Showing posts with label Washington Post. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Washington Post. Show all posts

Thursday, June 5

:: The Massive Tool(s) Report

Oh my god. These people are such massive tools.
First: the geniuses at Slate's "XX blog" - who have been bashing Hillary for months on end with every anti-feminist talking point to come out of the Obama campaign, but still call themselves feminists - are doing a live-interactive-web thingy at the ever-repellent (sorry, Buffy) Washington Post. I'll cut to the chase - check out this exchange, with a few formatting changes added because I can't help myself:
Edwardsville, Illinois:

I'm a big fan of Meghan O'Rourke's writing, but when she wrote that "Clinton's relationship to gender seemed at turns angry and deeply ambivalent" in contrast to Obama's relationship to race, I had to laugh.

Meghan, have you read "Dreams of My Father" or "Audacity of Hope"? If so, do you really believe that Obama's relationship to race is anything but "angry and deeply ambivalent?" I think the whole controversy with Rev. Wright arose from just that anger and ambivalence, and my Senator's quest to reconcile himself with race.

I also don't think his anger and ambivalence (or hers) ought to be counted as a negative. Shouldn't we all be angry about the role of race and gender in our society, still, after all this time? Aren't women all amibivalent about the impact our gender does or should have on our life choices? What do you think?

Meghan O'Rourke:

That's a really good point, and my only excuse is that I was writing overnight on deadline!

What I was trying to say, more precisely, was that in her demeanor on the campaign trail, Hillary (to my eyes) didn't manage to seem as open and humble about her situation as Obama did.

Obama is deeply ambivalent in those books: you're totally right. But on the stump he seemed willing to admit how hard it was for him -- and to have chosen to let people see how hard it was for him. So there's an ambivalence there, yes, but he managed to project a somewhat unified front ABOUT that ambivalence.

Whereas I felt Hillary switched back and forth more. Part of what I was getting at, or wanted to, IS that women do feel ambivalent and angry. And I nderstand Hillary's ambivalence and anger -- I really do. And I feel I've acted the way she has, writ small, in situations where I've felt chagrined that men seem to be given more authority by default.

But I do think it's the real challenge for women: how to care deeply about women's rights and equality while not becoming embittered.

And let's face the unfair, bitter truth: I, like many women, probably hold Hillary to a higher standard than I would many men. I wish that weren't the case, and I strive against it. But I'm sure I'm complicit in the double standard.
Like I said - what a tool.

Our next entry comes from yesterday's New York Times "Caucus" blog. Its the very patronizing item "For Clinton's Women Fans, Mourning and Anger." Here's your sign:
For many of these women, it was not just a matter of politics, but of identity. Older, more affluent, and often business-minded, Mrs. Clinton’s live audience last night resembled a more mature version of the cast of “Sex and the City.” Still, while they may be wearing Donna Karan and look as if life has treated them well, many said her struggle to gain the nomination -– and the insults they believe Mrs. Clinton has endured along the way – mirrors their own struggles in life and in the corporate world.

I can't muster anything more articulate; these fools have plumb worn me out. Please, someone else do it. Read more!

Tuesday, December 11

:: There's Conservative, and Then There's Just Plain Dumb, and Then There is Evil - and Sometimes All Three"

Zippy’s post below "There’s conservative, and then there’s just plain dumb" describes Mike Huckabees weird-ass answer to a softball question about the Global Fund for AIDS, Malaria and TB.

[And really, who doesn’t support the Global Fund? No one, that’s who. The Global Fund has so much support that they're richer than many countries; hell, they're probably richer than Jesus. Of course you say you support the Global Fund, you nitwit, and then talk about the great work they are doing to prevent malaria and tuberculosis. Or you say you support the Global Fund, and add something about how America needs to use its moral influence to ensure their policies don’t do harm along with good. For the love of Rhoda, is it that hard?]

Not surprisingly, I had what you might call “a reaction” of my own to the news about Huckabee. It seems that not only did he support quarantines back in the day --
he continues to support them now. (Yes. Still. Now. I’m not making this up. To paraphrase the best line in Blair Witch Project– I’m not that fucking creative.) That Huckabee doesn't do the obvious thing and say "yeah, changed my mind about the whole quarantine thing - a bit too Castro, IMHO" is really just so fucking typical of these people. (And by “these people” I mean our homegrown corn-fed proto-fascists).

Huckabee refuses to recant his position, but has indicated he would like to lie about it now.

As a Senate candidate in 1992, Huckabee told the AP in a questionnaire that "we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague" if the federal government was going to deal with the spread of the disease effectively. "It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents," he said then.

In an interview on "Fox News Sunday," Huckabee denied that those words were a call to quarantine the AIDS population, although he did not explain how else isolation would be achieved. "I didn't say we should quarantine," he said. The idea was not to "lock people up."

Huckabee acknowledged the prevailing scientific view then, and since, that the virus that causes AIDS is not spread through casual contact, but said that was not certain.

"I still believe this today," Huckabee said Sunday, that "we were acting more out of political correctness" in responding to the AIDS crisis. "I don't run from it, I don't recant it," he said of his position in 1992. Yet he said he would state his view differently in retrospect.

Huckabee also stated in 1992 that HIV/AIDS research was receiving too much federal funding.

Now, even the most obtuse moral relativist – someone who would just as soon see male hairdressers and florists burnt at the stake so long as it was approved by a local majority vote - could see how Huckabee’s ideological take on this issue ran counter to our interest in public health. If a quarantine were justified because AIDS, like “plague,” could be spread by casual contact, thereby causing mass fatalities – wouldn’t you want to spend more on research, not less? I mean, who says we have an epidemic of deadly plague sweeping through America’s cities, and we’re spending way too much on stopping it”? That is not a rhetorical question, by the way. For real – you only say that if you have no problem with the impact of the plague on the afflicted population. Or if you are a moron. Or if you are a complete sociopath.

From the sound of things, Huckabee may well be all three. So I guess that’s my answer to your question, Zippy.

The Washington Post has a good editorial about Huck and the plague, thereby illustrating the “broken clock is right twice a day” principle. Shockingly, its worth a read.

My prediction – which I shared with Scientist-at-Large before I saw this article, thank you very much –is Huckabee will meet with Ryan White's mom for a mushy photo op and it will be "no harm, no foul" according to the MSM. (And if Mom White says something negative about Huck, or refuses to meet with him at all, watch for the obligatory “Cindy Sheehan” hatchet job). Meanwhile the base will get the message, sub rosa, that should the opportunity arise he’ll be first in line to stick it to the homos.

Read more!

Thursday, August 2

:: Lady Macbeth Rides Again

Presidential campaigns remind me of the wagon trains of yore.* As they move toward their destination they pick up wagons whose drivers believe in the wagon master’s** promised land and think he's just the guy to get them there. Other wagons may drop out of the train due to mishaps, a lack of faith, or better opportunities elsewhere. And, when things get really rough, somebody inevitably gets eaten (and it sure as hell isn’t the wagon master).

I bet every wagon train had people who created controversy along the way, some for good reason and some purely out of self-interest. I imagine some controversies were almost guaranteed to come up (I won’t enumerate them but I’m sure at least one of them had to do with cougars.)***

And this brings me to my point: every presidential contest brings forth a crop of perennial micro-controversies. This week, its the return of the Big Bad Wife. ****

I say “micro-controversy” because I’m not talking about the larger issue of family image control, which can become big news ala the Great Cookie Baking / Stand By Your Man imbroglio of 1992, or those reliable thorns-in-the-ass Billy Carter (RIP), Roger Clinton and the Bush twins. Instead, what I have in mind is the fight for status and control between the candidate’s "top advisors” and the candidate’s wife,***** which feeds into the all-important question of Just Who Exactly Does She Think She is?

Not only does it come up every cycle – I’ll spare you the historical retrospective – but it occurs on a bipartisan basis. For example, in the space of one week WaPo has run multiple items concerning Mrs. John Edwards, Mrs. Fred Thompson and what you might call “Lady Macbeth Syndrome.”

First, Mrs. Edwards. On 30 July, WaPo ran A True Political Partner: John Edwards’s Wife Has Helped Shape His Presidential Bid and Often Shares the Spotlight.******

I’ll break it down for you. First, here's the setup:
Among political insiders who closely follow the presidential race and gossip about who is up and who is down in every campaign, Elizabeth Edwards is the hidden hand behind virtually every important decision regarding her husband's second bid for the White House.
And the volley:
Still, with savvy consultants, would the current campaign have avoided some of the issues that have arisen this year? Those are now short-handed as the three Hs -- haircuts (at $400 a pop), hedge fund (the candidate's tenure as a hedge fund executive) and house (the 28,000-square-foot home the couple recently had built for their return to North Carolina).
And now, Mrs. Edwards’****** perspective. The Post gives us an Elizabeth who alternately denies her influence and takes ownership of it, to wit:
Edwards recently recalled a moment in the 2004 general election campaign when she lost faith in consultants…. "It seemed so completely bogus," she said. "It was like somebody had pulled the curtain back in 'The Wizard of Oz.'
[and]
"We tried to do it the way we were told by people who had lots of experience. We're now liberated from that, and it's great."
[versus]
"I get a lot more credit for, you know, being the puppeteer than I am," she said. "I express my opinion. Honestly, I'm not the decision maker."
[and]
Asked who is now running the campaign, she laughed again. "All these stories about my pulling the strings -- honestly, I don't know."
On one level, this is about certain consultants’ resentment of Mrs. Edwards – after all, she is doing for free what they could be doing for money. And nobody likes having two bosses.

But on a different level, it reflects the same old anxiety over the ambitious, controlling wife who usurps the leader’s rightful place and precipitates disaster. Such a woman is seen as unnatural, not only perverting her role as “helpmeet” but also emasculating her husband, and thereby weakening his realm.

Mothers can play this role too – re: The Manchurian Candidate – but Lady Macbeth is the obvious precursor. That is, unless you want to count Eve getting too opinionated about whether Adam was eating enough fruit.

WaPo has spun the same storyline with Jeri Thompson. Robert Novak’s column today is dedicated to saving the lady’s reputation from those who would cast her as temptress / villain. Novak recounts a typically molar-crushing moment from the Sunday morning talk shows:
"Well, first," said Juan Williams of National Public Radio, ". . . I think you should get Jeri Thompson in here, the trophy wife, right?" William Kristol of the Weekly Standard interjected: "That's unfair." Williams: "Unfair, unfair, I know, but --" Kristol: "It is unfair."

That ended the discussion. I asked Williams, a respected journalist, whether he regretted the comment. He did not, but he explained that he got the idea from a July 8 New York Times article by Susan Saulny. "Is America ready for a president with a trophy wife?" she asked in the paper's Style section. "Subsequent to that," Williams told me, "I heard the same thing in conversation with people in other campaigns -- about her being so young, so attractive and so powerful."
This is indeed unfair, Novak points out*******, because, far from being a prize, Mrs. T in fact has copious experience as a Republican operative with the RNC and elsewhere. He writes:
“She has been intimately involved in the planning of her husband's campaign, including last week's staff shakeup. When Tom Collamore left as Thompson's campaign manager, he told CNN that he was "very respectful of the desire of Fred and Jeri to make some changes as they move to the next level." Those comments generated whispers in the political community that whoever ran this campaign would have to answer to the candidate's wife.”
As with the Edwards campaign, this is a gone-public aspect of behind-the-scenes skirmishing over limited resources. But it also reflects the disconnect people feel when they try to match the notion of “wife” with "chief strategist.” Apparently for many of us a “wife” should have a “derivative” existence (that’s Mrs. E's term for it), assisting when needed rather than calling the shots. “Wife” is incompatible with the idea of the “campaign manager” who, by occupational necessity, must be extremely strong-willed.********

Consider this joke made by Fred Thompson to a fundraiser audience (as reported by Novak):
“[He] began by introducing 'my campaign manager -- oh, I mean my wife.'"
I propose that to the extent the comment is funny, it is because it taps into the dissonance between the two occupations.********* A big tough guy like Thompson, letting himself be bossed around by his pretty little wife – the very idea! The crowd titters, vaguely reassured that, at least for the moment, Fred has his priorities straight and his house in order.

----------------------------------------------------------------
[Footnotes]

* Yes, I said “yore.” Bite me.

** That’s what they were called. I looked it up in the wikipedia. Quote: “Ward Bond died of a heart attack on 5 November 1960, in the middle of the fourth season and was replaced by John McIntire as wagon master.”

*** Yes, that’s how it is spelled (not “cougers”). I used spell-check.

**** I say “wife” because I don’t mean “husband.”

***** Ditto.

****** Since when did we start writing “Edwards’s”? I thought for a noun ending in “s” you put the apostrophe on the outside to show possession. Did the rules change or something? Or am I imagining this?

******* A fine example of the "stopped clock" rule.

******** Don't even think about bringing up Mary Matalin. She is the exception to every rule you can think of, and quite a few that you can't.

********* Don't agree? Then consider some variations: "I'd like to introduce my campaign manager... Oh, I mean, my friend." No dissonance = no funny. "I'd like to introduce my campaign manager... Oh, I mean, my father." That might get a small laugh, but it could be more alarming than funny if the father's reputation is superior to the son's (imagine George W. saying that in 2000). "I'd like to introduce my campaign manager... Oh, I mean, the Captain of the SS Cornflake." Really, only Kucinich could pull that one off.
Read more!

Wednesday, April 18

:: On No They Didn't!

We told them over and over again that the Presidential election mattered. We told them in 2000, we told them in 2004. We told them that if President Bush was elected he would appoint conservative justices to the Supreme Court. We told them he liked Scalia and Thomas. That he wasn't going to appoint another Souter like his dad. We told them that the right to choose hung in the balance. They elected him anyway. And what did he do when given the chance - he appointed Roberts and Alito. And with their new found conservative majority the US Supreme Court has unpheld an abortion ban. "In a 5-4 vote, the court ruled that the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, which Bush signed into law in 2003, does not violate a woman's right to have an abortion."

Sometimes I hate being right.

Read more!

Monday, April 16

:: Just Give Me the Numbers

WaPo has an interesting but (as usual) poorly organized article on fundraising totals from the presidential candidates.

[This is my idea of "poorly organized": the first paragraph reads "Sen. Barack Obama raised more money than Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for their Democratic primary clash during the first three months of the year, but Clinton heads into spring with more in her campaign account than all Republican presidential candidates combined." Okay, fine, but does that mean Obama also has more in his account than the Republican candidates combined? See fourth paragraph for possible answer - Clinton has also transferred $10m from her Senate account.] Why can't they just write these things memo-style, with bullet points and all the relevant information grouped together?

Amongst the facty nuggets, one finds whorls of speculation masquerading as insight (there's a turkey loaf analogy lurking here, but trying to think it through is making me nauseous). For example, "The reports also uncover trends that can signal strength or weakness. Both McCain's and Obama's reports showed large numbers of small donors, meaning they can return to those donors for more money. Giuliani's and Clinton's reports show donations from large numbers of donors who have maxed out, meaning the candidates must find new sources of cash." Not all small donors can be converted to maximum donors - they simply might not have the resources (giving $20 is a long way away from giving $2,300).

And yes, of course Clinton and Giuliani have to find new donors once the existing ones max out. That's neither a strength nor a weakness - that's just fact. I have no special expertise in this area - and I'd like to keep it that way - but it sounds smart to me for Clinton to hit the major donors now and not compete with Obama for grassroots money. She can tap that later when the primaries do the work of winnowing the field, and meanwhile locking down the major donors adds to the aura of her campaign as a sure bet.

Mo' better numbers here. Read more!

:: The Fifth Column

These people are everywhere, just waiting for the right moment to crawl out from under their rocks...

A key figure in the World Bank, said to have links to the Roman Catholic sect Opus Dei, was accused yesterday of undermining its commitment to the health of women by ordering the deletion of goals, targets and policies relating to family planning.
The U.S. media is focused on l'affaire Wolfowitz, and rightly so, but this simultaneously unfolding drama will also play a role - albeit uncredited - in his demise. Major European development NGOs and governmental agencies are shaking the rafters over this. Two crises at the same time = not a good thing for a man no one liked from the get-go. Read more!

:: A New Modest Proposal

Regarding the news of the mass shooting at Virginia Tech, my first reaction was, "Great - another guy couldn't handle rejection / couldn't manage his anger and took it out on a group of innocent bystanders - and now hundreds of people have to suffer."

Which got me thinking - isn't it about time we restricted gun ownership based on some common sense profiling? Most gun crimes are committed by young and youngish men. Certainly nearly all mass shootings are carried out by this same group. I say leave the second amendment alone, but ban gun ownership by men 16 to, say, 50 years old. Men over 50 can have a gun. Women can have guns. No kids can have guns.

I don't think there's any discrimination issue here - after all, its not stopping all men from having guns, just a group of people identified by perfectly defensible crime-related criteria. Plus, as of the last time I checked, we don't have an equal rights amendment to the Constitution. Let's face it - you don't see women and the elderly perpetrating these crimes, so there's no reason they should lose their gun privileges.

The beauty of this proposal is that it satisfies an oft-heard criticism of total bans - "if someone in that crowd had been carrying a gun, the gunman would have been stopped right away" - because any woman could still be packing heat. Also, women could continue to protect themselves from predators, and could even learn to hunt deer, or elk, or whatever, since people think its so great.

Its time to get to the root of the problem. Perhaps its not accurate to say that guns don't kill people, people kill people - but guns in the hands of men of a certain age kill a hell of a lot more people than guns in the hands of anybody else. Read more!

:: Fresh Grist for the Imus Mill

A poll conducted by WaPo and ABC news on the Imus imbroglio finds - surprise surprise - wide disparities of opinion between the races and genders. The results - which appear to be raw, with further details promised later today - are: Whites are split on firing - 47% for, 49% against. Blacks - 70+% for, remainder (I guess) against. Of all women (all races) - 55% for, compared to all men (all races) 48% for.

This strikes me as being in line with the commentary I've seen on the topic - both from professional opinion leaders and the hoi polloi. Lots of comments by white men lashing out at all african-americans for not collectively keeping rappers in line. Lots of comments by black men decrying racism and sexism, but then only discussing the racism. And comments by women, where you can find them, saying its about damn time. And the elite of the elite - for example, Frank Rich, tap-dancing double-time to find a way to oppose the firing and oppose Imus, or support the firing while still supporting Imus. Put another way, one group of elites seems to dislike Imus but feels like the cat just walked over their grave, and another group likes the firing but wants to salvage a relationship with Imus and/or his friends. Read more!

Wednesday, April 4

:: Yes Please, Pay Me Less

Interest in the gender wage gap seems to have waned among younger feminists. That is until someone in the media (or someone running for President) tosses out the well worn factoid that on average women still make less then men – 71 cents on the dollar according to current Labor Dept statistics. Inevitably some talking head disputes the figure, argues that women’s wages are equal to men’s in many occupations and that women earn less because they choose to. That is when steam starts to come out of my ears. In a oped piece in the WaPo Carrie Lukas argues that, ”The numbers indicate the wage gap mostly reflects individual differences in priorities.” In other words, more women pick time with their families and the accompanying lower wages than men, therefore the difference in wages is a natural product of individual choice. Lets be clear here – women (and men) who choose to spend time with their families are NOT choosing to be paid less. Rather workers are punished for having families. By a society that claims to love “family values.” The underlying assumption in our economy is that a serious committed member of the workforce does not have primary responsibility for child rearing and other familial duties. No kids, no sick parents, no dentist appointments. Now if we truly valued families in this country then financial success would not be predicated on sacrificing your family responsibilities. Rather than punishing women (and men) for having lives outside of work, we should elevate this necessary societal function to one that receives the respect that it is due. The workplace needs to be adapted to recognize and value the family responsibilities we all have. Read more!

Wednesday, February 7

:: Vote Like A Girl

Women voters, women candidates and Hillary Clinton. (Part I of a never ending series.) In theory Hillary’s candidacy provides a great jumping off point for an in-depth conversation on the “women’s vote.” In reality, not so much. Instead we get things like the frustrating Linda Hirshman op-ed in the WaPo. I have been trying to put my finger on why this piece was so infuriating for weeks now. (Thus the belated musings seen here.) Could it be that she makes sweeping pronouncements about women voters after talking to only 6 white, married, stay-at-home moms in MD. Could it be her implication that women are not rational political actors or that only women consider “character” when picking a candidate to support/oppose or that women have never single-handedly elected a presidential candidate (and therefore are irrelevant) or the fact that she found the least politically informed women on the planet to interview. Ok, it is all of those things and the fact that this article came and went and no conversation ensued.

Future topics include – women are all the same, Real Simple is an untapped political resource and what is so fucking great about being rational. Read more!