[Ed. note: Before the world learned that Osama bin Laden died at the order of President Obama and at the hand of Navy SEAL Team Six, the national news obsession was over Obama's birthplace and whether Donald Trump had a place in politics. Oh, how I long for those days. It was a simpler time. A time of absurd arguments that had absolutely no grounding or deserving of our attention. A time of brash demagoguery and speaking off-the-cuff without the slightest regard for factual accuracy. Sigh. Will we ever get back to those carefree cable news hours and rabid radio talk shows? I'm not sure, so I feel like I better savor the aftertaste. Also, I wrote most of this before Osama slept with the fishes. Hence, what follows...]

Hats (or is it toupees?) off to Donald Trump. His “carnival barking” was the straw that broke the camel’s back and swayed President Obama to ask the Hawaii State Department of Health to release his long-form birth certificate, which he made available a week ago Wednesday. Wednesday also marked the end of Trump’s presidential campaign. He just doesn’t know it yet. Well, after last Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner (more on that later), he might have had an inkling. (If he has any political instincts, the strike on bin Laden sealed the deal.)

My biggest fear coming out of the release is that Obama is going to lose the carnival lobby. With that snide remark, plus his support of safety regulations forcing ferris wheel and pirate ship operators to stay awake on the job, it’s in danger. And everyone knows, carnies vote. Oh boy, do carnies vote. We can only hope the carnies approve of bin Laden being plopped in the water like so many a dunk tank victim.

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While the world focuses on Egypt and new uprisings in other Middle Eastern countries (and boy that sure is incredible), I was wondering if you wanted to join me in changing gears to broach a domestic social issue. I can’t hear you. What’s that? Muffled acquiescence? Smashing. Let’s get started.

Okay, here we go: by the way, the topic is gay marriage. Oh, don’t tiptoe backwards, I already lovingly dragged you here under vague pretenses.

The last time I let the neurons fire on this one was when DC voted to make same-sex marriage legal. After nobody in Congress raised enough grief to strike it down (yes, they get to do that), it became law last March. Since then, there have been a few major developments in the debate to allow guys-who-like-guys and girls-who-like-girls to be like us.

The unlikely, Unambiguously Straight Duo of David Boies and Ted Olsen, prominent Bush v. Gore nemeses in 2000, joined together to push back hard on Proposition 8′s repealing of California’s gay marriages. And they were successful last summer when judge Vaughn Walker, a reportedly gay man himself who was orginally nominated by Reagan and opposed by Pelosi, agreed with their side.

That District Court of Northern California ruling decreed that Prop 8 “violates due process and equal protection clauses in the U.S. Constitution.” However, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (one rung up the ladder) stayed (aka paused) that ruling as it is appealed. Whatever happens there, betting men say this one is going to The Supremes. And it’s hard to say which way the Court would go. Based on our law there appears to be a convincing case; based on its composition is another story.

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What’s going on in Washington? Out of nowhere, our representatives became smooth-operating legislators.

It’s like somebody called in The Wolf from Pulp Fiction to clean up every mess that wasn’t handled in the last two years, and he came through in miraculous time, as always. Obama must have called Congress and said, “You ain’t got no problem. I’m on the motherf#¢%er. Go back in there, chill them senators out and wait for the cavalry which should be coming directly.”

I mean, there’s a reason they don’t call it the cool-duck session. We’re down to the shortest couple days of the year and these guys are suddenly overachievers.

We’ve just seen quite possibly the most substantively productive lame-duck session in over 50 years. Isn’t this supposed to be the most blah two months of the political year? I mean, in 1948 Congress shut that maimed mallard’s quacking down in less than two hours.

Instead, what the president has shown, by persuading his party to rally and negotiating with the opposition, is that politics is indeed the art of the possible.

Today, Obama kicked off the day by signing the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT), after it passed both houses of Congress in the last week. I’m not gonna lie, I was skeptical that Obama, et al. were taking the wrong tactic in not issuing an executive order or touting the October ruling by a US District judge to overturn DADT, but in the end, they stayed the course and earned the W the right way in Congress. Read the rest of this entry »

This may be the best email I’ve ever received:

From: Warren Redlich <wredlich@gmail.com>
To: briefwit@gmail.com
Subject: Interview?

Hi. I just read your interview with Roger Stone. I’m not nearly as
interesting, but I am running for Governor of NY and Roger hates me.
Would you like to interview me?

Warren

Wow. What would you do? A boring and potentially unlikeable interview subject? Sounds like a losing combination. Naturally, I had to speak with him.

First things first though, I circled the Internet wagons for information on him.

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