Author: Bryant

Sports journalism is often a pretty conservative field, especially when it comes to talk radio. Tank McNamara, the sports-themed comic strip — I say “the.” Maybe there’s another one, I dunno, but it’s the only one I know about. Anyhow.

The current storyline is about Tank McNamara infiltrating the Minutemen, that charming anti-immigration group that’s walking the thin line between citizen activism and vigilante activity. Cause the biggest threat to the United States today is illegal Mexican immigration.

The writer has some fairly stinging things to say about the Minutemen. “Well, some of these guys have gone over the top. They’ve become total whack jobs. And I should know. I’m one of them. A ‘Minuteman,’ not a whack job.” Interesting stuff. I dunno if the comic strip has been this political before, although I have vague memories of it being so from time to time.

I don’t really have much to say about this, I’m just thinking it’ll be interesting to read the strip and keep an eye out for fallout.

The Massachusetts Legislature rejected an amendment banning gay marriage by the resounding margin of 157-39 yesterday. The margin is partially because the extreme right voted no as well — the amendment would permit civil unions, and some of the reps think that’s wrong too. But it’s mostly because gay marriage hasn’t ended the world here in the Bay State.

There’s been an election cycle between the court order allowing gay marriage and now, and gay marriage was an election issue. The opinion of the courts matches the opinion of the legislature, and the opinion of the legislature reflects the opinion of the people. Done and done, as they say.

Tacitus, when all is said and done, is honest. Do I disagree with him? Lots. Do I respect his integrity? Generally, yeah. He’s not perfect. Neither am I. Who is?

The world needs more Republicans like him and John Cole, and more Democrats who can tell the difference between John Cole and John Derbyshire.

You must condemn X. You must condemn Y.

“Islam is proven evil by the failure of mainstream Islam to condemn terrorism.” (Never mind that this is untrue to begin with.)

The problem is fairly obvious; the question is how to get ouf of the trap. How do we avoid falling into the belief that failure to condemn implies approval? Everyone does it.

Heck, I’ll take a shot at this one.

First off: media whore is a pejorative term. Yes? Yes.

Second: Erick Erickson didn’t call Cindy Sheehan a whore. He did call her a media whore. We can hopefully pretty much stop pretending he didn’t mean to be insulting, right?

Third: if there’s something wrong with Cindy Sheehan using her access to media outlets to promote a particular commercial or ideological message, then there are a lot of people from all sides of the political spectrum who ought to be condemned.

What the Redstate folks are really saying is that they disapprove of her message; however, they’ve chosen to attack the person instead of what she’s saying. There’s a bit of subtext implying she shouldn’t have access to media outlets, but that’s a pretty profoundly unappetizing bit of subtext, so you won’t see it stated clearly. It’s always difficult to say “we don’t believe she should have a platform.”