Barack, the Demo-Publican President, and Welcome To Him

Well, I voted Libertarian, as always. The rest of you thought you were voting for Republicans and Democrats and, turns out, you were all voting for Politicians  - or as we Libertarians say, the Politician's Party, or the Government Party.

I knew Barack would push for things like health-care 'reform,' and the irony is, the way things have been going the past two decades, if he had been a Republican he would have passed it. Now we might get lucky and have the evil thing die unborn.

But I at least hoped we'd get some good anti-Republican things from a liberal Democrats, like a reduction in our military presence overseas and our overreaching foreign policy that just has to involve itself in absolutely every single thing in every other country (when we can't do things right in our own). But no: We're still as involved as we were under the hated Republicans. So we've been getting the worst of the Democrats and the worst of the Republicans, just as we have been for years. Lots of government programs at great cost and little benefit, and lots of foreign policy at great cost and no great benefit. 

Terrific. 

Barack needs to take a leaf from Clinton's book and try to become the best Republicans president the Democratics ever had. 

Prop 8 case: Judge Walker is Gay -- Does That Affect His Judgement?

Debra Saunders writes an excellent editorial today in the SF Chronicle about Prop 8 presiding Judge Walker's sexual identity that might cause partisans on both sides to accuse him of prejudice in this California gay rights case.

As I read her editorial about the "biggest open secret" in the landmark case, I waited for her to mention, on the other hand, the aspect that makes this entirely paradoxical: If Walker should consider recusing himself because he's a gay man in a case about gay rights -- wouldn't a straight judge be equally open to accusations that his straight orientation could affect his legal judgement?

Think of this not as a case about gay rights, but as a case about sexual orientation rights, and the paradox might become clearer. By definition, it seems to me, there is nobody who could be considered a neutral judge here -- except maybe a castrati. (Kidding.) 

Michael "Mac" McCarthy