Who would have thought that the Miss USA pageant could become a political battleground? But since Miss California contestant Carrie Prejean expressed her opposition to same-sex marriage during Sunday night’s pageant, there has been heated debate about her comments. Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, who asked the question about whether more states should allow gay marriage, has been blasting Prejean. Others, such as commentator Roland Martin, have defended Prejean for being honest about her beliefs. Prejean sticks by her answer, which she thinks cost her the crown. “It’s not about being politically correct. For me, it’s about being biblically correct,” she said in an interview this week.
I didn’t watch the pageant, and I’m not sure I’ve ever watched it — even when it was held in Wichita. Is gay marriage a normal type of question for contestants? I thought they just talked about world peace and ending hunger.
Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, who just won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary, wants to see some drama out of President Obama. “Theatricality is one of the weapons in any leader’s arsenal, and a well-timed glower or growl can have more impact than a sheaf of position papers,” Robinson wrote. For example, Obama could have been less gracious around Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega at a weekend summit. When Obama spoke after Ortega’s 50-minute speech criticizing the United States, Robinson said, Obama “should have prefaced his promising call for an ‘equal partnership’ with other countries in the hemisphere with some strong pushback against those who would rather relive the insults of the past than move forward.”
Neither of Kansas’ senators made the Hill newspaper’s lists of most and least partisan members of the U.S. Senate, but the bipartisan efforts of Sens. Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts were mentioned by some Democratic colleagues. Those Democrats who spoke favorably of dealings with Brownback were Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Mark Udall of Colorado. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., included Roberts among a GOP quartet of “good-natured” senators.
Brownback told the newspaper that he misses the late liberal Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn. — “one of the funniest guys I’ve worked with.” Brownback said, “He was just passionate. We’d call each other names for a little while, and then we’d go work with each other.”
The Hill’s survey found that Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, were prized by their colleagues as most bipartisan. The least bipartisan? Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Jim Bunning, R-Ky. One Republican explained that Leahy and Democratic Sens. Charles Schumer of New York, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Chris Dodd of Connecticut “like to wield their positions.” One less diplomatic Democrat characterized Bunning and Republican Sens. David Vitter of Louisiana, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Jim DeMint of South Carolina as “a bunch of 4-year-olds.”
“So much of the discussion today is about value, not values,” U2 lead singer Bono wrote in a New York Times commentary about foreign aid and Easter. “Aid well spent can be an example of both, values and value for money. Providing AIDS medication to just under 4 million people, putting in place modest measures to improve maternal health, eradicating killer pests like malaria and rotoviruses — all these provide a leg up on the climb to self-sufficiency, all these can help us make friends in a world quick to enmity. It’s not alms, it’s investment. It’s not charity, it’s justice.”
