Some books I recommend as thumb-throughs, for skimming, have on the shelf for reference sorts of books. This one I like as a cover-to-cover read. It starts with the original communes circa 1825 and is like a map of a state of mind. In fact, when I’m done with this latest from Goldberg and re-read “1984,” I’m going to run through it again myself.

The gay mafia and the major gay advocacy groups had given it up for Obama in ’08 and have awaited the major paybacks: they got the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and they got Holder and the Justice Department doing nothing to defend the Defense of Marriage Act. They also got the usual sympathetic gay appointments and gay friendly this and that. The trinkets of power.

Then came the marriage referendum in North Carolina, and the mafia et al. were pumping a lot of money in there, but they probably knew two-three weeks out that they were going to get clobbered. They were angry, as they always are, but they turned the anger on Obama. They wanted something that would blunt the big loss in North Carolina. They were probably also starting to worry that the whisper to “wait until he is re-elected” meant that all the money would be for nothing because his numbers suggested that he could very well lose. They demanded action.

Obama sent out Arne Duncan and Joe Biden to test the waters and things looked pretty clear, so after the North Carolina measure passed, Obama came out and blunted the effect by saying he supported “gay marriage” and that made everything wonderful again.

But I think it was the one real true mistake he has made (not counting the health care thing which he knew would hurt him but was too important to gaining more power over Americans to let it fail). It crossed through the national political discourse at the wrong time, in the wrong way, and he looked bad. It was transparently cheesy and this time there was no “watch my hands” effect where people simply yawned and took the post-hypnotic suggestion.

The way November stands now is that uncommitted or voters who are only leaning one way or the other are now looking for reasons not to vote for Obama and reasons to vote for Romney. This is already and old election, five and a half months before it happens. We could know by Labor Day who is going to win. People are sick of politics. They’re getting sick of Obama. I know the *one* way that the Democrats, who I have taken to calling the human sacrifice and sodomy cult, could make a big comeback between Labor Day and the election, but I’m not talking. (Remind me to tell you what it is after the election.)

violation of civil rights or good law enforcement tactic?

Yes.  As usual.  And as ALWAYS.
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You’re a little Chicken Little here, McQ.  The cops can keep you off the streets, too.  They can do lots of things in an extremity they do not think of doing otherwise.

“It’s the nature of law enforcement to push the envelope,” said Eugene O’Donnell

Wul, yah…  And it’s the nature of civil libertarians to push back.  Always has been since the Founding.  Really NOTHING new here, McQ
 

You don’t really want those, anyhow.

Oh, yes, they do. They need them desperately, and cannot imagine what life would be without them. Those delusions define who they are as people: brilliant, caring, virtuous – both able and willing to boss the rest of us around because of their goodness and smarts.
They may not *need* them, and the rest of us certainly wish they could get out from under that warm blanket of delusion they occupy. But they *want* those delusions because without them, they would actually have to look in the mirror and face the reality of who they are as a person. That might mean, for example, facing the reality that someone who is convinced of his brilliance and superiority would have to admit that he’s wrong about everything and is nothing more than a mediocre professor in a mediocre rural college. As I said a few weeks ago, they don’t have the psychic strength to face it.

I echoed Dale in that entry, though: “OK, let them live in their fantasy world. In the end, reality always wins.”