:: Never Forget

Some of us haven't gotten over the horror that was the 2000 elections; those of us with the Sicilian Alzheimers never will. We'll go to our graves remembering the stupid, awful things people said and did to tear down Al Gore and set in motion a chain of events that continues to cause untold misery in this country and around the world.

And that is why I really appreciated the most recent Daily Howler post. In the Friday, August 10 edition, Bob Somerby (the man behind the Howler) takes on an enervating statement by some fellow who I gather is well-regarded in progressive circles. I now quote the Daily Howler's quote of one Eric Boehlert waxing poetic about his righteous keyboard tapping peers:

As Altercation's YearlyKos correspondent, I came away from the Chicago convention amazed at what the netroots have been able to build, and in such a short period of time. I'm stating the obvious when I say that Al Gore would have been elected president if the netroots existed in 2000, if only because that inventing-the-Internet nonsense would have been shot down in a matter of days."

OH! Oh, no you didn't just write that, you.... putz! I clearly remember the disgusting spectacle of progressives piling on Gore in 1999-2000. Lucky for me, I can rely on Mr. Somerby to articulate my umbrage (because if I had to do it on my own, we'd be here all day).

Many net-rooters would have been supporting Bill Bradley—and Bradley and the Bradley campaign were pimping every RNC attack against Gore’s troubling character. As we noted earlier this week, it got so bad by the fall of 1999 that Bradley and the Bradley campaign even began pretending that Gore was responsible for the Willie Horton matter, back in 1988... In March 1999, would the net-roots have risen to Gore’s defense? Oh sure! Here’s a well-known liberal blogger in February 2000:

HUFFINGTON (2/6/00): Bradley has warned voters to watch for Mr. Gore's "tricky" way with words, going as far as to compare him with Richard Nixon...In fact, not only this campaign but Mr. Gore's entire career has been laden with untruths—all demonstrating a pattern of serial abuse of language, truth and reality.

He invented the Internet, discovered Love Canal and was the inspiration for "Love Story." He lives on a farm, was "always pro-choice" and claimed that, "unlike Sen. Bradley," he had co-sponsored the original McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill—even though Mr. Feingold was not elected to the Senate until Mr. Gore had already left to become vice president.

Somerby rightly points out that the same myopia is at work this cycle, with Obama as this year's Bradley and Clinton playing the part of Gore. No matter what Bradley said or did, he was the good guy who wasn't part of the establishment, who spoke from the heart, who was "real." Gore was "more of the same," programmed by consultants and special interests, a fake and a liar. Within the Democratic family, Bradley's statements were taken at face value while Gore's were scrutinized for political motives. By the time Bradley - who clearly was not going to win the nomination - dropped out of the race, enough progressives were turned off to Gore to make the Cult of Nader a real threat.

In fact, I would love to see research on the number of Bradley supporters who wound up voting for Nader in the general. The Bradley and Nader campaigns were temperamentally dissimilar, but both cultivated and relied on an aura of purity to make up for deficits of experience and policy breadth.

And so we find ourselves back in the same leaky boat. Obama's supporters defend his "if they won't, we will" soundbite-ready lunge at Pakistan's sovereignty - but if the same statement had come from a Republican, they'd (rightly) be screaming about Iraq the Sequel. Instead, Obama's supporters proudly point out that Republicans have no right to criticize him because they themselves support the same policy.

If Hillary had said it, I guarantee you Obama supporters would have sneered about her cozying up to the neo-cons for a kegger of Bush Lite. They would point out that her position makes her no different from the Republicans, but it would be a negative, not a positive. As it stands, her "just keep it in your pants for now, big boy" response is derided as "just" a slap on Obama, as opposed to plain common sense which was also a slap at Obama because he wasn't using any when he spoke.

Likewise, with the kerfuffle over taking money from lobbyists, Clinton is derided for pointing out the obvious: that lobbying is a profession that is neither inherently good or evil; that lobbyists represent a variety of interests, including those of "real" people; and that just because you accept a campaign contribution from an individual lobbyist does not mean you are agreeing to a quid pro quo vote on legislation the lobbyist supports. Of course, this is seen as evidence (and we can thank Jon Stewart for promoting this belief) that Hillary is a hypocrite and a liar. Obama, on the other hand, is positively saintly, even though... (and here I once again am relying on the Daily Howler, which provides this quote from a story in the Los Angeles Times):

In his campaign finance statements, Obama has disclosed that he has returned more than $52,000 given to him by Washington lobbyists, though there is no law against taking money from them.

Even as he shuns donations from lobbyists, Obama has taken more than $1.4 million this year from law and consultancy firms that have partners who are registered to lobby, a Times analysis of Obama's fundraising shows. He has received hundreds of thousands more from corporate executives while turning down money from their lobbyists.

"This may be an imperfect ban, but it is an important symbol of the kind of administration that Obama will have in Washington," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement.

Needless to say, really, that Edwards does exactly the same - turns down a relatively small amount of contributions that come directly from registered lobbyists, using it as cover to accept far greater sums from what you might broadly refer to as "corporate interests."

Personally, I have no problem with Clinton, Obama or Edwards accepting money from lobbyists and/or "corporate interests." I do have a problem with Obama and Edwards using rhetorical sleight-of-hand to make this into a political purity test, and I certainly have a problem with the progressives who go along with this bullshit. At least, at least if you are going to attack somebody using innuendo instead of facts, get off your high horse when you do it. Read more!

:: Solidarity forever!

A group of left-wing bloggers are pondering a union in order to negotiate for group health insurance, bargain for better wages (??) and to set some professional standards (hooray!!). Does this mean we could have a safety net in case this whole activist thing falls through? Read more!

:: Kinky Mice

Big news from the world of science: apparently the gendered (what scientists call "typically male" or "typically female") sexual behavior of certain adult mammals can be reversed simply by flipping a biological switch.

A study published this week documents the results of experiments on female mice in which "a small sensory organ found in the noses of all terrestrial vertebrates except higher primates" were disabled through surgery or genetic mutation, which.... wait, why am I trying to explain this when I should just be quoting? Here goes:

[The scientists] found that these females, when placed in a cage with a sexually experienced male, would engage in typically male courtship activity: chasing their cage mates, lifting the males' hindquarters with their snouts, and emitting complex ultrasonic vocalizations that are part of the male mouse's mating ritual. Eventually, the female mutants would replicate male sexual behavior by mounting the hapless males and thrusting.

Apparently, the hijinks in the cages escalated until the female mice were impregnated. After giving birth and despite lactating, the female mice persisted in "male" behaviors (it is so tempting to make a series of sexist comments here, but I won't, because that would be wrong. Still, I'm sure you can imagine how the cliche-based joking might proceed).

More science, from scientist-in-charge Catherine Dulac:

"There are two possible interpretations," Dulac says. "Either the vomeronasal organ may be needed to grow a female-specific neural circuit during development, or the mature female mouse brain may require vomeronasal activity to repress male behavior."

To test these two alternatives, Dulac and her colleagues excised vomeronasal organs from the nasal septa of normal adult females. These mice began behaving like males, despite the fact that they - like mutant females in the study - showed testosterone levels, estrogen levels, and estrus cycles indistinguishable from those found in normal females.

"It had previously been thought that entirely different neural circuits, modulated by these hormones, controlled sex-specific behavior," Dulac says. "Remarkably, our work suggests that neuronal circuits underlying male-specific behaviors develop and persist in the female mouse brain, but are repressed by the normal activity of the vomeronasal organ."

"In fact, our research suggests a new model where exactly the same neural circuitry exists in males and females," Dulac says. "In this model, only the vomeronasal pathway itself - which serves as a switch that represses male behavior while promoting female behavior - is dimorphic. While male and female bodies are strikingly different physiologically, it appears the same cannot be said for the brain."

Finally, we are tossed this tantalizing tidbit:

Dulac and colleagues are now studying the behavior of male mice mutant for TRPC2 to determine whether they display femalelike traits.

If humans have an equivalent mechanism to the one described in this study, it might explain why scientists have had such a hard time linking gendered behavior with physiological features of the brain: they're looking for something that isn't there. (In your face, sociobiologists!)

The conventional wisdom that gender identity is naturally tethered to the "either / or" of one's genitalia (and that the fraying of that tether is perverse or "against nature") is increasingly undermined as people feel freer to express a range of unconventional gender identities.

In my mind I keep picturing hordes of Essentialist and Constructionist feminists clashing ala the Spartans and the Persians in the movie 3oo (albeit with less facial hair), but that is because much of my own brain's physiology is stuck in the 1980's. Read more!

:: Grinnashing, or something like it

There should be an expression in English for the act of grinning and gnashing your teeth at the same time. You know, that thing you do when you feel contemptuously amused - when your lips say "how droll" and your eyes say "I will kill you." I do it all the time, and I have no idea what to call it. Grinnashing? Sort of like grimacing, but with dental repercussions? Let's use it in a sentence: "I have been grinnashing so much lately that my veneers are starting to crack." Okay then.

Let's get to business: Kit Seelye in the NYTimes has a dispatch from the YearlyKos convention, where Mrs. Clinton spoke to the unwashed masses, and this transpired:

At one point, she said she would not be influenced by campaign contributions from Washington lobbyists.

At another, she said she would continue to accept such contributions.

The explanation from Mrs. Clinton is golden.

“Yes, I will. I will. You know, a lot of those lobbyists, whether you like it or not, represent real Americans. They actually do. They represent nurses. They represent, you know, social workers. They represent -- yes, they represent corporations. They employ a lot of people. The idea that somehow a contribution is going to influence you — I just ask you to look at my record. I have been fighting for the same thing, my core values have not changed. But I do want to be the president for everybody.”

Seelye writes that the crowd "had just been warming up to her when she made the comments right in front of them. They booed at the time and immediately began posting critical items, including an examination of her vote in favor of a bill to change the bankruptcy law that was heavily supported by credit-card companies."

Of course, none of them will find a quid pro quo (if it were there, we would know it by now). Instead it'll be the typical old left "if you are corporate, you are evil" mantra, chanted ad nauseum while they benefit from the largess of financiers like Soros and Corzine. Where old-school class politics is concerned, these guys never connect the dots - they just stumble around in a haze of "got to get back at The Man" that owes more to Freudian than Marxist paradigms.

I posted a comment expressing my patriotic umbrage, but I know it won't show up. I don't think the Times cares that much about the hit-or-miss quality of its "comments" mechanism. Anyway, I pointed out the irony of the YearlyKos crowd booing Hillary for not giving them the answer they want to hear, when they themselves are a classic "special interest" engaged in a form of lobbying - even if the activity can't be financially valuated... or can it? [hmmm... she is a sitting Senator... I wonder if anyone mentioned specific, pending legislation?] When push comes to shove, these guys don't want a candidate who shows independence - they want someone who will tell them what they want to hear. Read more!

:: 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!

:: Obama Blinks

The AP reports:

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama said on Wednesday the United States must be willing to strike al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan, adopting a tougher tone after a chief rival accused him of naivety in foreign policy.

"If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will," Obama said.

Obama’s response to being called "naive" on foreign policy is to announce he would take military action in Pakistan - brilliant. If its more macho posturing this country needs, we might as well stick with this guy ===>

Pakistan will not take kindly to public threats of a U.S. invasion (and going in without their permission would be called an invasion). And with what troops? With what backup (Black Hawk Down, anyone?) Did he think about what would happen if we blundered in, the Pakistani public were outraged, Musharraf's regime went down, and the real fundamentalists took over?

The last thing his campaign should have done in response to the "naive" message was put forth the image of a man with only 2 and a half years of experience in national policy making acting as Commander in Chief leading us into an armed conflict with Pakistan, a very unstable country with nuclear weapons.

It's like Dukakis in the tank, writ large. If I didn’t have to do some actual work right now, I’d be trying to use the wrong software to superimpose Obama’s face on the tank picture ===>

Sounds to me like the campaign panicked and said - "we need a bold message that makes us long strong" -and then did the opposite.

In the staredown with Hillary on foreign policy, Obama blinked.

Read more!

:: Stupid Beyond Belief. Beyond Belief!!!

Check out this column - and no, its not about Michael Vick - -

[It occurs to me that I can only name two football players off the top of my head: Michael Vick, and Boomer Esaiason. Okay, and Joe Namath, and the guy in Something About Mary – that’s four.]

- - its by Anna Quindlen, writing in Newsweek (the magazine that arrives free of charge at my door and proceeds directly to the trashcan designated for junk mail) about a “mini-documentary” she found on the You Tube. I could tell you about it, but why not just watch it instead. [UPDATE: this video has been disabled, but you can view it at a different address: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk6t_tdOkwo.
You know, we’ve been screaming that these people are total f-ing idiots for years now… and yet I am still stupefied by the stupidity. The Canary is not pleased - not pleased at all!!!

Quindlen’s column features Jill June, who we (all five of us) know and love... Jill should have ground through all her molars years ago (and for all I know, maybe she has). Read more!