never mind

In an interview with The Washington Post, George W. Bush said that he does not intend to push Congress to pass a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage. Despite the fact that the issue was one that can be pointed to as a catalyst for many of the conservative Christian voters that elected him, Bush says he is going to rely on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which says that states that outlaw same sex marriage do not have to recognize gay marriages performed in other states. White House spokesman Scott McClellan clarified that the president's position was one of practicality. It would require 67 votes in the Senate to pass the amendment and those votes just don't exist. (In case you were absent that day that it was covered in your high school government class, it's actually really difficult to get an amendment added to the U.S. Constitution. The law has to pass through both the Senate and the House by a two-thirds majority and then get sent on to the states, where it has to be passed by three-fourths of the states by a simple majority. The President himself has no role in passing the amendment.)

While I guess it's good news that Bush is not going to be pushing for the new amendment, it does feel like and bait and switch. I mean, the same interview has the president claiming that his re-election was a ratification of his policy in Iraq. I'd be willing to go out on a limb that this claim is a load of sh*t. Rove gets all of these people out to the polls by telling them that poofters are going to be doing it in the church pews unless they re-elect the president and Bush takes it as a sign that he's been given license to spend a few more billion on blowing up Iraqis? That's just wrong. Makes me wish that playground etiquette had a role in the land of politics. I'd like to claim "backsies" and give everyone the chance to vote again, knowing what they know today.

Let it be my fantasy that things would turn out differently.