak.

...that Mike Allen of The Politico is a hack?

Allen is allowing a member of the administration that broke the Geneva Conventions and commited war crimes to attack the current president and claim, without any substantiation, that the torture worked. He then allows that "top official" to proclaim things that are at the very least highly questionable. What journalistic standard is Allen following in allowing such a person to speak anonymously?

And how much lower can he sink in craving buzz and traffic?

He's been a Bush bottom feeder for a long time and it won't stop anytime soon.

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Barack Obama opens up to CBS's Harry Smith about why he's suspending his campaign at the most crucial time in order to go see his sick grandmother. This is some pretty powerful stuff.

Harry Smith: You've said in the past that you regretted - your own mother's illness - and her death came so quickly. You didn't have time to get back to see her.

Barack Obama: Yeah, got there too late. ... We knew - she wasn't doing well. But you know, the diagnosis was such that we thought we had a little more time, and we didn't. And so I want to make sure that I don't - I don't make - the same mistake twice.

Andrew Sullivan puts it perfectly:

If you have read Obama's memoir, you will immediately understand why he would suspend a national campaign for the most powerful job on earth to be with his grandmother right now. One gets the impression from Robert Gibbs and from this decision that this might indeed be one of the last chances he gets. "Toot" was a formative figure - she brought him up with her husband during some critical years. Her death would be the death of his last parent. Reading about her again tonight, you can see where Obama's personal social conservatism comes from. There's a lot more Kansas in Obama than most people on the right seem to think.

APFN: Last February Eliot Spitzer wrote a blistering opinion piece for the Washington Post detailing how, in 2003, the Bush administration had stopped the states from going after predatory lenders. During the same period, he testified before Congress on the matter. It wasn't long afterward Spitzer became the target of a White House and Wall Street dirty tricks operation to silence one of its most dangerous critics in the handling the financial crisis we're now living through.

Mother Jones: Where Credit is Due: A Timeline of the Mortgage Crisis

naked capitalism: On the dishonest sale of the bailout plan

The Daily Banter: Andrew Sullivan's fantasy world

Talk To Action: Ron Paul endorses a theocrat for president

Faithful Progressive: The Era of No Government is Over

During an exchange on Tim Russert's show last weekend about the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Christopher Hitchens mocked his fellow Englishman Andrew Sullivan when he forgets the second point he was trying to make.

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Transcript via MM:

SULLIVAN: Two things. One, it's important to clear up that he [Wright] did not say "The Jews are going to get you" in some conspiratorial, classic anti-Semitic fashion. I think that's just --

HITCHENS: He [Wright] thinks only Jews are going to object to [Rev. Louis] Farrakhan and [Libyan leader Moammar] Gadhafi. Excuse me?

SULLIVAN: No, he didn't say "only."

HITCHENS: No, but --

SULLIVAN: Again, you keep playing with that quote. We're happy to have it on the record. And now you've made me forget my second point, which is --

HITCHENS: Oh, well, don't be such a lesbian. Get on with it.

At least Sullivan doesn't seem to take offense to Hitchens' remark.

Scary, but true:

Don't ever say the Bush administration doesn't take care of its own. Nearly three years after Paul Wolfowitz resigned as deputy Defense secretary and six months after his stormy departure as president of the World Bank—amid allegations that he improperly awarded a raise to his girlfriend—he's in line to return to public service.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has offered Wolfowitz, a prime architect of the Iraq War, a position as chairman of the International Security Advisory Board, a prestigious State Department panel, according to two department sources who declined to be identified discussing personnel matters. The 18-member panel, which has access to highly classified intelligence, advises Rice on disarmament, nuclear proliferation, WMD issues and other matters. "We think he is well suited and will do an excellent job," said one senior official.

As Andrew Sullivan asked, "He's advising Condi on WMDs. Curveball wasn't available?"

And in case you're wondering, no, Wolfowitz’s new position "doesn’t require Senate confirmation."