Our government spends $176 million annually to fund “abstinence-until-marriage” programs, and do know what a recent study discovered?  It’s really no surprise for anyone who can remember their teen years.  Those who attended these abstinence program were just as likely to have sex as those who did not, had the same number of sexual partners, and started having sex around the same age, 14.9 years of age (boy was I a late bloomer!).  Wouldn’t it be better to spend that money on comprehensive sex education that includes a component concerning abstinence?  Sounds good to me, but who the hell am I?

What the hell is up with John McCain these days?  It seems like he trying to derail what’s left of his bid for president.

Let me provide the beginning of this sentence, “We need a nuclear Middle East…”

You know, I’m still of the opinion the whole Imus/Rutgers brouhaha was turned into more than it was.  People will say I’m foolish to believe that, or worse, but Imus has always been ass and he’s not the only one out there; just listen to anything Bill O’Reilly says about immigrants.  Imus is just the one who got caught taking one step too many into the racism quagmire.  I’m certainly not going to cry because Imus is off the air, partly because I know he’ll make a comeback and possibly be as big as ever, but also because there should be repercussions for the words we write and speak.  The First Amendment guarantees all Americans this right, including asses like Imus, but there should always be consequences for those rights.  No one has walked all over Imus’ First Amendment Right; he’s still free to say and write whatever he wishes.  The man could start a blog tomorrow and I have no doubt it would be among the most visited sites on the web, so don’t cry for Mr. Imus’ rights.

All that being said, I have to raise a glass in toast to Gwen Ifill.  If you’ve never seen her Ifill is the excellent host of the PBS newsmagazine Washington Week and she was one of the better debate moderators of the 2004 election.  Ms. Ifill wrote an article not long after the whole Imus mess started to blow up that basically took the more well-known of her fellow journalists to task for appearing on Imus’ show which in turn gave Imus a sort of legitimacy.   She continued this reprimand on Meet the Press when she called out both Tim Russert, MTP’s moderator, and the New York Times‘ David Brooks for being two of those well-known journalist.  It’s quite good, most especially because she is so calmly passionate about it.

Some are raising questions about the implications of Democrats withdrawing from debates co-sponsored by Fox News because of alleged pressure from online liberal activists. I find myself both agreeing and disagree with these so-called implications. First, why should candidates fear any sort of retribution from Fox News? By itself Fox News is not all that powerful. The network is seen by an average of 2 million viewers a day — quite literally a drop in the box of all television viewers. Moreover, they are a niche cable network pandering to a specific political group that doesn’t even speak for a majority of the nation. Granted, the Conservative Machine is quite loud and powerful, but again the people who will listen this this Machine are people who would never vote for Democrats to begin with, so what’s the loss here in terms of voters. The people who listen to Fox News and its many sister outlets in Conservative are never going to vote for a Democrat unless he’s a “democrat” like Joe Lieberman. People have been overestimating the power of Fox News for years and the fact that a three of the major candidates are choosing not to participate in a debate sponsored by them means, in my humble opinion, very little.

However, one reporter in this piece brings up a valid point: if the Democrats cannot stand up to the loud mouths of Fox News what kind of impression are they giving? As fools like Bill O’Reilley prove on a daily basis, they cannot stand it was a Liberal or Progressive has the guts to call them on their bullshit. It’s not even that difficult to do if you have the balls for it. Hillary Clinton has shown on more than one occasion she has the balls the stand up for herself against Fox BS and more candidates should be like that.

Should they attend the debate? At this point I don’t think it really matters. There will be more than enough debates heading towards the primaries, so getting out the message will not be the problem. By side-stepping Fox News the candidates are avoiding having to deal with a group who will be hostile to their message and spend the post-debate time tearing them to piece. However, once the candidates are chosen, I think they should reach out to Fox News and this idea that Fox News will not be receptive is just foolish. They need Democrats to rails against to keep their viewers happy.