Hmm -- They Must Think Tulsi Gabbard is a Threat After All

I won't be voting for Tulsi Gabbard either in the Democratic primaries (I'm not a Democrat) or in the general election (or, rather, it would take a lot to get me to -- I have significant policy problems with her and am hopeful that the Libertarian Party won't shit the bed with its own nomination for the fourth time in a row).

I also don't think much of her chances. The last time the US elected a president directly out of the US House of Representatives was 1880, and the next one probably won't be a Hindu woman of ... interesting ... citizenship credentials* from the 40th most populous of the 50 states.

Apparently the Democratic establishment think she's enough of a threat to try to crush her right out of the gate, though. For example, they got CNN to rush this one out:

Tulsi Gabbard once touted working for anti-gaygroup that backed conversion therapy

Her past views and activism in opposition to LGBT rights in the late 90s and early 2000s, which put her out of step with most of the Democratic Party at the time, have come under more intense scrutiny since her announcement.

The Democratic Party's platform didn't come out against marriage apartheid until 2012, shortly after president Barack Obama (and Tulsi Gabbard) did and well before 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton did.

And yet I don't remember the Democratic establishment attacking Hillary Clinton for having been a knuckle-dragging troglodyte on the subject for more than a year after Gabbard got right on it.


* She was born in American Samoa, which, under the Immigration and Nationality Act, would make her a "national" but not a "citizen" of the US at birth ... except that her father (also born in American Samoa) was a US citizen by virtue of his father's US citizenship. Now, personally, I think that makes her a "natural-born citizen" under the meaning of the US Constitution, but some others, even in her own party, will likely make an issue of it.