skip to main |
skip to sidebar
WASHINGTON - Although he recently expressed confidence that Mary Cheney will make a loving parent, President Bush continues to believe it is best that a child is raised by a man and woman married to each other, the president's spokesman said Friday.
The pregnancy of Vice President Dick Cheney's younger daughter, a lesbian, has reignited public discussion on same-sex couples becoming parents.
Some social conservatives, who support Bush and the vice president on most issues, learned of Mary Cheney's pregnancy with dismay, saying it undermined efforts to emphasize the primacy of the traditional family unit.
Commenting on the controversy, Bush last week told People magazine, "I think Mary is going to be a loving soul to her child. And I'm happy for her."
Pressed on whether his remark contradicted views he previously expressed that being raised by same-sex couples was not ideal for a child, he avoided a direct response.
"Mary Cheney is going to make a fine mom, and she's going to love this child a lot," he said.
In 2005, Bush said in an interview that he thought it best for a child to be raised by a man and woman married to each other. He does not favor same-sex marriage.
"I believe children can receive love from gay couples, but the ideal is — and studies have shown that the ideal is — where a child is raised in a married family with a man and a woman," he told the New York Times.
On Friday, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow was asked whether the president stood by this belief.
"Yes, he does," Snow replied.
"But he also believes that every human life is sacred and that every child who comes into this world deserves love," Snow said. "And he believes that Mary Cheney's child will in fact have loving parents."
Snow said Bush had not addressed whether he thought children raised by gays were at a disadvantage.
In the People interview, Bush said that he found out about Mary Cheney's pregnancy when the vice president "took me aside and gave me the good news."
Bush added that the vice president and his wife, Lynne, "are very happy for Mary."
The president did not mention Mary Cheney's partner of 15 years, Heather Poe.
Since the Bush administration took office in 2001, Mary Cheney has played a low-key but growing role in its political operation.
In 2004, she held a senior staff position in the Bush reelection campaign, and regularly traveled with her father aboard Air Force Two.
She is to give birth in the late spring.
from The Los Angeles Times
Country trio the Dixie Chicks have discovered a major plus from the fall-out after their anti-George W. Bush controversy - they've been embraced by gay men. The group lost an army of fans after singer Natalie Maines famously criticized the President during a 2003 concert in London, but they've started seeing more men at their shows.
Bandmate Emily Robison says, "There are lots of gay men in the audience. I think they rightfully assume that if you're liberal on one issue, you're liberal across the board."
Maines adds, "I feel we have a connection with them because we've felt discrimination. We now know what it's like to be hated for no reason, just because of who we are. There are way more men in general. We never really had men in our crowd or it always seemed as if they didn't want to be there - that they brought their girlfriends, thinking for doing that they were going to get laid afterward."
from Star Pulse
STATESBORO, GEORGIA - President Bush has for months cast the midterm elections as a choice about just two issues: taxes and terrorism. Now, with polls predicting bleak results for Republicans, he is trying to fire up his party by decrying gay marriage.
"For decades, activist judges have tried to redefine America by court order," Bush said Monday. "Just this last week in New Jersey, another activist court issued a ruling that raises doubt about the institution of marriage. We believe marriage is a union between a man and a woman, and should be defended."
The line earned Bush by far his most sustained applause at a rally of 5,000 people aimed at boosting former GOP Rep. Max Burns' effort to unseat a Democratic incumbent. In this conservative rural corner of eastern Georgia, even children jumped to their feet alongside their parents to cheer and clap for nearly 30 seconds _ a near-eternity in political speechmaking.
The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples must be given all the benefits of married couples, leaving it up to the state Legislature to decide whether to extend those rights under the structure of marriage or something else.
One alternative, civil unions, is an idea Bush supports. But he ignored that on the way to portraying the New Jersey decision as the kind of thing America should do without.
"I believe I should continue to appoint judges who strictly interpret the law and not legislate from the bench," the president said, earning more applause in the sweltering basketball arena at Georgia Southern University. He pointed to his nominations to the Supreme Court of Chief Justice John Roberts and Samuel Alito.
The gay-marriage theme became a staple in Bush's political remarks last Thursday, the day after the New Jersey ruling on a touchstone issue for religious conservatives who are crucial to Republican electoral calculations. White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said it was added merely to respond to the ruling _ not because his other messages were failing to connect.
But the lines, repeated to great enthusiasm at a second rally later Monday in Texas, mark one of the only substantive changes in the president's stump speech as he turns from raising money for Republican candidates to encouraging the GOP faithful to vote Nov. 7.
To that end, he was focusing on the South.
After campaigning for Burns, trying to win back the seat conservative Democrat John Barrow took from him in 2004, Bush flew to the district vacated by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. DeLay resigned in June amid a series of investigations of his fundraising activities.
Organizers said Bush's appearance in a partially filled airport hangar in Sugar Land, Texas, drew over 6,000 to support Republican Shelley Sekula-Gibbs' write-in campaign to replace DeLay. The former Republican party star and Bush ally on Capitol Hill was nowhere to be seen, and the president never mentioned DeLay's name.
The rally finale was Texas-style dramatic, with Bush posing with Sekula-Gibbs with his Marine One helicopter and a multi-color fireworks show in the background.
The election in the reliably conservative district outside Houston is complicated. Republicans were legally barred from replacing DeLay's name on the ballot. So supporters must choose Sekula-Gibbs twice _ once for the special election filling out DeLay's term and again for the general election for the next Congress.
She faces former congressman Nick Lampson, who has outraised and outspent her, giving Democrats a chance at a seat long in the GOP's hands. A Lampson victory would also be sweet revenge for an opposition party that DeLay fought at every turn while in office.
On Tuesday, Bush is heading back to Georgia, a state he twice won comfortably. Tuesday's rally, about 130 miles west of Statesboro, is aimed at helping another former GOP congressman, Mac Collins, oust Democratic Rep. Jim Marshall.
After Thursday, the president's schedule remains fluid, as his political advisers balance the need for help in tight races against the president's unpopularity.
Bush pleaded with Republicans not to give up keeping control of Congress _ and mocked Democrats.
"You might remember that about this time in 2004, some of them were picking out their new offices in the West Wing," he said. "The movers never got the call."
Democrats ridiculed him back, for an itinerary that took him to once-solid GOP areas.
"Clearly President Bush is more of a liability than an asset as he's forced to stump for candidates in districts that were once considered safe for Republicans," said Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Stacie Paxton.
The president played down the idea that next Tuesday's vote is a referendum on his embattled presidency. "This is different from a presidential campaign because it's not necessarily a national election, in that each congressional race really depends upon the candidates and how they carry the message," he said in an interview on Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes."
Bush also rejected the idea he'll become a lame duck after the elections. "I promise you I'm going to be president up until the very last day, and I've got a lot to do," he said.
from The Washington Post
They might not be gay lovers, but Lance Armstrong and Matthew McConaughey certainly do have cutely butch names for one another. In the November issue of Details magazine, on newsstands this week, cover boy Lance says that the BFFs call each other "LiveStrong" and "J.K. Livin," and when asked whether they're gay, he jokes: "We tried it. Wasn't for us."
The two Austin, Tex. natives have been friends for years, but they really started to bond, says Armstrong, when their respective relationships with Sheryl Crow and Penelope Cruz dissolved. And when it comes to the tabloid attention both attract, they've got totally different approaches. "He's all tin cans and yam," says Lance of the famously crunchy Matt. "I get shit on my Blackberry ... My cell phone. Most of it is bullshit."
Elsewhere, Armstrong expresses shock that President Bush wouldn't fork over $1 billion for his charity -- given that bird flu, he says, got $7 billion. And he sets the record straight about Jake Gyllenhaal portraying his life story: He's not.
from TMZ
Shooting your buddy on a quailhunting trip is stupid, but using a sex toy while in charge of a murder trial is even stupider.
That's the verdict from this year's World Stupidity Awards, where a pervy US judge has beaten trigger-happy Vice President Dick Cheney to the title of Stupidest Man of the Year.
His Honour Donald Thompson, 59, pleasured himself under his robes with a device called a penis pump while presiding over two murder trials in Oklahoma.
Sadly, he was unable to accept his award in person - he's serving four years for indecent exposure.
Cheney had been hotly tipped to take the prize after blasting old pal Harry Whittington in the face with a shotgun as they hunted quail together in Texas.
But George W Bush's right-hand man had to make do with the consolation of the Dumbest Moment of the Year award.
There was also a prize for hapless Harry, 78, who survived a heart attack after Cheney peppered his body with 200 pieces of lead shot.
He earned the gong for Stupidest Statement of the Year by telling the press: "My family and I are deeply sorry for all that Vice President Cheney and his family have had to go through this past week."
Harry's chances of winning improved considerably when organisers banned President Bush from the category. A Stupidity Awards "spokesmoron" explained: "Voters complained that his presence was unfair to other nominees."
Dubya had to be content with a widely-predicted victory in a category all of his own - the Stupidest Statement by George W Bush Award.
He was honoured for telling the bungling official in charge of the disastrous aid effort after Hurricane Katrina: "Brownie, you're doing a hell of a job."
Federal emergency director Michael Brown was out of a job days later.
Other classic Bushisms of 2006 included: "I'm the decider, and I decide what is best."
And connoisseurs of stupidity fondly recalled the great man's reaction whe the president of Brazil showed him a map of his vast country.
Bush said: "Wow! Brazil is big!"
The Stupidity Awards were created on the internet in 2003 to "salute achievement in ignorance and stupidity".
Honourable mentions this year included Mel Gibson, nominated in the stupid statement category for asking a policewoman who nicked him for drink-driving: "What are you looking at, sugar t*ts?"
France was proudly represented by Zinedine Zidane, whose World Cup Final headbutt on Marco Materazzi put him in on the short list for the stupidest moment prize.
And a museum visitor called Nick Flynn carried the flag for Britain after tripping over his laces and smashing three priceless 17th century Chinese vases,
After the catastrophe, Flynn criticised the museum in Cambridge for not taking better care of their exhibits.
His brass neck earned him the Stupidity Award For Making a Stupid Situation Stupider. How stupid is that?
For more awards and winners, log on to www.stupidityawards.com.
from The Daily Record
WASHINGTON - Although he recently expressed confidence that Mary Cheney will make a loving parent, President Bush continues to believe it is best that a child is raised by a man and woman married to each other, the president's spokesman said Friday.