"I swore to never be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides, Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim, silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

Elie Wiesel, in spirit, on Prop 8.

But didn't W. get into (and stay in) office in the first place largely by - systematically and ferociously - disenfranchising the hell out of African-American voters (with a lot of help from his friends)?

That's a big "but" to overlook when singing his praises on this issue...

W. may be a darn swell guy, left to his own devices, but the fact is he enabled - by both action and inaction - a lot of really awful stuff to happen to an awful lot of people, not least of all "brown people" the world over.

"I swore to never be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides, Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim, silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

Elie Wiesel, in spirit, on Prop 8.

"I swore to never be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides, Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim, silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

Elie Wiesel, in spirit, on Prop 8.

"I swore to never be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides, Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim, silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

Elie Wiesel, in spirit, on Prop 8.

"I swore to never be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides, Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim, silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

Elie Wiesel, in spirit, on Prop 8.

"I swore to never be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides, Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim, silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

Elie Wiesel, in spirit, on Prop 8.

"I swore to never be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides, Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim, silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

Later, Josh. Much later.

You'll recall that he'd been told weeks prior about the ads, but waited until the very eve of the election to trot out his excuses for letting them run - even lying about it and claiming the ads had *just* appeared that morning.

I think he believes he did the right thing, when he really pulled a rightwinger: he looked at the issue solely from his own point of view, and failed (or refused to try) to understand how it might feel for his gay/lesbian/bi readers. To him, it was merely a political issue with side A and side B. "Agree to disagree" and all that nonsense. It's not until you are the target or the victim, like any good rightwinger worth his salt, do you wake up and understand what it's like to be under attack.

Which is why so many readers tried, unsuccessfully, to get Josh to answer the question: What if this ad used anti-Jewish dog whistle phrases and linked to a campaign run by known and unabashed anti-semites who were actively seeking to pass a law restricting the rights of Jews?

And of course, being a coward - or simply not caring - he has ignored it. For him, the matter is closed and it never was really open anyway.

Who cares if a few dumb fags and dykes got upset?

I expect better from self-proclaimed progressives. We're supposed to be able to empathize with and care for others, even when it doesn't directly affect us.

The lip service is pathetic and insulting. Been reading TPM since long before it was TPM Media, or the Cafe existed - the site didn't even look like this when I started reading (hell, I download Josh's videos on my TiVo).

Sadly, no more. A$$hole.

It just doesn't seem like that big of a deal to many readers (and Josh) to promote efforts to demonize, vilify, and slander a group of people and to legitimize and enshrine discrimination into an essential founding document like a state's constitution. To make it the law of the land. As long as the target is merely those silly gays, of course.

Singling out a group of citizens and prohibiting them from exercising the same freedoms everyone else is afforded is wrong. Yes, Virginia, even when those citizens are homosexual.

I guess we should now spread the word that, according to readers of Talking Points Memo, advertising - as of this week - no longer works. In fact, it works *against* you to advertise! In other news, "up" will heretofore be referred to as "down".

I'm looking forward to not having to TiVo through any more commercials, or thumb through any more print ads in magazines, or look at any more billboards when I drive down the street, or sit through any more previews before my main feature, or listen to any more radio spots...

So...come join us at TPM! Where we don't allow a little despicable, deplorable, inappropriate, tasteless, and misleading advertising to get in the way of your reading pleasure, making a buck, oppressing homos, or cowering behind a bogus editorial policy!

Hey - when do we get to vote on whether or not Jews should be allowed to blog?