Jervis did not deserve an apology.

I’m only assuming that in such cases the Congressman involved would do his utmost to disassociate himself with that language. Just like Chambliss did. Or perhaps someone could tell me a case in recent years where a Congressman was confronted in such a situation and reacted in a dismissive way?

Tim says that “some have bought into the Culture War, partisan game, hate anyone who disagrees mindset that we see a person being decent and our instinct is to think he is lying.” I don’t hate him, I don’t hate Republicans as a rule, and I don’t think Chambliss is lying. I just think he is acting like a politician. He is acting in such a way that he thinks would put him in a positive light. If he really only cared about apologizing, and not about his public image, then why did he announce to the media that he had called Mr. Jervis personally?

Even if we grant that Chambliss’s actions were honorable and beyond the call of duty (an opinion I wouldn’t come to until I saw right-wingers attacking Chambliss for sucking up to the gays) I’m far less interested in his supposed honorable character and far more interested in his anti-gay views. He wants to amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage and put in a definition of traditional marriage. And when talking about the repeal of DADT he said if we changed on the “issue” of allowing gays in, we’d have to consider changing on the issues of “alcohol use, adultery, fraternization and body art.” It’s these opinions that affect the law of the land, and not the content of a 2-minute telephone conversation.

As far as the question of “honor” goes, I never said that Chambliss’ act should not be acknowledge as the right thing to do, but definitions of honorable are “deserving of honor, of great renown, illustrious.” My original comment is that honor denotes some higher level of achievement than merely “passing.” I appreciate that Chambliss acknowledged the situation and took some action, but he didn’t act honorably. He merely behaved at the minimum level a civil person should act.

I’ll give him a C+/B-, but that an honor graduate does not make.

It’s possible that Chambliss did in fact terminate the staffer. We don’t yet have enough information to know and therefor declarations of honor should wait until we do.

I don’t mean to beat a dead horse here but your comparing us to Maggie Gallagher and claiming, numerous times, that our doubts and demands for more information are “culture war” mentality is insulting. Perhaps I’m overreacting, perhaps my suspicions are wrong but, as I said earlier, Chambliss’ past words and actions cause me to be a bit less trusting of him than you are. That doesn’t make me a culture warrior or a Maggie Gallagher. I’m not even a Republican/conservative hater but I am less inclined to trust a person with a long and sordid anti-gay past.

By the way, for those who say that the only reason Timothy posted this is so that he could paint a conservative in a positive light, let me say that the only reason I didn’t write a very similar post is that Timothy beat me to it by just a few minutes.

Don’t read too much into those three words. I’m trying to distinguish between honorable personal character and his political character which is far from honorable.