I happen to agree that BB loss is far better explained by the quirks of the Academy's voting system than any, hidden hatred of gays. (Saving Private Ryan anyone?) Spend a little bit of time doing psychology, and you learn that rarely are motivations ever as simple as racism, sexism, or homophobia.

It really sucks, too, that it isn't that easy. Getting rid of the grossest examples of such bigotries are easy, once the will is there. The more nuanced affronts, the shifting alliances of thoughts and feelings that combine together to contribute to other people's activities, and our own responses to said events, can be a real bitch to tease apart, name and change. It's why shrinks can spend so much time, and make so much money, off a single person's psyche...

The irony in all this though is that at Dan's site so much countervailing opinion is labeled as antipatriotic, treasonous or unAmerican and then promptly dismissed. If you scroll through the various threads of posts, countervailing viewpoints are categorized more than as simply factually inaccurate (rather true or not) but as some kind of active support for the death and destruction of either the USA or Western Civilization.

Dan and I have disagreed many, many times. He believes Bush to be a principled guy. I find the man to be incompetent, the example of what happens when power, privilege, and pull are used to place an extraordinarily average man into a position that requires someone of whatever political stripe to be all things but that.

Setting aside for the moment the issue of factors that got us into war in Iraq -- that's just a maddeningly long discussion, one that Frank Rich already covered exceptionally well in his recent book -- the prosecution of that war has been criminally negligent. The Democrats have a lot of culpability in simply rubber-stamping everything action of the President, long after the failures of his judgment were apparent.

Still, as the "CEO" of America, a term I'm sure Bush would use for himself, the choices he and his lieutenants made in troop levels, post-combat strategies, diplomatic efforts, nation building, contract apartment -- basically every activity in Iraq -- as been blindingly inane and supremely wrong.

I'm also leaving aside here the recent scandals at the Veterans Administration and the FBI's recently admitted violations of its newly found, and in my opinion Constitutionally suspect, wiretap standards. Roll into that New Orleans fiasco, the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan (the one thing he actually did right), Guantanamo and Abu Gareb, Medicare, the gutting of the FDA, Faith-Based government programs (no matter your side, he botched this), the National Debt... I could go on, but I'm running out of room to put all of these things I'm leaving aside.

It's neither unpatriotic nor anti-American to demand good leadership in trying times. Disagreement isn't dissent. Contrariness isn't contempt. We are now six years into counter-offensive against a inhuman and destructive Superstition and our victories are nowhere near what they should be.

Yes, it's wrong to label everything homophobic. If the reasons line up that way, fine, but otherwise argue over the disagreement. Same thing holds for racism, sexism, and patriotism. Because frankly, sometimes the Administration really is an incompetent tool.