NYT:
"When the only Reagan Republican to enjoy a prominent supporting role at the party's convention is a Democrat, the G.O.P. has a serious identity problem," Kate O'Beirne, the Washington editor of the conservative National Review, wrote in a column posted on its Web site last Wednesday. The list, she wrote, "is not the mark of a self-confident party establishment," adding, "if the lineup is intended to make an overwhelmingly conservative party attractive to swing voters, it does so by pretending to be something it's not." ....No, thank YOU Tony. You're too stupid to realize that you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. If you don't get one of your Bible-thumping wackos to appear at the R Convention during prime time, you'll be seen as an irrelevant pariah. If you DO get to appear, you'll kill the ticket because normal Americans loathe you people, and the Bushies know it. So please do push for one of your nutcases to speak at the convention - if you succeed, I'll be sending YOU flowers, you cutie.
On Friday, as the Senate began debating the amendment on same-sex marriage, the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group, placed an advertisement in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call listing Governor Schwarzenegger, Governor Pataki, Senator McCain and Mr. Giuliani. 'Want to get a prime time spot at the Republican National Convention?' the advertisement asked. 'Oppose the Federal Marriage Amendment.'
Hoping to turn the same advertisement into a message to the convention planners, Tony Perkins, president of the Christian conservative Family Research Council, sent flowers to Cheryl Jacques, the executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, with a note that said, 'Dear Cheryl, per your ad in Roll Call - thank you.'
