Cafferty on the FMA

Jack Cafferty's is by far and away my favorite pressence on CNN. He's got that old-guy grit that brooks no foolishness, making him unafraid to call bull. And he makes me feel really young, so that's interesting. "I must be at least 80 years younger than that guy, right?"

Well, he weighed impressively on the Federal Marriage Amendment talk that's going down on Monday:

BLITZER: Let's go up to New York. Jack Cafferty has "The Cafferty File." Hi, Jack.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, Wolf.

Guess what Monday is? Monday is the day President Bush will speak about an issue near and dear to his heart and the hearts of many conservatives. It's also the day before the Senate votes on the very same thing. Is it the war? Deficits? Health insurance? Immigration? Iran? North Korea?

Not even close. No, the president is going to talk about amending the Constitution in order to ban gay marriage. This is something that absolutely, positively has no chance of happening, nada, zippo, none. But that doesn't matter. Mr. Bush will take time to make a speech. The Senate will take time to talk and vote on it, because it's something that matters to the Republican base.

This is pure politics. If has nothing to do with whether or not you believe in gay marriage. It's blatant posturing by Republicans, who are increasingly desperate as the midterm elections approach. There's not a lot else to get people interested in voting on them, based on their record of the last five years.

But if you can appeal to the hatred, bigotry, or discrimination in some people, you might move them to the polls to vote against that big, bad gay married couple that one day might in down the street.

Here's the question: Is now the time for President Bush to be backing a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage? E-mail your thoughts to caffertyfile@CNN.com or go to CNN.com/caffertyfile -- Wolf.

Crooks and Liars likes highlighting Jack's work in streamable video form. Here are some choice samplings of Cafferty outrage: The Lunatic Fringe (FMA), Just Do It (ignoring laws), Photo Ops (Katrina), This is Nonsense (Media and Iraq), and IDs will Exclude Voters. And that's just the first few that popped out at me. He's punchy, that Cafferty.