I have a brief word on this whole Gannon Slam Fest. There are a good many comments being made now here and on other left-leaning blogs about how petty this whole outing thing is. Some wonder why we are stooping to their level of, what they call, personal destruction, as we are adopting the same character assassination tactics that the Right uses. You have every right to feel uncomfortable about this - it surely is not the cup of tea of many of us here.
But as I stand here and say that I too am uncomfortable with these kind of public outings, I must redirect you to Chris Bower's rant. Once you read that, and you click on his links, I believe that you will understand why John Aravosis, Raw Story, and others are weighing in on this scandal. We may not like it, but haven't we constantly heard and read from various writers that in order to fight back against the Right we can't rely on the old rules? The Right is making up the rules as they go along, and these days the one way to defeat their argument and what they are trying to do is to use their new rules against them.
They call us demented, wimpy, crazy, evil, even traitorous. And what do we do? We stand there and take it, and the Right gets stronger and stronger. I remember a line from Star Trek: First Contact that Captain Picard speaks that we should emulate: "They (the Borg) invade our space, and we fall back. They assimilate countless of our worlds, and we fall back. Not again, the line must be drawn here - this far no farther!"
Unless we find a way to fight back using the Right's own tools of the trade, they will continue to label us as libelous, elitist, hate-filled, traitors to America, and before long, they will have us in the Gulag. I mentioned this before - in Schindler's List, the Jews acted as if the Germans couldn't possibly do what they were thinking of doing. They knew they were bad but could not believe they could be that inhuman. And you know what? They were that bad, and those Jews would learn that the hard way, in the Holocaust.
John's outing of both Jeff Guckert and Scott McClellan may not necessarily be something we would do, and we may feel uncomfortable about it. But not only does this strike right at the heart of the hypocrisy of this Administration, we must also ask ourselves, what would be our gain if we did nothing? What good would our dignity and integrity be if our silence buys us an authoritarian fundamentalist state? What good would they be if we find our ideas and words censored, or worse our lives threatened by this hypocritical government? Ask the gays how they would feel if we would do nothing about this while this Administration passes an Amendment banning gay marriage?
Those who sleep with dogs get up with fleas, and it is high time that these people, who feel so strongly to impose their moral values upon us and our children, get exposed for the hypocrites they are before they can tell us how to run our lives. Frankly, if that means that Jeff and Scotty get outed for their escapades, then so be it. They shill and lie for a party that makes its living shaming, degrading, and oppressing the very people that they co-opt or, in Jeff's case, do business with.
We all make mistakes in this world. You have made some, I have made some, we all have made some. But when you hypocritically associate yourself and/or try to help a party in whatever manner - whether it is lying for the President who represents it, or offering help and aid to those who lie for the party and President - so that the party can continue to crack down on the very people and lifestyles that you emulate, then you are fair game in this political war, which is what it is. That may be mean-spirited and cruel, but then again, we are talking about the party that has condoned cruel and unusual punishment for anyone they disagree with or whom they brand a terrorist. Come to think of it, they have called us that, which makes us potential victims to their brand of torture and cruelty.
I'm not saying you should join up in the fight, but you should at least understand why guys like John and others are moving forward on these stories and actions. The GOP won't stop doing what they want until someone stands up and puts a halt to their plans. These may be possible character assassination stories that are not genuine issues, but then again, we won on the issues, but lost the election and more power to the GOP. Something to chew on for a bit...