Ever heard the term RINO?
Ted Olson, the lawyer for the plaintiffs in the recently overturned Prop 8 trial, is going to be on Fox News Sunday. Andrew Sullivan writes:
That should be interesting. Kudos to Fox for acknowledging that many principled conservatives support full civil equality for gay citizens. That may come as a shock to some of their viewers.
First of all, Fox is most certainly not acknowledging the fact that there are ‘many principled conservatives’ who support marriage equality. They’re bringing Olson on because he’ll draw fire and because it’s what news organizations do when they can get a ratings bump from a controversial figure in a controversial story.
And the viewers? Will they be ‘shocked’ that a ‘principled conservative’ supports marriage equality? Of course not. There’s an easy remedy for all un-orthodox thinking on the right. If Ted Olson isn’t already considered a Republican In Name Only, he soon will be.
Speaking of Fox News, this Laurah Ingraham appearance on Colbert’s show is pretty great. But not as great as Andy Schlafley’s.
August 6, 2010 5:17 pm
Posted in: Gay Rights are Human Rights
38 Comments
38 Responses
Catsy - August 6, 2010 | 5:20 pm · Link
No true Scotsman etc etc etc.
Crusty Dem - August 6, 2010 | 5:22 pm · Link
This and other future Hot Air headlines kind of write themselves.
Xecky Gilchrist - August 6, 2010 | 5:23 pm · Link
There’s an easy remedy for all un-orthodox thinking on the right.
There is, and it involves increasing levels of stupidity and anger.
lurker - August 6, 2010 | 5:27 pm · Link
what’s the point of erik kain being here? a conservative who criticizes other conservatives! how novel!
what, conor friedersdorf, wasnt available?
either way, it doesn’t work on this blog.
warmed over conservatism and warmed over liberalism are both boring “incrementalist bullshit,” to coin a phrase—very un-balloon juice. if erik’s just going to do warmed over liberal-lite commentary to pander to this audience…well, don’t already have the real liberal thing here? (doug j and john cole, i’m lookin’ at you) on the other hand, if we are to have a token conservative, let’s a have a real conservative.
-long time lurker
Punchy - August 6, 2010 | 5:28 pm · Link
Is it possible to get a front-pager who doesn’t quote Andrew Sullivan 132 times a day? Seriously, WTF makes this guy’s opinions/tweets/blogposts so fuckin important?
Chuck Butcher - August 6, 2010 | 5:31 pm · Link
Gawd, I can’t help myself – principled conservative?
Which “conservative” fanatasy is it that you hold to be true is supposed to be principled? You already tout “Free Markets” as though they ever existed, so what other bullshit is it I’m supposed to swallow as principled? Pro-life? I don’t like bullshit and I don’t have any particular reason to be nice about it.
JR - August 6, 2010 | 5:32 pm · Link
If Ted fucking Olson is a RINO, then the word “Republican” is completely devoid of any coherent meaning.
jacy - August 6, 2010 | 5:34 pm · Link
@Punchy:
Personally, I stopped reading Sullivan altogether the other day when he used “refudiate” unironically. The camel’s back, it broke.
Besides, I get enough breathless drama + cognitive dissonance at home, thank you.
Lev - August 6, 2010 | 5:35 pm · Link
Sullivan likes to hype any possible examples of conservatives supporting gay rights. It would be as if Ramesh Ponnuru spent his entire day hyping soundbytes by David Bonior, Harry Reid and Dennis Kucinich (at least Dennis ca. 2003) about abortion. Seems pointless to me, but what do I know?
patroclus - August 6, 2010 | 5:36 pm · Link
I’ve heard the term, but quite frankly, I do not understand why anyone would still consider themselves to be a Republican after watching them pursue blatantly bigoted policy objectives for decades – all the while lying and lying and smearing and smearing. Ted Olson deserves major praise for actually acting like a principled lawyer in this case (as do guys like Bruce Fein for other issues) but he is clearly not acting like a lying smearing Republican while so doing. In fact, he is acting in a fashion that is diametrically counterpoised to a lying smearing Republican.
Lying smearing Republicans have been demonizing gays and lesbians for decades and decades and they have had no remorse whatsoever for doing so. And when called on it, they just lie and smear some more. The entire basis of the H8 campaign which started all of this was lies and smears about how equal protection for marital rights was going to destroy the institution of marriage – which is, of course, a baldfaced whopper. And continually labeling gays and lesbians as pedophiles (or worse) is the very epitome of a smear.
That’s what Republicans do on this (and other) issue(s). There is no getting around it. Decade after decade of actual history has shown what the Republicans are. The very idea that a major American political party has been hijacked by blatant bigots should be shaming to the entire country. An so-called “reasonable conservatives” have been utterly AWOL in labeling the bigots for what they are.
I hope that Mr,. Kain is at the leading edge of returning the Republicans to sanity and good sense, but after watching the lying smearing Republicans for decades, I’m not particularly optitmistic about it.
Ditch Digger - August 6, 2010 | 5:38 pm · Link
About it, and when its pointed out that he was Bush’s lawyer in Bush v. Gore and then his Solicitor General it will blend in nicely with their ‘Bush wasn’t a real conservative’ line.
Chuck Butcher - August 6, 2010 | 5:42 pm · Link
@patroclus:
How is it that you get a difference? His civil libertarianism streak doesn’t negate propagation of fairy tales as factual. One of the “arts” of polilitics is taking an ally in a situation but not being blinded to their assholery. The fact that Ron Paul agrees with you on a couple points does not make him something other than a foe and a liar, even though you may team up on an issue.
gnomedad - August 6, 2010 | 5:43 pm · Link
I can’t understand what these people are thinking when they agree to go on the show. How do they expect to look good? Are they hoping Colbert will have a stroke on the set?
Jamie - August 6, 2010 | 5:51 pm · Link
Olson’s just being mavericky.
Cat Lady - August 6, 2010 | 5:53 pm · Link
@gnomedad:
He disarms them by saying right off the bat for instance with Laura Ingraham, “we’re both conservatives”.... and it’s like snake charming. None of his fucktard guests seem to “get” it. Sarcasm-fu – he haz it.
asdf - August 6, 2010 | 5:55 pm · Link
E.D. Kain, you’ll find that unnecessary quotation marks are not your “friend”.
Ash Can - August 6, 2010 | 6:02 pm · Link
@Ditch Digger #10: This. They can find a way to explain anything away, beginning with “Ever since 9/11, Ted Olsen hasn’t been quite right…”
@asdf #15: Speaking as a 15-year editorial veteran, a careful reading of this post will show that there is no propblem with extraneous quotation marks here.
Ash Can - August 6, 2010 | 6:03 pm · Link
PS: LOL! There is, however, a problem with my fat-fingered typing. :D
maus - August 6, 2010 | 6:10 pm · Link
@Cat Lady:
I think they “get it”, but too much.
A lot of his guests see their pundit-sonas as an act. They exaggerate possibly real views during their publicity tours, in their media products, etc. When they’re on friendly outlets, they ramp up the wingnut. Colbert’s ultra-conservative image just ramps them up as much as he possibly can.
asdf - August 6, 2010 | 6:12 pm · Link
Dear Ash Can,
As I recall from school those things are used to quote somebody or to indicate slang.
Here’s the sentence in question,
Will they be ‘shocked’ that a ‘principled conservative’ supports marriage equality?
What are those quotation marks for?
Sorry to go off topic.
Bubblegum Tate - August 6, 2010 | 6:19 pm · Link
By the end of the Fox News segment, he’ll be history’s greatest monster.
Cat Lady - August 6, 2010 | 6:38 pm · Link
@Bubblegum Tate:
You know, I’m not so sure. Ted Olson has such solid conservative bona fides, that it may end up like a Nixon going to China moment- he may actually be the one and only person on earth who could convince some reichtards that gay marriage is the conservative thing to do. He is sincere and makes the argument like only a litigator can. I will not hold my breath however.
Brachiator - August 6, 2010 | 6:46 pm · Link
@Cat Lady:
I doubt that even Olson can change some minds. The worst wingnuts are already discounting him and focusing their attacks on the judge who made the ruling.
ksmiami - August 6, 2010 | 6:46 pm · Link
@Cat Lady:
But Ted is well, smart and the Fox audience is well proudly ignorant
Bubblegum Tate - August 6, 2010 | 6:49 pm · Link
@Brachiator:
Shit, Mark Noonan is already calling for Walker’s impeachment:
Mmmmm, now that’s good crazy!
JBerardi - August 6, 2010 | 6:56 pm · Link
@Bubblegum Tate:
You could easily write a whole book about everything that’s wrong with this one sentence.
maus - August 6, 2010 | 7:03 pm · Link
@asdf: Don’t you believe that a so-called “principled conservative” requires quotes?
@Cat Lady:
There is no monoculture in the greater “conservatism”, but there certainly is in “conservative thought”.
asdf - August 6, 2010 | 7:08 pm · Link
“Don’t you believe that a so-called “principled conservative” requires quotes?”
Good one.
Yes, that sort of the point I was trying to make, trying to get at. By using unnecessary quotes the author himself brings up that very question.
Bill Murray - August 6, 2010 | 7:14 pm · Link
Isn’t principled conservative just a phrase that means I disagree with the Republican platform om a couple of issues (my principles) but I back their other stupid principles and usually vote republican, but not always if someone is too far from my principle issues. Sort of a near synonym for libertarian
asdf - August 6, 2010 | 7:17 pm · Link
Ack, now I’ve mis-punctuated and can’t get the edit feature to work. I call a penalty on myself and will not post for 3 days.
Sorry, I’m having a bad day.
Mike - August 6, 2010 | 7:20 pm · Link
Ted Olson was tightly enmeshed in the Scaife-funded Arkansas Project so there is nothing ‘principled’ about him.
http://www.salon.com/news/col/.....4/05/olson
Lysana - August 6, 2010 | 7:33 pm · Link
E.D., seriously. You’re still a putz for thinking it’s fair to ask whether someone’s rights should be secured by popular vote. Now you’re picking on Sully, which is what the common vernacular calls shooting fish in a barrel.
Did John bring you on as a blogger to remind us that conservatism is where good thinkers go to die? Because so far, so good on that score.
kommrade reproductive vigor - August 6, 2010 | 8:16 pm · Link
Wait. Does Sully think attorneys only take cases when they agree with their client?
Bwaha hahaaahaaa!
(Don’t get me wrong, Olson & Boies did great work, but … He’s an attorney.)
Allison W. - August 6, 2010 | 8:36 pm · Link
I feel sorry for Sullivan sometimes. He needs so desperately to believe that there is still some good in the conservative world.
E.D. Kain - August 7, 2010 | 4:39 am · Link
lurker – no I don’t intend to just come here to bash conservatives. I was mainly pointing out that it’s silly to think Fox News is doing what Sully thinks it’s doing. Perhaps that’s stating the obvious.
Also – point take on the “quotation marks”.
E.D. Kain - August 7, 2010 | 4:44 am · Link
@Lysana: The right for gays to marry in CA was taken away by popular vote. Bringing it back by popular vote would make sense but would also be safer. It’s obviously not the only way and I said as much.
E.D. Kain - August 7, 2010 | 4:50 am · Link
@Cat Lady: That’s a good point. At the very least it can’t hurt. I have a lot of respect for Olson and I’m frustrated because I know Fox News won’t treat him fairly.
Karen - August 7, 2010 | 6:21 am · Link
Didn’t his wife die on one of the planes 9/11? I’d think that would give him a sympathy card before they all start screaming RINO.