Let's remember that Mr. Bruni is more responsible than any gay man whose name isn't Melman for the fact Bush is in the White House. See, he was the NYT reporter who covered Bush. http://www.dailyhowler.com/h031802_1.shtml
Here is one example of his work.
Frank Bruni’s account is instructive. In his campaign memoir, Ambling into History, the Timesman describes George W. Bush’s performance at that first, key debate with Al Gore:
BRUNI (page 187): The skills that led to great debating were not ones that Bush naturally possessed, and his three subsequent debate performances made this clear. By any objective analysis, Bush was at best mediocre in the first debate, in Boston…In all of [the debates], he was vague. A stutter sometimes crept into his voice. An eerie blankness occasionally spread across his features. He made a few ridiculous statements…I remember watching the first debate from one of the seats inside the auditorium and thinking that Bush was in the process of losing the presidency.
Our instruction begins when we compare that account with the article Bruni wrote the next day in the Times. Bruni was Bush reporter for the New York Times from August 1999 through the end of Election 2000. And we now know it—as he sat in the hall and watched that debate, he thought that Bush was "losing the presidency." Surely Bush had done some serious fumbling. But here’s how Bruni’s report began in the next day’s Times:
BRUNI (pgh 1): It was not enough for Vice President Al Gore to venture a crisp pronunciation of Milosevic, as in Slobodan, the Yugoslav president who refuses to be pried from power.
(2) Mr. Gore had to go a step further, volunteering the name of Mr. Milosevic’s challenger, Vojislav Kostunica. Then he had to go a step beyond that, noting that Serbia plus Montenegro equals Yugoslavia.
(3) And as Mr. Gore loped effortlessly through the Balkans, barely able to suppress his self-satisfied grin, it became ever clearer that the point of all the thickets of consonants and proper nouns was not a geopolitical lesson.
(4) It was more like oratorical intimidation, an unwavering effort to upstage and unnerve an opponent whose mind and mouth have never behaved in a similarly encyclopedic fashion.
Bruni thought Bush was performing so poorly that he "was in the process of losing the presidency." But when he described the event the next day, he opened with a four-paragraph passage about was a big *sshole Gore was. For the record, those familiar with spin from Election 2000 will know the script which Bruni was typing. It was "Gore is like the kid in the front row who keeps raising his hand"—one of the many pieces of memorized cant with which your press corps made a joke of this race.
Strange, isn’t it? Bruni thought Bush was blowing the deal—but he opened with shopworn denigration of Gore! (Dropping all pretense of objective reporting, by the way, he noted that Gore was "barely able to suppress his self-satisfied grin" as he played the big show-off.) Weirdly, it was Gore whom Bruni chose to highlight—and he used some dog-eared spin as he did. But then, so it routinely went as the liberal Times spun this election.
end of quote
Oh and trust me there is more and more and more if I wanted to.
Funny I have yet to see Bruni say one word about Bush's anti gay policies, he surely didn't cover them in real time.
Now, the fact is I am unenamored with DOMA but let's be blunt. We could well have a Constitutional amendment instead. They needed 2/3 of Congress plus 3/4 of states. In the Senate we had 52 GOP 48 Dems. But of the 48 Dems, 2 came from AK, 2 from LA, one from AL, one from SC, 4 from the Dakotas, one from Montana, 2 from WV, 1 from VA, 1 from KY if they got all of those and held their own that is the 67 they need.
As for the states, 18 legislatures were under GOP control. Alaska , AR, CO, FL, ID, KS, MT, NH, NJ, ND, OH, OR, PA, UT, WA, WY, IA, and SD we can assume all of them would have ratified. One was NE which would have ratified (NE officially has a non partisan legislature). 20 states were under Democratic control. AL , Arkansas, CA, CT, GA, HI, KY, LA, ME, MD, MA, MN, MS, MO, NM, OK, RI, TN, VT, and WV. Of those we can assume that AL, Arkansas,GA, KY, LA, MS, MO, OK, TN, and WV would ratify. Assume we hold all the rest of the Dem states we are now 10 nos and 28 yes with 14 nos needed.
11 states were split or tied. DE, IL, IN, MI, NV, NY, NC, SC, TX, VA, WI. Give us DE, IL, NY give them IN, NC, SC, TX, and VA. We must win 1 of the following MI, NV, WI.
http://www.allcountries.org/uscensus/469_composition_of_state_legislatures_by_political.html (site for legislature divisions)
really wanna bet the amendment was a sure fail?
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