With the Iraq War draws down, there’s been an increase in the “Nobody Could Have Known” excuse.
In contrast to these half-hearted attempts at ass-covering, Andrew Sullivan wrote a far-more honest and reconciling piece in 2008 describing what he got wrong in supporting Bush on the Iraq War.
In response, John Cole of Balloon Juice gave an even more heavy-handed self-criticism.
And today Washington Post opinion writer Matt Miller also wrote a piece called “My Iraq Mistake.”
Turns out 10% of the reconstruction costs of Iraq were wasted.
Tony Blair is “desperately sorry” over the deaths in Iraq but still maintains removing Saddam was the right thing to do.
And Castro apologizes for persecuting gays back in 50s, 60s, and 70s.
Speaking of which, former RNC Chair Ken Mehlman recently came out as gay and now wants to support gay marriage. Good for him. Unfortunately, he was also a campaign manager during the 2004 election when the Republicans were cynically calling for a Constitutional Amendment to define marriage, using the fear of gay marriage to get elected, after which they immediately switched their focus to privatizing social security.
Mehlman acknowledges that if he had publicly declared his sexuality sooner, he might have played a role in keeping the party from pushing an anti-gay agenda.
When asked about this, Mehlman gave a kind of pseudo-apology:
“It’s a legitimate question and one I understand,” Mehlman said. “I can’t change the fact that I wasn’t in this place personally when I was in politics, and I genuinely regret that. It was very hard, personally.” He asks of those who doubt his sincerity: “If they can’t offer support, at least offer understanding.” He also claims that in private conversations with senior Republicans, he fought back against attempts to demonize same-sex marriage.
Melhman says his homosexual identity is something he just realized fairly recently and that he “really wished” he had come to terms with his sexual orientation earlier, so he could have worked against the Federal Marriage Amendment and “reached out to the gay community in the way I reached out to African Americans.”
That’s funny, because Bill Maher outed him on Larry King Live as far back as 2006, a segment that was immediately censored by CNN. Melhman was also the subject of an outing campaign by gay rights activist Mike Rogers, starting when Mehlman was Bush’s campaign manager. I guess everyone knew it but him.
But as Jon Stewart joked, “You can’t expect him to fight for the rights of a group he didn’t know he was a part of!”
The Onion put out this ‘quote’: “It was worth orchestrating the 2004 gay marriage debate if it got him out of overcomitting to his boyfriend.”
I kinda have an issue with people being outed, even if they are in the public sphere. Sexuality and sexual identity is a.) not cut and dried and b.) very personal and c.) can be extremely fraught with emotional and psychological issues esp. if you are raised in or are part of a group which does not see your particular variety of sexuality as “good” or “the norm.” All of that said, yeah it was shit of Melhman to work on that campaign (I’d have thought it was shit for anyone to work on it) but who is *really* to say that he had or had not come to terms (which is just such a weird way to put it) with his sexuality then? Outing him is like calling that one kid in school gay or worse when there’s no proof, then years later when he comes out saying “See, told ya.”
I haven’t read what evidence caused Maher and Rogers to believe he was gay, but my assumption was it was knowledge of affairs he had with other men. I don’t think people are typically outed just for acting gay, especially by gay activists. Assuming that’s the case, then I would consider his quote about “not coming to terms” with it a lie (even if he was originally lying to himself that having sex with guys doesn’t make you gay). He could have elaborated on what he meant but instead chose a narrative that implies he never engaged in homosexual acts before recently and therefore wasn’t a hypocrite. My take on it is he’s just one of many gay Republicans who simply care more about the party’s fiscal or military agenda than his own socially liberal beliefs.
I understand your sensitivity on the issue, but I would compare this to court cases where an issue is thrown by the judge but is then reintroduced because the defendant “opened the door,” or (from a privacy perspective, not a moral one) to outing Newt Gingrich cheating on his wife during his campaign to impeach Clinton.
http://www.mattbors.com/archives/686.html
I understand what you’re saying but the way the comments by maher et al came across to many in the GLBTQ community (not all, just many) was as typical “queer-baiting” and the bogey man in the republican closet (ha) tactic–maybe they knew he’d had affairs, maybe it was a case of a poorly kept secret. But yeah, I just don’t think it should have had that much weight in their narrative.