acroyear | two from Ed

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: Anti-ACLU Quote of the Week:

This was so perfect that I had to edit my speech for Wednesday night to include it. From anti-gay whacko James Hartline and quoted, naturally, in the Worldnutdaily:
"The American Civil Liberties Union has done everything possible to destroy Christianity in the American culture and government. From tearing down crosses on public property to removing crosses and the Ten Commandments from governmental buildings, there has been no greater hate machine against our constitutional right to free religious expression in America than the ACLU!" Hartline said.
Notice how he shifts ground, using examples of government religious expression and then claiming that the ACLU is out to destroy individual religious expression? That's standard operating procedure for the ACLU haters.

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: Balko is right:

He says it's time to stop paying the White House press secretary:
Yet we pay this person well into six figures of taxpayer money . . . for what, exactly? This person is supposed to be the liaison between the White House and the press. And we're now to the point where stonewalling, obfuscating, spinning, parsing, and generally preventing the flow of truthful information are accepted and acknowledged parts of the job description (standard disclaimer about these things also being endemic to politics itself notwithstanding).

Why are we paying someone to mislead us, stonewall us, and flack for the president-someone who basically runs an overglorified White House PR shop? Any time there's any sort of controversy at all, you can bet the WHPS will be doing everything he/she can to make sure we know as little as possible. So why should we pay for that? It's pretty insulting, really.
Couldn't agree more. The White House press secretary is paid to lie to us. We all know it.