The fog of war

From today's White House Notebook, Dana Milbank's column in The Washington Post:

"He volunteered to go to Vietnam."
-- Bush campaign chairman Marc Racicot, yesterday, on National Public Radio

"No, I didn't."
-- President Bush, Feb. 8, responding to a question on NBC's "Meet the Press" about whether he volunteered to go to Vietnam

Mawwiage. Mawwiage is what bwings us togethaw today.

Today is Setting Orange, day 55 in the season of Chaos, 3270.

A bit from Bill Maher, posted by sistercoyote: "[...]gay marriage it [sic] opposed because it threatens or mocks or does something to the sanctity of marriage, as if anything you can do in Vegas drunk off your ass in front of an Elvis impersonator could be considered sacred". (Now, that totally depends on who you ask, as I know a few people who might consider that a good basis for a sacred rite, but mostly yeah.) I don't normally care much for Bill Maher, but this time he gets it right. Go, Bill.

In riba_rambles, Lis points to some stellar exchanges in the daily press briefing where Scott McClellan got to deal with questions about the president's flip-flop on whether marriage was a state issue or not (and by "deal with", I of course mean "totally fail to answer the question") and how exactly Bush expected society to break down if same-sex couples were allowed to marry. Who knew the press briefings could be so much fun? (No, really.)

A conservative case for gay marriage; Andrew Sullivan in a 1989 piece from The New Republic. Not to say I agree with his logic necessarily, but food for thought.

Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation by Nancy F. Cott

Massachusetts Supreme Court Orders All Citizens to Gay Marry

"As we are all aware, it's simply not possible for gay marriage and heterosexual marriage to co-exist," Massachusetts Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall said. "Our ruling in November was just the first step toward creating an all-gay Massachusetts."

Marshall added: "Since the allowance of gay marriage undermines heterosexual unions, we decided to work a few steps ahead and strike down opposite-sex unions altogether."