Blasphemous to Oppose Gay Marriage
"No force is more divine than love, and if some people are encoded to love others of the same sex, how can that be unholy? To me, the blasphemy is not in those who want to share their lives with others of the same sex, but rather in anyone presumptuous enough to vilify that love."
- Columnist Nicholas Kristof on gay marriage, December 3.
Socialized Medicine as "Social Justice"
"Dr. Steffie Woolhandler['s] plan is simple. Get rid of the private health insurance industry and abolish Medicaid, the government's health insurance program for the poor. In their stead, set up a national health insurance system that would cover all Americans by expanding Medicare, the old-style Medicare, to include everyone from birth to death....Dr. Woolhandler's commitment to social justice began in her childhood in Shreveport, La. Her father was a doctor and her mother a homemaker who died when Steffie was 8. Her father hired black women to take care of his four daughters, who sometimes visited these women in their shacks on roads the city never paved. That injustice was not lost on the Woolhandler girls."
- Judy Foreman interviewing Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a supporter of socialized medicine, December 2.
Coulter's Crush on Torquemada
"Her Personal Ad Reads 'Born Too Late for
Torquemada.'"
- Headline to Joyce Wadler's December 3 gossip column, referring to conservative author Ann Coulter.
Bush's "Top Gun" Landing a Real Turkey
"But, in a sense, it was also a corrective to an earlier image artfully arranged by Mr. Bush's handlers: his swaggering arrival in a flight suit on an aircraft carrier outfitted with a banner reading 'Mission Accomplished.' Since the President declared major hostilities over on the flight deck that May 1, at least 287 service personnel have been killed in steadily mounting attacks-nearly twice as many as in the war itself. November has been the deadliest month, with more than 60 soldiers killed in hostile actions, more than in any other month. The so-called 'Top Gun' landing had clearly been designed as a triumphal image that would play a prominent part in the president's re-election campaign. Instead, it now seems a symbol of the nave, almost willful, optimism that has marked the administration's plan to overthrow Saddam Hussein and, in so doing, usher in a new era of democracy in the Middle East."
- John Kifner on Bush's Thanksgiving trip to Baghdad, November 30.
The "Respectful" Reagan Movie
"There is no reason Showtime's version of 'The Reagans' could not have been broadcast on CBS earlier this month....Anyone eagerly anticipating or dreading a hatchet job on the 40th President is bound to feel confounded. James Brolin's portrayal of Ronald Reagan is uncannily convincing and respectful....'The Reagans' is reasonably accurate, at times engrossing, at other times silly and sometimes even dull."
- Alessandra Stanley, November 30.
Mostly From Us, By the Way
"The trip came at a time of rising criticism of the president for not attending the funerals of the returning war dead. It also came in the same week that Mr. Bush met with families of 26 soldiers killed in Iraq, and thus appeared to be a concerted effort by the White House to deal with a political problem."
- Adam Nagourney, November 28.
Congressional Congeniality Ruined by Nasty Newt
"Most lawmakers don't stay in Washington over weekends; they head home to their districts, which gives them little time to socialize. More important, according to people on both sides of the political aisle, is that the old social order of the House was overturned in 1994, when Republicans, led by Representative Newt Gingrich of Georgia, wrested control of the chamber from Democrats after 40 years."
- Sheryl Gay Stolberg, blaming Newt Gingrich for the decline of civility in Congress, November 30.
Bullying Bush Meets His Match
"For the first time in his nearly three years in office, the president, who has often reveled in the exercise of American power, finally met an international organization that had figured out how to hit back at the administration where it would hurt."
- David Sanger on Bush lifting tariffs on imported steel, December 5.
