Wednesday, January 21, 2009 - Posts
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I'm glad to see Caroline Kennedy out of the running as well. But what mainly strikes me about the travails of this season's Senate vacancies is a point Slate's Bruce Reed made weeks ago: They illustrate what a bad idea it is to give governors the power to fill them. The voters of New York chose David Paterson for one office, not two. Thirty-nine states fill vacancies this way, as the 17th Amendment ostensibly allows. Tom Geoghegan argued recently that the amendment should, in fact, be read otherwise, because the relevant passage starts by saying that when there is an open Senate mid-election in their state, governors "shall issue writs of elections to fill such vacancies." The amendment then goes on to allow a state legislature to "empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct," but Geoghegan's point is that this subsidiary clause has eaten the main directive. He also points out that the Supreme Court has never really weighed in: Instead of interpreting the 17th for themselves, the justices merely summarily affirmed a lower-court decision in 1969 upholding a governor's choosing of a senator. (It was Gov. Nelson Rockefeller's appointment of Robert F. Kennedy's replacement, in lieu of a special election.)
That doesn't mean the Supreme Court would tackle the question now. Courts are notoriously reluctant to poke their noses into this kind of exercise of power by another branch of government. But the 39 states with automatic handoffs to the governor could take the ball away and give it back to the voters via special election. Call it the Thank You Caroline Act.
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I agree, Noreen, that it's hard to believe her uncle's health is the reason Caroline Kennedy has withdrawn from consideration for replacing Hillary Clinton as a senator. His grave illness is the kind of thing that makes Kennedys want to make sure another Kennedy is ready to carry on the name. It seems more likely that in her brief foray into retail politics Caroline discovered that the bubble she has been able to put around herself and her family all these years was going to be permanently popped, and that it's also no fun being mocked by the press and pawed by the public. (I await news as to whether another reason for Caroline's withdrawal is that she found out Gov. Paterson wasn't going to appoint her.) Since Caroline doesn't seem to be temperamentally equipped with the coat of armor that Hillary Clinton possesses, I would be very surprised if Caroline stepped up later to actually run for the seat. I also hope that if Ted is unable to serve out the rest of his term his wife won't succeed him, as Kennedy has apparently requested. You can honor the service and sacrifice of the Kennedy family without buying into the notion that they are entitled by some hereditary right to two U.S. Senate seats.
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Noreen is having technical difficulties, so I'm posting her thoughts on Caroline Kennedy dropping out of contention for Hillary Clinton's Senate seat:
So Caroline Kennedy is withdrawing her name from consideration for the Senate, reportedly to spend more time with her ailing Uncle Teddy. Whether that’s the full story or a rather a graceful cover-up for what would have been an embarrassing PR fiasco if she hadn’t been picked, I think this could be an opportunity for her in the long run. I was among those who felt Kennedy was getting an easy, entitled pass without showing how much she wanted the seat or why. But if she picks herself up and runs for the open seat in 2010 (with real voters and everything!), she’ll get a chance to prove me wrong and maybe even grab my vote.
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Slate language columnist and sometime "XX Factor" menswear correspondent Jesse Sheidlower tipped me off to the biggest untold fashion story of Inauguration Day: Obama's outfit for the balls was all wrong! He explains the details here:
While the dress new first lady Michelle Obama wore to the inauguration balls—"a fluffy, many-layered gown by a 26-year-old designer named Jason Wu"—got a typical amount of press attention, President Obama's attire was barely mentioned. Which is probably a good thing because it was, by the standards of men's formal dress, simply incorrect.
Obama was wearing a white bow tie and a tuxedo with a notch collar. There are many things wrong with this. First, the inaugural balls were not white-tie but black-tie events, and dressing more formally than required is a faux pas. Second, if Obama wanted to wear white tie, he should have done it right. White tie, or men's formal dress (traditionally black tie is known as "informal"; there's no such thing as "semi-formal"), is not simply a tuxedo worn with a white tie. It consists of a tailcoat, not a tuxedo jacket, and it is worn with a wing-collar shirt with a front of cotton piqué. The trousers traditionally have double piping on the side seam. Black tie consists of a tuxedo jacket (which traditionally has peak, not notch, lapels with satin or grosgrain facing) worn with a black bow tie and a pleated straight-collar shirt. The trousers have a single wide piping on the side seam.
Of course, it has become popular among prominent men to scramble formalwear conventions completely. It is now very common to see wing-collar shirts with tuxedos, or—even worse—that Oscar-season atrocity: A collarless shirt paired with a dark suit and called "black tie." But it's too bad the president couldn't have started off his term in a more appropriate outfit. He's proved that he can look fantastic in proper formal dress, as he'll need to do for state dinners, and it would have been nice to see how elegant he looked in a proper tuxedo.
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When John McCain made his first comments on the Senate floor today since his electoral opponent was sworn into office, calling for a unanimous consent vote on Hillary Clinton's confirmation as secretary of state (instead of the roll-call vote fellow that Republican Sen. John Cornyn insisted on Monday), it looked like a grand gesture of post partisanship. I’m a bit skeptical change has taken hold so quickly. Despite the usual "esteemed colleague" rhetoric, the Senate is a treacherous place. McCain is supporting Mrs. Clinton, yes, but he is also having another chance to tell his sometime rival Cornyn, "f--- you," like he did when the two got into a fight during a 2007 meeting on immigration legislation. (McCain also "used a curse word associated with chickens" but I never figured out what it was.) Nor am I convinced Cornyn's agenda for holding up Sen. Clinton's confirmation vote is as pure as wanting "a little more transparency," which is all he claims he wants from Bill's foundation. Hillary will get confirmed either way. I, too, want Obama's Cabinet to get to work, but a little more disclosure about those donors would not be such a bad thing.
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As for Hanna, a single word stood out for me from Obama's inaugural address. But it wasn't curiosity. It was nonbelievers. Atheists are among the U.S.'s most distrusted minorities, and a full 53 percent of Americans would not vote for an atheist candidate for president. Here's the context of Obama's atheist mention:
For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus—and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth, and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass. ...
There's been much talk of Obama's ushering in a "post-racial" America, but will he also be welcoming a post-religion America? Doubtful, but at least it's a step in the right direction.
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I'm buying into the whole Michelle-Obama-redefines-fashion-for-first-ladies theme. She avoids the usual clichés; she projects athletic and feminine; she does designer fashion and "off the rack." The one thing I'm having trouble with is J. Crew representing "off the rack." As the fashion narrative goes, the fact that she buys clothes in, like, an actual store is supposed to inspire us regular folk in this faltering economy to do the same. But in my mind, I just can't fit J. Crew and Joe the Plumber in the same space. For one thing, those jackets (beautiful, sherbet-y, perfect) that she bought her girls cost close to $200, which is quite a lot for a kid's coat. For another, J. Crew's brand identity is aspiring high WASP—linen pants, crisp white shirts, striped shorts for the yacht. Before I gave up, I was always discouraged by how J. Crew pants stretched a foot too long on me, thus making it clear I was not one of them. Come to think of it, J. Crew is sort of the Sidwell Friends of chain brands, which may help explain things ...
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This is the word that stood out for me in Obama's list of values yesterday: "hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism." The rest have echoes in traditional and more safe political dialogue. But curiosity has a different sort of resonance. Curiosity is what led his mother on the many of what must have seemed like reckless adventures, that eventually created the motley family he has today. For a post-PC age, curiosity is a much better word than tolerance with its implications of holding your nose. Curiosity always has two shades of meaning—great interest or careful attention to detail on one side and danger on the other. From the red flag of Eve to Curious George, Western culture has often stressed the latter definition. Now Obama reclaims it as a noble character trait, which is how I've always taught it to my kids.
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Thanks to Dahlia for just forwarding around a clip of Beyoncé singing "At Last" as the first couple had their first dance at the Inaugural Ball last night. First of all: Wow. What a fantastic performance of a great song, even more beautifully delivered than when Beyoncé belted it in character as Etta James in the recent Cadillac Records. But second: Did it strike anyone else how perfectly chosen the song was for that moment, for our moment as a nation? As Beyoncé stood there, not onstage but as a member of the audience, looking the first couple in the eyes and singing directly to them, it was as if her words could have come from all of us: At last. The slow-motion nightmare of the Bush years is over. The longest campaign since Caesar divided Gaul has finally come to an end. And the centuries of racial discrimination that have been our greatest shame—well, let's not get ahead of ourselves yet, but something significant has started to shift there, too. At last.
On a less metaphorical level, "At Last" is as romantic as love songs get, and the sight of the handsome first couple alone on a stage, she in a long white gown and he in a tux, smiling at each other with embarrassed but genuine happiness, couldn't help but evoke the first dance at a wedding. Of course, it's after the wedding that things get real, and given the state of the world right now, our honeymoon with the Obamas is likely to be even shorter than most. But for that moment at least (and you could tell from her performance that Beyoncé felt this too) our lonely days were over, our hearts were wrapped in clover, and life was like a song.
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Judith Thurman, who wrote a profile of Isabel Toledo and her husband Ruben in The New Yorker two years ago, has this touching postscript on Michelle's Inauguration Day frock:
Since the whole occasion is so fraught with symbolism, I think that the choice of Isabel was particularly apt. She and Ruben are Latinos—from Cuba—who grew up in working-class families. They and the Obamas belong to the same generation. Ruben described himself to me (before Obama famously did) as a “mutt.” America gave them a chance, and they made the best of it. When Obama spoke, this morning, about the “makers” who work with their hands, and who have built America, he might have been thinking of the Toledos. They are also independent entrepreneurs who have built a small business, which has suffered its ups and downs, but they hang in. And like the Obamas, they’re an unusually devoted couple.
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