Bush Strategy Could Backfire

For two reasons.

First, here's the New York Times talking about the Smart Idea Bush has for getting votes for Republicans in the off-year elections:

President Bush is beginning a major push for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, part of a new campaign to appease cultural conservatives who say he and his party abandoned their issues after the 2004 elections.

Mr. Bush plans to declare strong support for the amendment — scheduled for a vote in the Senate next week — in his radio address on Saturday, and at an event at the White House on Monday with conservative activists and religious leaders, White House officials said Friday.

Taken together, the events will be the first time Mr. Bush has so strongly promoted his opposition to same-sex marriage since his re-election campaign nearly two years ago. Democrats accused the White House of trotting out a reliable hot-button issue to help soothe and re-energize disgruntled conservative voters five months before the midterm Congressional elections. "Everybody's going to see through it," said Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

But, in a new twist this year, some conservative activists expressed similar cynicism. They said Mr. Bush and the Republicans in Congress had a long way to go to convince social conservatives that they viewed the issue as anything but a politically convenient tool that they picked up only when they needed to motivate their core voters. Bush to Press for U.S. Ban on Same-Sex Marriage

Yes, of course the Democrats are going to be skeptical, but ... even the conservatives are scratching their heads and saying, "There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

Some of them are smart enough to realize that they were promised everything in the last two elections, and they didn't get any of it.

Look, the question is this: are the American people so stupid that all you have to do is push their buttons and they'll do whatever you want?

How perceptive do you really have to be, to understand this maneuver for what it is? How much intelligence is required, to realize that America has some serious, serious problems, and Adam and Steve ain't on the list?

There is an interesting reaction this time. John Aravosis, a progressive gay blogger, has it this way:

The gay bashers are holding "Marriage Protection Sunday" tomorrow.

They better make sure all their supporters on the Hill are sticking to their vows: no divorces, no adultery, no sodomy. If they want the subject to be marriage protection, we all need to know that their marriages are meeting the standards set by the theocrats who run the GOP.

Some reporter needs to ask about the policy at the White House on divorce, sodomy and adultery for the staff and the Bush and Cheney families. At a minimum, it should be: no marriage, no sex.

The theocrats are aiming for gays now. But they are waging a war on sex. That affects everyone -- even all the red-state, red-blooded men who voted for Bush. AmericaBlog

Think what it would be if those who campaigned for "traditional families" were expected to actually have traditional families.

On this blog, I have bitten my tongue many times over those on the Other Side who claim to support "traditional marriage," after having had divorces themselves. What's harder on a "traditional marriage," do you think, two guys down the street moving in together -- or divorce? A divorce literally destroys a marriage, by definition, that's why you do it. Two guys falling in love might challenge your conception of marriage, but it doesn't hurt it any. Those guys weren't going to marry women, anyway.

See, if you're going to stand for marriage, you ought to show you're able to make that commitment and keep it.

Like, look how the San Diego papers are treating this hypocrite:

Republican Jim Galley, who is running for Congress as a “pro-traditional family” candidate, was married to two women at the same time, defaulted on his child support payments and has been accused of abuse by one of his ex-wives.

The San Diego Union-Tribune discovered the personal history in making public-records checks on Galley, who is making his fourth run for elective office in four years. These checks are part of the newspaper's election reporting process.

Galley married his second wife, Beth, in 1982 when, unbeknownst to her, he was still married to his first wife, Terry. Beth and Galley divorced in 1990 after she sought a restraining order alleging abuse.

The child support was owed to his first wife. Documents show issues with wives, child support

Until now, the news media have been unwilling to examine the personal lives of politicians. We considered it good enough to read about their professional activities, and if they had something going on the side, or haunted the wrong kind of bars, or whatever, we didn't hear about it. Because we elected them to legislate laws, to maintain order in our society, to protect our freedom and make hard decisions, and it didn't really matter what anyone did in their private life.

But they're changing that. Now it does matter what you do in your private life. Now they want to pass laws about what people can do in their private lives.

And I gotta say, it looks like this time it just might come around and bite 'em on the aspirations.