thoughtcrumbs

Dan Savage on why he left the Willamette Week newspaper:

Because they're pussies. And I mean that in the most non-gendered sense of the word.

Significantly less pierced that I'd expected (read: no more than say, your average Promise Keeper), Dan Savage entertained a roomful of trendy Portlanders at Powell's last night, pimping his new book, Skipping Towards Gomorrah. His premise: Conservatives preaching moral lifestyle imperatives are clueless and have unfounded arguments. His chapter ridiculing the argument against gay marriage by highlighting another lifestyle the conservatives should be rallying against as the greater evil -- swingers -- is clever and hilarious.

The second half of the evening focused more on Iraq, with Savage promoting war surprisingly effectively to a room full of pacifists. Too often, he argues, leftists spoonfeed each other anti-war and other liberal rhetoric, resulting in an impotent cadre of head-nodders and me-too-ers. The right has become much more powerful by listening to the left and then arguing against it; the left should be questioning and listening to its opponent more, as well. If Democrats were more in favor of the inevitable war, Iraq would be in better shape: we'd soften the cowboy politics of Bush, Cheney, and Rice. (Savage's argument, not necessarily mine.) Savage regularly reads conservative literature, all the better to hone his own debate skills -- and all the better to shock those of us with noses buried in Utne Reader and The New Yorker.