Strong Support Is Found for Ban on [Interracial] Marriage

The latest New York Times/CBS News poll has found widespread support for an amendment to the United States Constitution to ban [interracial] marriage. It also found unease about [interracial] relations in general, making the issue a potentially divisive one for the Democrats and an opportunity for the Republicans in the 2004 election.

The most positive feelings toward [black] people were registered among respondents under 30, and among those who knew [black] people.

[President Bush's statement in support of the ban] signals the White House's increasing confidence that it can exploit the matter in the presidential campaign, both to energize its evangelical supporters and to discredit the eventual Democratic nominee.

"We have found that the more people focus on it, the less they support it," said the Rev. Lou Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, which strongly opposes [interracial] marriage and is working actively for a constitutional ban.

This poll and other surveys show that as the courts have extended legal rights to [blacks] this year, Americans have become increasingly uncomfortable with [interracial] relations.

Richard Waters, 71, a retired elementary school teacher in Little Valley, N.Y., and a Republican, said in a follow-up interview to the poll that he strongly supported a constitutional amendment banning [interracial] marriage.

"I think any kind of amendment that says `You shall not' will help," Mr. Waters said. "I just don't think it's right for [a black man and white woman] to go parading around in public or for [a white man and a black woman] to be doing the things they do. It's against God's law. That's right in the Bible that it's wrong."

Theresa Eaton, 49, a financial analyst in Corona, Calif., and also a Republican, agreed.

"I still believe that marriage should be between [people of the same race]," she said. "If I knew that we had a neighbor who was [black], I would not let my nieces and nephews go close by there. I don't want to accept their lifestyle. It can be acquired and it is not right."

Representative Marilyn Musgrave, Republican of Colorado, who introduced a constitutional amendment in the House in May, said on Friday that she had 106 co-sponsors. The companion measure in the Senate still has only a handful of supporters.

"[Black] activists have known that they're not going to get their way in the legislative arena, and they shopped around for activist judges," Ms. Musgrave said.

Jan LaRue, counsel to Concerned Women for America, a conservative religious policy organization, said her group was involved in a public education campaign on "why marriage is important and needs to be protected." She added, "We are part of a broad coalition that is using bumper stickers, newspaper ads, articles on our Web sites and assisting with amicus briefs."

Even in an age when [interracial] couples are routinely portrayed on television and constitute a prosperous demographic that advertisers have been overtly appealing to, the Times/CBS News poll found the country still sharply divided over [blacks].

"I want my children to grow up and be normal people like me and my father and my grandfather was," said Ziad Nimri, 41, a salesman and a Democrat who lives in Spokane, Wash. "I don't want my children to start getting ideas. They see it's out in the open and you see [blacks] kissing [whites] on television these days."

Mr. Nimri said he was also worried that if [blacks] were allowed to marry [whites], they would get other rights too, like tax benefits. "Because they're a minority, they're going to start actually giving them more privileges than normal people would have," he said. "Minorities always tend to get more than your average person does."

a.) A convicted manslaughterer.

b.) A famous segregationist who in his free time liked to impregnate his family's black servant.

c.) The guy who actually said this:

"It was the Fourth Infantry Division" that captured Saddam Hussein..."but it could have been any one of our Connecticut servicemen or women."

during an appearance which, according to the Times,

mixed religious imagery, a reference to the capture of Saddam Hussein, admissions of personal frailties and his wife's barbed Christmas poem about his embattled status.

(No, it's not a misprint; yes, it is pure poetry: "his wife's barbed Christmas poem about his embattled status.")

I don't know about you, but I'm getting the impression that Gov. Rowland wants us to stop all the acrimony, join together and

Here was a woman in the cold, Linda Jacobs, standing with her husband, Ken, from Newport News, Va., and saying, "He probably did. Who knows. But he probably did."

Her husband said, "Oh. yeah. He was in on it."

A couple from Knoxville, Tenn., Elaine and Will, agreed. "I believe he was in on it on some level," she said. "He was around there someplace," the husband said. Betty Hipp, San Antonio. "Of course Saddam was responsible."

I was out there for some time, taking notes and hometowns, and it was all the same. Saddam is bin Laden.

To thaw out, I went into the Burger King on the corner of Liberty and Church, where Mary Garcia, 53, was behind the counter and looking out the big window and right at the trade center and the people there to look at it.

"For me Hussein did it, the other guy, too. These people both is together in Iraq and in the trade center," Garcia said. "If Saddam don't do nothing, why he go into a hole? Because he is afraid we catch him for the World Trade Center that he did with bin Laden? The both of them together."

Full story.

Then again, who is Jimmy Breslin to say that these good Americans don't know O'Saddama when they see him?

I received this unsolicited email--and I'm not sure, but I think it might be from Tom DeLay. The message seems to concern his new charitable endeavor, "baby save charity home." I don't know much about it as of yet, except that it appears to be a faith-based initiative. I expect more information will be forthcoming soon at the Celebrations for Children, Inc. website.

Hello,

I am [Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX)], a carpenter by profession. Founder of baby save charity home. I was born in a small village in Enugu State Nigeria. I was dumped and abandoned in the bush with my left wrist slashed with a razor by my ignorant mother. Ants eat my tender nails and inflicted a serious injure to my lefteye ball. The left eye is now dead. A Farmer Found me in the bush and saved my little life. Most of the babies are not as luck as I am, some are stabbed in heart, thrown into the river or buried alive.

I've always cherished babies even as a boy that's growing up. I always wanted to lend a helping hand to babies that were abandoned to die and orphans. I announced that instead of killing these babies that they should bring them to my house that I will care for them. Within two months I had fifteen babies dumped at my door step in the night. God bless that day I picked the first baby from the door step.

Unbelievable. The man is a saint.

A letter from the Times:

To the Editor:

Howard Dean's assertion that "the capture of Saddam Hussein
has not made America safer" has raised the ire of Senator
Joseph I. Lieberman and some other Democratic hopefuls
("Dean's Speech on Iraq Brings New Rebuttals," front page,
Dec. 16).

Perhaps Dr. Dean's critics should have checked with the
Department of Homeland Security's infamous color-coded
safety index before jumping on their opponent to determine
whether there had been any change to green or blue -
indicating a downgrade in the level of danger. No change
would tend to support Dr. Dean's position.

I do not recall hearing or reading of any change in the
safety color code since the capture of Saddam Hussein. Case
closed.

W. DARRELL SEMELROTH
Oswego, Ill., Dec. 16, 2003

What doesn't Mr. Semelroth understand? Because the capture of Saddam signifies a "blow" to the Dean candidacy; and because Democrats make America less safe; then, therefore, the capture of Saddam makes America more safe. QED.

Sorry for the old news, folks, but I just got back after a few days out of town (it is my custom to take temporary refuge in western Pennsylvania every time "America's #1 Terrorist Enemy" is captured in a hole), and am catching up on all the latest fantastic news!

A Baghdad Thanksgiving's Lingering Aftertaste

By Dana Milbank

Stars and Stripes, the Pentagon-authorized newspaper of the U.S. military, is bucking for a court-martial.

When last we checked in on Stripes, it was reporting on a survey it did of troops in Iraq, finding that half of those questioned described their units' moral as low and their training as insufficient and said they did not plan to reenlist.

With the Pentagon just recovering from that, Stars and Stripes is blowing the whistle on President Bush's Thanksgiving visit to Baghdad, saying the cheering soldiers who met him were pre-screened and others showing up for a turkey dinner were turned away.

The newspaper, quoting two officials with the Army's 1st Armored Division in an article last week, reported that "for security reasons, only those preselected got into the facility during Bush's visit. . . . The soldiers who dined while the president visited were selected by their chain of command, and were notified a short time before the visit."

The paper also published a letter to the editor from Sgt. Loren Russell, who wrote of the heroism of his soldiers and then added: "[I]magine their dismay when they walked 15 minutes to the Bob Hope Dining Facility, only to find that they were turned away from their evening meal because they were in the wrong unit. . . . They understand that President Bush ate there and that upgraded security was required. But why were only certain units turned away?"

And on top of it all, the "Bob Hope Dining Facility"? How fucking depressing is that?

You know, as soon as I heard the news that O'Saddama had been captured from the Terra-Hole, I realized that Dean's candidacy was finished, and that Bush was vindicated and thus unbeatable. This was because I was reminded of the statement our President had made in his State of the Union address shortly before the beginning of the war:

We may find weapons of mass destruction. We may not. But WMD are not the important thing, because it is not so much WMD that is a threat to the United States, but the physical person of Saddam Hussein. The important thing--nay, the only thing--is capturing Saddam Hussein and bringing him to justice. For that reason, we have given him 48 hours to escape from the country.

Also, I am reminded of the claim made by Gov. Howard Dean on "Meet the Press" with Tim Russert--the claim that he has made the centerpiece of his candidacy:

President Bush believes Saddam will captured from a hole. I believe Saddam will not--not ever--be captured from a hole. That is why I am running for President of the United States: because I believe Saddam will not be captured from a hole, and in my Administration, Saddam would not--will not--be captured from a hole. Whereas President Bush thinks he will. Do you see the difference between our positions? I think I've made it perfectly clear. That is why I am running for President of the United States. Hole or no hole: that is the choice the voters, the American people, will have to make.

QED: Dean disproven; candidacy finished.

End of State
A thrilling new political series based on the best-selling Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins

Here at the White House, the theory most widely held seemed to be that terrorists had developed a new and shocking weapon—one that could vaporize victims at random. The United States had been engaged in a self-declared "war on terrorism" for some time now, and the stakes had continued to escalate as a handful of Middle Eastern governments had toppled. Though most of the world's leaders supported the position of the United States, they were hesitant to offer that support publicly. Difficult economic circumstances at home, sparked in large part by rapidly increasing oil prices from the OPEC nations affected most severely by the continuing conflict, made foreign involvement unpopular in most of the European and Asian nations. Even onetime close allies of the U.S. had been reserved in recent years.

It wasn't difficult to believe that one of the nations with access to billions in oil money, a vast array of weapons from the former Soviet Union, and the help of several former Soviet scientists and military strategists could have developed a weapon devastating enough to vaporize a large portion of the population.

Brad, however, had another theory, a theory that had him literally shivering as he waited, agonized, for some kind of word from his wife. Every call that came into the Sit Room announcing the disappearance of another world leader or major figure or personal friend of someone seated at the table twisted his gut into knots. His head throbbed, and he was gripping his pen so hard his fingertips were numb.

Had the disappearances been limited to the U.S., the terrorism theory might have been believable. The American people were certainly terrorized by what was going on. While the U.S. had experienced a greater number of disappearances than many other nations, there were reports of entire communities wiped out by the disaster. In China, nearly ten thousand suspected dissidents, all members of the rapidly growing evangelical movement, were missing. South America had experienced devastating losses, while many European and Middle Eastern nations remained relatively untouched.

As it became apparent that the disappearances were worldwide, Brad began to suspect that he knew what had really happened. The pieces of the puzzle were falling slowly together into a frightening image. In his mind, he could hear the echoes of Sunday mornings spent in his mother's church in his South Carolina hometown.

Want more info?

Dear Kerry and Gephardt campaigns,

According to this news story, "former supporters" of Rep. Gephardt and Sen. Kerry are part of the group that is running an ad juxtaposing Howard Dean's face with Osama bin Laden's.

I would like for your respective campaigns to publicly and unequivocally demand that this ad be pulled by its sponsor group.

I am an undecided Democratic voter who will definitely be voting in the primary. I have a website and a long e-mail list. And I would never, ever, in a million years support a candidate who so much as *appeared* to implicitly condone such ads. These kinds of attacks on fellow Democrats are the lowest of the lowest kind of hypocritical sleaze. In other words, they are essentially Republican. And I'm not going to vote for a Democrat who does the Republicans' work for them.

Sincerely,

Blicero
Brooklyn, NY

dawkins writes:

Yes, it's exactly as the New York Times' Patrick E. Tyler says it is!

French President Jacques Chirac issued a statement, percolating with the language of joyous global solidarity: "It's a major event that should strongly contribute to democracy and stability in Iraq and allow the Iraqis to master their destiny."

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer's own statement picked up on Chirac's theme of unrestrained cohesion with the United States: "This important success offers the chance to speed up the handover of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government to increase stability in Iraq."

Put them together (along with a cautious endorsement from Japan's Junichiro Koizumi, and the addled "rejoicing" of Italy's Silvio Berlusconi), and this proves, according to Tyler, that Saddam's capture "restored a sense of unity today among world leaders."

Yes, all within those heady five hours since the capture!

Tyler continues:

Gone for the moment were recriminations over the justifications set out for the war in Washington and London, where pre-war intelligence on weapons of mass destruction has been picked apart in acrimonious national debates. Gone also, for the moment, were the recriminations over Washington's plan to exclude some countries, notably Germany and France, from the spoils of reconstruction contracts in Iraq.

That's right! Gone! All those recriminations over the phony war justifications, all those recriminations over Germany and France's exclusion from Halliburton's slop trough… all, "for the moment," completely gone!

Long live President Bush! Long live the eternal harmony and common cause of the now, and forever, united coalition of willing world brotherly nations!

At least, "for the moment"!


speakingcorpse adds: All that has happened since last fall is now forgotten. Also: all who were alive last fall are now dead. Including me.

Blicero adds: I hope that before Saddam is executed by a military tribunal, he will be forced to personally apologize to all of the families of the 9/11 victims, for being an Arab.

This from Eschaton:

Secret Memo Found!

Another secret memo was found, and leaked to me:

09/01/2001

Dear Saddam,

I write to update you on the progress of our massive program to create weapons of mass destruction to destroy the West. Here is our current inventory:

25,000 liters of anthrax

More than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin

500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.

30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents.

Several mobile biological weapons labs.

We have an advanced nuclear weapons development program, a design for a nuclear weapon we are working on, and five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. We have sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa and are in the process of purchasing high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.

Yours,

Mohammad Atta

P.S. Loved your plane plan! Keep watching CNN!

P.P.S. Osama's pissed! He's tired of being blamed for everything you do!

Woman Claims Thurmond As Father
Proof Is Forthcoming, Black Retiree Says

A 78-year-old retired Los Angeles schoolteacher said she is breaking a lifetime of silence to announce that she is the illegitimate mixed-race daughter of former U.S. senator James Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), once the nation's leading segregationist. In an interview, the woman said that Thurmond privately acknowledged her as his daughter and provided financial support since 1941.

Full story.