-
sponsorship
In a Republican of McCain's vintage, I found it hard not to hear a patronizing tone as he introduced Sarah Palin today, though I'm sure he was bending over backward to avoid it: "Hey, what a feisty young gal I've got here." And something tells me this isn't a ploy to lure undecided women, much less unaligned Hillary supporters: A pro-life NRA babe isn't going to do it for them. Isn't McCain's real target the Evangelical vote? The gambit is already working. James Dobson of Focus on the Family announced earlier this year that he wouldn't and couldn't vote for McCain. Today he pronounced himself converted, thanks to a ticket that now includes someone for whom "the sanctity of life isn't just a political position." Now maybe Dobson will get busy mobilizing the faithful, because it's not just age, but organizational skills, that the McCain campaign has to worry about.
-
sponsorship
Not that I wish him ill, but wouldn't the most surreal outcome of McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate be that McCain gets elected, shortly afterward he dies in office, and the president of the United States becomes a 44 year-old breast-feeding, moose-eating mother of five?
-
sponsorship
Sarah Palin has, if nothing else, generated a lot off buzz for the McCain campaign. And a lot of mixed reactions. Dahlia didn't like her speech, but I was charmed. Now we have higlights of the speech available, so everyone can see for themselves.
-
sponsorship
Dahlia, you direct your rage at The Man and The Media whereas mine goes in another direction. This is the game conservative women politicians have played forever: grab power but know just when to defer. If they play it exactly right, they can shield themselves from the disdain of the Rushes and Tuckers of the world. Sometimes they use the mommy card, or the good wife card, or just a few good tears. I remember in the early nineties writing about Enid Greene, one of the right wing warriors of the Gingrich generation whose campaign, it turned out, was mucked up in scandal. So when the time came to apologize, she just stood up onstage and wept, and talked about her baby daughter. Danielle Crittenden used to complain about women not using their husband's name (shes married to David Frum) Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham are masters at it. Palin could be photographed pointing a shotgun at Ted Stevens and no one would ever call her a ballbuster. She would just conveniently drop a diaper out of her purse, or blink those beauty queen browns, and that would be that. When I was younger, I used to rage at the hypocrisy of the Scarlett O'Hara strategy. But that was when I was sure it was doomed. Now, I just marvel at how successful its turned out to be. Maybe this is the Fourth Wave?
-
sponsorship
Back in the late 1980s, there was a moment when British newspapers suddenly started hiring women—columnists, editors, whatever—en masse. The explanation for this change was not that Rupert Murdoch, Conrad Black, or the other British press barons had somehow become feminists: The explanation was that the newspaper market had suddenly become unbelievably competitive, and some marketing genius had worked out that women like to read articles which are written by other women. Women readers being just as good as male readers—better, even, since advertisers reckon they are in charge of household budgets—the British press fell about itself trying to hire women who would entice other women to buy newspapers. The job market for women in journalism exploded.
Seems to me that with the nomination of Sarah Palin we are witnessing a similar phenomenon. Hillary didn't get the presidential nomination herself, but her primary campaign did demonstrate something that the political marketing geniuses had hitherto denied: Women, at least some of them, will vote for other women. Neither John McCain nor the Republican Party had to be converted to feminism in order to draw the next obvious conclusion: If women vote for women, and women's votes are just as good as men's votes, then a female vice president could be a hugely important addition to the ticket.
The point here, of course, is that a thousand speeches about women's rights couldn't achieve what John McCain's cold calculation of his political interests managed to achieve. Women make progress in today's world because they are needed and wanted, not because they can succesfully pass equal-rights legislation or stage a protest march. Perhaps the job market for women in politics will now explode, too.
-
sponsorship
Sarah Heath Palin is not the only resident of Wasilla, Ala., who got a career boost from the McCain campaign’s announcement that she will be No. 2 on the GOP presidential ticket. Alaska writer Kaylene Johnson’s biography of the two-year Alaska governor titled, Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska’s Political Establishment Upside Down was recently released by Epicenter Press, a “leading publisher of books about sled dog racing.” Johnson, a neighbor in Wasilla, where a younger Sarah was once Miss Wasilla, has written a largely flattering biography but exposes a few telling character traits. For example, among the details about Palin’s “boisterous and busy family,” Johnson mentions the little-known cover-up the future nominee had with her siblings (“We had a pact,” one sister admits, “If any of us … broke something, we promised not to tell.") The de facto campaign biography also reveals that though “everyone pitched in” for the mandatory "weeding … or stacking firewood,” Palin's father admits only Sarah displayed an “unbending, unapologetic streak of stubbornness.”
Although the $19.95 hardcover does not yet appear on the publisher’s list of best sellers, chances are, after today, sales to journalists will skyrocket. For those who can’t wait for their copy, the first chapter, “Growing Up Sarah” is posted on the publisher’s website.
-
sponsorship
Something that keeps running through my mind as the blogs light up with posts about whether Sarah Palin is a serious candidate or presidential arm candy: What would Chris Matthews and Rush Limbaugh be saying about Palin had she been Obama’s veep choice instead of McCain’s? Would we be seeing Sarah Palin nutcrackers by the weekend? Would Fox News be airing a segment next week about her “nagging voice” in which so-called experts opine that ‘“men won’t vote for Sarah Palin because she reminds them of their nagging wives.” Would Chris Matthews liken her not-yet-ready for primetime voice to “fingernails on a blackboard?” Having watched Palin’s tribute to Hillary in Dayton this afternoon would Matthews accuse her of “playing the woman card?” Will he repeat the great wisdom that “"modern women" like Palin are unacceptable to "Midwest guys?” Will Tucker Carlson cop to the fact that every time he sees Palin, “I involuntarily cross my legs?” I don’t doubt Sarah Palin will face brutal misogyny in the coming weeks on the trail, and that infuriates me. But I’m willing to bet she won’t be called a “she-devil” or “bitch,” it won’t be happening in primetime, and it won’t be considered hilarious.
-
sponsorship
And I thought I was a big deal for doing this post with a four-day-old baby in my arms! To me, Palin is a much more familiar type—one for whom I feel something more complicated than awe. She is obviously not a homeschooling mom but reminds me a lot of the Christian homeschooling moms I met when I was reporting my book about young evangelicals. Palin is Christian mom on steroids, what the best homeschooling mom could accomplish if she'd only had five kids instead of 10. She's peppy, hyperconfident, the ultimate multitasker. She registers voters with one hand while changing diapers with the other. She knocks down bridges and then gives birth.
Her pretty little eyes twinkle behind those librarian glasses as she repeats a string of American cliches with no irony ("heroes," "profiles in courage," "commander of the national guard"). So strong is her conviction, so unwavering her faith that she could take down the whole dark army on a Monday afternoon, if only her middle one weren't running a fever. So busy is she that she never stops to contemplate the obvious contradictions: that she believes in the patriarchy but doesn't live it, that she disdains feminism while taking full advantage.
In those moments when you are feeling awe, I just caution you all to remember where that limitless energy comes from: not uppers or Diet Coke but that same steady source that led Bush into Iraq and kept him from ever questioning his decision: Faith, Without a Doubt.
-
sponsorship
Can we just stop for a moment and consider how amazing it is, in more than one sense of the word, that we have a vice-presidential nominee who has a son going to Iraq AND a baby? The time span itself leaves me flabbergasted. That is motherhood extended, motherhood practically eternal. It makes me want to know a lot more about Palin, but it also makes her seems awfully different than almost any woman I can think of.
You're right, Melinda, that Palin's demonstration of putting her anti-abortion views into practice will add a twist to the debate. Though I'm not sure I want the personal story of the vice-presidential nominee to overshadow the larger question about policy choices for the rest of us. Actually I am sure--it would be a mistake, and so the Democrats will probably try to tread as lightly as they can here. The more important question has got to be the one Dahlia raises, about whether this will come to seem like the catapulting forward of a woman who can handle the leap up the ladder and then some, or like the shaky choice of a campaign desperate to seem younger and hipper and daring. Since she's been in the national spotlight so little until now, Palin's performance over the next week or two matters a lot more than most VP choices would. She's got to seem like more than the sum or her quirky, unorthodox, bedrock conservative parts.
-
sponsorship
I need to amend my earlier post about Sandra Day O’Connor. There’s a difference between being a less-than-perfect candidate and a painfully under-prepared one. Watch the Dayton speech. I am all for pandering to women, but not this way.
-
sponsorship
In nature and on presidential tickets, symmetry is attractive. So both parties are offering us something old; something new; and something red, white, and blue, since both veep nominees have sons shipping off to Iraq soon.
Though I think it's smart that Sarah Palin is overtly pitching to the Hillary Holdouts—duh, isn't that the point?—it will be interesting to see how strong supporters of abortion rights react to a woman who really did a lot more, as Rachael said, than just talk about the value of every life; she consciously decided to take responsibility for the life of a child she knew would be born with Down syndrome. Apparently, she's so hard to fluster that after her water broke, she finished giving a long address before heading to the hospital. So it was perfect that her baby, born just last April, slept sweetly through the hoopla in Dayton today, in her sister's arms.
Giving her speech, Palin wasn't the second coming of Cicero, it's true. But she did put me in mind of my Kentucky grandma, who could do everything from plow a field to braid a rug, and taught me to fish with a cane pole. That's the sort of warm association that will be way more helpful to her party than a fourth senator would have been. At first glance, at least, this fishing, (basket)shooting, can-do kind of gal is not just a frontierswoman, she's bloomin' Daniela Boone.
On the personal level —where voting decisions are actually made—there is a lot to like about this PTA mom, high-school jock, and former union member, who can see Joey Biden's working-class roots and raise him, what with her high-school sweetheart of a fisherman hubby and her eau de saumon aroma. "We both grew up working with our hands,'' which have a French manicure now, I notice. She even coaxed what seemed to be a genuine smile out of McCain, who often looks like he has a toothache on the stump. She embodies his "reform'' message better than McCain himself does, since she actually waved off the famous bridge to nowhere: "I told Congress thanks but no thanks,'' she said today, to wild applause. "If our state wanted a bridge, I said we'd build it ourselves.'' And with her emergence on the national scene, I can hardly wait for the Northern Exposure reruns.
On the other side of the ledger, it seems that we could wind up with another president who can't pronounce nuclear. But for some reason, it doesn't grate as much coming from her.
-
sponsorship
Absolutely agree that this was an inspired, brave and buzz-y choice for veep. Everything the Joe Biden pick was not. I think Team McCain has gamed this age we live in better than the Obama camp, for which they deserve serious credit. Now this is gonna be an election. And here I was getting ready to retire my girl-cleats for the rest of the fall. I couldn’t be more excited.
One quick thought on the “inexperience” charges against Sarah Palin. I have no problem at all with a candidate who is slightly less tested than some of the white male contenders she beat out. For one thing, I am not sure what "experience" even means when it comes to the vice presidency. For another, one of the single best decisions Ronald Reagan made was the nomination of an unknown and (relatively) inexperienced woman to the Supreme Court, just because she was a woman and it was high time. I can’t imagine what this country would look like for women today if he hadn’t.
-
sponsorship
All right, now I'm excited. Back in March, I cast my primary vote for John McCain with confidence. His values, his stance on the issues matched mine better than those of any other Republican. His campaign was on a roll, the reports of its death the previous summer having been greatly exaggerated. He seemed to have the best chance of winning. But once he got the nomination, he just seemed ... lackluster. Granted, almost no one is going to look charismatic compared with Barack Obama, but when I saw an episode of The Daily Show with McCain talking to the press at a supermarket, standing in front of a large display of Dole orange juice, I knew what the joke was before Jon Stewart could open his mouth. . John McCain = Bob Dole.
But now he's gone and picked Sarah Palin, the young governor of Alaska for his running mate, and I could not be happier. Aside from her political bona fides, she is one cool woman. She's married to her high-school sweetheart, an Eskimo fisherman and "champion snowmobiler," according to her Wikipedia bio. They have five kids, all with slightly hippie-ish names, like Track and Willow. (No Prestons and Whitneys in that bunch.)
She's bound to appeal to fiscal conservatives, because she's as far as you can get from her fellow Alaskan Ted Stevens, the GOP senator recently indicted for "false financial disclosures" (read: corruption). She unseated Gov. Frank Murkowski in a primary and has both pushed through ethics reform and trimmed the fat from the state budget. She even killed the infamous "bridge to nowhere" project that brought Congress and Alaska so much ridicule.
Politically, it's a great move by McCain to appeal to the disgruntled Hillary voters that Obama might not have successfully wooed during the convention this week. Yes, she's pro-life, but she's not just talk. Faced with the heartbreaking news that her fifth child would likely have Down syndrome, she continued on with the pregnancy and gave birth to a son while in office, a son she calls "perfect." And like Hillary, she's one tough cookie. You don't take on an entrenched pol like Murkowski and succeed in a rugged state like Alaska if you're a lightweight.
She might have been a dark horse, but in hindsight, we should all be asking why that was so. A candidate who's going to appeal to the base, energize the campaign, and potentially reel in some Hillary supporters. Why would it have been anyone else?
-
sponsorship
Just yesterday, I was thinking how waiting for John McCain to choose a running mate was like watching St. Peter's for white smoke; your little baby heart is hoping that the choice will be outside the box, sending a message of inclusion and care for other people's problems, but in the end ... hey, who woulda guessed, it's Cardinal Same-old, Same-old.
Now that he's chosen Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, however, I am delighted to have been proven wrong. A naked grab for the Hillary vote? Yeah, and so what? Does progress ever happen for other-than-pragmatic reasons? Palin is a smart, reforming, 44-year-old pro-life mama of five who will bring energy to the ticket and help McCain with conservatives for sure.
The downside, of course, is that given McCain's age and history of health problems, it was extra important for him to pick someone who really could be president tomorrow. And by so explicitly demonstrating that he thinks Palin is ready, I'd say that undercuts the idea that Obama, who is three years older and far more experienced than she, is somehow still too green.
There's also that investigation into whether she did or did not try to get the state trooper her sister is divorcing fired ... but even if true, a lot of women in particular might not be outraged.
In the end, none of Palin's competition for the vice-presidential nomination would have worked: Romney? You can't have a guy who makes the candidate wince every time he looks at him. Lieberman? So many Republicans and Democrats would have been alienated by that choice that I never understood what he was thinking with that one. And Pawlenty and Ridge: Not exactly game-changers. Which Palin could be.
-
sponsorship
Emily Bazelon will be online today at noon with Slate's Christopher Beam to discuss what Barack Obama should do now that the convention is over, what he can expect from the opposition, and what possible pitfalls he needs to avoid. Send in a question!
-
sponsorship
There was no Britney in Barack Obama's convention speech, which was a loaded triple-bacon burger of substance, quite restrained in its use of emotion, lest anyone accuse him of blinding us with mere rhetorical skill born of clear thinking, in a text he wrote himself. There were a few funny lines but a bunch of important ones, and several that distilled the election:
On energy policy, it was brave of him to say, as he did, that "Washington's been talking about our oil addiction for the last 30 years, and John McCain has been there for 26 of them. In that time, he's said no to higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars, no to investments in renewable energy, no to renewable fuels. And today, we import triple the amount of oil as the day that Senator McCain took office. Now is the time to end this addiction, and to understand that drilling is a stop-gap measure, not a long-term solution. Not even close.'' A lot of people don't want to hear that, but it's true and must be said.
And on terrorism, it was bold to suggest that John McCain—who, as you might have heard, was a POW in Vietnam—is going to follow the Bushie playbook of talking tough but marching off in the wrong direction: "John McCain likes to say that he'll follow Bin Laden to the Gates of Hell—but he won't even go to the cave where he lives. ... You don't defeat a terrorist network that operates in 80 countries by occupying Iraq.''
But for me, the most important passages of all were these: First, he said that he welcomes a big fat fight over policy differences (and even "temperament''—meaning that all of you who worry he's gonna be too nice to McCain can put your shoulders down). "But what I will not do,'' he said, "is suggest that the senator takes his positions for political purposes. Because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other's character and patriotism. The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America—they have served the United States of America. So I've got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first.''
Which is not only right but smart, because he's calling McCain out and at the same time reminding us why he caught our eye in the first place, at the convention four years ago, when he talked about how blue and red (and green and orange) voters really are tired of those tired and wasteful divisions.
Then he went beyond that generality of "c'mon, people now, smile on your brother ...'' and spelled out what common ground would look like: "We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country. The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang violence in Cleveland, but don't tell me we can't uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals. I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination. Passions fly on immigration, but I don't know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers.''
Each of these sentences contains hot-button words that most political consultants would urge clients to avoid at all costs, but that's what was so impressive; he is betting that voters really are smart enough and grown-up enough to want the common-sense approach they always say they want.
Then, in what I took to be a wry underscoring of this theme that patriotism isn't a red or blue thing, the note he ended on, literally, was from a country song, Brooks & Dunn's "Only in America," which George W. Bush played constantly on the campaign trail in '04. Even as a fan of country music, however, I hope this was a one-time joke; "Boot Scootin' Boogie'' just holds too many bad memories.
-
sponsorship
He kept it down to earth tonight, which was the plan and a good idea—too much making people swoon would prove John McCain's charge that what Obama really is is a celebrity. And Obama nicely turned away the celebrity dig with a description of how he came from striving people who worked for everything they ever got. But he is at his most interesting, most compelling when he talks about himself, which is an unusual gift. When he switched to his policy plans, the specifics of what he wants to actually do for the country—he will make us energy independent in 10 years, for example—I just thought, "Sure you will." During the past couple of days, as both Bill Clinton and Joe Biden tried to talk about what Obama has done in his life to make us believe that he is ready to be president, you can't help but be struck by how little that adds up to. In the biggest speech to the country he has ever made, he didn't even try to list the accomplishments that make him qualified for the presidency. Yet, as you listen to him, strangely, that doesn't seem to matter.
-
sponsorship
On the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, Barack Obama answered back tonight with a simple, “I Have a Plan.” He’s distilled the trademark soaring rhetoric and big ideas into a handful of crisp one-liners: “The change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington.” And “America, we cannot turn back.” But beyond that, it was a policy speech: Wonk 101. A point-by-point refutation of the claim that the man is all empty talk. He uncorked the soaring bits only at the very end and seemingly only to remind us that if he wanted to he could do it again the next time.
Obama deflected all the Swift Boat slime with a flick of his wrist: “If you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. ... You make a big election about small things.” He went and clocked McCain, who both “doesn’t get it” and forgets that “we all put our country first.” And as this convention sometimes seemed to gasp for air amid all the vast, monster egos, Obama was smart enough to stop talking about himself. “What the naysayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me. It's been about you.”
This was a strong speech and probably not an easy one for Obama, who might have preferred to light up the night sky like he did in ‘04. But for my money, he reminded everyone who’s ever been blown away by Barack Obama that being blown away by Barack Obama is not a one-, or two-, or three-shot deal. It’s something we could, and should maybe start to count on.
-
sponsorship
I've got a bone to pick with Peggy Noonan's assessment of the Democratic Convention speeches in today's Wall Street Journal. Well, two. First, since when is Laura Bush "the most popular First Lady in modern American political history?" I know she polls well—as my husband pointed out, she reveals little, and what's not to like about things you don't know?—and I'm not sure how we're defining "modern American political history" exactly (when I Googled it, many references to the term seemed to encompass the latter half of the 20th century, if not the whole thing), but I have hard time seeing her as any Jackie O.
Second, Noonan contends that in her speech, "In order to paint both her professional life and her husband's, and in order to communicate what she feels is his singular compassion, [Michelle Obama] had to paint an America that is darker, sadder, grimmer, than most Americans experience their country to be." Seriously? Give me a break. Peggy Noonan obviously has not been laid off recently.
-
sponsorship
Maybe, Emily, I didn't see Bill Clinton's speech the way you did because I actually expected him to do Barack Obama some good tonight. But then, that I expected better of him is an old, old story.
History was made in the Pepsi Center this evening, when William Jefferson Clinton arrived on schedule. I would not say that Michelle Obama twinkled at the sight of him ... and could not say whether Hillary did, because there was a lady waving a flag standing in front of her. But before too long, I was remembering why I voted for Ralph Nader in 1996. Back then, Clinton had the political capital to get a much better welfare reform bill but cared more about himself than all those down-on-their-luck Americans he was always biting his lip over. Tonight, he had the chance to make a much better pitch for Barack Obama. But again, instead, forever and what else is new, talked about how much better things were when he was president.
Who was it again that he was referring to when he said Obama "has the intelligence and curiosity every [emphasis his] successful president needs''? Or helpfully pointed out that he and Hillary have made Obama the candidate he is today: "The long primary tested and strengthened him.'' Oh, and not to worry because "he will continue and enhance our nation's commendable global leadership in an area in which I [emphasis his again] am deeply involved—the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.''
Though every word he said about how much better off we were when he was president was true, of course, I hadn't realized that burnishing his legacy was the point of the exercise. He had the crowd going bananas before he ever opened his presidential beak, and one of the lines they loved best was, "People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.'' Woohoo, true again. But how that moves one voter to Obama I'm sure I don't know.
"America can do better'' than it has under Bush. "And Barack Obama will do better.'' Really? That is one weak offense, Bubba. And the old hound dog did not exactly rip John McCain's head off, either, going on and on about how his wife's former drinking buddy loves this country and sure suffered in Hanoi. The best I could give him would be a gentleman's "C''. But at the moment, I am too mad to manage it.
-
sponsorship
Bill, the original stickler for exact language, manages to give a roaring, inspiring endorsement of Obama without entirely selling out his wife: "Barack Obama is the man for this job."
[Emphasis mine. Just sayin'.]
-
sponsorship
Wow. I have spent these many months—years?—gnashing my teeth over Bill Clinton, ruing his narcissism and practically forgetting the good he did as president. And there he is tonight, showing us his best side: the commanding, masterful framer of Democratic goals and values vs. Republican ones, and repeatedly bringing the choice back to this presidential election, this Democratic candidate, Barack Obama. It wasn't just "He is ready to lead" and "They say he's too young and inexperienced ... sound familiar?" (I'm paraphrasing.) It was the weaving of Obama with real policy of the future and the best of the Clinton past. And what a great new twist on his signature line about hope. Maybe it's all about defying expectations. Whatever—it doesn't really matter. Bill, you nailed it.
-
sponsorship
Yeah, and she might also have whipped us up an omelet while she was up there, with feta, maybe, a little spinach, and some whole wheat toast would have been nice. But I personally am glad that Hillary did not sing any hosannas to Obama, or even try to sell us on how wonderful he is. Why? Because this was her Moonstruck moment, her last best chance to slap some sense into her crowd—metaphorically, of course—and scream "Snap out of it!" as if she were Cher and they were Nicolas Cage. To have done that and then pivoted to a sales pitch? Nope, she made the right call.
-
sponsorship
Hillary did give a good speech—with the clear subtext that she should be giving it Thursday night, not tonight, and look what has been lost by her not being the nominee. She was strong and commanding and convincing. And then the camera cut to the face of Bill Clinton, all teary-eyed, lip-biting, suffused-with-love-for-his-woman, and I thought, “Sorry, Hillary, we just couldn’t go there again.” After she spent all the time she did tracing women’s suffrage and what a world-historical figure she was, she rejected the obvious next move of mentioning that this year’s Democratic nominee is similarly a figure of history. She could have then segued into saying something, anything, about the specific qualities of Barack Obama. You’re right, Dahlia; it’s ultimately up to Obama to sell himself. But with the race right now looking as tight as it is, a bunch of put-out PUMAs could be a mighty big problem.
-
sponsorship
Hillary Clinton crushed tonight. Performed the pants off Mark Warner and Bob Casey and Deval Patrick and even the bolo-tied Brian Schweitzer -- who almost stole the show by mere virtue of the fact that unlike most of tonight’s speakers, he didn’t appear to be battery-operated. Clinton was as compelling, persuasive and commanding as we’ve come to expect. The fact that she ran circles around the men tonight reminded me why the glass ceiling with the 18 million cracks in it really is poised to shatter. I can’t recall a woman rocking a convention like that, ever.
It’s true. She talked about herself a lot. I think she’s earned every minute of that. Clinton made the case for why we “don’t need four more years of the last eight years” and why Americans work too hard, and have endured too much to suffer through more failed leadership. The mutual respect between her and Michelle Obama was nice to see. Like Emily, I could have wished she had made the case for Barack Obama as Barack Obama, beyond a fleeting reference to his early work in Chicago and the general claim that he is not John McCain. But then I can’t imagine being able to stand up and pay homage to a guy who destroyed my dream of a lifetime, either. Let’s give her credit for doing what she had to do: She lit up the crowd (and not a moment too soon) she reminded her supporters of the real stakes here; and she stuck a shrimp fork in John McCain’s eye enough times to really hurt a guy. So she didn’t sell the country on Obama. If he can’t manage to do that for himself, he’s got bigger problems than a bunch of put-out PUMAs.
-
sponsorship
I thought Hillary did a great job tonight. I liked how enthusiastic she seemed about Obama and the Democratic Party generally. She didn't have that extreme tightness she gets in her face sometimes when she's saying things she clearly doesn't believe. And Melinda, you're totally right that she pumped up Obama by delivering a healthy dose of old-fashioned motherly chiding: "Did you get all energized just for me, or did you care also about the young marine, or the single mother with cancer raising children?" (to paraphrase). It was the best kind of guilt trip, one that's less about the guilt than about restoring you to your original sense of mission. Still, I wish that she had been even more explicit than she was: for example, why not address the McCain ad head on and say, "Make no mistake: I expect my supporters to go out to go out and vote for Obama in November."
For, boy, did Hillary's speech not have an effect on the female Clinton-loving delegate CNN interviewed afterward, who was so focused on her own sense of loss she clearly didn't give two flying pigs about anyone else's. Cancer-ridden mother, be damned. This delegate cried, huffed, and puffed about the fact that Obama won the nomination; her partner's fingers kept creeping up onto her right shoulder in anxiety. She was so worked up that I felt puzzled watching her: Is there something wrong with me? Why don't I find Hillary's loss to Obama that upsetting? I consider myself a feminist, for God's sake. But I just don't see her loss as a blow to feminism, I suppose. After all, Hillary got further than many candidates do—including many male runners-up. I suppose you could say she has more experience than Obama and should clearly be our candidate, as this woman was arguing. But experience hasn't always won in the past. And the fact that it didn't this time doesn't mean that her gender is to blame. I guess I see the cup as half-full. I also can't bring myself to feel that the "PUMA" movement is at all useful in a feminist way; it seems like special pleading.
Though I did have that old twinge of excitement at seeing Hillary in the mix. And yes, Melinda, I loved that pumpkin suit! And the makeup! (Even though I felt guilty about noticing it. I rarely care how male politicians look—though I do find myself scanning Obama in similar ways. What's that about?) Meanwhile, I was so put off by CNN's relentless focus on "women" in the audience (punctuated by shots of Bill Clinton, who looked like a cat in the cream when his presidency was mentioned) that I distracted myself by reading some outlandish metaphors into Clinton's outfit: If she couldn't be Cinderella in this story, she'll be the pumpkin that's turned into a carriage, and she'll get Barack—her Cinderfella—to that inaugural ball. If only she can get her supporters to agree to this version of the fairy tale.
-
sponsorship
When Hillary asked in her speech tonight, "Were you in it just for me?" she crystallized for me why I wasn't behind her. I think if you are in it just for her, you're kind of throwing away the election for the Democrats. Hillary has always been polarizing—a lightning rod for right-wingers to organize, unite, and crusade against. Putting her at the head of the ticket would have been suicide for the Democratic Party. What she would have achieved for women becoming the first woman candidate for president would likely have cost the Democrats the election, unfortunately. And that's just not something at this point in history I, for one, am willing to risk. (Which is exactly the point she seemed to be making--that there's too much at stake right now not to unite as a party for this election--now that she's out of the race.)
That said, I thought she gave a good speech, and it was precisely because she asked the question "Were you in it just for me?" She appealed to her supporters to look beyond their own grudges and look out for the greater good of the party. She did what she needed to do to be the unity candle. I just could have done without so much of her own personal campaign catharsis. I'm glad she learned a lot, and now I'm sure her supporters feel better, having been acknowledged. But let's get on with the uniting part of it. Please, let the pity party be over.
-
sponsorship
The fire-bright shade of orange Hillary picked to wear tonight must lie directly across the color wheel from the particular shade of punched-up blue that flanked the DNC podium. The contrast couldn't have been sharper. And I thought Hillary couldn't have been sharper, in her presentation, in her poise, in her tribute video. She was great. She just wasn't great for Barack Obama.
Here's where I felt it: "Were you in it for me?" she asked her supporters. "Or were you in it for" the young Marine, the mother struggling to make ends meet, etc. Good, that justified the minutes she'd just spent on real-people stories. Then I waited for the turn, for her to say: Because this election isn't about me. Now, it's about Barack Obama. He will make your lives better in the ways I wanted to do and would have done. Because he is ready to lead the American people. He will take us where we need to go. And now you need to be in this election for him, and so for yourselves.
OK, I don't have a future as a speech writer. But that was the mark she should have hit harder and didn't, wasn't it? She got close for a second with, "before we keep going, we've got to get going, by electing Barack Obama!" That was the kind of line she was up there to deliver. There should have been more of them. By the end, the orange was starting to look red to me, as in Scarlet O'Hara red--the bright color you wear to the party you had to be brave to come to. Dahlia, you said that Michelle Obama was brave last night. I thought that Hillary was brave tonight. But not, also, giving enough to hand to her former opponent everything he may need.
-
sponsorship
Props to the lady in the electric pumpkin pantsuit. Because as Barack Obama's mama used to tell him, a little guilt is good for you. And Mama Hillary spelled that out again tonight, signaling to her people with all the subtlety of her bright orange outfit that if they want to leave her sitting home alone in the dark while they go running after that John McCain, well that's fine, no problem at all, really, because she's hardly done anything for them—other than work her heart out for 35 years. Oh, and it's only the FUTURE OF THE WORLD at stake: "I haven't spent the last 35 years in the trenches, advocating for children, campaigning for universal health care, helping parents balance work and family, and fighting for women's rights here at home and around the world, to see another Republican in the White House ... No way, no how, no McCain.'' Are we clear? "Were you in this campaign just for me?'' Nooooo, you were better than that, surely? "This won't be easy; progress never is. But it will be impossible unless we put a Democrat in the White House.'' Any questions? She was gracious to Michelle Obama, generous to Joe Biden and the first to lay a finger on John McCain: "In 2008, he still thinks it's OK that women don't earn equal pay ... With an agenda like that, it's no wonder George W. Bush and John McCain will be together in the Twin Cities next week; it's awfully hard to tell them apart ... We don't have a moment to lose or a vote to spare ...'' Case closed.
-
sponsorship
I have a strange soft spot for Michelle Obama, largely because she was born in 1964, the year I was born, and because she reminds me of women I knew in college. Our generation of women were not the first to get to the Ivy League. We had a different cross to bear: We were the first to be treated as absolutely ordinary there. As Michelle's infamous senior thesis attests, some felt a residual need to rebel against the old institution anyway, struggled with the idea of themselves as "insiders," or attempted to remain "outsiders" for just a bit longer.
But most, obviously including Michelle, adjusted and moved on. All of which is a roundabout way of agreeing with Dahlia and Dana that this was a brilliant speech precisely because it avoided the sometimes grating language that Hillary might have used, and precisely because it was in fact post-feminist rather than feminist: The perfect way to address her/my generation is not to brag about how we got there first (because we didn't) but to talk honestly about the myriad ways in which we've tried or failed or managed to adjust, having arrived. Which she did, rather well.
All of that stuff about how parents try to set good examples for children was particularly well done, from Michelle as well as her brother and mother, and somehow not sick-making, as these things at conventions usually are. There, laid out for us, was an example of parents who persuaded their children to adopt their values: Would that we all could be so succesful in doing so.
-
sponsorship
Au contraire, Emily: I think we should be mopping our brows with relief that Michelle Obama's speechwriters (or did she write it herself?) avoided the merest hint of sisterhood-is-powerful language or Hillary-identification in her speech. Sure, as a feminist it would have been satisfying to see her raise a fist in solidarity, but let's face it, this speech wasn't aimed at the likes of us. Her target, which she nailed with impressive deftness, was that vague, elusive and maddening clump of the electorate that still somehow finds Obama's wife too aggressive and scary and un-first ladylike, what with the fist-bumping and the Harvard degree and the actual opinions on policy.
Watching her bat 1.000 in every conventional first lady category--for God's sake, she's beautiful, stylish, charming, poised, maternal and warm, leaving aside for the moment her obvious accomplishments and intellect--I wanted to call up these waffling bozos in person and harass them. She's Jackie Kennedy with a working-class back story! What else do you want from the woman? Emily's remark about the speech's race subtext can't help but ring sadly true: If you don't like Michelle Obama after this speech, do you like any flavor of ice cream besides vanilla?
-
sponsorship
What I loved best about Michelle Obama's speech tonight was that it was fearless, but in a very different way from the fearlessness modeled by Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi. Here is a woman with a degree from Harvard Law School, who could have talked about law and policy and poverty, and yet she talked about her kids, her husband, and her family. And she didn't do that merely to show us that smart women are soft and cuddly on the inside. She did what everyone else in this campaign is terrified to do: She risked looking sappy and credulous and optimistic when almost everyone has abandoned "hope" and "change" for coughing up hairballs of outrage. Every Democrat in America seems to be of the view that optimism is so totally last February; that now's the time to hunker down and panic real hard. Good for Michelle for reminding us that to "strive for the world as it should be" is still cool, and for being so passionate about that fact that she looked to be near tears. Good for her for speaking from the heart when everyone else seems to be speaking from the root cellar. And if that doesn't persuade you the woman is a warrior, let me just add that true bravery is letting your 7-year-old turn the first night of the Democratic Convention into open-mic night with the big screen and the party frock. Think any man alive would have done that? Me neither.
-
sponsorship
Michelle's master aim tonight: to knit herself to the American dream, the American story. How many times did she use those phrases? Her mother helped, with "I got to stay home with my kids," and her pursed proud mouth, listening in the crowd. Her handsome brother did, too, with his tales of her playing the piano to get him downstairs before a big basketball game. And those gorgeous girls of hers, telling the image of their dad on a huge TV screen that their mom did good. (Primetime Family Reality TV: I imagined my boys up there, one of whom might have been tempted to imagine the crowd as a mosh pit and dive, and let out a sigh of relief for Michelle when they gave up the mike.) The message was that this is a beautiful family and yet a real family. The subtext: if you still don't like them, is it just because they're black?
Michelle's second aim was slightly less successful, I think: to stand up for women's rights and concerns and in so doing to stand in for Hillary. Invoking the 88th anniversary of women's suffrage was good. So was calling out HIllary by name as a kind of American hero. But this wasn't where the passion in the speech lay. That went into the lines about being a sister, wife, mother, and into Michelle's evocation of her father. Maybe that's just fine, because it's what more of the country is listening for. And certainly it was too much to ask Michelle to single-handedly head off the much-rumored irate Hillary supporters. But if I can quibble with a woman who pulled off electrifying sincerity in her big moment, I wanted one more moment in coded feminist-speak, for the other sisters.
Also in Slate: John Dickerson examined Michelle Obama's big moment.
-
sponsorship
In August of 1980, I watched Teddy Kennedy's convention speech from the basement of a Holy Cross retreat house in Colorado Springs, where a bunch of us who had just graduated from Notre Dame and had signed up to spend a service year working in inner city schools and neighborhoods and parishes across the country were getting together for a few days before heading off to our various assignments. Nothing against Jimmy Carter, but I doubt there was a single one of us who hadn't been pulling for Kennedy that year, and he spoke directly to us and made us cry but also filled us with hope:
And someday, long after this convention, long after the signs come down and the crowds stop cheering, and the bands stop playing, may it be said of our campaign that we kept the faith.
May it be said of our Party in 1980 that we found our faith again.
And may it be said of us, both in dark passages and in bright days, in the words of Tennyson that my brothers quoted and loved, and that have special meaning for me now:
I am a part of all that I have met
To [Tho] much is taken, much abides
That which we are, we are—
One equal temper of heroic hearts
Strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end.
For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.
Tonight, watching him walk and talk a little haltingly, and listening to him quote from that 1980 speech, how could anyone not be torn up and yet thrilled, too, all over again, that his work and ours really does go on. There he was, battling brain cancer and yet showing up, not quite steady on his feet but still passionate about universal health care, uncertain of his own future but still so confident in ours, truly passing the torch not just to Barack Obama, but to all of us: "I pledge I will be there next January,'' to vote for health care reform, he said. "For me, this is a season of hope .. the work begins anew, the hope rises again, and the dream lives on.''
-
sponsorship
Some people just still don't buy that Michael Phelps won the 100-meter fly by a razor-thin one-hundredth of a second. Even Slate's own Will Saletan is skeptical, wondering if the sensitivity of the touch pads came into play. I've got to respectfully disagree.
I was an extremely amateur swimmer—the highest championships I made it to were zones, not nationals—but I've been to my fair share of meets and slammed into many a touch pad. Saletan writes, "It's not who touches first. It's who triggers the sensor first." The problem is he's making a distinction that does not exist in the sport. In swimming parlance, whoever triggers the sensors IS who touched first—the person who touches hard enough to stop the clock first via the touch pad. (No one goes around saying they got "sensor-triggered" out. They say they got "touched out.") There's no photo finish in swimming (and I realize they can reconstruct high-level races with photos in extreme cases like this, but the photos are backup; the touch pad determines the winner), nor does anyone care if you lightly brush the pad first. If you don't hit it hard enough to stop the clock first, you lose.
I can assure you that gliding to a finish, as every swimmer at that level knows, can be the kiss of death. I knew it at age 12, so I'm pretty confident that someone at Cavic's level of expertise knows it. Maybe he thought he didn't have enough room for a half-stroke (and Phelps, who took a chance in taking an extra half-stroke, took the right one); maybe he thought that half-stroke would cost him time or that he was far enough ahead to be first with one last full stroke. Saletan asks if Cavic "had realized how much pressure was required [to stop the touchpad], would he have shortened his stroke as Phelps did, trying to trigger the sensor first, instead of trying to touch the wall first?" In addition to there being no distinction between "trigger" and "touch," I can guarantee that Cavic most definitely was "trying to trigger the sensor first," even if he didn't know how many kilograms per square centimeter were required to do so. There's a reason the saying about finishing a race in swimming is to go "Not to the wall but through the wall." Cavic just didn't make the same smart decision to hit the wall at full velocity that Phelps did, and it cost him.
This type of loss in not uncommon in swimming—Darra Torres lost the gold this Olympics by one one-hundredth of a second herself in the 50 freestyle—and the touch pads measure to thousandths of a second for a reason (to ensure accuracy for the hundredths of a second that the times will be recorded in). Sometimes you just get touched—or sensor-triggered or however you want to say it—out, end of story.
-
sponsorship
"If anything, the country shows every sign of yearning for Clintonism as a governing idea now as much as it ever has."
-- Mark Penn, today in Politico
So I guess the Politico called Mark Penn and said hey, cowboy, we've got some rope over here that would look real good around your neck if you're up for one of those do-it-yourselfers...and of course, he couldn't resist. The result being this piece, Clintonism Lives, which I'm fairly sure was not intended as self-parody. But the fact that the guy who masterminded Hillary Clinton's campaign into a ditch still doesn't get that this is not the week for an apologia should be a cautionary tale for other Clinton fans: They will be judged on the extent to which your grudges are on display in Denver - which is why I fully expect the Clintons themselves to be gracious if it kills them. Yes, Bill is out there grousing that he's not sure how to sell Obama as commander-in-chief. But by Wednesday, I'm sure he will have figured it out.
What Hillary Nation has to think about is: Even on an it's-all-about-you basis, if John McCain wins in November, are you so sure that vindication of Hillary's prediction that Obama wasn't electable will be the result? It's just as likely she'd be blamed for such an outcome, which the Clintons know. That's why she will hit every mark and then some. And why, if he goes so much as cocks an eyebrow off message, we can safely assume he really has lost his last political marble.
-
sponsorship
McCain's new ad "Passed Over" urges Hillary voters to see the fact that she wasn't chosen as Obama's running mate as a fresh betrayal—and evidence that he's just too wimpy to countenance a strong, truth-telling woman: "She won millions of votes,'' a female announcer says, over a montage of various flattering campaign-trail shots of Hillary, "but isn't on his ticket. Why? For speaking the truth. ... The truth hurt. And Obama didn't like it.'' It's a great ad, cynical in the extreme, and likely to be so effective that I can't wait for the follow-up featuring the greatest hits of all the things Bill Clinton has said about Obama. Only, if McCain is such a Hillary fan, and they have so much in common as a couple of straight-talkers, what's to stop him from showing that ability to reach across the aisle he's always talking about? McCain-Clinton—now that says maverick.
-
sponsorship
The poor Old Capitol Blues and BBQs festival—it had the dubious honor of competing today, adjacent to the old state capitol grounds in Springfield, Ill., with the Obama-Biden rally. It didn't fare well, at least during the rally—the barbecue vendors looked like they were suffering as much in the Midwest heat as everyone else, but with the added insult of a lack of customers. Crowds amassed despite sweltering temperatures to see the rally; far fewer came for ribs and music, even though the festival is an annual event and had been planned for a year.
But really, it seemed to me a metaphor for the economy that Biden was busy espousing on (his zinger about McCain not being able to decide which of his seven kitchen tables to sit at and worry whether or not he could pay his bills did get a good response). Few wanted to pay the $5 to get in the festival, it seemed, even for a sight line of the speech that wouldn't leave you packed in like a sardine on an extremely muggy day. (The festival literally backed up to the press tent at the rally. You could see the stage from a distance; you just couldn't get into the Obama event from there.) At first I thought it was just Springfieldians being thrifty—I grew up here, so I know the reluctance of the local population to pay a cover charge. But as I ducked into a restaurant to get water during the speech, I saw that not only were people glued to the big screens showing the speech just outside—when I first went in, you could hear a pin drop—they were focused on the economy; people shouted every time there was a mention of fixing it.
Festival attendance may have suffered from the heat, all right—it was 90 degrees and humid, and who wants to eat ribs in that weather?—but I couldn't help but think it was eerily symbolic of the haves and have-nots Biden was contrasting, even though the festival's proximity was accidental, to be able to pay to see the speech from a less-sardinelike setting.
-
sponsorship
It's not just the foreign policy chops; he brings some blood (and flab!) and jaw-flapping to a sometimes too-cool-for-school campaign. Voters actually liked it when Bush tripped over his own tongue; when he failed in his battle with blurting, they could relate, and that is the beauty of the Biden choice: He's got the smarts, the experience, and without question could be president. (In fact, watching the Democratic debates during primary season, I always thought that a viewer who came to the exercise cold would have assumed Biden was the front-runner.) But he also brings the humanity that Democrats have not always seen as important. It is.
Though no one has a more heart-breaking personal narrative than he—his first wife and their baby daughter died in a car accident soon after he was elected to the Senate—he sure never talked about it during primary season, showing an Irish Catholic restraint that will be familiar to a lot of the voters Obama needs to win over. And his working-class roots aren't just nice; they're why I fully expect him to know how to play rough and be plenty comfortable in the role of bad cop, taking on the Republican ticket in a way the candidate himself cannot. A guy who commutes home on public transpo every day taking on Mr. Can't Keep Track of His Houses? As we say in the Democratic Party, pas de probleme.
-
sponsorship
I've sat through too many Senate hearings to be excited about Joe Biden, of the long pontificating question (example), for vice president. Obama-Biden: a ticket of orators. I know that HIllary—or rather, Bill—would have been the snake in the presidential sleeping bag, as Slate's David Plotz said months ago. An impossible choice, the rationalist in me keeps reminding myself. But if Obama had taken the gamble anyway, I would have trusted his judgment in making that bet. And I'd be feeling one part elated and one part hugely nervous this morning. Instead of vaguely let down. And I wasn't even a Hillary supporter.
Yes, there is a sound argument for choosing an experienced white man, a party establishmentarian, a foreign policy expert. And it's nice that he's Catholic and has blue-collar origins. But mostly I hope this team knows how to fight, and fight hard. Watching the McCain ad that's already putting Biden's words to work against him, and then the dueling ads about McCain's can't-count-them houses and Obama's Rezko house deal, it seems to me that the Republicans are out-duking the Democrats. Denver will undoubtedly produce plenty of smartly staged smiles. I hope Obama-Biden also proves quickly that they're smart about showing their angry side.
-
sponsorship
Just heard that Biden is "definitely the guy,'' which makes so much sense that I worry it might not be true. ... No sighting of a bumper-sticker, though.
Update: CNN's Candy Crowley reports that there is nothing today's young folk like more than text messages. Larry King advises viewers hoping to learn Obama's VP pick in this manner to "remember to check your things.'' Former McCain press guy (and more recently, Fred Thompson adviser) Todd Harris thinks Joe Biden would be a horrible pick because he's gaffe-prone and you never know what he's going to say next. Sort of like George W. Bush? And here I thought that's what people used to like about him.
-
sponsorship
Does roll off the tongue, though I was sort of hoping they'd spell it Obama-Bi ...
Not sure I'm convinced by that Obama-Bayh bumper sticker Trailhead posted on, which looks a little like the one from ‘04 that said "Bush-Voldemort." Or that's what I'm hoping, anyway, because Bayh is somehow both too much the sort of Steady Eddie who's your fallback date to prom—and an unhappy reminder of his former jogging partner, John Edwards. And does Obama really want to make "Vanilla: Still America's Favorite" the motto of the change election?
-
sponsorship
Doing research on something else entirely, I came across this item in the Phnom Penh Post's police blotter for August 22, 2008 (today):
MOTHER SEPARATES RUNAWAY LESBIANS
Oun Malis, 35, and Toucha Tith Thida, 25, a lesbian couple with Oun Malis in the role of the husband, were separated by one of the girl's mothers in Takhmao, Kandal province on Monday. The women met when they both got jobs as security guards just over a year ago. Before the couple fell in love, Toucha Tith Thida married a Korean man who later left her to return to Korea. Toucha Tith Thida's mother tricked the girl into coming back home by telling her that her husband had returned from Korea and wished to see her. Oun Malis has told Toucha Tith Thida that she will kill herself if she does not return to her within a week.KOH SANTEPHEAP
Now, I don't know any of the facts here. My heart breaks for these two, if all this is true. We would have called this "baby dyke drama," once upon a time, had it happened here in the states. But the context is obviously very different—why in the world is this in the police blotter, of all things?—so I can only wonder what's going on.
But it reminds me of a spate of runaway lesbian weddings in India a few years ago, in which young adult women ran away from home to be together, marrying in informal ceremonies. The surprise was that, when the families went to the police to try to break up the couples, the police or the judge would side with the young women. It was part of a shift in attitude toward gay rights, I learned in 2005 from Aditya Bondyopadhyay, a fearless and amazing gay rights organizer based in India (who risks violence there, as well as in his work in Pakistan and Nepal). I will write to Aditya to find out more about what's going on in Cambodia, but he may not know. If any XX Factor reader happens to know something, please send it along.
-
sponsorship
In an op-ed in the Guardian this morning, Jessica Valenti, founder of the blog Feministing and author of the book Full Frontal Feminism, discusses what she believes has been the media's unfair treatment of Michelle Obama, wife of Barack. Valenti writes, "Media coverage of [Michelle] Obama has packed a nasty racism-sexism combo that is quickly becoming a national disgrace." She cites unflattering depictions of Michelle in Fox News and the National Review, and claims that some right-wing commentators (she doesn't name any specifically) have said downright racist things about the prospective first lady. She also appears to be very strung out by the now-infamous New Yorker cover of some weeks back.
Unfortunately, Valenti goes too far in her claims, mistaking lack of pundit love for Michelle for racism. Of course anyone can find examples of crazed right-wingers who say racist, offensive things about the Obamas, just as any McCainiac could look to the far left in drumming up outrageous examples of McCain hate. There has not been widespread racism toward Michelle Obama in the mainstream media. In fact, I would dare to say she's gotten away with a lot precisely because the media are afraid of being accused of racism—for instance, her rather bold assertion that this was the first time in her adult life that she was "really proud of [her] country."
In getting hung up on the race point, Valenti undermines the more important aspect of this issue, which is what constitutes the image of the American "political wife." The very term itself points to the sexism associated with the way we judge most (male) candidates' wives. There is a definite image of the political wife that these ladies are encouraged to follow, and someone like Laura Bush epitomizes this character. She's meek and well-mannered, and she has completely worthy yet completely innocuous pet causes like literacy rates. Lovely, worthy, but not exactly a firebrand. Like Teresa Heinz Kerry, who took flak in 2004 for being strong-willed and for rubbing people the wrong way, Michelle Obama defies that stereotype.
I don't particularly like Michelle Obama, because I think a lot of what she's said in this election cycle has been in poor taste (I agreed with Maureen Dowd about the butter-and-toast shtick being tiresome back in 2007). Still, if there's anything we can take away from Valenti's confused rant, it is this sense that we've been late to modernize our conception of what a candidate's wife looks like. Valenti and friends would do well to focus their energies on that important discussion as opposed to the race-card fallback.
-
sponsorship
Dahlia, when you're right, you're right; just walking around with a uterus is enough to get you committed in the court of public opinion, so why perpetuate the whole woman-scorned stereotype with self-destructive, Bat-lady behavior? Yes, rage is its own (and only) reward. But Medea never gets a night off; crazy is a full-time job.
I do not agree, however, that "a vote for McCain is a vote to overturn Roe.'' Or assume, as you say you do, that the Hillary Holdouts "don't care'' if Roe is overturned. Of course they worry about that possibility—and in the end will probably be frightened into returning to the Democratic fold on that basis. But though an entire industry exists to argue otherwise, to keep us afraid and divided and donating, Roe is not going to be overturned. And putting all our energy into either warding off that constant threat or keeping alive that constant hope is not just fighting the last war; it's fighting a phony war, one that continues to distract and drain us but effectively became theater a long, long time ago.
Case in point: In Evansville, Ind., where my parents live, there have been banner headlines this week about the latest local abortion fight—in a county where (in theory, anyway) no abortions are performed. Under cover of darkness, i.e., without any public input, the Vanderburgh County Commissioners passed an ordinance that would force abortion providers, if there were any, to have hospital-admitting privileges in case something went wrong and to give patients info about where to get follow-up care in case of complications. Indiana Planned Parenthood strongly protested and put out this statement: "No abortions are performed in Vanderburgh County. There are no facilities and there are no providers ... it appears as if the commissioners took action to fix a problem that does not exist ... This type of regulation does nothing to improve health care in our state. It just further restricts a woman's ability to make decisions about her own future.'' An editorial in today's Evansville Courier & Press suggested that the real goal was purely political; one of the Republican commissioners, who is up for re-election, was trying to look like a hero to his peeps in his race against a pro-life Democrat.
On the national level, do you think John McCain meant it back in 1999 when he said he wouldn't bother trying to overturn Roe? ("In the short term, or even the long term,'' he said then, "I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations.") Or does he mean it when he says now that overturning Roe will be a priority in a McCain White House? The moment I wrote about last week, describing McCain in the fall of 2000 looking out the window in embarrassment as Lindsey Graham and I got into a whole big discussion about when life begins, convinced me that he would rather eat worms than hear the word abortion. Bush v. Gore made plain that the Supreme Court IS a political body, and politically, the Republican Party has no, I repeat, no interest in overturning Roe.
The perceived enemy of choice has changed, too, when a lot of you either weren't looking or didn't want to see: Even many self-described pro-lifers—and that term means different things to different people, believe me—have shifted the focus away from changing the law to changing the moral consensus and addressing material needs. When the conservative but pro-Obama jurist Doug Kmiec says that "merely reversing a single court decision such as Roe ... as best I can tell, would directly save no unborn life,'' he speaks for a lot of us who see the conversation we've been stuck having as an incredibly narrow way to look at "life issues.''
I think we can probably agree that criminalizing abortion would not stop it but would radically alter the political terrain to the benefit of the, to my mind, often anti-life GOP. And as a Colorado pro-life Democrat named Chris Rose told me for my book on women voters, the Republican Party can't end abortion: "Ending abortion isn't something they know how to do, because that would require an enormous change in our country and in our government,'' including programs to help women provide for their children and avoid unwanted pregnancies. "If you believe government can't do anything right, then you can't end abortion.''
So Hillary fans: It's your party, you can cry if you want to. But don't cry to me if, for thousands of reasons other than Roe, the result is not quite as satisfying as you'd hoped. For the lady in the attic, there is never a happy ending.
-
sponsorship
Except for a bit of mostly innocuous fun-poking, the Beijing Olympics have pretty much steered clear of any sexist slip-ups. Until yesterday, when reports surfaced of the International Table Tennis Federation’s latest strategy for reversing low attendance to its matches. Now that gymnastics and beach volleyball are over, the ITTF is looking to draw attention to the sexier side of table tennis, urging lady players to adjust their competition outfits to flaunt more “curves.”
Real considerate, ITTF. Being Olympians and all, I’m sure the lady table tennis players don’t have any more important things to worry about or stress over than their appearances! This scenario reminds me of a scene from A League of Their Own, in which Geena Davis’ character, Dottie Hinson, sees the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League uniform for the first time. Recognizing its counterintuitive design, Dottie points out that (beyond being exploitive of her body) the garment stands to significantly hinder her athletic performance exclaiming, “I have to squat in that?”
What would Dottie Hinson say to the ITTF if she knew that so little has changed for female athletes since the AAGPBL forced her to bunt and slide in a poorly disguised cocktail dress?
One of the most inspiring aspects of seeing women compete in the Olympics is watching the stereotypically separate spheres of femininity and athleticism collide. From Dara Torres to Natalie du Toit, the lady Olympians’ blend of determination, strength, and elegance consistently rises above public preconceptions, continually redefining the archetype of an athletic woman. Requiring female athletes to look hot for their onlookers would detract from the athletic and social advancements these women are making.
Don’t get me wrong. I see nothing wrong with Olympians, male or female, choosing to flaunt their flawless bodies for my viewing pleasure. Props to Japan’s Naomi Yotsumoto for vamping it up of her own volition. Michael Phelps also seems to love the glint of his hairless body in the spotlight, and you won’t hear me complaining. But the ITTF’s request for skimpier female uniforms is pretty sexist, particularly when the request admittedly serves no functional purpose. These athletes are in Beijing to compete in the name of national pride and international community, for a shot at distinction in their impossibly competitive field. We shouldn’t be concerned about what they wear. (And frankly, if they want to make the case for shock value, perhaps the ITTF would prefer to revert back to the uniform worn by the original Olympians.)
-
sponsorship
Are we allowed to say that here? Watching Rachel Maddow sets my heart aflutter. And not just me, apparently! I hear that she attracts across almost all persuasions--straight and gay, women and men. Especially when she's allowed to appear, as in the photo below, without that silly lip gloss and diminishing eye shadow.
Rachel: Call me any time, day or night.
To be on the show, of course. I'm a smart talker. And I know lotsa stuff.
-
sponsorship
And, Dana and Dahlia, even as a non-cable news-watching Luddite, I'm thrilled for Rachel Maddow's new gig. That Nation piece was the first time in months that I read a magazine profile on a major news commentator--and there has been a recent obsession, no?--that didn't make me think for a few moments that I was reading the same article on the same egomaniacal white guy who thinks none of the other egomaniacal white guys on TV take him seriously enough as the cultural force that he surely is. (That last bit might also explain why I don't watch cable news). No one will accuse Rachel Maddow of being Ted Baxter, that's for sure.
-
sponsorship
Dahlia, I'm also psyched at Rachel Maddow's ascension to the sweet spot at MSNBC, right after Keith Olbermann's top-rated 8 p.m. show. I love that Maddow is not just a non-Barbie doll; she's a 35-year-old out lesbian, with short-cropped hair and a straightforwardly dykey self-presentation (well, dykey for television; MSNBC does load on the mascara and lip gloss, as if anxious to remind viewers that she's still a woman.) The Nation profile you link to hints at an oddball sense of humor that makes me eager for her show's debut on Sept 8. Will she host a special segment on "the evil child-actor twins that run Poland"?
-
sponsorship
Props to Rachel Maddow for scoring her own primetime show. And props to MSNBC for recognizing and rewarding monster talent. Maddow is whip-smart, funny, original, and living proof that women needn't spit and hiss to succeed on TV. May the road rise up to meet her.
-
sponsorship
Meghan, I checked out that T-shirt sniffing study you flagged, and, well, it hardly implies a crisis for pill-users – or a pink slip for novelists.
To recap: The researchers asked women to rate the smells of T-shirts worn by different men. For each woman, they chose three men who were more genetically similar (in terms of a specific set of genes) and three men who were less similar. The genes in question were part of the major histocompatibility complex, or MHC, which plays a crucial role in immune function and is also linked to body odor (possibly because of interactions between the immune system and skin bacteria). The researchers found that when women began taking birth control pills, their smell preferences shifted somewhat toward men with more similar MHC profiles, though the difference was not huge.
Why might this matter? In the past, some research found that women tended to prefer the smell of men whose MHC makeup differed more extensively from their own. That result remains controversial, but from an evolutionary perspective, it makes for a good story. When women mate with less similar men, their kids may have more robust immune systems that can better fend off a wide range of diseases. In theory at least, that advantage may have helped to shape women’s tastes over time. As for the pill, if it were to skew preferences toward MHC similarity, women might smile on less genetically favorable partners, leading to problems in the long run. When women stop taking the pill, for instance, their tastes might shift again, resulting in “the breakdown of relationships," as one researcher speculated. Hence the maelstrom about women choosing the “wrong” men.
Strikingly, however, the current study fails to confirm the premise of that whole story. When women smelled men's T-shirts at the outset, before any of them took the pill, they showed no preference for men with more MHC difference. That is, they did not exhibit the supposed tendency that the pill supposedly disrupts. What’s more, when women taking the pill smelled the T-shirts again, they showed no preference for men with more MHC similarity. Yes, the pill-takers tended to rate the smell of MHC-similar men more favorably than they had before. But to repeat: They still didn’t prefer the similar guys overall. Despite the hype, then, this study’s findings are limited – and pretty messy.
Of course smell can play a role in romance. And the scent of MHC difference could turn out to be one factor – of many – that influences women’s choices. But really, when it comes to searing insight into longing and romantic crisis, T-shirt sniffing has nothing on Flaubert.
-
sponsorship
I admit, I was as enthralled as the next person with Michael Phelps' amazing run for eight golds at the Beijing Olympics, perhaps more so. I watched the races live, yelling at the TV; I rewatched them on the Internet (have you seen the 4 x 100 relay underwater view? Go watch!); and I started letting my 4-year-old stay up until 10:30 p.m. so he could glimpse history for himself. (And now you should see him try to swim butterfly.)
But if there was anything that disappointed me about the Olympics swimming coverage, it's that Natalie Coughlin's own remarkable feat—winning six medals in six events for the U.S. women—went comparably unnoticed by NBC's commentators. Granted, her haul of one gold, two silvers, and three bronzes wasn't as impressive as Phelps', but she swam an ambitious program and has never finished out of the medals in 11 Olympic events (she also swam in 2004).
Swimming has always been my favorite Olympic sport. I was a less-than-mediocre age-group swimmer growing up, and I still fondly remember coming home from swim practice each day, making a sandwich, and plopping down in front of the TV to watch the 1984 Olympics. What made the swimming in those Games so fun to watch was that the women's team had just as much success and enjoyed just as much attention as the men. Tracy Caulkins, Carrie Steinseifer, and Mary T. Meagher (and Dara Torres, of course) were just as famous for those two weeks as Rowdy Gaines, Rick Carey, and Steve Lundquist. And from then up through the 2000 Games, the U.S. swimming medal count has been roughly divided between the men's and women's teams. In the last two Olympics, though, our men's teams have been considerably more successful than the women, even if you adjust for Phelps' out-of-this world performances. I can't know the cause, and it might be an anomaly. But here's my suggestion: Speedo, it's great that you rewarded Michael Phelps with a $1 million bonus for his eight golds. But how about ponying up an equal amount to USA Swimming to further develop our talented young female swimmers?
-
sponsorship
For now, the whole discussion about Hillary supporters and which way they'll jump feels to me like a giant exercise in conjecture. There's Melinda's still-bitter friend, and PUMA (John Dickerson translation: Party Unity My Ass). And then there's this Friend of Hillary with her "Yes We Can" pin. We'll know something more when we see a good poll of women in Ohio or Virginia, I suppose (though to really answer the question, the poll would have to zero in on Democratic women who voted in the primaries). And of course, we won't really know how this plays out until November. But whatever former Clinton supporters actually decide, in whatever numbers, the idea that you don't vote for Obama because he's the popular guy who stole the election from the diligent gal makes sense only if you don't care what that guy, compared with his opponent, would do once in office. Maybe that's fine for student body president. But for the real deal? As the Friend of Hillary above says, "There is not a hair's breadth of difference between Hillary's position on the issues I care about most deeply and Obama's." Agree. Disagree. But don't change the subject, at least for more than 10 minutes, in Denver or in your living room.
-
sponsorship
Meghan, I'm curious about that T-shirt sniffing, too, and am trying to get hold of the actual paper. In the meantime, I confess, I've been riveted by another tale that features some modicum of science but also five puppies, a Mormon sex slave, and (possibly) a three-legged horse. So, turning for a moment from birth control to copious reproduction ...
Last week, a woman named Bernann McKinney received five puppies that had been cloned from her dear, departed pit bull, Booger. This was apparently the first time a canine had been cloned for commercial purposes, and McKinney was photographed frolicking on the floor, hugging and squeezing one of the pups (whom she called "mini-Boogers"), and telling them, "Yes, I know you! You know me, too!"
Unfortunately for her, someone watching the spectacle also recognized her as a fugitive whose real name was Joyce. According to the Associated Press, in 1977, Joyce McKinney "became a British tabloid sensation over a kidnapping case. She faced charges of unlawful imprisonment after she was accused of abducting a Mormon missionary in England, handcuffing him to a bed and making him her sex slave. She jumped bail and was never brought to justice." Another account, which likens McKinney (weirdly) to John Edwards, features velvet handcuffs and has her posing "as a deaf-mute actor to escape to Canada."
McKinney is also wanted in Tennessee, it turns out, for "criminal conspiracy to commit aggravated burglary" in 2004. "Authorities there said she instructed a 15-year-old boy to break into a house," the AP reports. Her attorney explains she "needed the money to help her three-legged horse." She wished to buy the horse (seriously) a fake leg.
So where is McKinney now? Is she on the lam with five puppies and a four-legged horse? Will she ever explain what insatiable drive led her to buy five clones of a beloved pet (let alone one)?
The South Korean company that did the cloning, meanwhile, is not backing down and seems, in fact, to sense opportunity. The head of the company says "criminal records will not disqualify future customers." Indeed, "cloned animals could even help them find stability and thus prevent crimes." I'll gladly stay tuned.
-
sponsorship
Has anyone been reading about this new U.K. study examining how the birth control pill affects women's choice of sexual partners? As one CBS headline crudely puts it, women on the pill allegedly choose "the wrong partner." That's because, as the authors of the study argue, women NOT on the pill are generally "attracted to men whose genetic makeup differs from their own" which "increases the chances for a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby," as CBS put it. But women on the pill seem to choose partners who are genetically similar to themselves. I can't quite tell how they've determined this, but it has to do with something called MHC genes, which affect immune responses, and smelling T-shirts. As CBS puts it: "In laboratory studies, women who sniff men's sweaty T-shirts find them more attractive when they come from men whose MHC genes don't match theirs. It's not that certain MHC genes smell better to women -- it's the difference that counts."
On the pill, however, this seems to change, and it has, according to a number of scientists, a lot of implications for relationships going forward, because apparently women who are with men who have similar genetic material get dissatisfed quickly and search for new sex partners. (It's not your hair, honey, or the fact that you don't do the dishes, it's your MHC genes.) But do these kind of studies really tell us very much? Are our sex and romantic lives really so genetically deterministic that we can make predictions based on smelling a man's T-shirt? (God, that would have saved a lot of novelists some trouble.) I'd love to know what some of our more scientifically trained XXFactor bloggers have to say, because the study and the conclusions being drawn raised all sorts of questions for me. It's times like these when you wish more journalists understood biology, because the pieces I've read on this story seem, in general, very crude.
-
sponsorship
I’m with Melinda on this one Emily. I’ve always believed that "closure" and "catharsis" are pretty much just empty words one generally uses to justify sleeping with ex-boyfriends after the fifth glass of wine. The mere fact that Clinton insists this roll call will be cathartic, just as Obama asserts that’s not the point at all, highlights the deep disconnect here. Not all symbolism is empty. But symbolism is not always enough, either.
That said, I found myself longing for a strong shot of Hillary as the first swiftboats were launched this week. As Tim Noah has pointed out, watching the conservative imprints of reputable publishing houses float "books" comprised of lies braided to racial and religious stereotype and innuendo is like being dragged back to the wretched Groundhog Day of 2004. And watching the media sputter "But ... these books aren’t true!" is almost worse. I can’t help but feel that Clinton would have matched kidney punch for kidney punch with Corsi and his ilk. She knows better than anyone that there just no “rising above it” to be done, when there’s no depth to which your opponents won’t sink.
-
sponsorship
Fiddle faddle, Emily; placing Hillary's name in nomination at the Democratic National Convention will not lead to the "catharsis'' she keeps talking about, and I'm not positive that catharsis is the goal.
Long ago and far away, I rode a bus to Tlacotalpan, in Veracruz, Mexico, for their winter Candelaria Festival, primarily to dance all night and see the running of the bulls. But the most memorable thing about the trip was the yearly ritual in which the townspeople carry a crowned and silk-gowned statue of the Virgin Mary (the Candelaria Virgin) out of the church and through the streets on a little platform, as a huge and completely frenzied crowd cheers, waves at the statue, reaches out and runs after her. They throw flowers, too, and when they put her on a barge to take her for her annual ride up and down the river, some people fall into the water while trying to lay hands on her hem. And yes, what I'm saying is: They could carry Hillary Rodham Clinton into Denver like that and still not satisfy those supporters who have decided to stay mad.
Case in point (and why I was already thinking so Virgin-ally about all this): I run into a Hillary supporter I know in the drug store the other day, and she tells me she still hasn't taken down the Hillary shrine "complete with votive candles'' that she has in her house. Ha ha, I say, but no, she says, she is not kidding. Now, first of all, I love that this gal gives enough of a hoot about our country to get emotionally involved on that level; she worked her heart out for her candidate, and good for her. Clearly, we'd be better off if more people gave of themselves so passionately. When I ask what Obama would have to do to win her over, what she says first is that he'd have to adopt Hillary's health care plan. But by the end of the conversation, we get to the real bottom line, which is that she just doesn't like Obama, sees him as a total poser and nothing-burger who swooped in from nowhere and stole the thing, and all the health care reform in the world is not going to change that. At this point, she's thinking seriously about staying home on Election Day. She is not going to wake up the morning after Hillary's name is placed in nomination and have a whole new lease on Obama. And my guess is, Hillary knows that.
-
sponsorship
When the idea of a roll call for Hillary's delegates at the Democratic convention was first raised last spring, I thought it sounded silly—all empty symbolism and no gain. But last weekend, when I read Michelle Cottle's op-ed arguing in favor, I found myself convinced. The threat of revolt is over. Why not recognize Hillary's backers by giving her supporters their moment in Denver to flex her political muscles and demonstrate the support she amassed? Now the NYT is reporting that's the plan. I hope it makes HIllary supporters feel like they've given her a parting loyalty gift. And I confess this is one scripted moment I want to watch unfold, too, as all those people raise their hands or voices or however it works when a woman's name is called for the presidential nomination. Symbolic doesn't actually have to mean empty.
-
sponsorship
Summer tourists complaining of passport troubles can gain some perspective by reading a recent article in the Wall Street Journal on the legal challenges currently facing thousands of Texans. Because they were issued by midwives, these people's birth certificates have recently been rejected as proof of U.S. citizenship.
In the 1990s, a number of Texan midwives were convicted of selling up to 15,000 fraudulent birth certificates dating back as far as the 1960s. The State Department now doubts the validity of any birth certificate issued by a midwife in Texas, and lack of a recognized birth certificate makes it practically impossible to provide the proof of citizenship that is required of passport applicants. The more stringent legal requirements also make life harder for midwives still in practice and could harm the women and children that they treat. The Journal mentions the potential for racial discrimination in this case (low-income Hispanics make up the primary client base for midwives along the border) but fails to mention the health risk posed by threatening the continuation of border midwifery.
The presence of an experienced attendant at childbirth is the single most effective way to reduce maternal death, but unaffordable medical bills, lack of health insurance, and fears of deportation can deter soon-to-be moms from seeking professional care. Among rural and immigrant communities, midwives (some of whom have assisted thousands of births) have kept maternal, neonatal, and infant mortality down by providing an accessible care alternative. For many undocumented pregnant women, the choice in delivery method is not between midwifery and hospital aid but between midwifery and unattended birth.
A loss of midwives' perceived legitimacy could jeopardize the practice by providing more ammunition to midwifery's detractors. Despite debates about the safety of at-home vs. hospital births, few would argue that unattended births are safer than midwife-assisted deliveries, one of the reasons why such deliveries are still prevalent in southern Texas (in 2004, midwives delivered 6.6 percent of all Texas children). Fueling the "turf war" over prenatal care furthers efforts to criminalize midwifery and could pose a bigger threat than frustrations at the border if it places midwives' livelihood, and the lives of their future clients, at risk.
-
sponsorship
I agree with Rachael and think that unequal hush installments were not only sexist, the distributions were too small. Don't you think $15,000 and $20,000 a month seems measley for the sacrifice Hunter and Young's family were making in their personal lives?
Were the payments to go on indefinitely, one wonders, or simply until Hunter would be eligible to become the second Mrs. de Winter?
-
sponsorship
Rielle Hunter had to spend nine months pregnant and an unreported number of hours in labor before she could milk John Edwards' supporters for $15,000 a month (allegedly).
If the New York Post is to be believed (and why not, at this point?), all Andrew Young had to do before he could milk John Edwards' supporters was claim he fathered little Frances Quinn. And he's getting $20,000 (allegedly).
Ladies, what do we have to do to break the political-scandal glass ceiling?
(hat tip: InstaPundit)
-
sponsorship
Go, Ruth! In her column in the Post this morning, she says there isn't a wife in the world who doesn't want to slap "99 percent'' Honest John Edwards silly right about now. And on account of the senator's perfidy, are husbands across the land enduring conversations about what kind of dumb you'd have to be to fall for that "in my eyes, you are Gandhi'' silliness? But here's a question: Do we really know anything about John Edwards' vanity, hubris, and self-indulgence now that we didn't know after the $400 haircut he expensed to his campaign? I still say every canyon in Bill Clinton's moral landscape was mapped out in the New Yorker piece on how he let a mentally disabled man—so uncomprehending he saved the cherry pie from his last meal for later—be executed to prove how tough he was and distract from revelations about Gennifer Flowers. And was there any question at all about George W. Bush's capacity for empathy that was not answered by Tucker Carlson's piece about him having a good old time imitating Carla Faye Tucker's pleas that he spare her life? There are plenty of unsexy windows into virtue, too: When I spent some time around Kofi Annan for a profile, the detail that spoke to me most clearly about his character was that he was exactly the same with waiters and clerks as with heads of state. People tell us who they are every day, often even when fully clothed.
-
sponsorship
Meghan, maybe you're right that we should turn away—but not quite yet! First we get to trounce him a bit. Here's Kerry Howell of Reason magazine and me agreeing with Mickey about covering the story. And now I agree with Hanna that Elizabeth doesn't get to call off the bloodhounds when she feels like it. I know, this is six shades of awful for her. But she knew about the affair and went along with him continuing to run for president. That was a lot of potential risk loading onto the Democratic Party.
-
sponsorship
Meghan, I couldn’t agree more about how depressing the “I’m suffering!” political apology has become. Elizabeth Edwards has terminal cancer; John Edwards has terminal narcissism. Let’s call it a tie? But the more we pick at the threads of rampant narcissism here, the sadder the whole story gets. Melinda points to the weird Newsweek account by Jonathan Darman in which Rielle Hunter emerges as a patchwork of reality show clichés: part actress, part “spiritual adviser,” “New York party girl,” screenwriter, part married, and part divorced.
Her “webisodes,” in which John Edwards drones on and on about John Edwards, manage to be all about Rielle.
The most astonishing part of the Darman piece is Hunter’s disclosure that “she and novelist Jay McInerney were working on a ‘genius' idea for a television show about women who help men get out of failing marriages by having affairs with them.” She apparently “wanted to pitch this idea to Darren Star, creator of ‘Melrose Place’ and ‘Sex and the City.’ ” Betcha $15,000 it’s in production by September.
-
sponsorship
XX Factor blogger Melinda Henneberger will be chatting online at Washingtonpost.com today at 2 p.m. Send her a question. We'll post a link to the transcript here when she's done.
Melinda wrote about the Edwardses' marriage for Slate back in December, in advance of the primaries. (Also the Obamas, the Huckabees, and, yep, the Clintons.) She's a frequent contributor here at the XX Factor, and you can read a previous chat transcript here.
-
sponsorship
This is rich: Now Hillary Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson, who might as well have an "Is it 2012 yet?'' bumper sticker, is undermining Obama's candidacy by complaining to ABCNews.com that if only John Edwards' affair had come out sooner, Clinton woulda been the nominee. Only, is he really so sure that had that happened, nobody woulda then jumped out of Bill Clinton's post-presidential closet? Guess what this quote from Wolfson really means is that his boss has been told we're not going to get a text message from Obama announcing that it's Hillary for V.P.
-
sponsorship
It's been hard to feel much shock about John Edwards' affair with Rielle Hunter: Every other month, it seems, we receive the revelation that a powerful politician has risked his career to get a bit on the side. Edwards would almost seem to be the norm rather than the radical exception. But the literary critic in me is interested by one new-ish element: the plea of "narcissism." Whereas political mea culpas have often been cast in the language of sin and redemption, this one was explicitly cast in the language of disease and recovery. On Friday, Edwards told Bob Woodruff on ABC's Nightline that he "went from being a young senator" to "running for president ... becoming a national public figure, all of which fed a self-focus, an egotism, a narcissism that leads you to believe you can do whatever you want; you're invincible."
From one perspective, it was a perfectly spun rationale for our recovery-story ridden age, filtering Machiavelli through Freud, so that what we end up with is the idea that power doesn't just corrupt, it makes us narcissists. (We are all patients now.) From another perspective, though, it's a flop of an excuse: You can't forgive narcissists, you can only learn to live with them—or not. Do we really need to know whether Hunter's child is his? Do we really need to wax on about the harm Edwards would have caused if he had been elected and the affair had come out? No, we already know that he is a narcissist. that he had an inflated sense of self-importance that obscures the worth of those around him—campaign staffers, donors, volunteers. And so in a sense the perfect retort to Edwards would be to respond to him as one might to a clinically diagnosed patient: You thrive on attention and drama. So we're not going to be your enablers anymore; we're just going to turn away.
-
sponsorship
John Edwards is reminding me more and more of poor Henry Cisneros, who was on his way to becoming the Latino Obama before he cheated on his saintly wife, Mary Alice, while she was pregnant with their third child, a son born with no spleen and a malformed heart and stomach. Bill Clinton asked Cisneros to serve as his housing secretary anyway, a few years later, and by then, the affair was such old news that it never even came up during his confirmation hearings. Yet in the course of his background check for the cabinet post, Cisneros lied to the FBI—not about whether he was supporting his former mistress, but about the amount he paid her—and as a result, was subjected to a four-year investigation by a special prosecutor, a probe that cost taxpayers $9 million. Heck of a public servant, Henry, so big-hearted and capable; watching him work a crowd in San Antonio back in the day, you'd have sworn you were looking at the future. But at some point after he stopped paying Linda Medlar, she started taping their phone calls, and triggered the investigation. When the judge who presided over his trial finally asked Cisneros why he'd lied in the first place, he explained that while he wasn't positive himself about the amount he'd paid Medlar, he was positive he didn't want his wife to know how high that figure was. He pled guilty to a misdemeanor, and when he left public life, we all lost out. So, what's the relevance?
First, it's that scary as we wives can be, federal investigators are scarier, and if any of the $15,000 a month that's being paid to Edwards' ex-girlfriend came from campaign funds, I cannot overemphasize how seldom fudging the facts with the Feds works out. Second, what do Monica Lewinsky, Linda Medlar, and Rielle Hunter have in common? All were employees, and world-class blabbermouths. (You never really hear about the guys who get involved with the quiet types, do you?) It's silly to say we don't care if politicians fool around as long as they don't lie about it; how is that supposed to work? (Though if we replaced those one-minute morning speeches they give in Congress with a daily adultery roll call, CSPAN would definitely do some box office.) And until we figure it out, we're stuck pretending these people are perfect and then, when we find out otherwise, pretending we're surprised.
As it is, we're so perplexed about how to treat this stuff I can't even tell what this first-person Newsweek piece is trying to say. In it, reporter Jonathan Darman tells about his own adventures with Rielle Hunter, a woman so fascinating that after meeting her on a trip to Iowa with Edwards in 2006, Darman spends weeks trying to track her down and months getting to know her. After concluding she's an unreliable source, he keeps in touch anyway: "I continued to see her. ... I liked Rielle'' and "let her do my astrological chart.'' From the way he describes their boozy first lunch, I can't tell if he suspected she and Edwards were carrying on or not: Is the tone confessional because he missed the story, because he had the story and sat on it, or because he fell for the "I can tell you're an old soul'' hoodoo himself? (The last guy I knew who talked like that wound up blowing town with the life savings of several women who each thought they were going to marry him and start an ashram.) Hunter told Darman that in this incarnation, she wanted to help Edwards become a transformational figure on a par with Gandhi or MLK; better luck next time?
-
sponsorship
I find this Elizabeth Edwards post on Daily Kos excruciating. We are supposed to ride with this couple through her cancer diagnosis and relapse, through their son's death, their fertility treatments, and the rededication of their marriage, but then we are supposed to butt the hell out when the story line veers from the tragedy and heroics. If you believe in a system, you have to live and die by it. Elizabeth Edwards buys into the culture of overconfession. She is an obsessive blogger, for God's sake. You can't just get suddenly pissed off because the confessional culture came back to bite you. A "string of hurtful and absurd lies in a tabloid publication"??? Well, some were lies and some weren't right. As for that baby, that's an easy one. DNA test.
-
sponsorship
I am incredibly annoyed that we have to waste any air, print, or pixel time on this. Why do I care about some dude's marriage and marital problems—unless he did something that in any way abuses public power? Comstockery, as I wrote in CJR once upon a time. Celebtainment and domestic voyeurism disguised as politics.
I just don't care what politicians do with their zippers, so long as their policies and votes are in order. By nature, national politicians are people who want power and want to be admired, even adored, to an absurd degree. (Not my fabulous mom, the township trustee and former Beavercreek, Ohio, mayor! But small-town politics—zoning, sewage, 32,000 citizens—is quite different from national politics.) Really, what emotionally healthy person would run for president of the United States? You have to have some ego issues to even imagine it might be possible.
Some large proportion of them will mess around. I. Do. Not. Care.
Was there any abuse of power—sexual harassment, assault, coercion? Did anyone get pinned up against the wall and groped against her or his will? Any abuse of public funds? Any manipulation to get a lover or family member a public job? Any payment to use someone else's body, which I find more and more appalling the more I learn about the sex trade? Then I have the emotional energy to be outraged.
But private dalliances, seductions, and oversize sexual appetites? Eh. Not my problem. Leave the poor family alone.
-
sponsorship
Just a couple of questions are clouding my understanding of all this, counselor, and stuff I'd still like to know includes:
Was all this going on when you renewed your wedding vows last summer at that intimate backyard ceremony where you wrote your own vows and there was not a dry eye in the house? (The one your wife of 30 years lost weight for, because she wanted to look pretty for you and fit into her wedding dress?)
Is this why you keep losing your wedding ring?
When Elizabeth waited to tell you that she had a lump in her breast the size of a golf ball because she swore to God after Wade died she'd never give you any bad news ever again ... your way of repaying her was with the news you'd betrayed her, Cate, Wade's memory, and the babies she gladly took dangerous hormones to conceive? Got it.
Oh, and just one more: Remember all those holier-than-Bill Clinton remarks? So do I. If you think anyone in the universe believes your beyond Clinton-esque "I was standing on one foot when we did it so it doesn't count'' nonsense, or cares whether you used the L-word, or trusts for a single segundo that you're not the baby daddy? I think you're about to find out how cold it can get in summer, senator.
And as for you, Miss Hunter? Even if all your dreams one day come true, life as the second Mrs. de Winter is going to look pleasant by comparison.
P.S. post interview: So sue me—anybody know a good lawyer?—but I can't help feeling just a little bit sorry for the whole human race when I see just one more ninny who threw it all away for five minutes with an 80s coke—nope, not gonna fall into that blame-the-woman trap. I don't know why Edwards kept repeating, "This is my fault and no one else's.' (Duh.) Nerves, I guess.
The most unbelievable part of the interview was when he said his buddy Fred Baron, formerly of Baron & Budd, had been paying his former mistress $15,000 a month behind his back; dude, you can lie better than that! Baron is a big Dallas lawyer who made his $$ suing people for asbestos exposure, even when there were no damages. I was in his house once a million years ago, for a party he threw when a friend of mine married one of his law partners, and asbestos has been very good to him, even if I do recall my fellow working stiffs from the paper standing around the pool making fun of his ugly art; that's what happens when you invite a bunch of reporters into chi-chi Preston Hollow. A little while back, Baron even sued his own law firm, so the idea that this total shark would lay out 15 large a month just for grins and all on his own is the lamest load of hooey I've heard outside a campaign ad.
But—yes, Mickey, this is the moment you've been waiting for—there is also no getting around the fact that Elizabeth was flat wrong, too, after she found out about the affair, not to tell him in no uncertain terms that he would not be running in '08 after all, for the good of the party if nothing else. I'm sure they convinced themselves that what he had to offer the country was worth the risk, but it wasn't, and that is some major enabling she was involved in; the Democrats are darn lucky they got No Drama Obama instead.
Melinda Henneberger will be chatting on Washingtonpost.com about the Edwards affair at 2 p.m. today. Send her a question!
-
sponsorship
OK, so John Edwards cops to the affair but says he's not the baby daddy to Rielle Hunter's infant. A few problems with all of this. First, is he trying to help himself by saying "he did not love her"? Is that supposed to make Elizabeth feel better, that not only did he jeopardize their personal relationship but also his candidacy--the one that she insisted he continue despite her diagnosis of a terminal disease, the one that she worked so hard on--for some action on the side?
And, I may be proved wrong, but I don't buy that he's not the father. He and Andrew Young, the "admitted" father, both had an affair with Hunter? Possible, but yuck. And if Young is not the father, and Edwards is not the father, then who the heck is Young covering for? And why was Edwards visiting Hunter and the baby at 2:45 in the morning?
I guess it's time for Edwards to go campaign with Bill Clinton touting the benefits of monogamy!
-
sponsorship
Wait a minute; don't you apologize, Meghan, for extending too much sympathy, even if it is to Clark Rockefeller! Because one of our most serious problems has got to be a general deficit of sympathy, especially for the undeserving. You know how in Eat, Pray, Love the author's Italian buddy Luca Spaghetti says every place on earth has a guiding principle that can be summed up in one word, and Rome's word is sex? I think Elizabeth Gilbert says power is New York's word. Anyway, I am sorry to conclude that in this country we're all so obsessed with who does and does not deserve all kinds of things—love, death, forgiveness, and, above all, help from the government—that resentment seems to be America's word. So, if you threw away your sympathy on somebody who's really rotten, my word for you is brava.
-
sponsorship
Well, Meghan, I didn't mean to bludgeon you about Clark What's-His-Name. Meanwhile, I'm still mucking around trying to find out who gets custody more often. I've got queries out to some researchers and will post here when I get answers. Until then, here's a commentary published by Sandra Kobrin in Women's eNews last year. She has the same impression that I have: that in the 1950s and 1960s, women almost automatically got custody, but now—when custody is contested—the pendulum has swung the other way. She mentions studies that show that, especially if the mothers were battered, fathers get custody and quotes researchers who believe that's true not just when mothers were battered. She says, for instance, that a 2004 Williamsburg, Va., American Judges Association study shows that battered women lose contested custody cases 70 percent of the time. I will look for the study. Her point is that most state legislation requires judges to favor joint custody arrangements; when that's not possible, judges are instructed to favor the parent who is most "friendly" to joint custody. That obviously puts a battered woman in a bad spot: If she seems desperate to keep her kids away from a batterer or abuser, she's going to be perceived as pretty durn unfriendly to joint custody.
I don't know how this holds up beyond domestic violence situations. More stats when I find them.
-
sponsorship
E.J., clearly you're right about Clark Rockefeller—as the evidence mounts (and boy does it seem to be mounting), it seems clearer and clearer the guy is a con artist and murderer. So yes, no sympathy there! Whatever empathy I had for him was based on the assumption that he was just a rich, eccentric dad who loved his daughter, not a murderer and liar. Thank god the child is safe. And that'll teach me not to extend my sympathies further than they're warranted!
Meanwhile, though, the intellectual issues surrounding child custody arrangements in America remain worthy of discussion ... and have nothing to do with this case.
-
sponsorship
OK, here's a question: Years before the sex-scandal press conference or the chunky pearls, do political wives see their husbands differently than the rest of us see the mere mortals we promised to love, honor and so on? Obviously, there's no one model for a marriage in the public eye, any more than there is for a marriage only the neighbors care about—and even then, not that much as long as you keep the noise down. But I do wonder whether some of these spouses don't end up extra disillusioned because they're required to put their mates on the kind of pedestal that Mr. Ellen Tien has never set foot on. (No, that most certainly does not mean that whatever happens is on them, especially since idealizing these politicians is such a big part of their job description.) And yes, I am thinking all this because of the current John Edwards scandal, and because to say that Elizabeth believes in John is like saying that Washington is on the warm side this time of year, or Middlemarch is not a bad book.
But most mates of the contenders seem to feel that way—or maybe it only looks like that because when they don't appear to believe their men were born in a manger, we totally freak out, like how dare Teresa Heinz mention her deceased husband, the father of her children, and how unheard of for Michelle Obama to remark upon even the most minute and mundane of her husband's flaws. I keep thinking about Cindy McCain, when her husband was running the first time, telling me that she found her husband "a real inspiration'' -- and then stopping herself, quite charmingly, and adding, "I guess anyone would say that about their husband.'' No, they wouldn't; in fact, outside the bubble, I've never heard any woman say, suggest, hint, or infer any such thing, no matter how nice her husband or contented her marriage. So, without letting any of these guys off the hook, I guess my question is, isn't the public's demand for a mythic narrative that no actual person can ever live up to part of the problem?
-
sponsorship
At first I was almost relieved to hear that the National Enquirer had finally coughed up some photos because I was starting to worry more about Mickey than Elizabeth; was he going to start marching door to door through America, sounding the luv child alarm? But, now that I've seen the "spy photo" and "distinctive striped curtain" for myself, well, here's what I learned for sure about the Edwards scandal today: The Javert of cette affaire would "also argue that an emotional, anecdote-led liberal approach to poverty inevitably tends toward the failed solution of simply sending poor people cash welfare, but that's another argument.'' Sure it is; incredibly, this obsession really is about welfare policy.
-
sponsorship
Meghan, I guess I just can't let this bone go. I do understand sympathy for fathers who feel shut out of relationships with their children—and actually, for anyone (man or woman) who ends up in family court, waiting for a judge to decide the fate of the family based on who knows what prejudices. It's a horrible and nailbiting experience. But Clark Rockefeller? He didn't just kidnap his daughter from the social worker; first he hit the social worker with his SUV!! And now the Boston Globe reports that the reason he didn't get custody of any sort was that he refused to document his identity. For the same reason, he never obtained a real marriage license; he lied to his wife (and presumably whoever performed the wedding) about getting one. He was a liar living under a series of fake identities; he's telling police he "doesn't remember" where he was born or to whom! Sorry, whether or not he's also a murderer, this dude doesn't deserve joint custody.
But I do agree with you that women shouldn't be entitled to the presumption of primary parental status merely because they are female. I know fathers who are more maternal than the child's mother. I know co-mothers who should get primary or equal parenting status with the biomoms. Some women think that women are by nature better parents. I'm not essentialist enough to sign up for that belief. (By the way, the parenting research hasn't been able to find any constant difference by sex that holds across cultures. "Mothers" differ from other mothers as much as they do from "fathers." The research is fascinating.)
A note: I profoundly admire some folks I know who share custody by letting the children stay in the house while the parents move in and out, in turn. (These are real people, honest.) Now that's putting the children first.
-
sponsorship
Last night I watched The Contender, a movie about the nomination of a female vice-president. It's mostly concerned with post-Lewinsky prurience and takes sexual politics to an absurd level to make that point (gang-bang allegations? Really?) but left me thinking about Kathleen Sebelius (and no, I'm not revealing anything scandalous here). Like Joan Allen's character, she's a delicately featured, centrist Democrat who's the daughter of an Ohio governor. Sebelius has made it to lots of shortlists for Obama's veep, but seems to be forever the bridesmaid. The reasons for her rejection are wide-ranging: She's too nice. She's an uninspired speaker. She's not Catholic enough. She's too pretty, so she'll remind voters of their deep-seated fear of miscegenation standing on the podium next to Obama. She's a female whose birth certificate fails to read "Hillary Rodham."
These arguments against Sebelius are usually preceded by the bullet points in her favor. But the oddest endorsement of Sebelius came from Hillary-hater extraordinaire Camille Paglia, who wrote that Obama will need someone with Sebelius' "blandly generic WASPiness that has persistently defined the American power structure in business and government and that has weirdly resisted wave after wave of immigration since the mid-19th century." Paglia's backward semi-compliment streamlines all the other complaints into one smooth peg: a boring identity is the ultimate sin in this election cycle. But is she really so inoffensive as to be offensive? Consider—she's just a year younger than Hillary, meaning she would have faced those same glass ceilings in her political rise—more, perhaps, since she ran for office earlier. And she might not be considered Catholic enough now for purposes of the veep slot, but I would imagine it didn't do her any favors in the Kansas of 30 years ago, where WASP probably wasn't the first dismissal that came to mind for her. (She may not wear her Catholicism on her sleeve, but I actually think that's something that might appeal to a lot of moderate Catholics, who don't tend to be a Bible-thumping group—as for the single-issue voters who're peeved about her abortion record, well, they probably weren't sniffing near the Democratic ticket anyhow.)
So it's not hard to imagine she threw some ‘bows along the way, but like Nancy Pelosi, smoothed her scars into a public persona and cloaked her chutzpah in pearls, pantsuits, and a picture-perfect home life. They both worked within, and rose to the top of, the existing power structure—something about flies, honey, and vinegar, maybe. (Pelosi and Sebelius, by the way, both went to the same all-women's Catholic college that my mother attended for a time. From what I gather, social life there often alternated between dates with Georgetown guys and girls sitting around a dorm common room with their hair in curlers, chain-smoking and playing intense games of bridge—if that isn't training for navigating Washington's smoke-filled back rooms and cliquish power circles, I don't know what is.)
Maybe I'm just rooting for a nice Irish-Catholic girl from Ohio to make it big for my own selfish reasons, and maybe her undefined national image lets me project whatever I want to on her. But I kinda bet Sebelius has a hell of a story and somewhere along the line decided it wasn't in her best interest to tell the gory details. She's a feminist and a trailblazer, but in what now sticks out as an oddly old-fashioned way. She doesn't seem to want to be anyone's lightning rod, which is perhaps what really bugs hard-core Hillaryites. And maybe they're right—in our ultra-confessional era, can someone truly become a feminist icon who's not willing to mine her identity politics and shout her personal history from the podium? Or, perhaps more pointedly, does a woman have to be a feminist icon before she can be on a national ticket?
-
sponsorship
E.J., you ask (quite sanely!) whether I "seriously" feel any sympathy for Clark Rockefeller, who, after all, stole his daughter from a social worker in broad daylight, as it were. Alas, the answer is yes, possibly. I don't honestly know. I think the guy deserves his day in court and till more is known about the situation I'll reserve making any judgments. Con men can love their children, too, after all. Anyway, my point in that first post wasn't so much any profound sympathy I felt for him—kidnapping a child, even with the best intentions, is traumatic for that child!—but that Rockefeller's amazing story made me think more about how as a culture we make decisions about custody and whether there's room for improvement with some concerted effort from all parties. You're totally right, I think, to take me to task for implying that feminism caused this; the history you cite is fascinating evidence that it didn't. (I just needed a good headline.) But I can say that I have encountered many parity-minded women who are content, in a sense, to turn a blind eye to lack of parity when it comes to divorce and child-rearing. Sure, the problem may be largely intractable; as Dahlia points out, there is often no good way to solve the problem of joint custody when you have two working parents, one of whom might need to move for work. However, I do feel that an honest and open discussion about custody and fathers' roles might lead to some interesting adjustments in how custody law works; certainly, the burgeoning dads' rights movement that Dahlia mentioned would like to see that happen. Meanwhile, I'm struck by just how many fathers out there I've talked to who feel themselves to be stuck in a position of having to accommodate past the letter of the law, in part because of fears that the laws are so much more sympathetic to mothers than fathers. They'd rather lose a lot than end up losing everything.
-
sponsorship
Meghan,
Dahlia has noted the painful fact that there is simply no good way for divorced families to accommodate two working parents (a product of a changed economy more than of feminism, I would argue, but that's for another day). So let me take issue with blaming feminism for Clark Rockefeller's kidnapping his daughter—or rather, for treating men 's claims to fatherhood unfairly after a divorce.
A brief history of custody law: Until 1851, men were childrens' presumptive guardians and custodians. In that year, a lone American judge first broke with precedent to articulate a new custody standard—"the best interest of the child"—which he used to justify giving custody of the child to a mother. It signalled the beginning of the end of a world in which children were family laborers—either a source of income who could be contracted out to other families, or part of the family's earnings unit. With that first mother-custody decision came a series of outraged diatribes about the imminent downfall of civilization if fathers were no longer in charge of the family. But the judge was articulating a new standard of child custody that fit the Victorian era's new ideology of woman-as-nurturer, as caregiver, as naturally domestic and giving and good. It also drew on a new vision of children as malleable angels in need of love, rather than as wild beasties in need of discipline. (I've got a chapter on this shift from father- to mother-custody in my book What Is Marriage For?)
For the next century, the radical idea that women not only could have custody of the children but should presumptively have custody gradually took over. I've waited a day to post on this as I try to find the stats, but my impression has been that feminism stopped that trend. With the idea of gender parity in child-rearing has come the idea that men should and could have custody as well. Family lawyers and observers of family law have told me that the trend has gone the other way, and that when men sue for custody they have an equal chance at getting it. The stats are hard to find, since they're state by state, and even court by court, rather than nationwide; if I can find a source I will post it here.
But the deeper problem here is one I discovered in reporting on custody battles about a decade ago: Emotionally healthy parents who are putting the children first do not end up fighting over custody in court. When there's a custody battle, it's often because the family dynamics were already ugly and messy and volatile. The family is then disposed according to an individual judge's view of what children need. It's a wildly dysfunctional and distressing system, and I have no idea how it could be done better.
Meanwhile, Meghan, do you seriously feel any sympathy for a man who attacked a social worker with his SUV and kidnapped his daughter, and who appears to be a con man who lied about his identity?? I realize that news reports can be unreliable—flash! Jon-Benet's parents are NOT guilty!—but unless Rockefeller had evidence that the mother is physically abusive to the child (and I haven't heard any claims that she was), how can he possibly justify such behavior? That sure wasn't in the best interest of the child.
EJ
-
sponsorship
Meghan, the Clark Rockefeller story really is deeply weird, and getting weirder by the day. Now we hear allegations that he’s tied to some murder in California. Jump back Lifetime. You can’t make this stuff up. You’re also right that there is something disturbing about the lingering preference for mothers in disputed custody cases, and also right that there is a bubbling, hissing fathers’ rights movement that contends fathers routinely get screwed in custody cases. But it seems to me that the other thing at work here—far more unfair than general sexism in the family court system—is the patent absurdity of family court oversight when one parent needs to move out of town. Suddenly, everything that is already nuts about family court gets exponentially worse, as judges are forced to make decisions that have the noncustodial parent relegated to a handful of visits a year and small kids consigned to a lifetime of trans-Atlantic flights. These “move” cases are invariably lose-lose-lose propositions for everyone, especially the kids, but they are also a byproduct of second-wave feminism. Because now moms need to work. And dads need to work. And after the divorce, the odds are decent that someone will therefore have to relocate to someplace far away in order to do that. Suddenly the noncustodial parent—having done nothing wrong whatsoever—goes from seeing the kids every other weekend to seeing them for a week at Christmas. Even the worst child abusers don't suffer that fate. I’d be bitter, too.
-
sponsorship
"I think everybody's got a right to run for president who qualifies under the Constitution,'' he said today on Good Morning America. Also, he promised that as soon as the election in November is over, he'll have lots more to say. Can't wait.
-
sponsorship
...in order to bring you this Barbara Walters interview with Carla Bruni, which is possibly the most sexist piece of television programming I've ever seen—and I'm not overly sensitive about these things. I have a weird soft spot for Barbara Walters—she really was one of those women who "made it in a man's world" back before anyone else did, was a pathbreaker, etc.—but watching her attack poor Carla, otherwise known as Mrs. Nicholas Sarkozy, is like watching a supercharged edition of Mean Girls Grow Up and Become Famous. The worst bit is when she tries to take Bruni's lyrics seriously, in that deadpan, over-literal, news-anchor way:
Barbara (sounding fierce): "You are my junk, More deadly than Afghan heroin. More dangerous than Colombian white powder." Ok now, who are you writing about?
Carla: "I'm writing about ... it's not exactly me ... it's not about ... exactly someone."
And then there's this exchange:
Barbara (sounding humorless): Another lyric: "I am a child, despite my 30 lovers." Is that autobiographical?
Carla: No, of course not. But "20 lovers" didn't sound good ...
It then gets even more ridiculous—Carla refuses to say exactly how many lovers she's had, despite Barbara's ruthless questioning; is forced to justify her decision to release a new album ("it's symbolic for me of my identity") despite being first lady of France; is asked whether she is an "adultress" (answer is no, since she's never been married).
I suppose all is fair and all that, and it's also true that celebrities do interviews like this one because they are presumed to sell albums. Still: Did anyone ever ask Mick Jagger if it's true that he really can't get any satisfaction? I bet they didn't.
-
sponsorship
Has anyone been following the amazing story of Clark Rockefeller, the divorced father who kidnapped his daughter last week when she was visiting from England with her mother? There are many incredible elements to the story, including the fact that Rockefeller may not be who he said he was; the FBI has said he doesn't have a Social Security number. But what I found most striking are the quotes from friends of Rockefeller's saying how much he loved his daughter and how much he missed her after his divorce. Weirdly enough, I know someone who knew Rockefeller; this person had talked to me not long ago about how heartbroken Rockefeller was to have been separated from his daughter by divorce. (Rockefeller's wife, who works for McKinsey, had moved to England, making it hard for him to see their daughter.) While I certainly don't approve of kidnapping in any form, and there may have been good reasons for the wife to want to keep her daughter away from her father, I confess the whole saga has got me feeling a lot of empathy for all the divorced fathers out there who find themselves suddenly distanced from their children with very little power to change the fact. Fascinatingly, the comments sections on the Rockefeller story on news sites are full of post from divorced fathers who sympathize with Rockefeller. When you think seriously about it, the way custody laws are set up is inescapably unfair. As it stands, there's a hypocrisy at the heart of the second-wave feminist movement: It demands that men be equal partners in child-raising, but when push comes to shove and a marriage dissolves it also implicitly claims that women are the true parents and men are not. While the letter of the law gives men certain rights, divorce lawyers are often shameless about using the threat of claiming there was child abuse to get fathers to back off from fighting for more custody rights. Over the past few months, by total chance, I've talked to a couple of newly divorced fathers, including old college friends, who have suddenly seen their children swept away from them. They were dedicated fathers; they now pay child support, and yet their right to see their children is severely circumscribed. I know there's no perfect solution; but couldn't we come up with one that's better than this? If women really want equality in child-rearing, don't we have to acknowledge that this extends even to divorce?
-
sponsorship
Recent reports that Barack Obama is, in fact, a politician, and therefore fully capable of calculation, compromise and confessional performance art, neither alarmed nor crept up on me; throughout the primary season, every time I heard someone moan that that poor pie-in-the-sky Obambi was just too darn naïve to run with the big dogs, the extra set of eyeballs I keep on the inside of my head would twirl around in their sockets and I'd think, People, the man is from Chicago! Who is it again who's being naïve? Sorry, but to best Hillary Clinton while (mostly) making it look like you aren't resorting to politics as usual? Anyone who can do that has got some moves, that's all.
Now, though, he's taken flexibility too far, by selling out on offshore drilling. While campaigning in Florida yesterday, Obama told the Palm Beach Post that he would be willing to open Florida's coast for more drilling as part of a "comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices.'' And what's even worse than the shift itself -- yes, sometimes compromise is necessary -- is the ridiculous claim that it will bring gas prices down. It's never necessary to say something you know isn't true.
As he says, the Gang of 10 compromise put together by five Democrats and five Republicans in the Senate would do a lot of good things, like "repeal tax breaks for oil companies so that we can invest billions in fuel-efficient cars, help our automakers re-tool, and make a genuine commitment to renewable sources of energy like wind power, solar power, and the next generation of clean, affordable biofuels.''
So, as he now sees it, "if, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage - I don't want to be so rigid that we can't get something done." Gosh, no, that would be bad. If only I could remember the last time the Democrats in Congress did any such thing, maybe I'd know just how bad. And of course, he's just undercut those Democrats who were trying to hang in there.
So what's the difference between Obama's loss of nerve and McCain's earlier switch on the same issue? In May, McCain knew offshore drilling was a step in the wrong direction, but by June, he'd seen the polling and seen the light. Now, he thinks offshore drilling is crucial.
There is no mystery about why Obama has now changed his mind, too, although his position seems to be that offshore drilling is still a bad idea, but we should do it anyway: A national poll taken last week showed that 57 percent of voters favor offshore drilling because 56 percent think gas prices would fall as a result. Only they wouldn't, and both candidates know it.
In the same interview with the Florida paper - on the day Chevron became just the latest oil company to report a record profit for the quarter -- Obama said: "I think it's important for the American people to understand we're not going to drill our way out of this problem," he said. "It's also important to recognize if you start drilling now you won't see a drop of oil for ten years, which means its not going to have a significant impact on short-term prices. Every expert agrees on that." (They also agree that if we haven't gotten serious about cutting CO2 emissions long before then, then the heartbreak of realizing that Obama has served us a baloney sandwich will be the least of our worries.)
Only, by even sorta orta backing new drilling, he is sending exactly the opposite message to the public, maintaining the fiction that there is no urgency to changing our ways, and that we can go right on consuming energy same as always. How again is this "change you can believe in"? I get that the McCain commercials blaming Obama for high gas prices are hurting him, but especially given how ludicrous this notion is, how about responding with facts? I know it's easier to assure people you'll bring gas prices down than to explain why nobody will, or should, but he's not even going to try?
His excuse might be the worst part: "The Republicans and the oil companies have been really beating the drums on drilling," Obama said in the interview. Which might give voters the impression that anyone who beats the drums loud enough and long enough will get this same "Alright already!'' response out of him. And it might give those young voters he is counting on the idea that he's not only not as different as they thought...but maybe, just not different enough.
-
sponsorship
Sorry, Amaka, but I have to defend Will's piece about Los Angeles' moratorium on fast-food joints in poor neighborhoods. Other limitatons on consumption are different: Smoking bans help nonsmokers, and limiting alcohol sales cuts down on drunk driving and other ills. But a ban on restaurants is nothing if not paternalistic.
Blocking fast-food joints is not going to lead to an influx of Whole Foods or other full-service grocery stores, and limiting the number of McDonald's is not going to make people start buying organic. If Whole Foods really wanted to be in South Central, nothing is stopping them right now.
Amaka, you write that, "The higher cost of these healthier foods isn't necessarily prohibitive either." Actually, it is. As someone who juggles child care expenses, a mortgage, and other various monthly payments, I can assure you that milk that costs $6 a gallon (as opposed to $4 a gallon for nonorganic) and tomatoes that cost twice and much and spoil in half the time as their nonorganic counterparts almost never find their way into my shopping cart. And I'm fortunate enough to be in a two-income household. Try telling a single mom working two jobs who comes home to screaming kids, or a family that's trying to feed teenage boys, that they should settle for smaller portions and go to the store three or four times a week instead of once. There's a happy medium between eating at Burger King four days a week and spending $400 a week at an upscale grocery store, and it doesn't seem like Los Angeles is working very hard to find it.
If the city wants to do something to help obesity rates in its poor neighborhoods, it should work to encourage supermarkets—just regular stores with decent meat and produce, doesn't need to be Whole Foods—or better restaurants to come there with tax breaks or other incentives. Work with farmers' markets to find a place where they can set up and carry out their businesses. Negative actions like banning fast-food joints are demeaning to the people they are trying to help, and I would suspect counterproductive.
-
sponsorship
I have some gripes about Will Saletan's piece on the fast food ban in Los Angeles. I agree that the law is paternalistic (as are zoning laws restricting bars or strip clubs) but I hardly think this instance is as bad as he makes it out to be. Nor is his logic very sound:
And what about the argument that people in South-Central need the government to block unhealthy food options because they're "in a poor situation" to locate better choices? This is the argument normally made for restricting children's food options at school—that they're more dependent and vulnerable than the rest of us. How do you feel about treating poor people like children? (emphasis added)
Probably similar to the way he feels about treating readers like children. The sensationalism of that last sentence is almost as cheap as the four-buck Happy Meal he so doggedly defends. And the suggestion that the salad menu at Jack-in-the-Box should constitute a healthy food option for a low-income neighborhood is preposterous. I won't even dissect his fleeting, unexamined suggestion that the law is racist ("Opening a McDonald's in South-Central L.A. is not government-enforced racial discrimination. But telling McDonald's it can open franchises only in the white part of town—what do you call that?"). Why do we think that poor neighborhoods shouldn't benefit from the organic food movement?
I think it's deliberately ignorant to suggest that poorer neighborhoods currently have real choices in what they eat. Of course fast-food chains offer salads. But once you throw dressing and chicken on these limp-leafed feasts, they're practically as unhealthy as the burgers. It's important that high-quality, healthy food at least be accessible to every person—even if they don't always prevail. Fast-food chains often crowd out smaller competitors with healthier fare. As a result, the neighborhoods are saturated with Dunkin' Donuts and the like. Shouldn't a poorer neighborhood have the option of an actual organic market or a restaurant that offers fresh ingredients? The higher cost of these healthier foods isn't necessarily prohibitive either; it may just mean that families will be exchanging quantity for quality. That means smaller portion sizes and a healthier meal. If the families so desire they can still go to McDonald's since, from what I understand, it isn't as if the law aims to eradicate existing establishments.
Saletan is quick to defend the right of poor neighborhoods to choose. But he doesn't seem to realize that "Burger King or McDonald's" is not a legitimate choice. This law proposes enforcing true alternatives. And while it is hardly a comprehensive solution—a smattering of Whole Foods supermarkets isn't going to change eating patterns or attitudes—I think it's a step in the right direction ...
-
sponsorship
Nayeli,
I respect that you're standing by your opinion that Miley Cyrus would be a good condom spokesgirl, but I think there are even more reasons it's a terrible idea.
Your concerns—that teens are having sex and need contraception—are well-founded and admirable. But teen sex is not a new thing. We Gen-Xers didn't wait until college or marriage, and neither did our baby boomer parents. (Believe me; I'm living proof of what happens when teenagers don't use birth control.) I'm pretty sure it goes back to at least Romeo and Juliet. There's never been a perfect system for teaching horny young things about safe sex, and there probably never will be. We can all work harder to improve access to contraception and education, but fresh ideas should come from health professionals, family counselors, and educators, not the marketing department at a condom company. I also like Meghan's suggestion the Cyrus herself could volunteer or donate to a sex-ed program if she's so inclined.
You ask why, since the mere mention of an endorsement has been win-win for LifeStyles and Cyrus, why not, um, consummate the deal? Because an actual deal would be lose-lose. Miley Cyrus reportedly could be worth $1 billion—yes, with a "b"—by the end of the year. She's not going to risk her squeaky clean reputation for a mere $1 million. And can you imagine the uproar that LifeStyles would face for using a minor to sell their products? James Dobson would be getting more airtime than Hannah Montana herself.
And finally, the ick factor can't be ignored. Yes, it's important for teens to use condoms. But the fact is that they're important for adults, too. Any grown man who didn't breathlessly await the day the Olsen twins turned 18 will or should be skeeved out by the idea of buying a box of condoms with jailbait on the side. Condom companies can find a way to promote condom use without using a teenager. In fact—and yes, I realize it makes me sound very old to say this—what's wrong with a little cautionary tale? If we must have a pop tart selling condoms, why not Britney Spears?
-
sponsorship
When I wrote about Miley Cyrus not long ago, I was most struck by how profoundly Cyrus had already become a pure product of American culture. Disney, by creating Hannah Montana, has traded on Cyrus' status as celeb-daughter and wannabe pop star to feed the aspirations of scores of young girls across America to become not artists so much as celebrities. Weird. The result for Cyrus has been an attempt by Disney to hyper-stage manage her life, and, in particular, her coming of age as an adolescent. The last thing they want is for any whiff of sexuality to attach to her; but the last thing Cyrus and her parents want is for her to go the way of child stars who can't make the transition to successful adult pop-stardom. Which makes me kinda sympathetic to Nayeli's argument that it'd be interesting if Cyrus did become a spokeswoman for LifeStyles condoms: It'd be inspiring to see a young woman at a sexual threshold refuse to take part in the pretense that she and her peers are not coming of age. And it's a good message for all teenagers: if you are going to have sex (and guess what, they are), just do it as safely as you can. On the other hand, eavesdropping on this whole debate only makes me twinge more with regret that Cyrus—much like the character she plays on Hannah Montana—is so beseiged by pop culture and the media that the ethical decisions she has to make revolve around whether she should be a spokeswoman for a product or whether to appear on a Vanity Fair cover. If she really wanted to send a message to her peers, why not back away from endorsements of any kind and do some low-key volunteer work or donate to a safe-sex ed program? You'd be killing two birds with one stone by rejecting the self-consciousness and hyper-packaged nature of being a young pop star while doing a bit of good.