May 08, 2008
Don't cry for her, Democratic Party
Posted by: Kevin
The festering Clinton boil is finally being lanced within the Democratic Party, at least for this election cycle. It's a tremendous bit of luck not only for the party -- despite its idiotic blindness to this fact. It's a relief for the country, given the brand of politics that this couple would practice if it regained control of both the party and Washington.
I haven't written much since Hillary Clinton entered the fatal win-at-all-costs phase of her doomed presidential campaign a couple months ago, frankly because there wasn't much more to say. The ship would inevitably sink, it was just a matter of whether enough of the remaining idiots in her camp would get into the lifeboats and save themselves in time from the wake of her titanic disaster.
A lot of tripe is thrown around about gay Republicans in the gay media, and has been for over a decade. But not enough has been written about the toxic impact that Clintonism has wrought on the gay community and its political leadership. The cravenness of it, the poisonous combination of raising hopes with glistening promises, and dashing them at the first sign of political risk -- all the while shifting the blame to others -- has done more to destroy what was once a potentially powerful movement than anything a small band of hapless, closeted gay Republicans on Capitol Hill (now "cleansed" for the most part) could ever have done.
And if the rich content of her presidential campaign was any indication, Hillary Clinton would have been even worse for us as president than her husband. Unlike him, she didn't have the touch when it came to using the charming lie on gay rights. She speaks in half-tones, half-measures and platitudes with little heart in it, and made it fairly clear by the way her campaign did gay outreach that it was all about hack-o-rama appointments and personal ambition within the gay political community. Basically -- get on board, or be cut out. Very Karl Rove, and very lethal for those who sign up for it. I can attest to that personally, as can nearly every Republican of every stripe in politics right now.
Indeed, her brand of politics seems to have divided the gay Democratic camp into two clear factions -- those who envy the Republicans so much that they want to emulate them (all the while bashing and personally destroying gay Republicans, interestingly enough, to cover their own shame), and those who are fed up with calculation and ruthlessness in politics that they are willing to try almost anything that is new and different. (A third, unregistered group simply has walked away and taken up new interests in frustration.)
From my vantage point here in South America, it is amazing how parallel the Clintons are to the political couple that is running Argentina at the moment -- Néstor and Cristina Kirchner. He was president last, and now she's president, while he is about to take the chairmanship of the main Peronist party. They, too, rail at big business, count on labor unions and blue-collar workers as their base, and spin all sorts of webs to scapegoat, capture and destroy all political opponents, from inside their movement or outside it. They, too, deflect any and all blame for their policies that do harm, and refuse to even acknowledge reality at most junctures. (Sound familiar?) They came from a backwater province in the south of the country, which Néstor ran as governor, and Cristina launched her own presidential campaign last year from a Senate perch she'd recently captured outside Buenos Aires city. But Argentina is sinking into, perhaps, its worst social, economic and political crisis since the nervous breakdown it suffered in 2001 -- completely at the hands of this self-obsessed, knuckle-breaking political machine government that the Kirchners are running. And Cristina, pig-headed to the end (The Economist says she lives "in the land of make-believe") is mobilizing unions to beat down protesters in the name of fighting big business. The galloping 25% inflation rate is something she blames on "greedy rich corporate owners" who won't voluntarily lower prices, raise wages, and pay for it all out of their profits. (It has nothing to do with her, of course, nor market economics.) She answers the new crisis with gimmicks (hello, gas tax holiday?) and populist rhetoric, not because she's incompetent. It's because the entire raison d'etre of Peronism - like it's North American cousin in Clintonism - is to win at all costs. To say anything, do anything, blame anyone, and never surrender to win out in the end, at the expense of anyone outside the walls of their marital union. Over the last half-century, it has destroyed a once powerful country, probably for good.
Ask any gay Hillary supporter to say, in plain words, exactly why Hillary would be best for the country. You will never -- I repeat, never -- get anything in response but platitudes mixed with venomous stabs at either Obama or the GOP or both. ¡Que peronista! And all her most prominent gay defenders are lifetime gay Democratic hacks simply hoping for a job. Period. They defend the Clintons in the face of the Defense of Marriage Act and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", and stand ready to defend them again to the teeth -- and the do-nothing Democratic Congress, and the "fight-on-the-ice" DNC -- should four or eight years pass without any movement on either under their watch. ("It wasn't the {lying, hypocritical} president's fault! It was [insert blame here]!") They are the worst detritus of the Bill Clinton era of gay Washington, and would bring a sense of blind loyalty to power more dangerous and insidious than the paradoxical, circus-freak brand that has been trotted out in hit pieces on gay Republicans who still love George W. Bush. Because it would have the air of respectability, and could not dare be questioned without reprisal.
So breathe easy, gay Democrats. Hillary is finally being shoved out the door by the length and breadth of the selfishness she represents. Whether it's soon, or after the inevitable rejection of her 900th attempt at game-changing party rules on May 31st (nuevamente peronista), it's been in the cards since February.
Whether you realize it or not, it's good for you. Embrace it. And get back to work in making your party something other than a gigantic waste of money, hope and effort.
April 26, 2008
DNC's 'talk to the hand' outreach
Posted by: Chris
Just when you think the staff of the Democratic National Committee can't bungle its gay community relationships any more royally, they manage to find a way.
Take Leah Daughtry, chief of staff to party leader Howard Dean, who has garnered a reputation for inciting rivalry between African American and gay constituencies within the party. She tried to help unseat the first-ever duly elected lesbian to the Alabama state legislature, in favor of a black candidate. Later, she (and closet case Donna Brazile) pitched a fit when gay Democrats proposed that gays be included in the same quota system for selecting state convention delegates as other minority groups.
Her conduct was so outrageous that the normally staid Stonewall Democrats reached boiling point:
“Imagine what [DNC Chair Howard] Dean could do if people like Leah were confronted for their bigotry and fired,” wrote the Stonewall Democrats official [later revealed to be director John Marble]. Referring to Daughtry, the official says, “I think Samuel L. Jackson said it best when he said ‘I’m sick of these mother fuckin’ snakes on this mother fuckin’ plane.’ It may be time to drive the snakes from the DNC.”
Daughtry has arrogantly refused all interview requests with the gay press and yet took the extreme step of sending lawyers to the Washington Blade offices in an outrageous attempt to intimidate the paper's coverage. Even the usually quiet organization the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association reacted to the incident by speaking out in favor of the watchdog role of the gay press.
In an attempt at damage control, Daughtry agreed to speak at the Baltimore convention of the National Black Justice Coalition, an LGBT group. But rather than take advantage of the opportunity to respond to the many criticisms aimed at her and the DNC in recent months, she instead chose to pitch a shopworn general interest party speech virtually devoid of gay-specific content.
That's right, with her reputation in tatters among many gay Democrats, Daughtry tried to convince a group of gay African Americans they should support the Democratic Party. You'd have to travel to Lynchburg, Va., and visit Jerry Falwell's church to find a better example of preaching to the choir. (Daughtry is, in fact, a Pentecostal minister, though hypersensitive to coverage of the fact that she and her flock sometimes "speak in tongues.")
Whatever tongue she was using in Baltimore, it wasn't too convincing. Having helped sandbag the proposal to add gays to the quota system used to select delegates to the Democratic National Convention, Daughtry spoke of the need "to make sure … that people from various communities, and particularly the GLBT community, would have a seat at the table." Particularly? They why exclude gays in particular from the quotas used for other minorities?
(I'm no fan of the entire idea of delegate quotas based on gender or other minority status; it reeks of special interest balkanization. But to hear Daughtry talk from both sides of her mouth on the issue is another matter.)
To make matters worse, the good Reverend Daughtry used a forked tongue with a Blade reporter at the Baltimore event, promising before her speech to answer questions afterward but then subsequently using her gay muscle -- DNC gay liaison Brian Bond -- to refuse an interview later:
Bond told the reporter that Daughtry would not answer questions because the DNC’s communications department had not received a formal interview request.
This is the arrogance toward gays that infects the core of the Democratic National Committee. In my decade in the gay press, I'm aware of no other organization -- political, business or social -- whose leaders would refuse to answer a few questions because no formal request had been made in advance. Daughtry is also classic passive-aggressive: refusing for months to talk and yet moaning about unfair coverage -- even to the point of abusing reporters and editors with her hired hench-lawyers.
Brian Bond comes from a gay rights background, having headed up the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, and knows better than the games the DNC plays. The real problem is higher up, with Daughtry and Dean himself, who treat gays as if we are a captive special interest with nowhere else to go -- or even complain.
April 02, 2008
Deeply disappointing Donna
Posted by: Chris
The deposition given last month by Democratic Party chair Howard Dean shed some ugly light on longtime operative Donna Brazile, who headed up Al Gore's 2000 election and is a regular political analyst on CNN.
Dean admitted it was Brazile who objected most strenuously to a proposal put forward by gay Democrats to add GLBT delegates to affirmative action guidelines states follow when selecting those who attend the party's national convention:
Dean said some “influential individuals” within the DNC Black Caucus, such as Donna Brazile, opposed the plan because it was seen as “an affront to the civil rights movement.”
Brazile, who chairs the DNC’s Voting Rights Institute, declined to comment for this article.
Dean said the dispute grew to the point where “we had two very important groups of people in the DNC disagreeing with each other” and several DNC and caucus officials were asked to broker a deal that would make peace on the issue.
“I wanted equal representation for gay and lesbian Americans,” he said, “and I wanted to achieve it in a way that wasn’t offensive to the history of the civil rights movement.”
On the one hand, the DNC's infatuation with quotas -- even the committee itself adheres to rigid gender parity -- hardly needs encouraging with the addition of another category, whether or not GLBT folks are deserving. On the other hand, the dismissive slap-down from Brazile reeks of competing to see who's been more seriously oppressed, a pointless contest that only serves to divide groups that ought to be combining their efforts.
We've seen this before, of course. One particularly galling example was when the National Association of Black Journalists vetoed the inclusion of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association in an umbrella group of minority journalists called -- ironically enough -- UNITY. Groups representing Hispanic, Native American and Asian American journalists OK'd NLGJA's participation but NABJ balked, and even pressed UNITY to change its name to UNITY: Journalists of Color.
It's bad enough that Brazile would stoop to something similarly petty, especially claiming "offense" to the idea of greater gay inclusion. But perhaps it's more understandable when we remember that Brazile herself is a closet case.* That's right.
After she was named Gore's campaign manager in October 1999, I assigned a reporter at Southern Voice to look into why the press releases omitted all mention of her role on the steering committee of the Millennium March on Washington, the massive GLBT rights event that listed "coming out" as the No. 1 item on its agenda.
When Brazile and the campaign ignored repeated inquiries, our intrepid reporter showed up at an Atlanta fund-raiser, where she was again rebuffed. Undaunted, she walked up to the microphone and asked Brazile why she had so studiously avoided acknowledging her own sexual orientation when the MMOW platform celebrated the importance of being open about such things. Brazile said she was, you got it, "offended" by the question.
A week or so later, when the Washington Post asked her the same question, Brazile was ready with a much better quip in response: "If I had a personal life, I'd have time for a sexual orientation." Clever, but still closeted.
It's not much of a stretch to see why a closet case like Brazile would find little sympathy in the importance of sending as many openly gay delegates as possible to the Democratic National Convention. But shame on Howard Dean (again!) for allowing her messed up personal situation to create a black-gay wedge within the party.
* = In anticipation of the inevitably comments I'll get, calling Brazile a "closet case" doesn't mean she's a lesbian, anymore than calling Ken Mehlman the same thing is saying he's gay. A closet case is someone who is hiding their true sexual orientation, whether or not they put on a public front of being straight or gay. So a closet case could be a gay person pretending to be straight, or a person of unknown sexual orientation who refuses to answer the question. Brazile and Melhman are the latter.
March 28, 2008
What's it all about, Howie?
Posted by: Chris
This was my weekly column, written on Tuesday, before his quote about the insanity of gay Republicans and before another bit of breaking news I note in a postscript at the end.
The column was a bit of a love letter to Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean:
Dear Howard,
It’s us, the gay community. We need to talk. You know what about -- our relationship.
It’s no secret we’ve been drifting apart, all that romance and excitement from the halcyon days of 2004 seems like a lifetime ago now. These days, all we do is argue, and our dirty laundry is daily fodder for the gossiphounds on the blogosphere.
The name-calling. The nastiness. The pettiness. This isn’t us.
We should be thick as thieves. Eight years of George W. Bush is enough to make all but the button-down Log Cabin boys swoon at the prospect of one of yours in the White House. I mean just look at our choices.
The GOP is nominating a septuagenarian whose idea of a May-December romance is a gay rights record even worse than George Bush in 2000: no workplace protections, no hate crime law, no gays serving openly in the military -- even the most limited domestic partnerships are a non-starter with John McCain.
Your side, on the other hand, is down to two courtesans who know exactly what to say. Hillary had us practically at hello –at least since she said she wasn’t staying home serving milk and cookies. She’s already won over most of our prominent politicos, including 13 of the 21 out LGBT superdelegates. (We won’t count Donna Brazile, nudge nudge wink wink.) Despite Barack Obama’s own charm offensive, he has only 2.
But the handsome senator from Illinois knows how to push our buttons, too. He woos us with promises to repeal all of the Defense of Marriage Act, which reminds us of the presidential playa who signed it into law in the first place. Hillary feels our pain on that, no doubt.
When you see Clinton and Obama courting us, do you remember the 2004 party primaries? It was all about you, Howard -- a little-known governor from Vermont who courageously supported the nation’s first civil unions law. No matter the audience, you talked about gay rights before gay rights were cool. We swooned in response, and our dollars played a major role in putting you on the map. Later, we cheered when you parlayed your primary success into a bid to chair the Democratic National Committee.
So where did it all go wrong, Howard? It was that meddling “M word,” wasn’t it? Our expectations for this relationship went sky high after we could get married in Massachusetts. We thought you’d be happy for us but instead, like most pols, you just weren’t ready to go there. We were moving too fast for you, and it put you on the defensive. Sorry about that.
Then you went on Pat Robertson’s “700 Club” and said your party platform backed “one man-one woman marriage.” Ouch! We felt doubly betrayed; you were philandering with our sworn enemies and acting like you weren’t already spoken for. Looking back, we were too sensitive. It was smart politics for you to reach out to the religious right. So many of them these days are not their grandfather’s evangelicals.
But the Democratic Party platform is actually neutral on gay marriage, and it wasn’t the only time you got that wrong in public. Our suspicions grew. Where was the Howard we fell for? Maybe you were just like Bill Clinton and the rest – wham bam, thanks for the cash, man.
Then came the squabbling. Some of your most loyal party gays swore you’d lost that lovin’ feeling. You nixed the “gay outreach desk,” left us out of the party’s annual grassroots report, and you wouldn’t go along with treating us like other minority groups in delegate selection. You said you had your reasons, you said you did it for us, to make our bond stronger. We said, “Talk to the hand.”
What did you expect? You sacked Donald Hitchcock, your top gay liaison, and said it was strictly based on performance. But now he’s sued you alleging anti-gay bias. We don’t know who to believe, considering he got the axe just a week after his partner, longtime Dem Paul Yandura, publicly blasted you for not doing more to fight state marriage amendments. There’s that “M-word” again.
You know what happened next. Everything got personal. You called the Washington Blade “the Fox News of the gay media.” The Stonewall Dems got so riled at your chief of staff they said it was high time to “get these mother fuckin’ snakes off this mother fuckin’ plane.” A senior DNC staffer said she used gay newspapers to line her birdcage.
It’s crazy, isn’t it, how nasty it’s gotten, when we were so important to each other early on. Is it too late for us? Have we gone from Tammy Wynette’s “Stand By Your Man” to “D-I-V-O-R-C-E”? Actually no – that’s the “M word” again, sneaking up from behind. Still, civil union “D-I-S-S-O-L-U-T-I-O-N” just doesn’t have the same ring.
So what do you say, Howard? Can we give us one more try? Meet us halfway? You don’t have to bring us flowers – just get a gay rights bill or two through the Democratic-controlled Congress.
UPDATE:
As a postscript, it's interesting to see this from today's Washington Blade report on Dean's deposition in the Donald Hitchcock suit:
Dean noted that he personally supports same-sex marriage, a position brought about by “getting to know gay people” during and after his 2004 presidential campaign.
“I learned more,” he said. “I learned a lot about the gay community. And I became much more comfortable with the gay community as I got to know more about them.”
That's a big change from his previous position, which was to derisively dismiss the notion that civil unions and marriage weren't equal. It also confirms what I wrote earlier today -- this is a man who believes in our equality, and that's an important first step toward making it a reality.
To the right lies insanity?
Posted by: Chris
Ever wondered why gay rights legislation is typically an agenda afterthought for congressional Democrats, why we seem to be the first minority group to be "thrown under the bus," as Melissa Etheridge put it? Ever suspected the Democratic National Committee and other fund-raising arms of the party love us more for our wallets and purses than they do for our civil rights struggle?
My suspicion has always been that Democratic Party leadership genuinely believes in our equality -- probably even including gay marriage -- but in the end will spend minimal political capital on us because they know the GOP is so much worse on our issues. That's no slam on Democrats per se; the GOP has been treating conservative Christians like that since the Reagan years, even with their much bigger numbers.
Every once in a while a leading Dem will say something that confirms my suspicion that we are taken for granted. Consider what DNC chair Howard Dean said yesterday at a speech in Madison, Wis.:
Dean said that the Republican Party has scapegoated every ethnic group and therefore can’t create a multicultural identity and reach younger voters.
“They can’t become more diverse,” Dean said. “Who in their right mind, if they were African American or Hispanic or Asian American, if they were gay or lesbian, would join the Republican Party?”
That's a common belief among not just party leaders like Dean, but many gay Democrats as well. Unfortunately, that assumption has real political consequences, primarily undermining whatever influence GLBT issues might be given within the party. Why take political risks on hot-button issues for a group that has nowhere to go?
Therein lies the primary criticism I've made against the Human Rights Campaign over the years because the gay Dems who run it work to reinforce the assumption that our movement is destined to be just another special interest captive within the Democratic Party. HRC's Joe Solmonese has actually said that's his goal.
Part of fixing that means pushing the Democratic Party to do better. The other part is improving the Republicans on gay issues, so Dean's arrogant assumption is challenged. Enter the Log Cabin Republicans, who issued a statement understandably taking umbrage at having their sanity questioned, especially in such drive-by fashion -- as if the question wasn't one for serious debate.
Nonetheless, it was faschinating to read the reaction from LCR director Patrick Sammon, who sounds like he's spent a lot of time this election year listening to Barack Obama:
“It’s unfortunate that the chairman of the Democratic Party would rather divide people than engage in a thoughtful debate about policy ideas or a vision for our country’s future. Americans deserve to know whether the two Democratic presidential candidates, Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, agree with these remarks,” said Sammon. “The chairman of the DNC should focus on what unites Americans instead of dividing us by race or sexual orientation.”
Si se puede, Patrick! If only Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman, the closeted previous chair of the Republican National Committee, thought more like you.
March 23, 2008
Maybe this explains…
Posted by: Chris
…why the DNC hasn't settled the gay bias lawsuit filed by Donald Hitchock, fired from his job as gay outreach staffer:
Democrats have a dramatic financial advantage in nearly every part of the political spectrum except at the national parties, where the Republican National Committee has cash to crow about.
Forms filed with the Federal Election Commission overnight show the Democratic National Committee started March with just under $5 million in cash on hand, while the RNC had just over $25 million to spend. …
Karen Finney, the DNC’s communications director, said the accounting entry tells only part of the story.
“Given that many are saying the DNC is broke, I'm wondering what the standard is,” she said in an e-mail to reporters. “We raised $6M, have no debt and have $4.7M cash on hand. McCain has $3.7M cash on hand when you take his debt into account. ... Is McCain broke, too? Happy Friday.”
Or maybe the unmerited cockiness of Karen Finney is symptomatic of the arrogance and score-settling that takes top priority at Howard Dean's Democratic National Committee.
March 21, 2008
NLGJA stands by Blade against DNC
Posted by: Chris
It's very gratifying to see today that the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association is speaking out publicly in defense of the watchdog role of the LGBT press, even when covering political "friends" of the gay rights movemement like Howard Dean and the Democratic National Committee.
I concluded my post last week about the DNC's contempt for the gay press with this:
The Democratic Party has enjoyed a major resurgence the last several years, attributable almost entirely to the utter disaster of the Bush presidency and the inspirational (until recently) presidential primary. Dean will no doubt ride that wave as long as he can, but it is long past time for gays and gay groups to speak out against the contempt and disrespect with which Democratic Party officials treat the gay press.
Where is the National Gay & Lesbian Journalists Association when the gay press needs it?
Afterward, I contacted Eric Hegedus, the group's president, to see where NLGJA stood, and to my very pleasant surprise he told me last weekend that the group would come forward with a strong statement in support of the LGBT media and press freedom. That statement is published in today's Washington Blade, in the form of an op-ed that encourages the gay press to "keep up the good fight" in watchdogging the DNC, party chair Howard Dean and his controversial staff chief Rev. Leah Daughtry:
In the end, the LGBT media deserve as much respect and attention as mainstream media, and I have just one message to [editor Kevin] Naff and the Blade, as well as other journalists working in LGBT press: Keep up the good fight. Continue to do your job, follow your ethics, question political motives and open the public's eyes and ears regarding how governmental process works.
There’s a reason journalists subscribe to the tenet of a “free press,” whether in mainstream or niche media. It's our job to cover politics, bureaucracy and governmental leaders, not to mention our communities, and we have no room for apprehension and scare tactics in our pursuit of the truth.
This isn't a matter of journalists working in the gay press simply circling the wagons. NLGJA consists almost entirely of gay journalists working in the mainstream media -- including all of the top newspapers, TV networks and new media -- and the org traditionally shies away from anything that resembles "activism." In fact, this is the first time in my decade of affiliation that I remember NLGJA ever speaking out for the LGBT press; it's important and very welcome.
Hegedus is careful not to take sides on the particular factual dispute here -- whether Daughtry sent lawyers to the Blade offices in an attempt to intimidate the paper from covering her and the DNC -- but NLGJA is offering a crucial defense of the independence of the LGBT media against attempts to disrespect and intimidate. He acknowledges that LGBT press is criticial because it can cover gay issues in a way that the mainstream press effectively cannot. (Although it was nice to see that the Washington Post awoke yesterday from its gay slumber long enough to cover Dean and the bias lawsuit brought by Donald Hitchcock.)
If only the gay men and lesbians with influence within the DNC apparatus could see beyond their partisanship long enough to join the NLJGA and stand up against the contempt shown by the party for the LGBT press -- and the movement and LGBT constituency itself.
March 16, 2008
The Blade and Howard Dean
Posted by: Chris
With all the sniping and strong-arm tactics being employed against the Washington Blade and the gay press generally by Howard Dean, his chief of staff Leah Doughtry and the Democratic National Committee, it's worth taking a look at the coverage that was allegedly so one-sided that it reduced these political professionals into crude intimidation and immature name-calling like this:
"I use the Blade and the other gay papers in the bottom of the birdcage." (Julie Tagen, DNC Deputy Fianance Director, March 2007)
"The Blade is the New York Post of the gay and lesbian press corps." (Dean, Sept. 2006)
"The Blade is the Fox News of gay journalism." (Dean, March 2008)
The Blade coverage at issue includes about 20 articles over three years -- that's less than 1 out of 8 newspapers over the time period. There's a lot there, but this summary offers a good sense of the underlying controversies, as well as whether the Blade's coverage was inaccurate, unfair or one-sided, as alleged:
- Dean woos gay Democrats (Feb. 18, 2005): Howard Dean is quoted the day before he was elected DNC chair promising gay Democrats to expand the party's gay outreach efforts and slamming Republicans for pushing state ballot measures banning gay marriage. Both issues will emerge later in controversies surrounding Dean's DNC leadership. The article quotes Jeff Soref, chair of the DNC’s Gay & Lesbian Americans Caucus, defending a separate interview Dean gave the same day to the Associated Press, in which he identifies the party as opposed to gay marriage, although the 2004 platform is neutral on the issue, supporting "full inclusion of gay and lesbian families in the life of our nation and seek equal responsibilities, benefits and protections for these families."
- Dems abolish gay outreach post (Feb. 3, 2006): One year later, the Blade reports that Soref has publicly quit his post in protest over Dean's September 2005 decision to abolish the party's constituent outreach desks, including the post of director of lesbian and gay outreach. The story notes that Dean had pledged in his campaign to
become party chair to retain the gay outreach
post in a questionnaire from Soref's DNC gay caucus. The DNC defends the decision by pointing to the hiring of Donald Hitchcock as director of the DNC’s Gay & Lesbian Leadership Council, which Soref complains is essentially a fund-raising position.
Note: DNC staffers later complain the headline doesn't explain Dean abolished all DNC outreach posts, including the one for gays, though that is made clear in the lead paragraph of the article. No allegations of factual error are made subsequent to publication.
- Democrats still committed to equality for gays by Howard Dean (Feb. 10, 2006): In a letter to the editor, Dean responds to the Feb. 3 article by denying he abolished the LGBT outreach post, arguing that the DNC's new structure -- which replaced all the outreach posts with "American Majority Partnership" under the supervision of his office, includes gay issues in its scope.
Note: The Blade stood by the Feb. 3 article as reported. Dean did in fact abolish all the "political desks" as part of his restructuring, which the story reported in full context and with the DNC's explanation of it, as well as criticism from Soref.
- Dean seek to reassure gay Democrats (Feb. 24, 2006): The focus was on a Feb. 15 statement by Dean defending his decision to replace the outreach desks with a new structure, along with a Feb. 13 appearance by Dean at a meeting of gay Democrats in New York City. Critics are also quoted on the outreach desk decision, as well as on the release of the DNC's annual grassroots report, the first under Dean, which makes no mention of gay issues unlike in the past.
Note: The article includes balanced quotes from Dean's statement, DNC staffers, Stonewall Democrats and gay DNC Treasurer Andy Tobias. No allegations of factual error are made subsequent to publication.
- Activists confront Dem senators (March 17, 2006): Gay activists meet with eight Democratic senators, including Hillary Clinton and Majority Leader Harry Reid, to complain that Democrats haven't tried to defend gays on marriage and other issues, as well as Dean's decision to eliminate the outreach posts.
Note: The article quotes activists who attended the meeting recalling the statements they made in the meeting, along with Reid's spokesperson.
- Prominent Dem slams party on gay rights (April 27, 2006): Paul Yandura, a prominent gay former staffer in Clinton White House who also worked on the Clinton and Gore presidential campaigns, releases a public letter slamming Dean's strategic decisions on gay issues, including what Yandura claims was a failure to counter anti-gay marriage ballot measures in the 2004 and 2005 elections. Yandura, who is Hitchcock's domestic partner, urges gay donors to stop giving to the DNC.
Note: The article was precipitated by Yandura's letter, not a Blade "attack," and quotes liberally from the DNC in response to Yandura's criticism. Blade publishes correction on one minor point: The DCCC, not the DSCC, omitted sexual orientation from its non-bias statement.
- Dean fires Dems' gay outreach chief (May 3, 2006): Dean fires Hitchcock one week after the Blade's article on Yandura's open letter to donors. The article quotes Yandura claiming the firing was in direct retaliation for his public criticism of Dean, along with DNC staffers denying a connection. The story also reports Hitchcock's replacement will be longtime gay Dem Brian Bond.
Note: The article also quotes Tobias, the gay DNC Treasurer, defending the decision. No allegations of factual error are made subsequent to publication.
- Dean slams gay marriage on '700 Club' (May 10, 2006): Dean reaches out to evangelical voters by appearing on Pat Robertson's "700 Club" and misstates the party's 2004 platform as affirming marriage is between a man and a woman. In fact, the platform was neutral, supporting "full inclusion of gay and lesbian families in the life of our nation and seek equal responsibilities, benefits, and protections for these families." The story includes Dean's subsequent clarification.
Note: Dean's decision to go on the "700 Club" was itself newsworthy, along with how he misstated the platform on gay marriage. The DNC responded internally by telling leading gay donors that Dean's interview was with the ABC Family Network and was broadcast by Robertson. In fact, it was an "exclusive" with Robertson's CBN News for "The 700 Club," as video of the interview makes plain.
- Party seeks to reassure angry gay Democrats (May 19, 2006): Story extensively quotes Tobias and DNC spokespersons defending Dean's decision to be interviewed for "The 700 Club," as well as several gay critics, including National Gay & Lesbian Task Force director Matt Foreman.
- DNC rejects affirmative action status for gays (Aug. 18, 2006): Reports on decision by top DNC officials to reject a proposal by the party's Gay & Lesbian Americans Caucus to add gays to the affirmative action "goals" used to select delegates to the Democratic National Convention. Instead, Dean was cited endorsing the addition of gays and persons with disabilities to "inclusion programs" that acknowledge both groups have been underrepresented on delegate slates. The article quotes a number of leading gay Dems praising the result, as well as Hitchcock criticizing it.
- Dean dismisses Blade as 'New York Post of gay press' - IN LA magazine (September 2006): In a wide-ranging interview with Karen Ocamb of IN LA about the DNC's delegate selection controversy and the Hitchcock lawsuit, Dean says, "First of all, we consider the Washington Blade to be the New York Post of the gay and lesbian press corps. They’re not credible and they have somebody who has an agenda which is certainly not favorable to the Democratic Party so we simply don’t give them any credence."
It was at this point (coincidentally!) that I left as editor of the Blade, succeeded by Kevin Naff, who had worked with me as the paper's managing editor for several years.
- DNC gay caucus to push for more delegates in '08 (Feb. 2, 2007): Previews Dean's speech to the DNC's Gay & Lesbian Americans Caucus, noting in the second paragraph that exit polls showed 80 percent of gay voters backed Democrats in the 2006 congressional races. The article also reports that the Caucus will press state Dem parties to set voluntary "goals" for openly LGBT delegates to the party's national convention.
Note: Almost all sources in the article are in support of Dean and the DNC.
- Democrats pledge to push gay bills
(Feb. 9, 2007): Reporting on the DNC's annual winter meeting Feb. 2,
and the party's pledge to introduce a gay and trans-inclusive ENDA and
hate crime bills in 2007. The article quotes
Dean's speech before the party's Gay & Lesbian Americans Caucus
thanking gay supporters for their help in the 2006 elections. The
second half of the story quotes Hitchcock criticizing Dean for saying
there is no exit polling on gay voters, as well as Log Cabin responding
to a swipe from Dean in his remarks. Gay Dems are then quoted defending
Dean from those criticisms.
Note: The full text of Dean's speech on LGBT issues was included as a sidebar to the article.
- Former gay outreach adviser sues DNC (June 8, 2007): Reporting Hitchcock's suit against Dean, the DNC and Tagen, alleging he was fired because of statements made by Yandura, his domestic partner, which represented a form of anti-gay discrimination since public criticism by heterosexual partners and spouses are tolerated by the party. The article quotes the DNC's counsel and the answer filed by the DNC and Dean to respond to the allegations in the lawsuit, as well as Tobias, who defends Dean and the DNC.
- Dean asks gays to 'vote Democrat'
(Aug. 31, 2007): In an interview with the Blade, Dean cites '07 state
legislative gay rights victories in Iowa, New Hampshire and Oregon to
make the case for gays to support Democratic candidates in the 2008
elections. He also pushes the DNC's compromise position on gay delegate
selection to the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
Note: The story quotes Dean at length, along with Log Cabin's director in response, as well as gay Dem activists largely backing Dean on the delegate selection compromise.
- Mediation ordered in gay man's lawsuit against DNC (Oct. 12, 2007): A brief article notes the court ordered the parties in the Hitchock litigation into mediation and reprises allegations and denials to date.
- DNC disparages gay press (Jan 10, 2008): Recounting internal DNC email exchanges that complain about coverage in the gay press and suggest "punishing" the Blade by giving exclusives to the Advocate. Julie Tagen, DNC Deputy Finance Director, says in one email, "I tend to use the [B]lade and the other gay papers in the bottom of the birdcage."
- DNC lawsuit ensares lesbian activist (Jan. 17, 2008): Quoting legal documents, reports accusation by Hitchcock's legal team that lesbian DNC volunteer Claire Lucas was evading testifying in the lawsuit by claiming she isn't a D.C. resident -- even though she claims a homestead tax deduction for a residence she owns in the District. Lucas' lawyer is quoted defending her, and the article quotes from internal DNC documents from the litigation that show Lucas coordinating criticism of Hitchcock for a letter he wrote published in the Blade in February 2007.
- DNC lawsuit reveals black vs. gay rivalry
(Jan. 25, 2008): Internal DNC emails leaked from the Hitchcock
litigation reveal criticism by Stonewall Dems alleging that Leah
Daughtry, Dean's chief of staff, incited a wedge between gays and
blacks within the party over adding gays to the party's delegate
selection affirmative action guidelines, as well as a Alabama state
House election disputed between a lesbian candidate and an African
American.
Note: The story quotes at length DNC sources defending Dean and Daughry, alongside the criticisms in the emails.
- Painting an unfair picture of the DNC by Rick Stafford (Feb. 1, 2008): A very strongly worded opinion column by the chair of the DNC's LGBT caucus says that the Jan. 25 Blade article was "unfair" and "shameful." Stafford doesn't allege any factual accuracies, but instead argues that additional background would have put the delegate selection Alabama election disputes in a different context -- he also lays out those additional facts in detail.
- DNC seeks to halt leaks stemming from lawsuit
(Feb. 8, 2008): DNC legal filings seek a court order blocking
Hitchcock's team from leaking internal DNC documents that are
"embarrassing, oppressing and damaging" to the DNC and Daughtry. The
article reprises the allegations in the Hitchcock lawsuit and the DNC's
response. A sidebar to the story reports that other internal DNC docs
obtained from the Hitchcock litigation showed party staffers
concerned in March 2007 that Dean should not personally issue a
statement criticizing Peter Pace, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs,
for saying the ban on military service by out gays was justified
because homosexual acts are "immoral."
- Dems' love for us is on the down low by Kevin Naff (Feb. 8, 2008): An editorial that criticizes hand-wringing within the DNC back in March 2007 about whether to have Dean personally criticize Pace. Naff slams Daughtry, an ordained minister, for worrying about fallout if Dean did so, imagining she was worried her "fellow Pentecostal worshippers who also speak in tongues might be offended that the Democratic Party stood up for those sinful gays who are going to hell." Tough stuff but hardly libelous. He also called her to the carpet for trying to undermine gay influence within the party on the delegate selection controversy.
- Do the wrong thing by Kevin Naff (March 15, 2008): An editorial relates how two lawyers representing Daughtry called for a meeting with Naff and Blade Publisher Lynne Brown to complain about the Feb. 8 editorial. Naff claims the lawyers screamed and cursed and later DNC staffers bragged they had succeeded in intimidate the paper from coveraging the Hitchcock suit.
- In an interview with Page One Q, one of the Daughtry lawyers denied screaming, cursing or intimidating Naff and the Blade.
- Gay official seeks end to DNC lawsuit (Feb. 15, 2008): Report focuses on an open letter by Tobias asking Hitchcock to agree to settle his lawsuit against the DNC in exchange for a mutual public agreement of "misunderstandings." The article quotes Hitchcock's attorney declining the offer because it does not include a financial settlement; otherwise the article focuses entirely on Tobias' claims in his letter.
Evaluating this coverage, there are some important points to keep in mind:
- Not one of these articles is "enterprise reporting"; meaning that in each and every case, the story was the result of prominent gay Democrats -- not the Blade -- raising issues about the decisions that Dean and the DNC had made or planned to make. Those public complaints are newsworthy, and it's not the job of the Blade or any newspaper editor to decide whether the Dean's explanations satisfy the criticism. That's up to the reader.
- In each and every story, the DNC and its supporters were offered and took full advantage of equal space within the story to make their case to readers. And although this review is largely limited to news articles, Kevin and I both always made sure to publish letters, columns, Sound Offs etc from the DNC and its supporters.
- Coverage of ongoing disputes like these walks a fine line between doing enough stories to cover the issues in detail and doing too many so that it appears the paper has some sort of "crusade." Week to week, editorial decisions were based on newsworthy developments that week. Over the last three years, the DNC has alternatively complained that the whole story wasn't being told and that too much attention was being paid to the story.
- Readers and story subjects are obviously entitled to their views about the quality of the journalism in the Blade's coverage. But the immature name-calling and strong-arm tacitics of the DNC, Dean, Daughtry et al go beyond the pale and would be inconceivable if directed toward other niche journalists, in the Latino, African American, feminist, labor press etc.
It's important that gays generally, but especially gay Democrats and those influential within the party's appartus -- Andy Tobias, are you listening? -- speak out for respectful treatment of the independent gay press. They do themselves, their party and the gay rights movement no favors by standing by while Dean and top DNC officials treat our community press with such contempt.
March 15, 2008
Giving up on Howard Dean?
Posted by: Chris
In this videotaped deposition posted today on Queerty from the Donald Hitchcock lawsuit against the DNC, Howard Dean doesn't remember much about the promises he made to LGBT Democrats in his campaign to become chair of the Democratic National Committee -- including whether he promised to preserve the "outreach desk" for LGBT issues:
As you can see in the video, Dean also can't remember whether he read a Feb. 3, 2006, article in the Washington Blade about criticism from some gay Democrats about his decision to abolish the outreach desk on LGBT issues -- along with the party's other constituency desks -- as part of a restructuring effort.
"I don't think I'd given up on the Blade at this point," Dean chuckles when asked if he read the article when it was published. "I just don't recall reading this at all," he said later. Pressed on a portion of the article that references a questionnaire candidate Dean submitted to the DNC's LGBT Caucus promising to keep the outreach desk, Dean said, "Much of what's been in the Blade is incorrect."
Well, not this time, Chairman Dean, considering you wrote a letter to the Blade in direct response to the Feb. 3 article that I published in the Feb. 10 issue of the newspaper. In the letter, you defended your decision to abolish the DNC's "political desks," including the LGBT outreach, but made no mention that the article was inaccurate in reporting that you promised in writing when running for DNC chair to preserve the position.
So should we "give up" on Howard Dean, now that he's been proven doubly inaccurate?
March 14, 2008
The DNC's gay press contempt
Posted by: Chris
Just when you think the Democratic National Committee couldn't possibly mishandle gay relations any worse, they somehow manage. The latest attempt to intimidate gay critics into silence would be shocking if it were not so depressingly true to form.
Kevin Naff, my former colleague and successor at the Washington Blade, writes in an editorial today:
What happens when a gay person dares to criticize a Democrat for failing to keep promises and honor commitments? I got a taste of the Democratic wrath last month, after criticizing DNC Chair Howard Dean and his chief of staff, Leah Daughtry in an editorial. …
In response, Daughtry sent two lawyers to the Blade’s offices to berate me and our publisher, Lynne Brown. The meeting was beyond contentious and featured lots of red-faced cursing and threatening of lawsuits.
They claimed to represent Daughtry and not the DNC. But DNC officials have gloated behind the scenes that since the confrontation in the Blade’s offices, the paper has stopped writing about a gay man’s lawsuit against the party, his former employer. Donald Hitchcock accuses the DNC of firing him after his partner, Paul Yandura, publicly urged gay donors to think twice before giving money to the Democratic Party.
Of course, to suggest that the Blade would abandon a story because a couple of angry lawyers made a scene in the lobby constitutes wishful thinking. One thing every journalist learns early on is that when people start yelling and making threats, that means you’re onto something.
The real outrage here isn't the attempt to influence press coverage; that happens every hour of every day in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. It's the sneering contempt that Dem officials show for "uppity" gays who dare to criticize the party that sees itself as beyond reproach on any and all gay-related issues, simply because the Republicans are so much worse.
Daughtry, an ordained Pentecostal pastor, should have been dismissed months ago for pitting blacks and gays against each other within the party, but this latest stunt is beyond the pale. And yet she remains Howard Dean's chief of staff and will run the Democratic National Convention.
Can you imagine the DNC treating the niche press of any other interest group -- labor, African Americans, Latinos, women and so on -- in such a manner? Of course not. But this is par for the DNC course under Dean, enabled by influential gays inside the party apparatus whose partisanship causes them to turn a blind eye to the legitimate watchdog role of the gay press and gay activists.
Kevin notes in the editorial that in depositions in the Hitchcock suit -- which the DNC stubbornly refuses to settle for unfathomable reasons -- Dean has apparently referred to the Blade "the Fox News of gay journalism." Another top DNC official, Julie Tagen, was recently revealed to have said in an internal email, "the Blade and the other gay papers for the bottom of the bird cage."
If that sounds familiar, it's probably because during my tenure as editor, Dean called the Blade "the New York Post of the gay and lesbian press corps."
"They’re not credible and they have somebody there who has an agenda
which is clearly not favorable to the Democratic Party," Dean said in the fall of 2006, "so we simply
don’t give them any credence." This from the same man who was happy to give an interview to Pat Robertson's "700 Club" -- since they're so "credible" and there's no one there "with an agenda" against the Democrats.
The Democratic Party has enjoyed a major resurgence the last several years, attributable almost entirely to the utter disaster of the Bush presidency and the inspirational (until recently) presidential primary. Dean will no doubt ride that wave as long as he can, but it is long past time for gays and gay groups to speak out against the contempt and disrespect with which Democratic Party officials treat the gay press.
Where is the National Gay & Lesbian Journalists Association when the gay press needs it?
February 22, 2008
It's Over, Hillary (IV): Lifeboats filling up
Posted by: Kevin
From today's Associated Press survey of Democratic superdelegates:
The Democratic superdelegates are starting to follow the voters—straight to Barack Obama.
In just the past two weeks, more than two dozen of them have climbed aboard his presidential campaign, according to a survey by The Associated Press. At the same time, Hillary Rodham Clinton's are beginning to jump ship, abandoning her for Obama or deciding they now are undecided.
With her campaign's money woes, internal disarray and falling morale -- against the backdrop of record fundraising, surging momentum and a string of unbroken victories for her opponent -- the question now is: will Hillary Rodham Clinton last to March 5th?
January 24, 2008
Race gets thrown into messy DNC mix
Posted by: Chris
More and more dirt is emerging from the suit by Donald Hitchcock challenging his ouster doing LGBT outreach for the Democratic National Committee, and with it more light is being shed on the way Howard Dean's unlikely obsession with evangelical voters has come at the expense of gay interests within the party.
The particulars of the latest revelation are in a report posted today by the Washington Blade and involve more nasty skirmishes among party insiders over how issues of race vs. sexual orientation were handled, both in the selection of party convention delegates and in a controversial Alabama state legislative race.
In the thick of things in both battles was Dean's chief of staff, Leah Daughtry (pictured), a Pentecostal pastor who grew up speaking in tongues -- and now employs her own forked tongues while wedging black Democrats against gay Democrats at every available opportunity. Daughtry's machinations apparently reached such a point that an unnamed Stonewall Democrat said angrily in an email to Hitchcock's successor, Brian Bond:
Imagine what Dean could do if people like Leah were confronted for their bigotry and fired. … I think Samuel L. Jackson said it best when he said "I'm sick of these mother fuckin' snakes on this mother fuckin' plane." It may be time to drive the snakes from the DNC.
It's no wonder, then, that Howard Dean went on "The 700 Club" and erroneously asserted that the Democratic Party platform opposes gay marriage. Daughtry no doubt planted the pipe dream in Dean's head that he could be the evangelical pied piper for the party and pretending official opposition to gay marriage was just a convenient, if inaccurate, way of finding common ground.
More DNC revelations are sure to follow…
We can't say we weren't warned
Posted by: Kevin
As a lot of gay activists would prefer we forget, one of the wealthiest and most powerful openly gay men in America warned us almost a year ago about the Clintons, in an interview with Maureen Dowd of the New York Times:
Can [Obama] stand up to Clinton Inc.? “I hope so,” he says, “because that machine is going to be very unpleasant and unattractive and effective.”
Once, David Geffen and Bill Clinton were tight as ticks. Mr. Geffen helped raise some $18 million for Bill and slept in the Lincoln Bedroom twice. Bill chilled at Chateau Geffen. Now, the DreamWorks co-chairman calls the former president “a reckless guy” who “gave his enemies a lot of ammunition to hurt him and to distract the country.”
They fell out in 2001, when Mr. Clinton gave a pardon to Marc Rich after rebuffing Mr. Geffen’s request for one for Leonard Peltier. “Marc Rich getting pardoned? An oil-profiteer expatriate who left the country rather than pay taxes or face justice?” Mr. Geffen says. “Yet another time when the Clintons were unwilling to stand for the things that they genuinely believe in. Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it’s troubling.”
Two friends of mine back in Washington told me last week that the word is out there from the gay Clinton supporters that "she is taking names" in the political community, which of course means there will be punishment for those who don't get in line. Want a preview? Look at what the DNC did -- with the backing of gay staffers inside -- to former gay outreach director Donald Hitchcock in retaliation for his partner, former Stonewall Democrats leader Paul Yandura, breaking the "code of silence" by DNC leadership on the wave of anti-gay state referendums breaking out every election cycle. It will give you a sense of the ruthlessness with which the Clinton Borg will deal with any gay dissenters, even the most partisan of Democrats like Donald and Paul.
Raising these questions is not just something easily dismissed as "Clinton bashing", nor is Geffen's back-turning an isolated case of revulsion from erstwhile friends. Mort Zuckerman's New York Daily News wrote in an editorial this morning that by "[e]mploying innuendo and half-truths against Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. Hillary Clinton and her husband, the former President, have introduced the politics of personal destruction to the Democratic presidential campaign. They bear responsibility for cheapening the tone of the contest."
Over in Davos, where Bill Clinton has been a regular and universally adored fixture since he left office, the Financial Times' John Gapper -- who doesn't have a dog in the Democratic primary fights -- writes today that Bill's friends gathering at the World Economic Forum are just as appalled:
He has adopted tactics that, if he does not curb himself soon, may tarnish his global brand irreparably. That would be a shame, not only for him but also for the causes that he has placed his weight behind. (...)
Consider whom Mr Clinton has been denigrating. Mr Obama is not Karl Rove, Mr Bush’s political guru, or another member of what Mrs Clinton once called the “vast rightwing conspiracy”. He is an African-American pioneer who is admired not only at home but also in the rest of the world for his calls to heal US divisions.
Mr Obama’s campaign speeches are reminiscent of those made by Mr Clinton in his post-presidential role. Both of them have used their skills as orators to instill hope that intractable problems can be solved with united effort. By laying into Mr Obama so cynically, Mr Clinton is trashing his own reputation for idealism.
If I were him, I would think long and hard about the risks he is taking with his no-holds-barred political attacks. If he carries on in the same vein, he may not find so many fans attending him in future.
January 21, 2008
We invested $100 million, and all we got was this lousy T-shirt
Posted by: Kevin
The Democratic presidential race has come perilously close to devolving into a fight over identity-loyalties and fear-mongering rather than a debate over the issues and the future of our nation. Supporters from both campaigns have been
appealing to "loyalty" to one's race (Obama) or one's
gender (Clinton) rather than debating the issues in depth,
fearlessly. While Obama has taken clear steps to stop such efforts on his behalf, the Clinton machine