I met Al Gore when he was VP and liked him, but learning in the tabloids about his “latest squeeze” somehow made me feel sad and old.  I remember when he — and it seems to me, the country — was a bit different.   

It’s been an interesting few days.  On the one hand, President Obama and the national Democratic Party continue to inch closer and closer to a formal embrace of gay marriage.  You can believe that Biden’s comments and Arne’s comments were off-the-cuff and unscripted, ala the New York Times’ take; or you can believe (as I do) that they are part of some very careful political choreography; but in either case, one of our two national parties, at least at the elite level,  has now all but made it official in favor of gay marriage.

Meanwhile, in the swing state of North Carolina, apparently most people didn’t get the memo.  On Amendement One, which would constitutionally ban not only gay marriage (which is already illegal  in NC) but also civil unions and domestic partnerships, the antis were working with a major fundraising advantage (apparently a 2 to 1 advantage, ht to out-of-state liberals) and the support of great numbers of  oh-so-impressive-at-least-so-they-think elites and other commentators, both in the state and outside of it (including yours truly and Elizabeth Marquardt), but today the people of North Carolina actually got to vote, and the yeses have won, apparently decisively.

I’m not sure, but my sense is that elites in most places in both parties are now essentially pro-ssm, either because they believe in it, or because they don’t want to fight it anymore.  But most grass roots voters, including super-strong majorities in many parts of the Sunbelt, clearly aren’t buying, at least yet, notwithstanding the larger trends in national pubic opinion toward greater support for recognition of gay and lesbian families and for gay rights in general, especially among the young.  Are we now headed for a long end-game, blue/red-state culture war that also sharply pits the two parties against one another?  (Sigh.)  What do you all think?

On Ric Grenell’s resignation as an aid to Romney, in today’s NYTs:

“It’s not that the campaign cared whether Ric Grenell was gay,” one Republican adviser said. “They believed this was a nonissue. But they didn’t want to confront the religious right” … As the critiques from conservatives intensified, Mr. Grenell pressed senior aides to allow him to speak about national security issues, arguing that the best way to soothe the ire over his appointment would be to let him do his job …  He [Christopher Barron] added, “It doesn’t bode well for the Romney campaign going forward if they couldn’t stand up to the most outrageous attacks about him being gay.”

If Grinell was hounded out of his job for being gay, it’s an outrage, and one about which all Americans of good will, and particuarly conservative Americans, and most particularly the leaders of what is often called “the religious right,” should be troubled and ashamed. 

I have only one question about this, and it’s purely factual.  We are a very large nation of more than 300 million souls, many of whom are deeply interested in politics, and almost of whom, it often seems to me, blog, tweet, speak, write, and comment about contemporary politics more or less constantly.   And yet, in two lengthy articles on this story in the NYTs (including today’s on p. 1), the reporters were able to identify by name exactly one American — an individual named Bryan Fischer, who works for the American Family Association — who attacked Grinnell for being gay. 

In fact, it might be some kind of record:  One one-sentence tweet by one mid-to-low level guy constitutes the entire on-the-record basis of evidence for not one, but two, major stories in the paper of record.   And from this seemingly paper-thin foundation of evidence  comes the forbidding phrases from the reporters:  ”confront the religious right” … “As the critiques from conservatives intensified” … “the most outrageous attacks about him being gay.”

The story does refers to a column in the online “Daily Caller,” but there is no direct quote (or even summary) by which to make a judgement, and no disclosure of who even wrote the article.  And the story also cites a comment at NRO by Mathew J. Franck, but in this case we see the actual quote, and Franck’s comment seems clearly to be about the politics of gay marriage, not an attack on Grinell for being gay, or an attack on Romney for hiring a gay aid. 

Again, if this happened in this way, it’s terrible.  And in general, I thought the NYTs stories were balanced and fair-minded.  But I find myself very much wanting to know the actual names and actions of those leaders of the “religious right” who “intensified” pressure on Romney last week to fire Grinell and who in the process perpetrated “outrageous attacks about him being gay.”  If and when we learn their names,  I’ll be fully satisfied about the accuracy of this story, and I’ll be troubled and ashamed, as I think most people will be.

P.S.  Some of this controversy seems to have stemmed from Grinell auditioning, via Twitter, for a job as a comedian (and I do agree his tweets are funny) combined with Bryan Fischer (whose tweets are not funny) deciding regularly to opine on the world’s condition via Twitter.  Good grief.  If you were a visting anthropologist from Mars, trying to decide if America in 2012 was essentially serious or essentially frivolous, what would you make of the fact that we now regularly tie ourselves into knots over something called tweeting?  I think it was before the advent of tweeting that Fran Leibowitz wisely observed that “a fleeting thought should rarely be detained,” but I offer it here as a nugget of wisdom for our post-conversation Age of Tweet.

The organization GLADD has launched a “Commentator Accountability Project” which promises to keep media organizations well informed about the true beliefs and motivations of 36 commentators in the media who, according to GLADD, in the name of commenting on gay marriage and other issues, say hurtful and untrue things about gay people.  Of the 36 people on the list, I think I know, either well or well enough to say hello to, about 8 or 9.  At least some of them, I am confident, should NOT be on such a list. 

But my question is (and it’s not rhetorical, I mean it as a question):  Should there be such a list?  I can think of valid reasons to make such a list, among them being an effort to rebut what is viewed as homophobic public speech.  And I don’t believe that making such a list in and of itself constitutes an effort to violate anyone’s right to free speech.  But something about these lists also makes me nervous.  Palmer had lists. McCarthy had  lists.  Hoover had lists.  There is something about these lists that smells bad. 

From Roth Douthat’s interesting column today:

Wilson thrived, in other words, in precisely the kind of media-intellectual ecosystem — institutionalist, high-middlebrow, genteel — that Breitbart spent his career putting to the torch. Whether Breitbart was working for Matt Drudge or Arianna Huffington or building his own empire, his first loyalty was always to the sensational scoop, the wild-and-crazy stunt, the overcaffeinated public feud with whichever enemy happened to be hating on him …

It’s easy to see the shift from Wilson’s old-media conversation to Breitbart’s new-media circus — from public intellectuals to talking heads, from social science to showmanship, from The Public Interest and Commentary to blogs and tweets and gossip — as a straightforward story of cultural decline.  Certainly there is more noise in Breitbart’s world, more polarization and hysteria. It’s a climate in which the best often seem to lack a platform commensurate to their gifts, while the passionate intensity of the worst finds a wide and growing audience …

But [Breitbart's] world has virtues as well as vices: it’s less high-minded than the old-media era, but less stifling and conformist as well. More important, the circus is here to stay. Everyone who makes a living in the public square needs to accept its permanence, and reckon with the challenges it poses.

Sorry, not buyin’.   I did not know Breitbart, but many in recent days, including many I know and respect, have described him personally as warm, engaged, friendly, intelligent, creative, committed.  I don’t question that, and have no desire to diss him personally at this moment. 

But in my view, his entire mode of operation was toxic, destructive, deeply harmful to the possibility of civil society.  The fact that he was so good at it is, for me, neither here nor there.  And, contra Douthat, I do NOT accept that “the circus is here to stay.”  Who says?  I never got that memo, or that tweet.  If “the circus” means what currently passes for the quality and seriousness of our public conversation, then damn the circus and all of its ugly ways.  If that assessment comes across as unhip, narrow, crotchety, unconnected to the times, so be it.  I’m a Wilsonian, period.

I don’t want to degrade remembering Jim Wilson with some small-bore point about the NYTs, but good grief, here is a graf from his obit: 

But even his critics acknowledged that he was less an ideologue than a scientist; he supported the war in Iraq and wrote that marriage should be defined by the union of one man and one woman, but he dismissed criticism of Darwin and suspicion of the theory of evolution.

So, if you want to know whether someone who just died was more a “scientist” or more an “ideologue,” we can just ask:  Did he support gay marriage?  If the answer is no, that’s evidence that the deceased was an ideologue.   But Jim Wilson was a scholar anyway, despite leaning “ideological” on the marriage question.  All clear?

Even wondering the degree to which Jim Wilson was a scholar is like wondering the degree to which Marlon Brando was an actor, or the degree to which tigers can get along in the jungle. 

James Q. Wilson died yesterday.    His book, The Marriage Problem, was an important contribution, but goodness, he wrote so much, and so well, about so many important topics.  He was also a kind, good, strong man — unfailingly decent, part Marine, part professor, fully himself in both roles.  I’m very grateful to have known him and will miss him.