The Gay Republic

“President Obama promised to…heal the planet. My promise is to help you and your family.” –Mitt Romney

Gays want balconies now, too? Next thing you know, they’ll want dignity, respect, and to vote Republican!

Social issues are not merely wedge issues. The casualties of the culture wars are the broken families destroyed by failed policy and left to wilt in ruined American homes. These cultural struggles are deeply personal for those invested, and refusing to reckon with how much real people stand to lose when politicians make bad social policy is essentially punting the long game to claim what is, at best, an evanescent victory and, at worst, a Pyrrhic loss. Families in pain still vote, and they get angrier and more focused the more they’re wronged.

It is the armor of this knowledge that underscores the push to promote Todd Akin as the symbol of a Party that would enslave the wombs of American women to the rapacious whims of strangers. That Governor Romney has disavowed this position is an inconvenient aside to be overlooked. This knowledge also fuels the simmering debate over the fate of gay Americans after January 20, 2013. A recent salvo from the Huffington Post listed five reasons gay American should be terrified of a Romney presidency. So let’s evaluate the claims.

1. Romney is adamantly against same-sex marriage

Not to belabor a zombie horse, but this was true of the Obama-Biden ticket in 2008. The question now, as in 2008, isn’t really about what marriage positions a candidate professes. Rather, it’s about how much we should weigh that position against the total package a candidate offers. It is profoundly unlikely that a viable marriage bill of any kind will emerge in the next term, and even Obama isn’t calling for federally enacted marriage equality.

More to the point, any bills that manage to survive a Senate filibuster and a tumultuous House will almost certainly earn the president’s signature, whoever that president is. Romney is a pragmatist; if his campaign is any indication, he will not squander political capital just to screw over gay people or anybody else. To put it bluntly, this election is not about gay marriage, and to pretend otherwise is to jeopardize the future of America for a leprechaun hiding in a rainbow.

2. Romney’s a flip flopper on LGBT issues – Romney publicly supported LGBT rights in his 1994 campaigning for Senator against Ted Kennedy but…Over the past decade, though, he’s moved to the opposite side of the fence and vehemently opposes LGBT rights on many fronts in this current campaign.

This point is, at best, an exaggeration, at worst, a tendentious bit of flailing. Romney has consistently stood by his support for limited domestic partnerships. This is why he opposed the broadly restrictive no-gay-unions-period Massachusetts marriage amendment—even when the Democratic Speaker of the House and Romney’s own wife and son supported it—but not the narrower don’t-call-it-marriage federal one. More importantly, Romney never said he would be more liberal than Ted Kennedy on gay rights. What he promised to be was more effective in pursuing equality for LGBT Americans. His actual words were:

“There’s something to be said for having a Republican who supports civil rights in this broader context, including sexual orientation. When Ted Kennedy speaks on gay rights, he’s seen as an extremist. When Mitt Romney speaks on gay rights, he’s seen as a centrist and a moderate. It’s a little like if Eugene McCarthy was arguing in favor of recognizing China, people would have called him a nut. But when Richard Nixon does it, it becomes reasonable. When Ted says it, it’s extreme; when I say it, it’s mainstream. I think the gay community needs more support from the Republican Party, and I would be a voice in the Republican Party to foster anti-discrimination efforts.”

This point remains broadly true today. Marriage equality would not exist in New York without the Republican State Senate bringing it up for a vote and four Republican state senators voting for its passage. Likewise, gay marriage would have been annulled in New Hampshire but for the hundred or so Republicans voting against repeal. And let’s not forget the Republicans who helped push DADT repeal over the top.

It will not be possible to achieve LGBT equality nationally without conservative support. Although he has not pressed the point lately, Mitt Romney remains committed to that support, and his position as head of the Republican Party arguably gives leverage and cover to Congressional Republicans who believe “dignity and respect” have political content.

3. Romney reportedly bullied gay classmates in high school

Wait, are you serious? We’re judging candidates for President of the United States based on incidents from high school? And you wonder why all this all this nonsense over Obama’s time at Columbia. If high school is relevant, college certainly is—you’re at least a legal adult in college. But in case it helps, Romney apologized. Now let’s move on.

4. Mitt has opposed LGBT inclusion on hate crime legislation – Mitt Romney vetoed a bill funding hate crimes prevention during his tenure as governor in Massachusetts in 2003. In fact, he cut all funds to hate crime prevention after taking gubernatorial office, which forced an anti-bullying focused Take Force to let its entire staff go. The group remains disbanded.

It’s unclear what actually transpired in this case. The only source is a Wikipedia article citing dead links. It may be referring to Gov. Romney’s disbanding The Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth in 2006. However, that was tied to the legislature creating the functionally equivalent Massachusetts Commission on GLBT Youth. The commission has addressed bullying. In any case, a President Romney won’t overturn the Matthew Shepard Act, and his administration will prosecute crimes committed against LGBT people.

5. Romney doesn’t support same-sex parent adoption – The man with a large family – five children and 18 grandchildren – believes in denying children with no parents the chance to have a [dual]-guardian loving home if the two happen to be of the same sex. After accidentally mildly supporting same-sex parent adoption rights back in May, he retracted his statement and said, “I simply acknowledge the fact that gay adoption is legal in all states but one.” Back in 2006, Romney filed a bill in Massachusetts which allowed Catholic Charities’ adoption policies to overtly exclude same-sex couples.

This is actually two points: adoption and religious liberty. Adoption laws vary messily across the country, and it’s unclear what either president would do about this. Romney’s apparent waffling is not opposition. Moreover, his refusal to campaign against Obama’s support for marriage equality is curiously reminiscent of Obama’s refusal to actually oppose gay marriage while purportedly not believing in it before this year. Granted, Romney is no Obama. But behind the conflicting accusations of pandering, flip-flopping, and extremism is the reality of a pragmatic conservative who is playing the long game. Many staunch Republicans are broadly retreating from or outright opposing anti-gay policy, and a majority of Americans support gay unions. The pragmatist unwilling to make a campaign issue of gay marriage will not channel Tony Perkins in office with the Family Research Council well on the path to irrelevance.

To the second point, the state is not always obliged to accommodate religion, but it is not unreasonable for it to do so. You can believe in access to contraception without demanding a church violate its magisterium to provide it. You can believe a woman has the right to abortion without requiring that her bishop—or our government—foot the bill. And you can believe gay Americans have the right to marry and adopt without compelling the Holy See to blink. It does not follow from trying to compromise with Catholic charities—and thus keep them from closing—that Romney opposes gays adopting any more than tax exemptions for Scientology entail state endorsement of L. Ron Hubbard.

What matters in this election is that the president has failed. Unemployment is unyielding, entitlements court insolvency, the debt devours our inheritance, and all the administration has for us are tax returns and ad hominem. The Obama campaign has become a national analog to Ned Lamont, circa 2006—the Miltonian apotheosis of a monomaniacal fetish for being in opposition to the opponent. If that hackneyed approach couldn’t win in Connecticut for a Democratic nominee, what will it mean if we endorse it for the incumbent President of the United States?

The future is dim for any cause put in chains aboard a sinking ship. In a perfect world, Mitt Romney would be a perfect champion for equality. But as with Barack Obama in 2008, we cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I want to get married someday and maybe have kids, but first my loved ones and I need steady jobs and a functional economy. We’ve weathered four years of billowing hope. Now it’s time for some change.

We Built This City

“It all started off with stirring speeches, Greek columns, the thrill of something new. Now all that’s left is a presidency adrift, surviving on slogans that already seem tired, grasping at a moment that has already passed, like a ship trying to sail on yesterday’s wind.” –Paul Ryan

“Tell them this: ‘These gods, who did not make the heavens and the earth, will perish from the earth and from under the heavens.'” -Jeremiah 10:11

Day Three of the Republican National Convention is over but my goosebumps tingle on. Paul Ryan’s speech was one of the most amazing I have ever heard, and I was paying attention in 2008. From channeling President Reagan on moral clarity and spiritual conviction to reminding Young America that he gets where we’re coming from, I witnessed a meteor rising in the aspiring Republican veep. My ears are still ringing.

Of course, Ryan was only the finale—a dessert transformed into a full meal. For our appetizers, Condi Rice waxed professorial in her edifying policy proposals and musings on America’s place in a rapidly changing world. Her paean to the transcendent promise of American Exceptionalism rang a glorious note only the woman born in a segregated world could hold. And the phenomenal reach of her vision shines brighter against the backdrop of a sitting administration long depleted of even the hope for new ideas. Rice’s understanding of education as the civil rights struggle of our time hearkens back to Chris Christie’s valiant charge against the teacher’s unions and the need to be respected before we can be loved. Hers is the lifted voice of a life testifying to the ultimate truth that all conservatism begins with loss and the will to rise and wrestle with the faceless gods of atrophy, grievance, and entitlement for control of our destiny.

As a chaser for Rice, Governor Susana Martinez offered up the simple truths of American conservatism. That welfare is a brace meant to heal, not a lifestyle. That a state expands on the backs of its citizens until their promise is consumed in its service—a new master-slave dialectic for a society deformed into Lost Boys and Last Men. That the wages of dependency are decay and oblivion. That these are the stakes. This election is not ultimately about budgets, healthcare, Medicare, unemployment rates, or tax minutiae. To be sure, these issues matter and must be dealt with. But in the end, our takeaway is that ideas and the visions built upon them matter. We should be wary of leaders who explain more than they govern.

From the rapturous reception of Condi Rice to the Martinez homage to the conservative story to Scott Walker’s enraptured tears at the Ryan oration, we see the promise of America at this Republican convention. These are what leaders look like. This is how they sound, how they resonate, how they cut through passé talking points about tax returns, murdered seniors, and the siren song of identity politics.

Take note, Mr. President. These are the bearers of the vision that will bury you. Like Atlantis and all the vainglory of its imagined pomp and circumstance, your empty promises will go the way of your squandered mandate and the broken promises of yesteryear.

“They’ve run out of ideas. Their moment came and went. Fear and division are all they’ve got left.”

Right Quick: Hurricane at the RNC

Akin, please. We’ve survived the Obama years. We can handle this.

So it seems increasingly probable that Hurricane Isaac will hit Tampa just in time for the Republican National Convention. Maybe the Universe is trying to tell us something. I always suspected Mother Nature was a Democrat. Or maybe she’s a Republican who just wants to remind us, just in time for the Convention, that the storm is almost over. In any case, we might as well have some fun with it.

Original Lyrics:

I hopped off the plane near Tampa Bay with a dream and a ticket for change

Welcome to a city run by Democrats—Whoa!—am I gotta fit in?

Jumped in the cab, here I am for the first time

Look to the Right, and I see the Romney-Ryan sign

This is all so crazy, everybody’s here to save the country

But Isaac’s turnin’ and we’re feelin’  kinda worried

Too little pressure and it’s stormin’

That’s when Christie gave his keynote speech

And the RNC was on

And the RNC was on

And the RNC was on

So I put my hands up, Isaac’s in town

The Republicans fly away

It’s crashin’ the party like Biden

Spinnin’ hot air like Biden

Got the waves up, bringin’ a storm

But we’re all gonna be okay

Yeeeeeah! Hurricane at the RNC!

Yeeeeeah! Still no hope left for the DNC!

Identify the Vote

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” ―Oscar Wilde

I got my first card from the U.S. Department of Defense in 1999. I was far too young for whiskey or cigars, but it came in handy for occasional trips to the Commissary, the Post Exchange, my school, or even to get home. In 2001, the Department of State issued me a passport ahead of my family’s relocation to Germany. I used it to cross the English Channel and for a few international flights. By the time I got to Yale, which gave me yet another ID card, I had a driver’s license from the State of Florida (since traded for one from Virginia). Four IDs, one man. Guess I was popular with the bureaucrats.

In more than 30 states, new voting laws are stirring partisan rancor. Current and proposed requirements range from none—including some vetoed (e.g. N.C. & Minn.) or ruled unconstitutional (Wisc.)—to photo-optional to particularly strict photo standards in five states. The GOP claims to be preventing fraud it can hardly find; Democrats argue 750,000 voters will be unable to vote in Pennsylvania alone. Throughout the South—where Texas, Mississippi, Florida, and South Carolina are courting federal preclearance (as is New Hampshire)—the laws are being compared to Jim Crow, as many critics see a concerted effort to disenfranchise minorities and the poor. Nevertheless, most people favor voter ID laws. What ought a reasonable person to make of all this?

While I was growing up in the Army, the cards were free and ubiquitous, and they did what they were supposed to do. I doubt it’s feasible to standardize voting laws across the states, but two lessons from the military community seem broadly applicable:

1) It is reasonable to require reliable identification to access restricted activity.

1a) Voting is (supposed to be) a restricted activity and a fundamental right.

2) Reliable identification ought to be provided to anyone entitled access to some restricted activity.

Put simply, we should require IDs at the polls, and state governments should make sure all registered voters can attain IDs with reasonable ease or avoid the requirement. As it happens, many states, including Georgia and Virginia (both already precleared), already do this. I suppose some on the Left will nonetheless maintain that these laws persecute the poor and the brown among us. But while some concerns are reasonable and noted, the audacious claim that these common-sense checks are everywhere malignant strains credulity even more than Hank Johnson’s continued presence in Congress.

The expectation that registered voters acquire proper identification is no more cumbersome than requiring that they leave their houses in order to vote. If the response is that certain demographics will not read their mail or otherwise notice new laws—and thus be disproportionately harmed—then I wonder how we expect these people to know where to vote, let alone for what. After all, voting locations change and redistricting happens. Are we actually to believe a sizeable portion of the electorate is impervious to information? If so, to what end are we to move heaven and earth—and their unidentified souls—to drag such ignorance to the polls? And how are we to do so?

Then again, I don’t know anybody—young, old, black, white, poor, brown, or other—who completely lacks identification. I’m just a middle-class guy from the suburbs. What do I know?

Right Quick: Rachel Mischief

I hate to pick on Rachel Maddow. Her ebullient, ostensibly serious charm makes intellectual laziness and systemic dishonesty look downright magical. I feel smarter and better about myself when watching her show, kind of how President Obama feels better about his campaign by pretending somebody else made all the negative stuff happen. And Maddow is so much fun! In my more liberal days, I even found her segments singularly compelling lights in the darkness.

I suspect this old affinity is the fount of my persistent addiction to her show. You see, I keep watching and hoping that, one day, she’ll experience an epiphany and become credibly inspiring, rather than gleefully disingenuous. A guy can dream, right?

With this happy thought in mind, I clicked on her latest link in my minifeed and discovered, to my horror, that Fox News was burying the Akin story! How unseemly! Brimming with outrage (or should I say, OUTRAGE!), I immediately went to foxnews.com to see what horribly biased front page they were pushing. I even took a screenshot. See for yourself:

Well, this is awkward. It’s almost like she was too lazy to actually check the site or something.

Wow, not only is the Akin story front page in all its nuance, but Fox News even featured a video on a gay man’s struggles with his homophobic father! The right-wing scoundrels. I guess Maddow’s real point is that the bloodshed in Syria clearly shouldn’t overshadow Todd Akin’s world-shatteringly important remarks. Thanks for alerting us to insidious media bias, Rachel! I, for one, will be more careful in the future.

A Legitimate End

“You’re all alone in a parallel universe, dude. You can take off your tie.” –Dracopol

Let’s start with the obvious: Todd Akin is an idiot. Indeed, his contemptible asininity renders his presence on the House Science Committee at once bemusing and disturbing. So before I continue, let’s all have a hearty laugh at his expense. I’m glad we all agree that Todd Akin is not fit to represent anyone.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s deal with the Left. Predictably eager to avoid their failed policies, our liberal friends want to make Akin a general indictment of the Right. Sure, Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS and the National Republican Senatorial Committee have abandoned Akin to his madness. And yes, Ann Coulter called on him to make the sacrificial play for the good of the Party, with the editor-in-chief of RedState being far blunter about it. And ok, the leader of the Party, Mitt Romney, did not mince words in condemning the congressman and rebuking the policy of forcing a rape victim to give birth. But the Family Research Council defends Akin, right? Surely, they must speak for the conservative movement! (Spoiler: they don’t.)

The defenders of the president would have us believe this election should hinge on fringe social positions pushed by a conspiracy of monomaniacal extremists. So let me make this clear: I do not support Todd Akin. In case the preceding paragraph has not made this obvious: the Republican Party does not endorse his inanity. Are there conservatives in Congress who oppose abortion? Of course. Do some of them have uncomfortably hardline views on the issue? Definitely. But you need only look to the failed Personhood Amendment in Mississippi to see there are limits to how far the pro-life movement goes. And some Republicans, albeit a small minority, are still prochoice.

The GOP is a diverse party, and reasonable people can disagree about the extent to which abortion should be legal and available, and how federal law should differ from state law. But Todd Akin is not normal. He is an invidiously cruel joke told at our expense to confirm every liberal reduction of conservatism to pathology. For his complicity in this, Todd Akin deserves and will get no sympathy from the Right. Duly have we cast him out to beg his fortunes from the streets, and duly will we move on beyond him.

I trust Akin will meet a “legitimate” fate. As for you, Mr. President, onward to November.

Update: Rep. Akin is refusing to bow out gracefully and has released an ad seeking forgiveness. That might be an easier pill to swallow if he were not insisting he meant “forcible rape” instead of “legitimate rape”. As surprises nobody who is not Todd Akin, this “clarification” does not remotely reduce the mendacious idiocy of his original statement. “Forcible rape” is the source of many unintended pregnancies, and is closely linked with family and domestic violence. Mr. Akin, if you won’t take “No” for answer, then do us all the minimal kindness of caging your unrepentant hostility to truth and good decency.

Right Quick: Enraged

#ThingsThatEnrageRepublicans Obama out campaigning against the past 4 years like somebody else was President all that time

— KatyinIndy (@KatyinIndy) August 19, 2012

If you’ve been on twitter in the last few hours or so, you’ve probably noticed some curious happenings. First off, Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) got caught betraying an appallingly facile impression of female anatomy while discussing abortion. Why he was talking about anything other than the economy and his differences from incumbent Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) is beyond me. Of course, that doesn’t make his opponent any better of a candidate, but let no one accuse me of unfair reporting. Akin subsequently clarified that he misspoke, after which he presumably expects everyone to forgive and forget his insultingly puerile ideas about rape. We’ll see how that goes.

Anyway, it seems #LegitmateRape started trending on Twitter, and a liberal friend tells me the DNC Court Jester Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz wasted no time expressing her outrage through a fundraising email. And who can blame her? It’s not every day your political opponents fumble golden footballs at  the ten-yard line.

At some point afterward, for reasons largely unclear, #ThingsThatEnrageRepublicans and rival #ThingsThatEnrageDemocrats emerged. As I write this, the latter has been trending for several hours. The former has not. It would seem the conservative movement has much stronger modern appeal than some might think, Todd Akin’s machinations to the contrary notwithstanding.

If you’re feeling mischievous, witty, or simply need to vent, add your contribution. Mine is below:

#ThingsThatEnrageDemocrats Reminding them Obama has no plans for better economy, fiscal sanity, passing a budget, or actually governing

— Anthony Rek LeCounte (@RekLeCounte) August 20, 2012

The Inheritance

“It has always been my belief that people who spend too much time with my work end up as lost souls, drained of reason, who lead lives of raving emptiness and occasional lunatic violence.  What a relief it is to see this documented.” – Liberalism Lemony Snicket

Turns out the gates of civilization are more fragile than we thought.

When I was growing up, Mom encouraged me to read a lot. She brought home encyclopedias, dictionaries, Bibles, and thesauruses so I could learn facts about the world. She took my siblings and me to local libraries on weekends in the summer, so we could exercise our minds during the dog days of bare feet, sweet tea, mosquitos, and moon pies. Dad kept saying, “If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it”, and “A mind is terrible thing to waste.” I certainly didn’t want to lose my mind.

When I think about my success in school and getting into Yale, I think first and foremost of my parents encouraging me to read. I think of books and all they taught me. For inasmuch as learning is sacred, books are acolytes of the divine. The idea of hurting them is somehow…sinful. They are, after all, a singular inheritance. If all society were lost tomorrow, and we had to start from scratch, we would rediscover writing, electricity, industry, astronomy, and all the gifts of science and math. But the lessons of our books would have gone the way of the nephilim and Atlantis. All those windows into vast tapestries of imagining and experience would never be more than half-remembered dreams from too many lifetimes ago.

So imagine my horror at discovering that some postmodern industrialist smilingly murdered a series of books to decorate storage space. The barbarians are inside the gates, indeed. I always imagined there was an abyss at the heart of civilization, the analog of the supermassive black holes within all the galaxies in heaven. I never thought I would catch of glimpse of what it might be like to see that void, that negation of all sapience—that ultimate nihilism. It’s enough to make you wonder—or cry or plea—is anything sacred?

One of the things that struck me in places like Yale—where a certain kind of liberalism is the smog you have to breathe—was how often the answer to that question seemed to be: “What does that even mean?”

Dear Reader, I cannot tell you what that means. If you have never felt anything like transcendence, purpose, or calling to rise above yourself, I cannot talk to you of Honor. If you have never believed anything worth fighting or dying for, even when the stakes seem impossibly trivial and the potential reward more spiritual than effable, I cannot speak to you of Sacred. If you have never met something so beautiful that the experience of it could only be a testament to Truth, I cannot convey to you Beauty. And if you have never fallen in love across a bridge of pulp and ink, I cannot explain to you why a book is more precious than a mockingbird.

I can’t make you care about or understand anything. I can only show you the little pieces of the world that I see. And through words across the cloud, you’ll learn something true or not. If you believe that something substantial would be lost forever if every book were ruined, then we are at least as far as the foothills of tradition, with its many idiosyncrasies.

If you cannot fathom freedom without this precious inheritance, then you have another portrait of why I am a conservative.

Right in History: The Gipper ’92

“Our country now stands at a crossroads. There is widespread doubt about our public institutions and profound concern, not merely about the economy, but about the overall direction of this great country…The American people are clamoring for change and sweeping reform…What kind of change can we Republicans offer the American people?” –Ronald Reagan

This season’s Republican National Convention is just around the corner, with Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan poised to officially accept the Grand Old Party’s nomination for the contest in November. While we prepare to march forward and take on whatever history might throw at us, it’s salutary to pause and consider our history.

On this day, August 17th, in 1992, Former President Reagan addressed the Republican Convention that nominated his sometime vice president George H.W. Bush for reelection. The outcome of that race notwithstanding, Reagan’s speech was as electrifying as it is timeless. The eloquent summation of our values and reverent homage to our past achievements served as the strongest reminder of why the project that is America will not fail. America’s greatest moments are always ahead. Every success we forge through our national perseverance is a monument to the power of human ingenuity. Every battle won against the naysayer and idle pacifist is a testament to the endurance of life on the brink of darkness. Our example is as indelible as the Dream embodied in every citizen. We are always the people we’ve been waiting for.

We are facing many crises, but like the Gipper, I’m optimistic that we’ll best every challenge and overcome every obstacle. But optimism alone won’t defeat a recalcitrant status quo. For that, we’ll have to keep fighting. As a certain group of conservative friends at Yale would say:

Keep the faith with cynicism. Cut the opposition down!

 

You can find the transcript here.

The Medicare Candidate

“Obama cut HOW much from Medicare?!”

I sometimes try to keep up with Rachel Maddow (come on, somebody has to). I managed to get away from my busy schedule of destroying all happiness for the non-rich—Shh! don’t tell the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy—to watch one of her recurring, well-choreographed rants against Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney’s Medicare proposals.

If you’ve been following the recent tide of media coverage of Ryan, you’re probably drowning in a sea of terror. He’s been linked to Ayn “For the Love of Money is the Root of All Good” Rand, whom we are to believe is the indomitable hero of American Conservatism. He’s been accused of throwing Granny off a cliff to help his buddy, Mitt Romney, pay less than 1% in taxes. And he’s a terrible Christian, allegedly.

Of course, Paul Ryan is not an Objectivist, tries to honor Catholic teaching, and doesn’t require his staffers to read Atlas Shrugged. And since we’re on the topic of Ayn Rand, many of my friends and I have read some of her works—usually ­The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged—and the vast majority of us, liberal and conservative, are not Objectivists. To contest this is to suggest every fan of Twilight endorses Mormonism and your friend who recommended The Chronicles of Narnia has bent the knee to Orthodox Anglicanism. Then again, I hear the admirers of Gandhi are all secret Hindus.

The aim of all this mudslinging is to obfuscate the real issues on the table and the president’s lack of serious solutions. To this end, liberals are largely ignoring the fact that Ryan has offered multiple concrete proposals to start a conversation, including a Medicare plan designed with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR). Many reports on Ryan’s Medicare plan have not even mentioned Wyden, let alone how a Blue-State liberal Democratic senator could conspire to kill Grandma.

To her credit, Maddow did touch on the issue, noting that Wyden eventually opposed Ryan’s 2013 budget proposal. But she mendaciously conveniently ignores glosses over the fact that Wyden did, in fact, co-write a Medicare plan with Ryan. The bill Wyden eventually voted down was a larger budget package ultimate killed by partisan gimmicks Democratic leadership months later. (Turns out, Harry Reid is allergic to budgets.) Fearful of becoming the next Cory Booker, Wyden is distancing himself from Ryan to preserve his party’s highly disingenuous cheap shot political weapon.

Whether you agree with Ryan’s proposals or not, he has put forth several and made earnest—and occasionally successful—attempts to cross the aisle. By contrast, the Medicare bill Obama got passed by partisan fiat cut $716 billion to fund ObamaCare. He doesn’t appear to have much else.

Why didn’t Obama do more to enact real reform when he had huge majorities in both houses? Why did the Democrats squander so much time and political capital on a lackluster healthcare takeover when there were other priorities? Why are liberals pretending the Ryan-Wyden plan is the abomination of desolation? Is anything not the Republicans’ fault?  Those are excellent questions! Maybe Maddow and the others will start asking them. (Don’t worry, I won’t hold my breath.)

In any case, the next time you hear some pundit ranting against conservative ideas, keep track of the competing Democratic proposals. If you haven’t already, you may start to understand why the last best hope of the Obama campaign apparently lies in Mitt Romney’s tax returns.