A Portman in the (gay- marriage) storm

Sen. Rob Portman, a dutifully faithful inhabitant of the Party of No, said "yes" this week and you would have thought that he had just endorsed universal medicaid even for the one percenters.  Instead,  he ended his long opposition to gay marriage, thus becoming the first Republican senator to do so.  Do we need further evidence that Republicans on Capitol Hill have all arrived from the same hatchery?

Portman, an Ohioan,  was clearly influenced to change his mind by the fact that his 21-year-old son Will is gay - a revelation that young Portman advanced to his family a couple of years ago.  But it wasn't until lately that Rob  finally decided that maybe gay marriage isn't such a ghoulish idea after all now that one's sexual preference is shown to be non-partisan and even all in the family.

The response, as you might expect,  has ranged from one end of the political spectrum to the other. Doug Preisse, the gay chairman of the Franklin County Republican Party, told the Columbus Dispatch that he is "pleased and proud" of Portman.  On the other hand,  Speaker John Boehner, who has been in a snit about a lot of things, disagreed with the senator's about-face.

One of the papers that arrives on my breakfast table every morning did see something positive in Portman, declaring in a front-age headline that his new position could mean that  he's a Republican "open to change".  The analysis by Henry Gomez, the Plain Dealer's politics writer, was largely friendly and even noted that Portman was once the reputed trusted economic advisor to George Bush the Second.

As we rummage through the ruins of Bush's economic catastrophy, I doubt that Portman is eager to be reminded of his role.

It is now fair to ask that if the senator's son weren't gay - as are  many sons and daughters  across the land - would he be so willing  to  change his mind?   Let me stretch  my neck way out and say that in this instance, his new form followed function for Portman as a caring father.

And I doubt he will be left  without scars by the social conservatives who control the party at its aorta.  Before his announcement, the senator tweeted back on March 8:  "Today is the last day of National Invasive Species Awareness Week.  It's a great way to focus attention on an important issue for Ohio."

He just did. All the way to his Republican colleagues on Capitol Hill.

The shame of McCain's refrain

SHAMELESS. How else can you describe the torrent of political pornography gushing from the McCain-Palin camp in the final days of the campaign?  John "Country First" McCain, desperate to put himself first, has left no rumor, whisper or slander unturned in leading his mob of Republican lemmings to the living rooms of American voters.  

Unable to clearly articulate his plan for America other than resorting to  such cliches as  being "pro growth and pro jobs" - whatever the hell those rhetorical placebos mean - McCain's only other non-radioactive bid to stroke the voters is that he is, um... tested.  Surely no one would discredit his POW experience, but he is in fact saying that any POW- and there were many -  is prepared to be president.  I think not. No more so than Sarah Palin is prepared to be president.  Since she was summarily added to the ticket she has proved to be no more than an anatomical expression for leering guys and a vacant substitute for Hillary Clinton as a not so subliminal walk-on role for the benefit of the ladies in her audience. 

In the final days, the McCain camp's rap sheet on Obama has included outrageous charges that he threatens to bring on a Holocaust (courtesy of a rightwing Republican Jewish organization), that he would be a threat to the peace and tranquillity - with maybe even bodily harm - to your family and mine  (you must know the origins of those fears with an African-American challenging McCain);  that Obama favored criminals over cops; that he was not an American citizen (don't kid yourself, folks; this is as racist as it gets without mentioning the n-word. )

The GOP has fallen so low into the muck that the Rep. John Boehner, the Republican minority leader from Hamilton, Oh.,  didn't hesitate to refer to Obama as "chicken shit".  Boehner? Wasn't he the guy who was seen passing out lobbyists' money on the House floor? 

However Tuesday's election turns out, neither McCain nor his party deserve to win.  The antagonists in this race would need more than $150,000 for clothes to freshen up their images after giving their brand of moral values a bad name, not only in America but to a watchful world whose support the U.S. will desperately need in the months and years ahead. The only   good news landing in the Democratic camp from their adversaries is that some guy named Cheney heartily endorsed his friend, John McCain.  With friends like that, you don't need many  enemies. 

Hemingway once described courage as "grace under pressure."  I didn't see any of that in McCain's frantic appeals to our worst instincts as we headed  to the polls. No honor.  No decency.  Even for the hysteria of ugly politics, it was despicably out of bounds.