McCain is not where we want him to be on any issue. Patrick Sammons says: "We're a gay rights organization working from inside the Republican Party, and so we're completely focused on how do we advance equality for LGBT people." All Patrick Sammons is completely focused on is Patrick Sammons and the spotlight this puts him in. What a dishonest POS.

Just for the sake of discussion, let's see how the first paragraph of the Advocate article that you have cited Alex would read with just a few alterations.

The Advocate: Where do Jewish rights fall in terms of priorities for B'nai Brith Nazi's as an organization?

Bernie Schwartz: We're a Jewish rights organization working from inside the Nazi Party, and so we're completely focused on how do we advance equality for Jewish people. And the fact is, doing so will require votes and support from Nazia, and so we made this endorsement of Adolph Hitler with the very clear focus on how this decision will impact and benefit our community. The fact is, even those who disagree with our decision should realize there's a 50% chance that Adolph Hitler wins this election, and I ask those people, do they really want our community sitting on the sidelines for the next four years? I say no. I say that Adolph Hitler, in the totality of his record, is someone who has demonstrated that he can be a maverick, that has demonstrated he's an inclusive Nazi, and I believe that if he's elected, as a community we will make progress on some of the issues that are so important to all.

Now I realize that this is a stretch and it isn't the same but You think you get my point. We can substitute David Duke the KKK and Blacks or Lou Dobbs and immigrants and Latinos or any number of other options.

As I have said many times, there is a need for members of the LGBT community in both the Democratic Part and the Republican Party. It makes sense for Log Cabin Republicans to endorse candidates who support our community (or who at least don't support anti-LGBT policies). However, when they endorse candidates like John McCain and Sarah Palin they are endorsing people who will do us great harm. Furthermore, they actually give such candidates permission to disregard our issues since they will support them anyway.

Shame on the Log Cabin Republicans!

I couldn't have said it better than Richard Cohen, former McCain adulator, who eviscerates McCain over lies:

"McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most. He has contempt for most of his colleagues for that very reason: They lie. He tells the truth. He internalizes the code of the McCains -- his grandfather, his father: both admirals of the shining sea. He serves his country differently, that's all -- but just as honorably. No more, though.

"I am one of the journalists accused over the years of being in the tank for McCain. Guilty. Those doing the accusing usually attributed my feelings to McCain being accessible. This is the journalist-as-puppy school of thought: Give us a treat, and we will leap into a politician's lap.

"Not so. What impressed me most about McCain was the effect he had on his audiences, particularly young people. When he talked about service to a cause greater than oneself, he struck a chord. He expressed his message in words, but he packaged it in the McCain story -- that man, beaten to a pulp, who chose honor over freedom. This had nothing to do with access. It had to do with integrity.

"McCain has soiled all that. His opportunistic and irresponsible choice of Sarah Palin as his political heir -- the person in whose hands he would leave the country -- is a form of personal treason, a betrayal of all he once stood for. Palin, no matter what her other attributes, is shockingly unprepared to become president. McCain knows that. He means to win, which is all right; he means to win at all costs, which is not."

For the love of Pete;
How do fiscal conservattives, let alone LGBT's, support McCain when he supports Bush's economic policies, referred to in the international community as "print and spend?"

The call has come every day for nearly a week at 5 am Eastern time. It is a conference call with associates in Vienna and in Gibralter, and always concerns the same thing, the Singapore market runs and the effect upon the Western economy as well as how "The House"(the bank) can weather what is occuring.

Bush created both a credit and a currency famine. This seems to be little understood in the US; basically, the US has run out of money and exhausted available credit. The value of the dollar, and through interlocking economies, the Euro, has only been sustained by a line of credit that is spent down as soon as it is extended. To keep spending, more money is circulated but it is backed only by the line of credit.

It is more complex than this, but that is the essential. Bush has taken out two new credit cards for every one card that he needs to pay on, and uses the remaining credit to recklessly spend, and then gets four credit cards to pay down the two, again spending as soon as he does so..

Maura--

The reason why o one in the US knows this is that Democrats were so cowed by the 1984 election and the subsequent Reagan hagiography that they aren't been willing to stand up and point out the ruin that Friendman-style Reagan economics have unleashed on the country.

Until someone stands up and says that voodoo economics just. doesn't. work., and communicates that clearly, we will keep on having a Republican part that runs around and promises everyone that we can cut taxes, balance the budget by 'cutting waste', and fix our trade deficit without major sacrifices.

For what it's worth, I was in flight school the same time as Lt. McCain was, so I'm somewhat familiar with the rampant homophobia that pervades such fraternities. If I hear one more 'don't bend over in the shower' joke... I can tell you that unless Mr. McCain has come a very long way, his stripes have likely not changed much. If the LCRs are truly committed to human rights they'll make a lot of noise within the Republican party about the hypocrisy that's become one of the Republicans' hallmarks, and take them to task for it. The powers that be are playing them like a fiddle, just like Rove Bush & Cheney have done us straights for 8 years.
Byron in Ohio

I can understand Sammon's reasoning when he says that McCain has a 50% chance and we need to have a foot in the door.

That doesn't mean we should endorse him though. There's a difference between offering full-throttled support and working behind the scenes.