Who, exactly, is destroying America's values?
How hilarious was it when Republicans were shocked—shocked!—after John Kerry called them a 'crooked' and 'lying' bunch? Imagine—a Democrat actually standing up to them and calling it like it is. Most of it is feigned outrage on the Republicans' part, of course, but hearing Kerry making these statements must have been just a bit jarring, too, simply because Republicans and the conservative media have effectively bludgeoned Democrats into submission for years.
They tried to do it again last week, though Kerry wasn't having any of it—even if his Democratic colleagues mostly remained silent while the Republican 'attack squad,' as he called it, went after him.
House majority leader Tom Delay spoke out immediately, enraged that anyone would call Republicans crooked, even as he's facing indictments for violating Texas campaign finance law. Oh, and let's not forget the scam he was exposed in last year, ostensibly planning to raise money for children's charities during the Republican National Convention here this summer, but actually planning on funneling some of the cash into paying for late-night convention parties, a luxury hotel suite and yacht cruises. Crooked? No. Totally bent!
As for Republicans' 'lying,' well, everything from his vows against 'nation building' to his claims of weapons of mass destruction have been lies upon lies upon lies by George W. Bush. And, as one letter writer to The New York Times recently put it, that's just one former governor from Texas.
My favorite recently exposed lie regards Bush's claims during the 2000 campaign that he was going to purify the White House of all those allegedly sleazy things Bill Clinton and company had done in it. About Clinton's having invited major donors to stay at the White House—including evil Hollywood folks, like Barbra Streisand and David Geffen—Bush had said in 2000, 'I believe they've moved that sign, 'The buck stops here,' from the Oval Office desk to 'The buck stops here' on the Lincoln Bedroom. And that's not good for the country.'
But last week the Associated Press reported the names of around 270 people who've had overnights at the White House, including major Bush fundraisers—people who raised more than $100,000 for his campaign—and the usual corporate chieftains to whom Bush sucks up. Maybe in the Bush White House the sign on the Lincoln Bedroom should read, 'The buck doesn't stop here—unless you have 100 grand.'
One of the more curious names on the list of White House and Camp David sleepovers was that of Neil Bush, George W.'s brother, who'd been at the center of the savings and loan scandal while Papa Bush was president. Last year, depositions in Neil's messy divorce case revealed that while he was married, he'd had sex with a number of women on business trips to Thailand—and claimed he didn't know if they were prostitutes or not—who would mysteriously show up at his hotel-room door. He also couldn't recall how many of these extramarital hook-ups he'd had, though he did confirm that he'd only gotten a venereal disease once. With all the talk of cleaning up the White House, you have to wonder if brother Neil—whose activities make Bill Clinton look like Mother Teresa—brought some creepy-crawling visitors right into Lincoln's own bed.
Interestingly, though Neil is good enough for a White House sleepover, he apparently isn't good enough these days to have the privilege of his own brothers at his wedding—not in an election year, and not when the president is pushing a federal marriage amendment all about protecting, as W. likes to say, the 'sanctity' of marriage. Brother Neil got married again in Texas two weeks ago, to Maria Andrews, a former volunteer for former first lady Barbara Bush. His first wife had accused him of fathering a child with Andrews while he was still married. Yes, he was allegedly screwing mom's little helper behind his wife's back, and now—in between all those Asian quickies and a bout of v.d.—he's married her. Barbara and George Bush Sr. attended the ceremony, but George W. Bush and Jeb Bush were absent.
It's interesting that the president didn't seem to have the time to attend his brother's wedding—nice family values—even though he went to Texas for two fundraisers and visited a rodeo. He also had time to speak via satellite to an evangelical convention in Colorado, once again pushing his hate amendment excluding gays from marriage because they're out to destroy it—as if his own heterosexual brother wasn't doing more to destroy marriage than any of the thousands of gay couples who got married in San Francisco, Oregon and New York State in recent weeks.
While his divorced adulterer of a brother was planning his new wedding, Bush's twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna, were sprinting from party to party in the past few weeks and getting their pictures in all of New York's tabloids and gossip columns, including one Daily News cover in which Barbara was locking lips with a social-climbing party boy. Later, both Cindy Adams and Liz Smith—engaging in the practice of 'outing,' which Liz had supposedly staunchly opposed—informed us that the guy is not Barbara Bush's boyfriend and is in fact 'light on his feet.' Of course, he could be even worse than a known homosexual—he could be a dreaded bisexual. At any rate, he wasn't the type of person with whom the daughters of such a moral president should be cavorting, was he?
Indeed, the Bush girls don't seem to be leading the pious, 'abstinence only' lifestyle that Dad preaches, puts into policy and spends millions of taxpayer dollars trying to promote. Last May, actor Ashton Kutcher told Rolling Stone how he found the Bush twins in an upstairs bedroom during a party at his house in L.A.—while the secret service were waiting outside.
'And then I go upstairs to see another friend, and I can smell the green (marijuana) wafting out under his door,' Kutcher said, in a quote that got a flurry of attention and a 'no comment' from the White House. 'I open the door, and there he is, smoking out the Bush twins on his hookah.'
George W. Bush's family values crusade, like that of the rest of the Republicans, seems to be targeted to everyone but their own. Maybe that's what John Kerry means when he says they're crooked and lying.
Michelangelo Signorile hosts a daily satellite radio show on Sirius OutQ, 149. He can be reached at www.signorile.com
