Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Small Potatoes

Pace won't apologize for 'gay' remarks - Military Affairs - MSNBC.com

General Pace's comments about homosexuality are deplorable, of course, but should we really be surprised that he won't apologize? He thinks what he thinks; it's wrongheaded and cruel, but so are a great many things he and the administration he serves do. Have you heard him apologize for a senseless war that is killing and maiming young men and women who volunteered out of a sense of duty and honor and are instead being wasted in a vain effort to stabilize a region that clearly needs a chance to duke it out without our interference?

Sometimes self-determination means killing each other. We need to find a way to get off the oil that keeps pulling us back into every Middle East conflict so the Sunni and the Shia can work out a thousand years of differences on their own. If Peter Pace doesn't realize that he needs every man and woman willing to serve, whether gay or straight, in his armed forces to accomplish any of the myriad missions the American military currently has and will have in the future, that's only a minor error in judgment compared to the one he and Bush and Cheney continue to commit in Iraq.

UPDATE, 4:30 P.M.: As Andrew Sullivan points out, the times they are a-changin'. From John Warner, a Virginia Republican: "I respectfully but strongly disagree with the chairman's view that homosexuality is immoral." Reading those words, from that source, I nearly cried. The NBA dumped Tim Hardaway for his comments; Ann Coulter is being dropped from newspapers for hers. Isaiah Washington may be leaving the top scripted show on TV for his. We're still a punching bag for Republicans, as Mike points out in the comments--but maybe it isn't working anymore?

1 comment:

Mike said...

This is the type of person I would assume Bush would make head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is a hateful buffoon, and makes himself sound more uneducated. Bush will keep him in a position of power, and that is the true shame. I think George W thinks “compassionate conservative” means cruel & hateful.

Why are we homos the punching back for the right wing? Do they all spend so much time thinking of us that they have to keep punching away at us? (Ann Coulter, we're looking at you...) This is getting tiring!