1st Annual Catholic Blog Awards Results

Congratulations to all the winners.

And thanks to whoever nominated The Blog from the Core in the following categories: Most Informative Blog, Best Man Blog, Best Political, and Best Overall.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 02/19/04 08:43:08 PM
Categorized as Other.

Write to California, Too

In response to my Letter to Congress Supporting Federal Marriage Amendment, Vociferous Yawpings urges us to write to officials in California, and provides some names and addresses. Mark Windsor is right:

.... We acted when Terri Schaivo needed us most. We have an opportunity to act again, today. We have to try to stem the flood now before the entire population of the planet is desensitized to the agenda. Another thing I would ask is that people pray. We’ll get nowhere without help from above. It worked wonders when Terri needed us. Now we need to use the same actions for another fight.

Write letters. Send emails. Make phone calls. Do anything to stir up the defenders of the agenda and let them know that we’re here. After we get started, call your local newspaper or TV station, and let them know that there’s a story here. If we sit back and do nothing, then they win without a fight.

I've heard from a couple of people who have such dependably left-wing representation in Congress that they feel it would be useless to write to them to support the Federal Marriage Amendment. I say, that's precisely why it is important to write to them now.

Maybe your senator or representative isn't up for re-election this year; but, the White House, and a third of the Senate, and all of the House is up for re-election. So all members of both major parties need to hear from us: there is no such thing as "gay" "marriage", and the judicial tyrants and lawless executives trying to foist it on us must be stopped. We have to let them know that declining to stand up for real marriage will be a losing proposition in the general election.

And it will be.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 02/19/04 08:25:02 PM
Categorized as Political.

"Prominent Democrats Question S.F. Nuptials"

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CXCVI

A report today at the San Jose Mercury News

For a week, the parade of gay couples lining up to marry at San Francisco City Hall has resonated as a love story, a civil-rights struggle, a morality play and a legal tussle.

On Wednesday, politics burst front and center, with debate over the hot-button issue reverberating from the White House to the U.S. Senate race in California to lobbying of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors.

President Bush, in his first public comments, condemned the city's actions, and said they are influencing his decision over whether to push for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution banning gay marriage. His wife, Laura Bush, on a trip to Los Angeles, called same-sex marriage "a very, very shocking issue" for some people. As of Wednesday, the city had issued more than 2,700 marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples.

But the biggest surprise of the day came from U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, seeking her third term this fall and long a champion of gay rights, who publicly stated that she does not believe in changing state law to allow for the recognition of same-sex marriage.

The announcement, which came after two Republican opponents challenged her on the issue, was a blow to some of her longtime gay and lesbian supporters, and demonstrated the acute political sensitivity of same-sex marriage in an election year.

Further fallout

And the repercussions didn't end there.

• Democratic Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, a leader on gay-rights issues since his election as the first openly gay member of Congress, criticized San Francisco officials for poor timing, saying the backlash probably would help anti-gay-marriage forces pass a federal constitutional ban and ones in individual states, including his own state, where same-sex marriages are slated to begin in mid-May. Frank, a supporter of gay marriage, said he had warned San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom about that.

• Santa Cruz County's most liberal supervisor, Democrat Mardi Wormhoudt, has been the target of an aggressive lobbying efforts to recognize gay marriage in the county in recent days — even though it's not the supervisors' decision to make. Richard Bedal, Santa Cruz County's elected registrar and tax collector, said Wednesday that wasn't going to happen. "We're going to wait to see what the courts have to say," said Bedal, a Republican who holds the non-partisan office. Wormhoudt, who supports gay marriage, said she wouldn't put the item on an agenda until discussing the political ramifications with the gay and lesbian community.

• San Francisco's Newsom fired back at detractors, declaring that the equal-protection clause of California's constitution prohibits discrimination.

Inserting a personal note, he added: "I ask the President to meet Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin and discuss with them why they simply want the same rights as a couple of 51 years that my wife and I enjoy today." Last Thursday, Lyon and Martin, a lesbian couple, received the first same-sex marriage license issued by the city.

Debate gets political

All around Wednesday, the debate was framed more in political terms than it has been since the same-sex wedding procession began in San Francisco.

"Everyone is reading the same polls. People want to be seen as pro-marriage, but not anti-gay," said Jack Pitney, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College.

Republican political consultants said Wednesday they will use the past week's events in San Francisco to demonstrate the Democratic mayor's willingness to flout laws for the sake of liberal convictions, and — as they did in the Boxer campaign — demonstrated they will push liberal legislators to take sides.

Democrats, meanwhile, blasted Bush's talk of a constitutional amendment and accused Republicans of "demagoging" a civil-rights issue out of fear that the scenes broadcast of smiling gay and lesbian newlyweds, many long-committed couples, will sway public opinion their way.

And Boxer found herself in the middle of the barrage. Responding to calls by GOP contenders Bill Jones and Rosario Marin to take a stance, her spokesman David Sandretti read a statement from Boxer: "The mayor has decided to test state law. My opinion is that state law is fair and appropriate because it gives equal rights to all citizens."

Sandretti added that the senator believes that the state's domestic-partnership law provides gay couples with "full rights and responsibilities of marriage" and that marriage as defined by state law should remain between a man and a woman.

Kate Kendell, whose National Lesbian Rights Group is representing Martin and Lyon in support of the city, called Boxer's words disappointing.

But Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who last Thursday introduced legislation to change state law to allow the marriage of "two persons," stood behind Boxer.

"I'm not critical of her. She's our champion. We disagree on a small item, and I hope to get her there," Leno said. "The big point is the difference between her and her Republican challengers, all of whom heartily support the president, who is attempting to amend the U.S. Constitution to codify discrimination."

But Massachusetts' Frank warned that San Francisco's actions probably will drive more mainstream politicians to support a federal ban on same-sex marriage, and noted at least two states have moved up plans to put measures on their ballots.

"If people believe that marriage in one state is going to have to be recognized in every state," he said, "we lose votes."

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Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 02/19/04 08:04:17 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Political.

"Kerry and Jane"

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CXCV

Robert Novak writes at TownHall today (ellipsis in original).

A 34-year-old flier lists speakers for an anti-Vietnam War rally at Valley Forge State Park, Pa., Sept. 7, 1970. Included were two of that era's most notorious leftist agitators, the Rev. James Bevel and Mark Lane, plus actress Jane Fonda, a symbol of extreme opposition to the war. Leading off the list was a less familiar name: John Kerry.

So much for the contention by Kerry supporters that his connection with "Hanoi Jane" (so called for her later visit to the enemy capital in time of war) was accidental juxtaposition in a photograph. In fact, Navy Lt. Kerry returned from heroic wartime service to help lead the radical Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), whose diatribes against flag and country are shocking from the distance of three decades.

Does this reflect on Kerry's qualifications for the presidency? Perhaps no more than George W. Bush's record in attending National Guard drills in 1972. When Democrats made President Bush's past part of the 2004 campaign, Sen. Kerry's past became fair game. Relentless attention to the Bush record has helped the president's political decline, while the Kerry record has been largely ignored.

Kerry now keeps his distance from Jane Fonda, expressing disapproval of her adventures in Hanoi. Rep. Charles Rangel on CNN's "Crossfire" Feb. 12 minimized a photo showing Kerry three rows away from Fonda at an anti-war rally: "There was some distance between Jane Fonda... and there was a guy that looked like it was Kerry that was a part of the crowd." He added to me: "I just hope that you wouldn't just identify me with your politics just because I took a picture with you."

Actually, Kerry and Fonda both were among war resisters with the most extreme positions in criticizing U.S. participation in the war. Kerry, as the New England representative, attended a VVAW executive committee meeting Sept. 11, 1970. Minutes show plans to picket the National Guard Association convention in New York, to sponsor "war crimes testimony" at the U.N. and to coordinate with Jane Fonda's speaking tour. A later VVAW staff meeting decided to bar the American flag from the organization's offices.

A VVAW flier of their period claims "American soldiers" commit atrocities "every day" against "the Vietnamese simply because they are 'Gooks.'" Kerry bought into the VVAW mantra that war crimes were not isolated in Vietnam. He told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that "in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan," U.S. troops committed unspeakable atrocities while they "ravaged the countryside."

Returning to Kerry's youthful indiscretions is valid only because of the inordinate attention on young Bush in the same period. Kerry's strategists never planned to go down this path, which inadvertently was opened when leftist moviemaker Michael Moore called Bush a "deserter" for allegedly missing National Guard drills. That triggered a feeding frenzy for Democratic politicians, helped along at first by Kerry.

In 2000, Kerry leaped on the National Guard issue, comparing the Republican candidate unfavorably with "those of us who were in the military." Four years later, Kerry was less direct, linking Bush's Guard service to people who "went to Canada" or "opposed the war." Kerry's surrogate, former Sen. Max Cleland (recently named by President Bush to the Export-Import Bank board) asserted "we need somebody who felt the sting of battle, not someone who didn't."

Kerry has since backed away from the National Guard question and ordered his surrogates to do the same, but that does not cover such irrepressible Democrats as Charlie Rangel. In 1992 when Bill Clinton's non-service was under attack, the congressman from Harlem brushed off his own heroic Korean War record as a way "to get off the street because times were rough." On NBC's "Meet the Press" last Sunday he sang a different song. "I've served in combat," he said, adding that "those who haven't shared it ought to give a lot of space to those that have been there."

Once again, Rangel suggested that Kerry did not even know Jane Fonda. Documents show they shared the same platform and the same wing of the anti-war movement. That is surely as valid as investigating how many National Guard drills Bush attended.

©2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes.

(Thanks, Ryan.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 02/19/04 05:52:25 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Political.

Coulter, Cleland, and Core's Law of New Media

Ann Coulter spills the beans, Feb. 11, on how the military biography of former Georgia senator Max Cleland has been (as they say across the pond) "sexed up" in the service of politics:

.... Cleland lost three limbs in an accident during a routine noncombat mission where he was about to drink beer with friends. He saw a grenade on the ground and picked it up. He could have done that at Fort Dix. In fact, Cleland could have dropped a grenade on his foot as a National Guardsman — or what Cleland sneeringly calls "weekend warriors." Luckily for Cleland's political career and current pomposity about Bush, he happened to do it while in Vietnam.

There is more than a whiff of dishonesty in how Cleland is presented to the American people. Terry McAuliffe goes around saying, "Max Cleland, a triple amputee who left three limbs on the battlefield of Vietnam," was thrown out of office because Republicans "had the audacity to call Max Cleland unpatriotic." Mr. Cleland, a word of advice: When a slimy weasel like Terry McAuliffe is vouching for your combat record, it's time to sound "retreat" on that subject....

The good people of Georgia — who do not need lectures on admiring military service — gave Cleland one pass for being a Vietnam veteran. He didn't get a lifetime pass.

Indeed, if Cleland had dropped a grenade on himself at Fort Dix rather than in Vietnam, he would never have been a U.S. senator in the first place. Maybe he'd be the best pharmacist in Atlanta, but not a U.S. senator. He got into office on the basis of serving in Vietnam and was thrown out for his performance as a senator....

Having been castigated by Democratic pundits for telling the truth, Coulter provides documentation, yesterday (embedded ellipsis in original):

.... Sadly for them, dozens and dozens of newspapers have already printed the truth. Liberals simply can't grasp the problem Lexis-Nexis poses to their incessant lying. They ought to stick to their specialty — hysterical overreaction. The truth is not their forte.

One of the most detailed accounts of Cleland's life was written by Jill Zuckman in a lengthy piece for The Boston Globe Sunday magazine on Aug. 3, 1997:

Finally, the battle at Khe Sanh was over. Cleland, 25 years old, and two members of his team were now ordered to set up a radio relay station at the division assembly area, 15 miles away. The three gathered antennas, radios and a generator and made the 15-minute helicopter trip east. After unloading the equipment, Cleland climbed back into the helicopter for the ride back. But at the last minute, he decided to stay and have a beer with some friends. As the helicopter was lifting off, he shouted to the pilot that he was staying behind and jumped several feet to the ground.

Cleland hunched over to avoid the whirring blades and ran. Turning to face the helicopter, he caught sight of a grenade on the ground where the chopper had perched. It must be mine, he thought, moving toward it. He reached for it with his right arm just as it exploded, slamming him back and irreparably altering his plans for a bright, shining future.

Interestingly, all news accounts told the exact same story for 30 years — including that Cleland had stopped to have beer with friends when the accident occurred (a fact that particularly irked Al Hunt).

"He told the pilot he was going to stay awhile. Maybe have a few beers with friends.... Then Cleland looked down and saw a grenade. Where'd that come from? He walked toward it, bent down, and crossed the line between before and after." (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Dec. 5, 1999) ....

Core's Law of New Media strikes again.

(Thanks, Bryan.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 02/19/04 05:37:37 PM
Categorized as Media & Political.

The Deaning Party?

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CXCIV

A WSJ house editorial at OpinionJournal today.

Howard Dean's withdrawal from the Democratic primaries yesterday ends one of the more remarkable flameouts in Presidential history. But while the former Vermont governor won't be his party's nominee, he deserves to be recognized as the most consequential loser since Barry Goldwater. Perhaps because he wasn't from Washington, Mr. Dean figured out the current mood of Democratic activists well before his competitors did. He found they were angry, and that they wanted a champion willing to declare himself as the anti-Bush. "I represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party," Mr. Dean said during his salad days last year, and the crowds loved it. In both attitude and agenda, the Vermont liberal has set the terms of Democratic debate.

On the war on terror, he has almost single-handedly pulled his party to the antiwar left. As he often said on the stump, his main competitors all voted for the Iraq war. But as Mr. Dean climbed in the polls by denouncing the war, he made opposition to it a party litmus test. Senators John Kerry and John Edwards, who had voted for the war in late 2002, opposed the $87 billion to finish the job a year later. The candidates who stayed honorably hawkish — Dick Gephardt and Joe Lieberman — went down to defeat.

Mr. Dean was the first candidate to call for repealing all of the Bush tax cuts. Soon every Democrat was for raising taxes in some substantial way. Senators Edwards and Kerry now assail the Patriot Act they voted for, again following Mr. Dean. They also attack the education reform they voted for, in another Dean echo. Imitation is the sincerest form of politics.

Mr. Dean's personal candidacy foundered, famously, after a series of undisciplined public remarks. But it's also true that his collapse came only after Mr. Kerry and others had moved sharply enough in Mr. Dean's direction that there wasn't much policy difference left.

Mr. Kerry has now adopted 90% of the Dean agenda and about 70% of his attitude. The Massachusetts Senator is winning the bulk of Democratic and liberal votes, as the exit polls show he did in Wisconsin on Tuesday, while Mr. Edwards pulls in more Republicans and independents.

It is too soon to say how all of this will play out in November. Certainly the white, liberal part of the Democratic base is newly energized, even if Mr. Dean's Internet uprising failed to live up to its media hype. This will matter in an election in which the turnout of core supporters could be decisive. The nasty, and often personal, attacks on President Bush begun by Mr. Dean and continued by others have taken their toll on the President's approval rating. Mr. Kerry is now leading Mr. Bush in head-to-head polling. The media are abuzz with hope.

Yet we can't help but wonder if all of this liberal anger and intensity won't boomerang in the end. The Dean movement has clearly erased all of the New Democratic moderation that Bill Clinton made famous in the 1990s. On trade, taxes, education and values, the Dean-Kerry Democrats are to the left of the Clintonites, not to mention left of the mood in the "red" states they lost in 2000 and will need to win this time around. We doubt it's an accident that Senator Hillary Clinton, waiting in the wings for 2008, is now more hawkish than Mr. Dean and Senator Kerry on the war on terror.

"What we set out to do was make the rest of the country more like Vermont," Mr. Dean said yesterday in his exit remarks, adding that his supporters shouldn't support a third-party candidate this autumn. He needn't worry. The Democrats have become the Deaniacs.

Copyright © 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 02/19/04 05:20:09 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Political.

Letter to Congress Supporting Federal Marriage Amendment

Today, I am sending the following letter to my senators and representative, with appropriate changes (for instance, Senator Santorum is a sponsor of the joint resolution in the Senate, for which I thank him).

As a constituent, I am writing to urge you to actively support the Federal Marriage Amendment (H.J. Res. 56, May 21, 2003; S.J. Res. 26, November 25, 2003).

“Gay” marriage does not — cannot — exist, any more than does a square wheel.

Those trying to foist the oxymoron onto our society — by judicial fiat in Massachusetts, and by executive lawlessness in San Francisco — are trying to redefine an immemorial institution, the protection of which has always been enshrined in civil law. And they are trying to do so by force of government without the consent of the governed. Indeed, in the case of California, they are attempting to do this against the will of a considerable majority of that state’s electorate, as expressed in an election only four years ago.

Surely, the activists will not stop until they have tried every means, no matter how underhanded, to get their way all across the country. A federal constitutional amendment is the only sure way to stop them.

Do you, Senator, want judges and mayors to be able, at their pleasure, to render laws useless? To quell the voice of the people expressed through their representatives? To render your legislative actions impotent? That will be the precedent set — the way of the future established — if the activists get their way.

As I said, I urge you to actively support the “Musgrave Amendment” to the federal constitution:

Do not merely vote for it, speak for it;
Do not merely speak for it, fight for it.

As a lifelong Pennsylvania resident, I have no doubts whatever that an overwhelming majority of your constituents would approve.

Please consider writing to your own Congressional senators and representative today. You may find this website to be useful.

This is the entire text of the proposed amendment:

Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.

[Follow-up: Write to California, Too.]

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 02/19/04 06:32:38 AM
Categorized as Political.