No on Nunn

There has been talk about former Sen. Sam Nunn (Dixiecrat-GA) as a possible VP for Obama. Most of the speculation revolves around Nunn's experience as a former Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, something that would fend off criticism from the Military McCainiacs.

But as Wayne Besen points out in his column, never mind that Nunn is a conservative Dem, he's an anti-gay Dem.

In April, the conservative southern Democrat articulated his reasons for backing Obama:

"Demonizing the opposition, oversimplifying the issues, and dumbing down the political debate prevent our country from coming together to make tough decisions and tackle our biggest challenges," said Nunn.

This statement was curious, considering Nunn's crass conduct during the fierce 1993 "gays in the military" battle. Instead of leading in a contemplative manner, Nunn exploited his position of power to cheapen the national dialogue and dumb down the debate - the opposite of what he now says he stands for. This "statesman" brazenly exploited every last negative anti-gay stereotype for political gain and temporarily derailed Bill Clinton's nascent presidency in the process. Nunn's grandstanding was an unforgivable act of bigotry and betrayal and helped set back the GLBT movement for years.

More below the fold. One of the stunts Nunn pulled back in the day was a little field trip with the MSM to a submarine to show them how close it was in those quarters, telegraphing the message that predatory ho-mo-sexuals were going to jump their fellow submariners for some Satanic nookey.

In a flash, Nunn lowered the tenor of the debate and created visions of promiscuous, unpatriotic gays and lesbians transforming our Navy into a hapless fleet of Sodomy Subs. All people wanted to talk about after this monstrosity was bunk beds.

If Obama's LGBT and LGBT-supportive staffers and supporters have any clout, they need to inform their guy that Nunn is simply unacceptable. His positions are not in keeping with change or progress -- we don't need to court the bigot vote with Nunn on the ticket. I'd love to see Nunn come out and do a Bob Barr and say he was wrong for what he did during the Clinton administration, but I won't hold my breath.