Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Deja Vu All Over Again

Given that the temperature has hovered at or way above 60-plus degrees for the last month or so in Dallas, with us receiving even less rain than we did in July, I am officially declaring the end of winter and the beginning of spring.

Unfortunately, like in wartime days of old, the budding of trees and the blooming of flowers, usually signals the latest offensive by the offensive, as I like to term the wingnuts and the moonbats.

This time, the wingnuts have fired the first salvo.

When one looks at that, when compared to the original kerfluffle, the thing you immediately notice is the vanishment of the word "agreement" -- as in, instead of having an agreement with Ford, Ford merely represented to these groups that it would do such-and-such.

In other words, the Rev was lying through his tooth about that "secret agreement" thing. Carry on.

Second off, again with the advertising. For the fiftieth time, people, wingnut and moonbat alike: advertising means nothing relative to gay rights. Nothing. Get that through your tinfoil hats and bad hairpieces. NOTHING.


However, this time around, they've gotten smarter -- in two ways.

First, the messaging. To whit:

”After meeting with seven homosexual leaders and without any input from thousands of their dealers who stand to be adversely affected by Ford’s decision, Ford made their decision to renege on actions they told AFA they would take,” Wildmon said. “Ford’s support for these groups pushing homosexual marriage can only hurt dealers across the country. Why would Ford put the interests of seven homosexual groups ahead of the interests of all their dealers? Simply because Ford considers seven homosexual leaders more important than thousands of their dealers.”

Like it or not, they've got a point there. Unfortunately, it's one that will resonate out in the field, especially with dealerships that just went through end-of-year close on their books.

Second up, they brought friends this time. A rather sizeable list of friends, if you look, and names rather infamous as generals in the "culture wars".

So what's the moonbat response? Quiet for now, which is a bit of a suprise -- perhaps they're learning that opening their big mouths tends to make matters worse, not better. I'm sure a large part of the reason the AFA did this was to provoke an outpouring of homosexual thanks to Ford for their "support of our agenda", which only plays right into the AFA's hands. Kudos to the moonbats, whether this was planned or not.

Mark January 20th, or a week from Friday, on your calendar; that's the deadline that the AFA has given Ford to respond, melodramatically, "in writing, because we no longer trust you". Right.

I will be interested in seeing how all this plays out. The obvious thought is that this coalition may launch a boycott, especially given their positioning and appeal in the media statement, and with that many groups playing in the sandbox, it could hurt -- a lot. I guess we'll have to see.


Oh, and while we're waiting, the AFA is claiming victory in getting advertisers to pull back from the new NBC show "The Book of Daniel", including the makers of NDT's trusty steed.

The fact that people aren't throwing the same kind of fit over that means one of two things, in my opinion:

1) The show really is lousy.

2) GLAAD, et al., don't care about anything that shows a gay conservative (Republican, in this case) in a positive light.

I lean towards the second.

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