{"id":7574,"date":"2006-06-02T11:11:31","date_gmt":"2006-06-02T15:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7574"},"modified":"2006-06-02T11:11:31","modified_gmt":"2006-06-02T15:11:31","slug":"bushs-new-found-interest-in-the-marriage-amendment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/bushs-new-found-interest-in-the-marriage-amendment\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush’s new-found interest in the marriage amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"

How desperate is the [tag]Bush[\/tag] [tag]White House[\/tag]? The president is actually giving in to James [tag]Dobson[\/tag]’s demands<\/a>, and will publicly promote<\/a> a [tag]constitutional amendment[\/tag] to [tag]ban[\/tag] [tag]gay marriage[\/tag].<\/p>\n

[tag]President[\/tag] Bush will promote a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage on Monday, the eve of a scheduled [tag]Senate[\/tag] vote on the cause that is dear to his conservative backers. […]<\/p>\n

“The president firmly believes that marriage is an enduring and sacred institution between men and women and has supported measures to protect the sanctity of marriage,” White House spokesman Ken Lisaius said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m not at all sure the [tag]White House[\/tag] has thought this through. Obviously, on the merits, the amendment is constitutional garbage, but even from a strategic perspective, there’s no real upside for Bush here.<\/p>\n

Perhaps most importantly, by tying himself to the amendment on Monday, Bush will intentionally be setting himself up for yet another failure. The amendment isn’t going to pass; it won’t even be close. But instead of it simply being a predictable defeat for the far-right next week, the president is poised to tie himself to a sinking ship on purpose<\/em>. The post-vote spin will now be, “Bush suffers another defeat on the Hill; lawmakers reject president’s demands on amendment.”<\/p>\n

Maybe the [tag]religious right[\/tag] will give Bush credit for trying? It’s unlikely. Dobson, [tag]Falwell[\/tag], [tag]Robertson[\/tag], & Co. wanted the White House to take this amendment seriously for months<\/a>. For the president to speak out, literally at the 11th hour, will probably be interpreted as too-little, too-late.<\/p>\n

Also, there’s a consistency question. In January 2005, Bush said<\/a>, in no uncertain terms, that he would not aggressively lobby the Senate to pass the constitutional amendment during his second term. By flip-flopping now, the president only reminds everyone what a weak position he’s in.<\/p>\n

The Senate is expected<\/a> to vote on the amendment (S.J. Res.1) on Tuesday, June 6. It needs two-thirds of the Senate to pass. It won’t get it — and Bush’s public appeal will be meaningless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How desperate is the [tag]Bush[\/tag] [tag]White House[\/tag]? The president is actually giving in to James [tag]Dobson[\/tag]’s demands, and will publicly promote a [tag]constitutional amendment[\/tag] to [tag]ban[\/tag] [tag]gay marriage[\/tag]. [tag]President[\/tag] Bush will promote a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage on Monday, the eve of a scheduled [tag]Senate[\/tag] vote on the cause that is dear to his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7574\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}