Out

As Gaius at Blue Crab Boulevard notes: “All the Cool Kids Are Doing It!” And The Anchoress started it… Doing what, you ask? Outing themselves! (By way of further explanation: This wave of outing is more or less in response to the Democrats circulating that list of gay Republican staffers, aides, etc. in Congress to various Republican groups.) Gerard van der Leun’s site must be down (I can’t get it to load; other sites load fine), but I’m intrigued by his outing confession, quoted elsewhere:

For decades I have been a lesbian trapped in a man’s body. I can’t help it. I have this deep need to pursue every beautiful woman I see. What can this be other than latent lesbianism? As my two wives will, if they were speaking to me, attest, I have in the past performed lesbian acts on them. I couldn’t help it because it was in my genes and also part of their special request.

I’ll keep trying that link as I write. But, Hey! I used Gerard’s line years ago, apropos of nothing. And, not being one to miss a wave, I’ll out myself, too:

Like a lot of the others outing themselves, I’ll admit to voting for Democrats in the past. Lotsa times. But not lately.

This may be the most damning confession I’ve ever made: I bought the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack within a week of its release. I still know the words to most of the songs. “Burn, Baby, Burn! Disco Inferno! Burn that mother down…” (That’s kinda gay, isn’t it?)

OK. That’s enough.

Are we looking at a Democrat victory in the upcoming mid-terms of 1994 proportions? Stuart Rothenberg, writing at Real Clear Politics, thinks so:

The Iraq War is going poorly, with daily reports of mounting casualties and little evidence that American policy is achieving its goals. Bob Woodward’s book and the leaked National Intelligence Estimate give more fodder to critics of the White House, undercutting President Bush’s fundamental argument about the war against terror. If Iraq indeed is the front line of the war against terror, then the war on terror isn’t going well, is it?

Republicans failed to produce anything meaningful over the past couple of years on the president’s top priorities, Social Security reform and immigration. And now in the wake of the scandal surrounding former Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.), the House leadership looks like the Keystone Cops.

[…]

At this point in the cycle, with four weeks to go, Democrats have enough credible candidates and enough resources to win both the House and the Senate. It’s quite possible that a handful of lower-second-tier, and even some third-tier, Democrats could be swept into the House by an anti-Republican wave, giving Democrats a bigger gain than I had heretofore been estimating.

Republicans may counter that while they have messed up, Democrats haven’t done anything to deserve control of Congress. Sure, I can buy that. But that’s not how our system works. Democrats don’t have to offer an agenda. They don’t have to offer a list of unquestionably able committee chairmen. They don’t have to understand that their election isn’t a mandate for anything — except change.

Rothenberg’s point—that this is what Republicans themselves are saying—is well-taken. If the Republicans have anything at all to fear, it’s that the base will opt out and stay home. All the pundits may be wrong, however, and I have only two words to counter the conventional wisdom: Speaker Pelosi.

Today’s Pic: YrsTrly and friend below the Palisades Sill in the Cimarron River canyon near Red River, NM. May, 2004.