David Limbaugh: May 2012 Be a Referendum on Obama's Perverse Vision for America

David Limbaugh has an excellent blog that you should be reading anyway, but this week it's a don't miss:

David Limbaugh | May 2012 Be a Referendum on Obama's Perverse Vision for America

It's clear that Obama's re-election strategy is to demonize conservatives and his Republican opponents as extremists, "small," intolerant and morally deficient. That's a safer course, I suppose, than running on his miserable record.

Keith Olbermann calls me "improbable"...huh?!

Just when I think liberal media bias has reached the apex of insanity, I find something like this...

Keith Olbermann, who was too ridiculous for even MSNBC to tolerate, recently landed at Al Gore's internet television venture "Current TV." As expected, the move to an online audience hasn't toned down Olby's foaming-at-the-mouth liberal ranting.

This weekend, I got a tip on Twitter (thank you, @aipolitics) that Olbermann had mentioned me last week as part of his tiresome segment naming various people conservatives as "The Worst Person in the World." Unlike Olbermann, I know how to use Google (more on that in a minute), and easily found the video (relevant section starts at about the two-minute mark):

Some additional notes on the booing...

After the presidential debate on Thursday night, I wrote a late night post about what I had personally witnessed regarding a few individuals who booed after a gay soldier's question to the candidates. The post got a lot of very passionate responses and has more comments than any other post on this blog.

I received criticism from those who felt I didn't condemn the booing strongly enough and from those who did not believe my depiction of what happened. As to the first issue, my apologies. As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, it was very late at night and my goal was to just write and publish my observations about the booing at the debate, not take the time to discuss broader issues.

So let me be clear: I absolutely, positively do not support booing a soldier for asking an honest question, period. I absolutely, positively do not support booing a gay man for asking an honest question, period. I strongly believe that the few individuals who booed were awful, classless, jerks. They were an embarrassment to my state, my Republican party, and all the wonderful people who worked so hard to plan the Presidency 5 events this week, and they should be ashamed of themselves.

And, for the record, I stated my opinion about DADT back in June 2010:

The Truth About the Booing at the Debate

It's after 3:00 am and I have to get up early for another fun-packed day tomorrow (CPAC FLORIDA!) but I want to put this on the record now about an incident that happened at tonight's Republican debate. It's important that the truth is shared, because I have already seen liberal bloggers and some people on Twitter completely distorting what happened.

The debate included video questions that were submitted on YouTube, and one came from a soldier serving in Iraq who is gay and asked about the candidates' opinions on don't ask don't tell. There was audible booing after his question...however, please note that it was not the crowd booing. It was only one or two people.

I was at the debate, in the audience on the right hand side about halfway back (here's my tweet of the video screen that was right in front of us). The person who booed was just a few rows in front of us. The booing got an immediate and angry reaction from nearly everyone sitting around him, who hissed and shushed at him. Lots of loud gasps, "Shhhh!" "No!" "Shut up, you idiot!" etc.

My tweet right after it happened:

FTR that was ONLY 1 or 2 people who booed at the gay soldier's question & LOTS of people shushed at him. #FloridaP5 #gopdebate #sayfieFri Sep 23 02:17:55 via UberSocial for BlackBerrySarah Rumpf
rumpfshaker

Don't Ask Don't Tell = Hypocrisy + Lousy Logic

I was catching up on some of my favorite blogs and news sites over the weekend, and came across several debates about the potential repeal of the military's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy.  After reading through the thoughts of some very opinionated people on both sides of the issue, the main thing I couldn't get out of my head was the raging hypocrisy and complete lack of logic inherent in this policy.

I'm not a military law expert, but my understanding of the policy is that the military allows gays to serve, as long as they don't openly tell that they are gay. So let me get this straight (no pun intended!)...it's OK to be gay in the military, but only if you lie about it?  Huh?!

Those who favor repealing the policy call it discriminatory and a violation of civil rights.  Fine, but where were these people when the law was being enacted?  The Democrats like to attempt to claim exclusive ownership of the fight for civil rights, when history shows that is simply not true. 

It was a Democrat president, Bill Clinton, who signed it into law in 1993.  Clinton campaigned on a promise to allow all citizens to serve in the military regardless of sexual orientation.  When it came time to actually lift the ban, however, Clinton ended up losing nerve and offering up this much watered down version of his campaign promise.  I find it hypocritical to campaign as a gay rights advocate, then turn around and enact a policy that basically tells gays to sit down and shut up.  It's just plain disrespectful.  Obama has also totally wimped out on the issue, giving good talking points during the campaign but crossing his fingers and hoping the courts will do the hard work for him. 

The standard arguments in favor of keeping the policy tend to fall into two categories: (1) concerns about sexual relationships causing drama among those serving together, and (2) the belief that gays in the military present some sort of security threat by endangering a unit's camaraderie or morale. 

The first concern is easily addressed the same way the military handled it when women first began serving: enacting rules and regulations restricting fraternization and setting boundaries for relationships.  The men and women serving in our military are intelligent adults, and they can understand the rules against relationships with their superiors, rules restricting relationships within their own units, rules prohibiting sexual assaults, and they can also understand the consequences for violating those rules.  Gay people are not any dumber than the rest of us wandering around this earth - they can understand these rules too.

The second concern is the one that really drives me bonkers.  If gays in the military are really a security problem, or a threat to a unit's morale, if they are really so "dangerous", then how can they magically not be dangerous anymore if they lie about it?  I cannot think of any other situation where the rule is that a particular prohibited activity is fine as long as you lie about it first.  

Is it OK if someone on the No-Fly List gets on a plane, as long as they have a fake ID?  Is it OK if someone opens a credit card in your name, as long as they've stolen your identity first?  Is it OK for someone to get a well-paid job, as long as they lie on their resume?  Of course not.  So if being gay is really, truly, a "threat" to morale, national security, or whatever, why do we allow them in the military if they lie about it?  Isn't dishonesty a threat to morale and security too?