Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[cherdano]

Ok, let me try to be more sincere about it.

Up until about 10 years ago, it would have been unthinkable that an openly gay person had a chance at becoming president. 2012 was the first time any state in the US had an openly gay senator.

 

It is an affront to human dignity to ask people to deny who they are so if they want to pursue public office. (And no, being gay doesn't just change what you do in your bedroom, I thought we had disposed of that level of ignorance 15 years ago.) It is a good thing this has changed. That Buttigieg is the first major presidential candidate who is openly gay is a major milestone, and a positive one. This is worth mentioning.

 

But my major point is this. I've read some about Buttigieg, and I've listened to a podcast interview with him. I did know that he is gay. But chas_p's comment above is the FIRST time I read a comment about Buttigieg where his sexual identity is the main topic.

 

Hence I am quite serious in my impression that his identity isn't an obsession of the media, it is an obsession of chas_p.

[rmnka447]

From David Leonhardt at NYT:

 

Laughable.

 

How many anonymous based stories did the NYT and WP publish that aided and abetted the Russian collusion narrative? How many times did the MSM media report that President Trump was considering firing Mueller from some second hand source? Those reports always seemed to appear whenever interest in the whole collusion was waning. The worst was the one that contended Trump had discussed firing Mueller 6 months earlier. Yep, 6 months earlier there were reports that someone said he had discussed it. So that story wasn't news, just repeating gossip.

 

This guy sounds like CNN and MSNBC who were touting how well they had covered the collusion hoax. Pure BS.

[Winstonm]

Laughable.

 

How many times did the MSM media report that President Trump was considering firing Mueller from some second hand source? Those reports always seemed to appear whenever interest in the whole collusion was waning. The worst was the one that contended Trump had discussed firing Mueller 6 months earlier

 

 

I don't remember either report being disproved.

 

At the same time, I bet you are fine with Sean Hannity's "reporting" about murdered Seth Rich being the leak source for the DNC emails?

[johnu]

...

[Winstonm]

From the pen of conservative writer Jennifer Rubin:

 

A normal president confronted with a news story suggesting he ordered underlings to illegally transport asylum seekers to so-called sanctuary cities in order to retaliate against political enemies would deny knowledge of such a heinous plot. If need be, he’d make light of it, portray it as if it were idle chatter or a joke. That’s what President Trump’s devoted prevaricators (White Houses staffers) did following The Post account.

 

Trump, however, is anything but normal. No, he tweeted — of course it was a tweet — that not only was the idea considered but that it is still under consideration. Aides on background hastened to say that nothing was in the works, once more contradicting their boss.

 

Making matters worse, we learned he allegedly told Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan to close the border despite concerns about the legality of doing so. He allegedly told McAleenan, who is now also acting secretary of homeland security, that he — Trump — would pardon him later if need be.

 

What?!? That’s the only sensible reaction for someone minimally conversant in the Constitution and the rule of law. This is the conduct of a movie mob boss, not a president. Trump is so brazen he’d rather lie to make himself appear more politically vengeful than tell the truth that his suggestion apparently was rebuffed. Tough guy. Gotta make da Dems quake in their boots, right?

 

Republicans, as they always do when Trump is shredding democracy, remained silent on Friday. Speaking more generally of Trump’s Twitter habits in an interview, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) declared the president to be a “freak.” Actually, if the allegations are true, he’s much worse than that.

 

Former federal prosecutor Mimi Rocah acknowledged that, if the allegation about a pardon was true and Trump was serious, Trump then “offered a pardon as a bribe to get a public official to commit an unlawful act.” Referring to Attorney General William P. Barr’s exaggerated conception of executive authority, she queried, “Would Barr dare say that’s within his executive power?”

 

Constitutional scholar Laurence H. Tribe tells me, “If carried out, this offer to pardon high immigration officials if they will break the law on his behalf is the most obviously impeachable action President Trump has taken to date: It would mean this president has seized the power to put not just himself but all who do his bidding beyond the reach of law." He continues, "That doing so is a high crime and misdemeanor is beyond dispute. Any president guilty of such conduct cannot be permitted to remain in office.”

 

Now, even if the offer of a pardon were not technically a bribe, “this is still an extraordinary and disturbing abuse of presidential power,” says Joshua Matz, co-author with Tribe of “To End A Presidency: The Power of Impeachment.” “Especially if it were repeated in other contexts, such illegality-inducing conduct may well rise to the level of an impeachable offense, though in my view we don’t yet know nearly enough about what happened here to reach firm conclusions.”

 

In this, as in other instances, subordinates’ refusal to carry out orders (as former White House counsel Donald McGahn did in refusing to fire special counsel Robert S. Mueller III) provides some protection to Trump from the consequences of his own actions.

 

However, neither Trump nor the country can count on employees’ continued insubordination, especially in light of Trump’s preference for installing “acting” officials, who remain under his thumb. Swift and forceful action to halt his reckless disregard of the law is required.

 

Tribe argues, “Without doubt, therefore, the House Judiciary Committee needs to include this matter within its investigatory ambit, subpoenaing all those who may have relevant knowledge unless they appear voluntarily.” Normally, if there is a credible allegation of wrongdoing by the president, the attorney general would appoint a special counsel. Don’t hold your breath. Tribe observes, “it seems unrealistic to expect the blatantly compromised Attorney General William Barr to appoint a special counsel to pursue the issue even if, as appears to be the case, the president has credibly been charged with promising a pardon as a bribe for illegal conduct.”

 

We’ve now come to the point where Trump is bragging about a plot to abuse power, using federal resources to enact political revenge. We have reason to believe he tried to induce wrongdoing with a pardon offer. “One thing everyone who knows the relevant law has agreed about the otherwise sweeping pardon power is that it cannot be used in advance, to license crimes before they have been committed,” Tribe says.

 

Trump’s lawlessness is intensifying. Even those such as Tribe who have opposed impeachment, given “the Senate’s fidelity to Trump rather than to the Constitution,” wonder if Trump can be left in office for another year-and-a-half. “I hesitate to say the red line has finally been crossed, but I see no way around that conclusion at this point,” he says.

 

For now, it’s up to the House to send out subpoenas, have all relevant witnesses testify under oath about what is going on at the Department of Homeland Security and reach a factual conclusion as to what occurred. Meanwhile, Congress must speak with one voice: Under no circumstances can the federal government be used as an instrument to exact political revenge.

 

You’d think the necessity for such a statement would convince Republicans not to support his reelection for four more years, when he would feel entirely unrestrained. You’d be wrong.

[kenberg]

Making matters worse, we learned he allegedly told Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan to close the border despite concerns about the legality of doing so. He allegedly told McAleenan, who is now also acting secretary of homeland security, that he — Trump — would pardon him later if need be.

I have not been a supporter of impeachment but if this "alleged" becomes "credibly claimed" then I think I am a convert. The implications of this are presumably obvious to everyone, examples are presumably not needed, but during the Watergate years it was reported that G. Gordon Liddy had at one point misunderstood instructions, or hopefully misunderstood, and thought he was supposed to kill the columnist Jack Anderson. As i recall he assured everyone that he was a "stand-up guy" and was prepared to go down for it without talking if he was caught. He did not expect a presidential pardon if caught.

There is another side to this. The seriousness of the charge means that we need to know who is doing the alleging and whether it is at all credible. It should be obvious to everyone that we cannot have a president doing this, and we also cannot have someone saying that a president is doing this if he is not doing it. I have no trust in Trump at all but this is one more alleged step down a very bad path.

[barmar]

But my major point is this. I've read some about Buttigieg, and I've listened to a podcast interview with him. I did know that he is gay. But chas_p's comment above is the FIRST time I read a comment about Buttigieg where his sexual identity is the main topic.

I also haven't heard the media making a big deal of it. It gets mentioned, but it's not their focus. However, I don't partake much of conservative media -- I wouldn't be surprised if they obsess over it.

 

However, it's also hard to avoid discussions of it. He and Mike Pence both say that Christianity is a big part of their life, and they've been going at each other about piety (e.g. how can Pence support a man like Trump?). And many Christians consider homosexuality to be a mortal sin.

 

Some things are just hard to avoid, especially when you're breaking new ground. Obama tried to make his campaigns about more than just race, but this could only go so far when he was the first credible candidate of color. And Hillary didn't want her campaign to be just about whether we could elect a woman President.

 

This is hardly new. Many people worried about JFK being Catholic -- they thought that he would take direction from the Pope.

[rmnka447]

I don't remember either report being disproved.

 

At the same time, I bet you are fine with Sean Hannity's "reporting" about murdered Seth Rich being the leak source for the DNC emails?

 

But they weren't proved either because nobody is on the record.

[Winstonm]

But they weren't proved either because nobody is on the record.

 

"Deep Throat" was never on the record, either, but he helped bring down Nixon. The "no named source" meme is to trick listeners into believing that the information presented is totally worthless instead of likely accurate. It plays on biases to discredit news that is troubling.

 

If you will look in the mirror, you will see it at work. ;)

[johnu]

But they weren't proved either because nobody is on the record.

 

Depending on the publication and the vetting that goes into verifying unnamed sources, you might have 98-99% accuracy in off the record quotes. On the other hand, you can look directly at Dennison's tweets, press briefings, and political rallies and you would be maybe 10-20% accurate if you depended on video and audio recordings of what he says.

 

When it comes to White House personnel, you probably have to be off the record on most things if you want to keep your job, and anybody still working there wants to keep their jobs.

[johnu]

It's good to know that conservative Republicans are defending Nazis. If they didn't defend the Nazis, who would?

 

Conservatives Upset ‘The Good Fight’ Wants You To Punch Nazis

 

It could also have been described as a near-tired play on an old meme ― “punch Nazis” has been a pop culture sensation since at least “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

 

Instead, the monologue was characterized by conservatives as network TV “inciting violence” against a “political” group.

“A promo clip for the CBS legal drama show The Good Fight openly advocates using violence to silence [Nazi] political opinions,” tweeted Watson, an employee of conspiracy theory site Infowars.

It's inspiring that these conservative Republican want to protect their own. B-)

[rmnka447]

"Deep Throat" was never on the record, either, but he helped bring down Nixon. The "no named source" meme is to trick listeners into believing that the information presented is totally worthless instead of likely accurate. It plays on biases to discredit news that is troubling.

 

If you will look in the mirror, you will see it at work. ;)

 

"Deep Throat" helped keep the reporters on the proper track to find the Nixon wrongdoing, not providing a continuous stream of the same story to be sensationalized over and over. But let's be clear, the MSM played that story again and again to bolster their opinion that Trump was undermining our democracy and feed into a scenario delegitimizing him.. Trump continually denied he would fire Mueller, but the MSM kept saying that he was considering it.

 

Well, did Mueller get fired? Nope, and that's the fact that counts. Trump has enough smarts to know that firing Mueller would have been politically catastrophic in the caustic atmosphere fomented by the "resistance". Contrary to your beliefs, the guy's no dummy, just one heck of a provocateur of the left.

[Winstonm]

"Deep Throat" helped keep the reporters on the proper track to find the Nixon wrongdoing, not providing a continuous stream of the same story to be sensationalized over and over. But let's be clear, the MSM played that story again and again to bolster their opinion that Trump was undermining our democracy and feed into a scenario delegitimizing him.. Trump continually denied he would fire Mueller, but the MSM kept saying that he was considering it.

 

Well, did Mueller get fired? Nope, and that's the fact that counts. Trump has enough smarts to know that firing Mueller would have been politically catastrophic in the caustic atmosphere fomented by the "resistance". Contrary to your beliefs, the guy's no dummy, just one heck of a provocateur of the left.

 

Amazing ability to focus on the unimportant.

 

Well, here is what your own party members think of Individual-1:

 

William Weld, the former Massachusetts governor, said Friday he would run against Trump for the GOP presidential nomination. “We have a president whose priorities are skewed towards promotion of himself rather than for the good of the country,” Weld said at a recent gathering in New Hampshire.

[johnu]

Well, did Mueller get fired? Nope, and that's the fact that counts. Trump has enough smarts to know that firing Mueller would have been politically catastrophic in the caustic atmosphere fomented by the "resistance". Contrary to your beliefs, the guy's no dummy, just one heck of a provocateur of the left.

 

I agree that almost nobody has called Dennison a dummy. Psychopath, liar, bigot, racist, conman, draft dodger, sexual predator: those are some of the adjectives I've heard describing Dennison.

 

Somehow, senior lackeys in the White House managed to talk him out of sending out a tweet firing Mueller. Also, senior Republicans in Congress were sending signals in the press that firing Mueller would have serious consequences. Apparently they convinced the Manchurian Puppet that firing Mueller would have led to immediate impeachment.

 

Question for you. Did Dennison have enough smarts to know that firing Comey would have led to Mueller being appointed in the first place? Apparently not B-)

[johnu]

"Deep Throat" helped keep the reporters on the proper track to find the Nixon wrongdoing, not providing a continuous stream of the same story to be sensationalized over and over.

 

Great point. B-) There was zero coverage of the Washington Post stories on the internet, and was no 24 hour coverage of Watergate. Thanks for making that insightful observation.

 

Hmmm, the world wide web didn't go online until 1991 and the Watergate break-in was in 1972. Still, you are 100% that the internet did not cover Watergate. What about 24 hour cable TV news coverage? The first 24 all news station, CNN, didn't start broadcasting until 1980. I'm not sure what their excuse was for not covering Watergate 24/7 as it was unfolding. B-) I guess you could chalk it up to Fake News B-)

[cherdano]

Contrary to your beliefs, the guy's no dummy, just one heck of a provocateur of the left.

That's true as far as it goes. He is ignorant, but not dumb. But is it a good reason to make him president?

 

Do you really feel good about the fact that the French government feels obliged to make an English tweet praising their firefighters, obviously in order to counter dumb stupid criticism from your president?

[y66]

From the Ashes of Notre-Dame -- How a burning cathedral rebukes a divided Catholic Church by Ross Douthat at NYT:

 

A first draft of this column was written before flames engulfed the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, before its spire fell in one of the most dreadful live images since Sept. 11, 2001, before a blazing fire went further than any of France’s anticlerical revolutionaries ever dared.

 

My original subject was the latest controversy in Catholicism’s now-years-long Lent, in which conflicts over theology and sex abuse have merged into one festering, suppurating mess. The instigator of controversy, this time, was the former pope, the 92-year-old Benedict XVI, who late last week surprised the Catholic intelligentsia with a 6,000-word reflection on the sex abuse crisis.

 

Portions of the document were edifying, but there was little edifying in its reception. It was passed first to conservative Catholic outlets, whose palpable Benedict nostalgia was soon matched by fierce criticism from Francis partisans, plus sneers from the secular press at the retired pope’s insistence that the sex abuse epidemic was linked to the cultural revolution of the 1960s and the 1970s.

 

The column I was writing before the fire was mostly a lament for what the document’s reception betokened: A general inability, Catholic and secular, to recognize that both the “conservative” and “liberal” accounts of the sex abuse crisis are partially correct, that the spirits of liberation and clericalism each contributed their part, that the abuse problem dramatically worsened during the sexual revolution (a boring empirical fact if you spend any time with the data or the history) even as it also had roots in more traditional patterns of clerical chauvinism, hierarchical arrogance, institutional self-protection.

 

So the column was a defense of Benedict’s argument, in part, against secular sneers and liberal-Catholic sniping. But then it also agreed with certain criticisms of his letter, and worried about the ways that such an intervention contributes to the sense of a church in pieces, a church almost with two popes, each offering partial diagnoses to their respective factions.

 

That’s where I was, what I had at least half-written, before the fire began in Paris. But now let me try to say something larger, something commensurate to the symbolism of one of Catholicism’s greatest monuments burning on Holy Week, a day before Benedict’s own birthday, on the day after Catholics listened to a gospel in which the veil of the temple was rent from top to bottom.

 

That larger thing is this: The problem of Catholic narratives that can’t find synthesis, of “liberal” and “conservative” takes that feed angrily off one another, of popes and former popes as symbols grasped by partisans, is not the problem of the sex abuse crisis. It is simply the problem of Roman Catholicism in this age — an age in which the church mirrors the polarization of Western culture, rather than offering an integrated alternative.

 

The church has always depended on synthesis and integration. That has been part of its genius, a reason for all its unexpected resurrections and regenerations. Faith and reason, Athens and Jerusalem, the aesthetic and the ascetic, the mystical and the philosophical — even the crucifix itself, two infinite lines converging and combining.

 

Notre-Dame de Paris is a monument to a particularly triumphant moment of Catholic synthesis — the culture of the high Middle Ages, a renaissance before the Renaissance, at once Roman and Germanic but both transformed by Christianity, a new hybrid civilization embodied in the cathedral’s brooding, complicated, gorgeous sprawl.

 

The Catholicism of today builds nothing so gorgeous as Notre-Dame in part because it has no 21st-century version of that grand synthesis to offer. The reforms of the 1960s, the Second Vatican Council and everything after, have left the church partially and unsuccessfully transformed, torn between competing visions of how to be Catholic in modernity, competing promises of renewal and reform, competing factions convinced that they are the firefighters inside Notre-Dame, and their rivals are the fire.

 

I belong to one of these factions (or to a faction within a faction; who can keep track?); I am a conservative of some sort, who fears that liberal Christianities usually end up resembling a post-inferno cathedral, with the still-grand exterior concealing emptiness within.

 

But I am also doubtful that anything so simple as a conservative “victory” will return the church to cathedral-raising vigor and make it feel, to outsiders, like something more than a museum whose docents all seem to hate one another. Especially given how often conservative Catholicism is in thrall to orthodoxies that are political rather than theological, how often — especially as it reacts to the destabilizing style of Pope Francis — its climate feels more like an airless bunker than a Gothic nave.

 

And it is impossible, as a Catholic, to be writing about this subject while the Cathedral of Notre-Dame is literally burning on Holy Week and not feel that everyone engaged in Catholicism’s civil wars is being judged, and found wanting, and given a harrowing lesson in what is actually asked of us.

 

The cathedral will be rebuilt; the cross and altar and much of the interior survived. But all preservation is provisional. The real challenge for Catholics, in this age of general post-Christian cultural exhaustion, is to look at what our ancestors did and imagine what it would mean to do that again, to build anew, to leave something behind that could stand a thousand years and still have men and women singing “Salve Regina” outside its cruciform walls, as Parisians did tonight while Notre-Dame burned.

 

What is the synthesis that could make that possible? What lies beyond the stalemates and scandal and anger of our strange two-pope era?

 

Go ask the Catholics of 3019 A.D. It’s for them to know, and us, if God wills it, to find out.

 

Je suis un pyromane et un provacateur, pas un pompier. Still, so horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly! -- Donald Trump

[hrothgar]

From the Ashes of Notre-Dame -- How a burning cathedral rebukes a divided Catholic Church by Ross Douthat at NYT:

 

It would be nice if Douthat would crawl out of his own asshole and ask himself a simple question: If the child sex abuse scandals are a product of the cultural changes in the 1960s, why is there so much evidence that these existed decades / centuries before this time...

[kenberg]

For me, and I know I am repeating myself, Trump is an extreme version of a type that I assume all of us have known in more restrained versions. He says whatever seems to get him what he wants at the moment, he is vicious and caustic, he has no regard for anyone except in how they can be of use to him. I put no trust whatsoever in him. If something he does works out well for the country, it will be by accident. He has no interest in my well being, your well being, the country's well being. Trump is interested in Trump. I have regarded this as an absolutely obvious feature of his personality since I first started hearing of him long ago. I regard it as a serious error to ever let such a person have any influence over my life regardless of whatever political views he might advocate at the moment.. We are stuck with him, hopefully not past January 2021. From what I have seen of at least some of my more conservative friends, some are coming around to my way of thinking on this.

[Winstonm]

Contrary to your beliefs, the guy's no dummy, just one heck of a provocateur of the left.

 

There is no doubt that Individual-1 is not stupid. He knows how to distract his own followers. Consider this: he is trying his best to make the next election about immigration - the sleight-of-hand, look over there tactic. All the while he is trying to eliminate the ACA and cripple healthcare for millions, increase the wealth and power of the top 1% only, pass out national land usage deals to cronies, attack the free press, and undermine the rule of law. None of that benefits you or me.

 

But, at least you can go to his rallies and yell and scream about the evils of brown skin.

[y66]

It would be nice if Douthat would crawl out of his own asshole and ask himself a simple question: If the child sex abuse scandals are a product of the cultural changes in the 1960s, why is there so much evidence that these existed decades / centuries before this time...

Douthat would not disagree with your assertion that the problem of child sex abuse in the Catholic priesthood is a centuries old problem. His position is that this problem spiked in the 60s, 70s and 80s and has declined since. He discusses some of this with Andrew Sullivan in this podcast: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/07/opinion/the-argument-catholic-church-gay.html starting at the 16:23 mark. Even if you're not a Douthat fan, it's worth listening to some of it just to hear Andrew Sullivan.

[Winstonm]

But let's be clear, the MSM played that story again and again to bolster their opinion that Trump was undermining our democracy and feed into a scenario delegitimizing him.. Trump continually denied he would fire Mueller, but the MSM kept saying that he was considering it.

 

Well, did Mueller get fired? Nope, and that's the fact that counts.

 

Here are a couple of "facts that count": 1) the reporting was that he considered firing Mueller, and 2) that reporting has not be shown to be wrong.

 

Speaking of reporting, what is your take on this kind of reporting?

 

While appearing on Fox News host Sean Hannity’s show Monday, former NYPD commissioner Bernard Kerik falsely claimed Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) is “infatuated with Al Qaeda, with Hamas, Hezbollah,” continuing the stream of Islamophobic attacks from right-wing media and conservative politicians, including President Donald Trump, targeted at the Muslim congresswoman.

 

Hannity concurred with Kerik, who added that Omar “was the keynote speaker” for an event by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) — falsely claiming the group is “a terrorist organization,” a designation lobbed by some critics of the Muslim civil rights group.

 

Lies and innuendo do not comprise facts.

[rmnka447]

I agree that almost nobody has called Dennison a dummy. Psychopath, liar, bigot, racist, conman, draft dodger, sexual predator: those are some of the adjectives I've heard describing Dennison.

 

Somehow, senior lackeys in the White House managed to talk him out of sending out a tweet firing Mueller. Also, senior Republicans in Congress were sending signals in the press that firing Mueller would have serious consequences. Apparently they convinced the Manchurian Puppet that firing Mueller would have led to immediate impeachment.

 

Question for you. Did Dennison have enough smarts to know that firing Comey would have led to Mueller being appointed in the first place? Apparently not B-)

 

I'm sure you've heard those adjectives describing Trump. They are common currency in the progressive bubble. Progressives aren't used to a conservative aggressively taking them on and become unhinged when Trump does so. The funny thing up that I chuckle about is that every time he tosses bait out there for the progressives, they bite. They just don't see he's setting them up and fall for his schtick every time getting more and more neurotic with each incident. For those self proclaimed, smug superior intellectuals, it just proves they think they are really smart, but in some ways are pretty dumb.

 

Personally, I think Trump figured out that Comey wasn't being straight with him about the Steele dossier or was tipped off about it from some intelligence source. He concluded that lying to your boss crossed a line that should never be crossed. So Comey had to go for cause and whatever ensued had to be endured. After all, he knew no collusion took place.

[johnu]

I'm sure you've heard those adjectives describing Trump. They are common currency in the progressive bubble. Progressives aren't used to a conservative aggressively taking them on and become unhinged when Trump does so. The funny thing up that I chuckle about is that every time he tosses bait out there for the progressives, they bite. They just don't see he's setting them up and fall for his schtick every time getting more and more neurotic with each incident. For those self proclaimed, smug superior intellectuals, it just proves they think they are really smart, but in some ways are pretty dumb.

 

LOL, Fox Propaganda Network loves people like you who never question the crap that they are spewing.

 

Personally, I think Trump figured out that Comey wasn't being straight with him about the Steele dossier or was tipped off about it from some intelligence source. He concluded that lying to your boss crossed a line that should never be crossed. So Comey had to go for cause and whatever ensued had to be endured. After all, he knew no collusion took place.

 

Wow, are you applying for the job as the world's most gullible person? As Dennison himself said on the Dennison/Fox Propaganda Network about Comey's firing,

 

“And, in fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said: ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should’ve won,’”

[Chas_P]

But chas_p's comment above is the FIRST time I read a comment about Buttigieg where his sexual identity is the main topic.

 

Hence I am quite serious in my impression that his identity isn't an obsession of the media, it is an obsession of chas_p.

 

You are certainly entitled to your impression. As for my "obsession"....

 

From The New York Times

If elected, Mr. Buttigieg, a 37-year-old Rhodes scholar and veteran of the war in Afghanistan, would represent a series of historic firsts: the youngest president ever and the first who is openly gay.

 

From CNN

But one of the more difficult to quantify elements of Buttigieg's sudden viability is the way in which he is already reshaping societal views on homosexuality -- and the very personal decision of when to come out as gay.

 

From MSNBC

Presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow talked about their own stories of coming out Monday night.

 

As previously stated, his sexual preference is unimportant in my view. His credentials...Rhodes scholar, war veteran, mayor of South Bend, etc...are much more important and they are impressive. If his policy proposals are equally impressive I could vote for him. However, I think his chances for the nomination of his party are slim at best. The party hierarchy will see to it that he's shot down. And that's a shame IMO.