David Axelrod: Barack Obama was always a supporter of same sex marriage.

Courtesy of Time Magazine:

Barack Obama misled Americans for his own political benefit when he claimed in the 2008 election to oppose same sex marriage for religious reasons, his former political strategist David Axelrod writes in a new book, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics. 

“I’m just not very good at bullshitting,” Obama told Axelrod, after an event where he stated his opposition to same-sex marriage, according to the book. 

Axelrod writes that he knew Obama was in favor of same-sex marriages during the first presidential campaign, even as Obama publicly said he only supported civil unions, not full marriages. Axelrod also admits to counseling Obama to conceal that position for political reasons. “Opposition to gay marriage was particularly strong in the black church, and as he ran for higher office, he grudgingly accepted the counsel of more pragmatic folks like me, and modified his position to support civil unions rather than marriage, which he would term a ‘sacred union,’ ” Axelrod writes.

The article goes on to characterize this as a "flip flop" and a "black mark" on the President's record as a progressive, and I heard much the same yesterday by some MSNBC commentators.

But I disagree.

It is impossible at this point to argue against the fact that this President has helped to usher in more rights for the gay community than any other president in history, and that by the end of his term he will have done for the LGBT community what President Johnson did for the African American community in the 1960's.

And I think it is also impossible to argue against the fact if candidate Obama had come out in support of gay marriage that it is very likely he would have lost the nomination, or "shudder" lost the general to John McCain and Sarah Palin.

And how much progress do you think the LGBT community would have enjoyed under THAT administration? (Actually would there even be an America left in which to have this debate?)

Look politicians manipulate the truth for their constituents all of the time. Obama was not denying any personal wrong doing, or covering up for a crime, he was simply adopting a political strategy that he needed in order to get the job that would help him to make real change in this country, and do far more for the LGBT community than could be accomplished by a failed presidential candidate.

That's not so much devious, as smart.

 By the way the President has spoken out about this the other day as well: 

“I think David is mixing up my personal feelings with my position on the issue,” Obama said. “I always felt that same-sex couples should be able to enjoy the same rights, legally, as anybody else and so it was frustrating to me not to, I think, be able to square that with what were a whole bunch of religious sensitivities out there.”

Okay isn't that kind of what Axelrod was saying?

“Where my evolution took place was not in my attitude toward same-sex couples, it was in understanding the pain and the sense of stigma that was being placed on same-sex couples who are friends of mine, where they’d say, “You know what, if you’re not calling it marriage, it doesn’t feel like the same thing,” Obama told BuzzFeed. 

Clearly the President is affirming that his personal belief was that ALL Americans should be able to marry who they wanted and enjoy the legal protections that come with that legal union, but was struggling with what Christians in this country would accept at the time he ran for office.

Once again, sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

Yeah but Sarah Palin doesn't believe in Evolution!

This is from an article entitled "The Evolution of Sarah Palin."

Palin still lands big gigs: She’s billed as the closing speaker at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, which starts Thursday. And she continues to create media dust-ups in a few simple words, as evidenced by her “Vote for Newt; annoy a liberal” comment on Fox News last month. 

But ever since she ended her flirtation with a presidential bid last October, signs have pointed to a long, slow descent into the political has-beens basement for Palin. Perhaps the most telling detail is her political action committee’s most recent fundraising numbers. 

SarahPAC raised roughly $756,000 in the second half of 2011, down from the consistent seven-figure reporting periods it had before then. 

It looks as though Palin might be morphing into less a political powerhouse and more a reality-television star. 

“ ‘Game Change’ will further [her] celebrity,” says Marie Wilson, founder and president emeritus of The White House Project, an organization that works to advance women in politics and business. The movie is scheduled for release next month. 

The more celebrity-like she becomes, the less likely it is that she will be able to reemerge as a serious candidate for public office, Wilson and other experts say. The result is a word just a year ago few people would have associated with her: irrelevance. 

“I actually don’t hear anybody talking about her,” Tea Party Patriots co-founder Mark Meckler says. 

While I agree that Palin has become virtually irrelevant, I disagree that she has evolved in any significant manner.  In fact the only thing that has evolved is the way that Palin is now perceived.

When she talked as if she was seriously thinking about running for the GOP nomination, even though, as her daughter Bristol let slip early on, she was never REALLY going to launch a campaign, people perceived her as a potential player in the political arena.

After she finally had to drop the tease and let people in on the fact that she was  NOT running, everybody did  a reality check and started seeing her for what she truly was. A grifter, using the perception that she was a viable candidate, to drain her supporters of their hard earned cash.

In other words, she was all sizzle and no steak.

That is a common theme running through Palin's history.

She makes a completely fabricated claims about her abilities, or intentions, and that becomes the prism through which people view her.

Her claim about being an "energy expert" is based almost exclusively on her 11 month tenure on the Oil and Gas Commission back in 2003. A job she received solely as a consolation prize after Frank Murkowski passed her over and give his Senate seat to his daughter, and a position she was only allowed to have because it was decided the board needed one civilian, with virtually NO experience in the field, to represent the average Alaskan. Apparently, according to this appointment, the average Alaskan is a dipshit.

Even Palin's athletic claims are based on hyperbole, when in fact she was a mediocre basketball player whose claim to fame was a foul shot she made during a winning game that was completely unnecessary since her team, the Wasilla Warriors, had already won by four points.

This holds true, as most of us here well know, when it comes to her claims concerning her Christian faith (She NEVER attends services), her mothering abilities (Every one of the kids has significant behavioral difficulties), and her self identified reputation as a fighter against corruption and "cronyism." (Palin famously filled her cabinet with loyal friends from high school and used her position as Governor to attack those who had dared stand up to her in the past , like ex-brother-in-law Mike Wooten.)

So has Sarah Palin "evolved?"

No.  She is essentially the same Sarah Palin that she has always been.  Except now there are a whole lot MORE people that see through her bullshit.