June 01, 2003
Quiet corrections

In a piece from the New York Times on the Bush administration's relationship with gay rights groups, Andrew Sullivan noted a whopper. The article stated that Bush had nominated James Hormel to an ambassadorial post in Romania. Actually, Hormel, a Democratic Party activist, was nominated by Clinton to be the ambassador to Luxembourg. Michael Guest was Bush's nominee to the Romania post, although the article had his sexual orientation correct.

I just read the article (after linking to it from Sullivan's site), and it has been corrected, although there is no indication that the article differs from the original. At least they did make the correction. We're still waiting for corrections from Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman for their (far more pernicious) errors, or lies.

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On the article itself, there are a few points that are addressed that should be highlighted, because they are important and don't get a lot of play from the (mostly left-wing) gay-rights groups or from the (mostly right-wing) family-advocacy groups. Both sides are furious with Bush's alleged pandering to the other side. I tend to agree with the gay-rights groups on this issue, as the social conservatives are upset that Marc Racicot, RNC chairman, had the unmitigated gall to simply meet with gay-rights groups. This is absurd; there are issues on which the Human Rights Campaign and the Bush administration share common ground, as well as plenty of areas upon which they disagree. Agreeing to meet with a group that is the de facto voice of anywhere from 5 percent to 10 percent of the voting-age population does not imply endorsement of their agenda. On the other hand, the administration has done little in the way of advancing a gay-rights agenda; had Gore won there might have been a more forceful push on issues important to gay groups, such as ENDA and hate-crimes legislation.

posted on June 01, 2003 03:29 PM



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