Not very often these days am I able to say this, but the skit that started SNL last night, with Tina Fey as Sarah Palin and Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton, was easily up to the standards of the show back when it was funny.
You’re got to watch this. It’s hilarious.
Have you had occasion to check out the way The New York Times has been posting the major speeches from the conventions? It’s about the coolest — and to me, most useful — software I’ve ever seen. Certainly the coolest since Google Maps came up with the "street level" view, and without the Big Brother overtones.
Here’s what it does: First, there’s a high-quality video window. Then, there’s a transcript of the speech posted next to the video, but that’s not the cool part. The cool part is that if you click on the paragraph you want, the video jumps to the beginning of that paragraph. Then, on top of that, there’s a topical outline to the right of the transcript. Click on the subject you want, and it jumps to that part of the transcript and video. It’s amazing.
Not only that, but the paper’s site search engine — which unfortunately often frustrates me; it doesn’t read my mind as well as, say, Google does — will take you straight to these miraculous pages with the simplest, most intuitive input, such as "Barack Obama’s speech."
Since I subscribe to the NYT, I don’t know whether these are accessible just to subscribers, or to everyone. But in the hope that you can go check them out and groove on them, here are a few of the top speeches from the two conventions:
Did it work for you? I hope so. This is too cool not to be able to share.
Well, I certainly got some reactions on that last one, some quite condemnatory. It makes me wonder — would these folks have reacted so vehemently if they had heard me share that cultural association with regard to Gov. Palin, face-to-face? Probably not. Even as she was speaking — I had flipped on the little TV outside my office to listen while going back and forth getting work done — I had given her a glance and shared that observation with Cindi. Cindi paused in what she was doing only long enough to glance at the tube, and correct my facts — I had described her hair as looking as though she had quickly pinned it up atop her head to get it out of her way while getting work done, and Cindi informed me that she had paid good money to get her hair done that way.
Which of course changes nothing. The point in the end is that Sarah Palin apparently puts her hair up in a way that looks pragmatic and businesslike to ME, and wears Serious Eyeglasses rather than contacts, as a deliberate statement meant to balance her beauty. It’s a way of being taken seriously. And for those of you so deeply offended on gender grounds, men do the same thing — they wear suits.
Would it make y’all feel better if I describe some of the other figures in terms of snap judgments based on their appearances? OK, I will. It won’t be quite the same, of course, because a beautiful woman evokes a response that’s unlike any you get with a man or a less-attractive woman — something that I believe Sarah Palin understands well enough to hide some of that light under a bushel. OK, here we go:
So there you go — shallow, quick-impression assessments of all the major characters. None of them are exactly sitcom characters, but I worked with what I had.
By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
THE DEMOCRATIC convention forced me to an unpleasant realization: I’ve become one of those crotchety old guys who yell at the television in helpless frustration: “Lies! How can they say such things? How can anyone sit still for this stuff?”
And this week, I’m in for more of the same with the Republicans.
What sets me off? Oh, take your pick — the hyperbole, the self-importance, the us-against-them talk, the stuff that Huck Finn called “tears and flapdoodle.”
Take, for instance, this typical bit from Hillary Clinton’s speech:
My friends, it is time to take back the country we love. And whether you voted for me or you voted for Barack, the time is now to unite as a single party with a single purpose. We are on the same team. And none of us can afford to sit on the sidelines. This is a fight for the future. And it’s a fight we must win together. I haven’t spent the past 35 years in the trenches… to see another Republican in the White House squander our promise…
Let’s deconstruct that a bit.
Take back the country? From whom? Did I miss something? Did the Russians roll right on through Gori and into Washington? No? You say Americans are still in charge, just the “wrong” Americans, of the wrong party? But your party controls Congress! Take it back from whom?
… a single party with a single purpose. Now there you’ve hit on the biggest lie propagated by each of the major parties, the conceit that there is something coherent and consistent about such loose confederations of often-incompatible interest groups. Did you not just spend the last few months playing with all the force you could muster upon those very differences, those very tensions — between feminists and black voters, between the working class and the wine and cheese set? What single purpose, aside from winning an election?
This is a fight… No, it isn’t, however much you love to say that. Again, I refer you to what the Russians are doing in Georgia — that’s a fight, albeit a one-sided one.
… that we must win together. Actually, that raises a particularly pertinent point, which is that the only “fights” that “must” be won are the ones in which “together” is defined as all Americans, or all freedom-loving peoples, whereas such divisive factions as your party and that other one that will meet in St. Paul militate against our being able to win such fights together.
I haven’t spent the past 35 years in the trenches… You’re absolutely right; you haven’t. So spare us the war metaphors.
… to see another Republican in the White House squander our promise… Like that’s what matters, the stupid party label. Like there isn’t more difference between you and Barack Obama in terms of philosophy and goals and experience and what you would bring to office than there is between John McCain and Joe Biden. Come on! Please!…
Sigh. Fume. Mutter.
This stuff wouldn’t upset me quite so much if not for the fact that this was to be the year that we rose above this stuff. That’s why I so happily supported both John McCain and Barack Obama in their parallel bids for the White House. Both men offered themselves as alternatives from the incessant, bitter, destructive partisan warfare of the Clinton-Bush years.
John McCain is the man the GOP’s partisans love to hate, the guy they call a “Republican In Name Only,” the man they stooped to new lows to destroy in 2000, the senator who’d just as soon work with Democrats as Republicans, the candidate who, coincidentally, has been giving Sen. Clinton a lot of love in his latest campaign ads.
Barack Obama was the Democrat who made it abundantly, eloquently clear that he was not running in order to “fight” against his fellow Americans. So all week, I looked forward to his acceptance speech, and when it came I was… disappointed.
Maybe I had built it up too much in my mind, depended too much on it to wash away the bad taste of all those boilerplate party speeches I had heard. He said many of the right things. He said “Democrats as well as Republicans will need to cast off the worn-out ideas and politics of the past,” but as for most of it — well, read David Broder’s column on the facing page.
When he said “part of what has been lost these past eight years… is our sense of common purpose,” I thought, yes, but it’s been happening a lot more than eight years, and you know that. But he said it that way because of his audience. That’s what made the speech flat, by Obama standards. He had to avoid offending the kind of people who love the bitter politics that he had been running against.
What I had wanted to hear was the kind of thing that caused me, while blogging on live TV the night of his South Carolina primary victory, to write “What a TREMENDOUS victory speech!” A sample of what impressed me so that night:
“We are looking for more than just a change of party in the White House…. We are up against decades of bitter partisanship that cause politicians to demonize their opponents… That kind of politics is bad for our party, it’s bad for our country, and this is our chance to end it once and for all.”
That sort of anti-partisan vehemence would not have played well in Mile-High Stadium. Maybe, as he escapes the gravitational pull of Denver, the Obama of January will come out to inspire us again. I hope so. In the meantime, on to the Republicans….
Just moments ago as I write this, as he announced he’d chosen Sarah Palin as his running mate, Sen. McCain promised the GOP crowd that he’d “fight for you.”
Lord help us.
Go to thestate.com/bradsblog/.
Robert’s in trouble now! He mentioned to me a few minutes ago the negative attention his cartoon from yesterday about Hillary and Barack has garnered, particularly on a blog called "Feminist Law Professors."
That blog took time out from considering "Which Wine Should I Bring To A Party At My Dean’s House?," a post that demonstrates at least a sense of humor of a sort, to bristle over "Political ‘Humor’ in the South Carolina MSM," which features Robert’s cartoon. It was filed under the category, "Sexism in the Media."
Key commentary from that blog:
That’s the same cartoonist that produced this and this and this and this.
Now I invite your commentary…
As the Clintons prepare to engage in catharsis tonight and tomorrow, it seems fitting to see what’s going on over in the alternative universe in which the diehard Hillary supporters live and move and have their being. We’ve visited it before, but it remains a strange place to the uninitiated, a place where people can say the following without a trace of irony:
Open Letter To SuperDelegates:
Rarely is one person given the opportunity and the responsibility to make a decision which will affect the future of their country. This is indeed such a time. It is as important a decision as the decision that citizens of this country made to revolt against the British government. It is as important a time as the moment that John Hancock decided to prominently sign his name, knowing that his signature would be considered treason punishable by death. Soon, each superdelegate will make a decision that will irrevocably usher in a time of corruption and political cheating or prosperity and a stable productive government. Such is the choice you have before you: whether to nominate Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.
Barack Obama has no substantial experience in government, no distinguished voting record, and no history of patriotic service to this country. Further, he has no leadership experience, having accomplished little during his tenure in Illinois or the Senate. His only experience is as a community organizer, a woefully inadequate preparation for the presidency. However, due to positive exposure from the media and the DNC, he has managed to catapult himself beyond far more qualified candidates. Further, he won many delegates from caucuses, a troublesome sign given that widespread caucus cheating has been documented and caucuses do not fairly represent the will of the voters. He has alienated key groups of traditionally Democratic voters. Do not be lulled into thinking that new younger voters will compensate for such voters, as they represent a huge block of moderate voters who elected Bill Clinton president. Do not think that empty phrases of change and hope can substitute for hard-core experience and a love of this country. Barack Obama’s only agenda is to get elected. He neither knows how to run this country or to be loyal to it. His loyalty is to himself alone, and to the goal of being elected president.
Hillary Clinton has substantial experience and a desire to do what is right and good for this country. While the media and the DNC abandoned her, she stood firm and strong, propelled by the loyalty and needs of eighteen million citizens. With her perseverance and policy knowledge, she demonstrated that she can lead this country while she weathered adversity and stood alone against the media and the political establishment…
Really. You can find that at justsaynodeal.com. But there is more. There is, as I say, a whole universe to explore — a universe where IT’S NOT OVER:
Here’s a longer list of such sites. Enjoy.
A couple of days ago when George Will made his snide reference to "what ‘catharsis’ is ‘owed’ to disappointed Clintonites," I thought he was just being, well, snide. It apparently escaped me at the time that the word "catharsis" was in quotation marks (meaning, to those of you who are punctuation challenged, that it was a direct quote).
Then, in the Maureen Dowd column I chose for tomorrow’s paper, there was another reference to it. So I looked around, and sure enough, it seems that Hillary has been going around talking about how part of the upcoming convention should be devoted to letting her supporters vent about how ticked off they still are. And apparently, she has used the word, "catharsis."
This is needed, you see, to deal with all that "incredible pent-up desire" out there. See the video above.
They’re serious about this, serious as a crutch. No sense of irony or self-mocking here. There’s even a reference to "Greek drama," without any laughter or snorting or anything. Now, in perfect fairness, all this discussion arises from a fairly innocuous question about whether she could be offered, symbolically, as a "favorite daughter" candidate, as in days of yore. (No reference in the question as to which state might offer her thus. New York? Illinois? Arkansas?)
Well, we know there are some rather extreme feelings out there (is it sexist to say "feelings" in this context?) among her most ardent admirers. That’s been documented here before.
But acting out at the convention? Couldn’t they just have a VPS treatment or a Chill Pill instead? Or maybe a good, stiff drink?
This is weird, folks.
Anyway, Obama was asked about this the other day, and gave a pretty careful (as you might imagine), but pretty direct, answer, to the effect of "No way:"
“I’m letting our respective teams work out the details,” Mr. Obama said. “I don’t think we’re looking for catharsis. I think what we are looking for is energy and excitement about the prospects of changing this country, and I think that people who supported a whole range of different candidates during the primaries are going to come out of that convention feeling absolutely determined that we have to take the White House back.”
It occurs to me as I finish this post that maybe y’all have seen all this on TV "news," which I don’t watch, because this is just the kind of pooge they really get into. But in case you were as insulated from the all the passion as I was, I share it now.
Someone in the comments back on this post asked,
Why does it matter whom Mr. Warthen and his shrinking enterprise endorse for President?
Of course, there is no modest way for me to answer such assertions. I can only say that it mattered enough to Barack Obama and John McCain to make time to come see us and seek that endorsement. Also to Joe Biden, Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback.
Hillary Clinton opted not to come see us. Whatever happened to her anyway?
Well, even if I can’t fix this problem, here’s one thing I can do toward tidying up my blog: I’ve taken the direct links to the official Hillary Clinton campaign site, and posts about Hillary, out of the link rail to the left.
If you still want to go to the official Hillary site — which appears to exist now mainly as a means of trying to retire her campaign debt — you can find it here.
And for posts about her, you can always click on the "Hillary Clinton" Category in the category list, below in the right-hand rail…
Of course, I could have written that headline a month ago, and I could probably write it five years from now, and it would likely still be true. Hillary supporters are not people with what we could call a forgiving nature — even when there’s nothing to forgive, let me hasten to add. (These folks have less of a sense of humor than our own Lee Muller, if you can believe it.) Anyway, it’s a persistent movement out there.
On the front page of today’s WSJ was this story, which contained the following lame attempt to explain just what it is that Hillary supporters are so ticked about:
The Clinton holdouts are typically most angry about what they say was the media’s sexist treatment of Sen. Clinton during the campaign. And though few, if any, blame Sen. Obama directly, they fault the Illinois senator and other party leaders for what they say was failing to do enough to stop it….
Last Wednesday, Daphna Ziman, a prominent Beverly Hills backer of Sen. Clinton, hosted a conference call of some 70 political activists from around the country, spurred by what she and others on the call saw as the media’s sexism during the campaign.
One high-profile example: pundits both on TV and in print referred to Sen. Clinton’s laugh as a "cackle." Separately, a joke by comedian Chris Rock comparing the candidate to the knife-wielding madwoman played by Glenn Close in the film "Fatal Attraction" was picked up and parroted by others in the mainstream media.
Really: A "cackle." They’re really worked up about stuff like this. For a moment, I thought, "These two WSJ reporters, who are both of the male persuasion, are trying to make fun of the legitimate concerns of the Clinton camp," but then I realized they were doing their best! What those folks are mad about is precisely stuff like this! And they complain about it without smirking or anything.
And poor ol’ Obama is supposed to have made Chris Rock stop it. Or something. Don’t ask me to explain.
Did you ever sort of suspect that the Hillary Clinton campaign would never give up — that never-say-die
supporters would still be found 40 years from now holed up in a bunker somewhere, like those Japanese soldiers who still wandered out of the jungle on islands in the Pacific for decades after WWII? (Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi, right, was found in 1972 in a Guam jungle,
where he had been living on shrimp, fish and nuts — with the emphasis
on "nuts" — since 1943.)
Yeah, so did I.
Well, we were right. I got a release today from a group called JustSayNoDeal.com, to this effect:
June 18, 2008
MEDIA ALERT
Just Say No Deal Asks Obama Supporters To: “Show Some Class”
Tasteless Behavior Like the Booing of Public Officials Has NO Place in Our Election Process
– Online and Nationwide— JustSayNoDeal.com, a coalition of voters, individual activists, blogs, PACs and grassroots organizations, reacts to the scene on Monday night in Detroit’s Joe Louis Arena when Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm received a deafening chorus of boos at her mention of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Moments later former Vice President Al Gore experienced similar jeering when he referred to Senator John McCain.
Just Say No Deal Coalition members will not tolerate such offensive and disrespectful conduct from supporters of Senator Obama aimed at any individual— whether they be an elected official or a member of the community at large, and the Just Say No Deal organization will not align itself with any candidate that permits this shameful behavior to be exhibited in any forum.
During this lengthy primary process Senator Clinton and many of her 18 million supporters have endured pointedly hurtful behavior and vulgar attacks by unruly and inappropriate backers of Senator Obama in public arenas and in new media outlets. The most prevalent arena of these assaults has been on the most recognized sites within the blogosphere.
Concerned citizens continue to break their silence to express their dissatisfaction with party leaders and the short-circuiting of the nominating process. The Just Say No Deal portal offers those voters a plethora of voting strategies, calls-to-action and blogpostings to guide their general election decision-making. In doing so, they reclaim their voices and vow to Just Say No Deal!
You can, if you wish, take this group at its word that it’s just about being fair and polite toward "any individual— whether they be an elected official or a member of the community at large," and believe it’s not about Hillary. But you can’t do that with some of the sites to which JustSayNoDeal.com provides links, such as:
This rich vein just goes on and on — dozens of such sites. Some of y’all who have more time on your hands than I do should browse through them and share some of the nuggets with the rest of us.
Nobody could make this up. And the thing is, you get the sense the authors of these sites are not really trying to be funny, although many succeed at being Hillaryous.
But don’t tell them I said that. Some of these folks seem the type who don’t appreciate a little good-natured ribbing.
She’s waving the white flag … do you think it’s for real? … I don’t know, it looks real, but I don’t believe it — the way she fought, she’s not giving up just like that, is she? … Maybe I should go check… No, I’ll go check. Stevens and Rico, cover me. And Obama — you keep your head down…
This may come as a surprise to you, but there are women out there — smart, accomplished women (just ask ’em; they’ve got a Web site and everything) — who believe that the issue of "Sexism Went Unchallenged During Hillary Campaign."
Who knew? It seemed to me that it kept coming up whether it was relevant or not. But that’s just me, and obviously I’m not qualified to judge (just ask these women, they’ll tell you). I don’t know whether anyone voted against Hillary Clinton because she was a woman. However, I’ve become convinced by pieces such as this one that there are people out there (generally of the female persuasion) who voted for her because she’s a woman, so maybe that means the opposite is also true…
I sort of thought — as, apparently, does Kathleen Parker, who as near as I can tell is a woman, and therefore entitled to speak on the subject — that Hillary Clinton isn’t getting the nomination because she’s Hillary Clinton, not because she is a woman in the generic sense. Ironically, and let’s just call this a mystery, she also got as far as she did because she is Hillary Clinton. There seems to be a sort of dynamic equilibrium in being Hillary Clinton — you’re guaranteed to go far, but not beyond a certain point.
But never mind me. Read this exchange in which Lesley Stahl welcomes Cynthia McFadden to "our lineup of wise women." Lesley and Cynthia chat about the previously unchallenged issue of sexism as it applies to Hillary, and then go on to empathize with each other about the ways in which they have been victimized by misogyny, and all sorts of stuff I couldn’t possibly understand, being only a guy.
And now, while these ladies discuss such things as whether the media has called sufficient attention to how male candidates look in trousers, I’m just going to tiptoe out of the room, hoping my exit isn’t noticed, and see if there’s any more beer in the fridge…
I ran into Neal Dolan before Mass on Sunday at St. Peter’s, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen him since Martin Luther King Day. That was the day the Secret Service descended in force upon our building here at The State while Sen. Barack Obama was talking to the editorial board. Neal was the Secret Service agent in charge here in Columbia until his retirement recently. He’s now working with SLED.
Obama has had (for good reasons, apparently) the heaviest security detail of any candidate who’s ever come to see us. So it seemed a bit of coincidence that I would be reminded of that by running into Neal the very weekend that Hillary Clinton explained why hers is the Campaign That Won’t Leave as follows:
"We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California."
So, you know, anything could happen, so why quit now? She later explained that far from being coldbloodedly calculating, she was just in a particularly sensitive frame of mind regarding Kennedys in general, what with the terrible news about Teddy.
And now that we’ve all exclaimed, "That’s awful!" let’s think about this a minute. This is the most logical explanation for the Never-Ending Campaign I’ve heard yet. I’m not saying it’s a good explanation, but it has a certain morbid logic.
But it still doesn’t strike me as the sort of thing you hear from a presidential candidate. Hollywood would never have a presidential candidate say such a thing, unless the candidate were played by Robert DeNiro:
Not that I got nothin’ against this guy, you unnerstand… It’s just that somethin’ could happen to him — like he could get whacked or somethin’, God forbid (hands form prayer position). Nobody’d want nothin’ to happen to him or anyt’ing like that; I’m just sayin’…
Isn’t that, after all, what she said? It’s not that she’d WANT such a terrible thing to happen; she’s just saying…. Until now, who knew that when she spoke of getting that 3 a.m. phone call, she was thinking about before the election?
Normally, I don’t think very hard about things that make little sense, such as the claim by Hillary Clinton that her flagging political fortunes result from "misogyny." Since such claims are not logical, I don’t bother carrying them to their "logical conclusions."
That’s a mistake on my part, because such an exercise can yield interesting results. Check out this very short op-ed piece in the WSJ this morning, headlined, "Nothing but Misogynists."
It starts out by considering some of her statements along the lines of what I quoted earlier in the week:
"I think that both gender and race have been obviously a part of it because of who we are and every poll I’ve seen show more people would be reluctant to vote for a woman to vote for an African American, which rarely gets reported on either…. But it does seem as though the press at least is not as bothered by the incredible vitriol that has been engendered by comments and reactions of people who are nothing but misogynists."
It then considers that at the same time she’s blaming misogyny for her failures in Democratic contests, she asserts — in practically the same breath — that she’s "the strongest candidate against John McCain."
So the op-ed piece arrives, quite logically, at this conclusion:
This fact (if it be a fact) reveals a hitherto unknown, ugly truth about the Democratic Party. The alleged bastion of modern liberalism, toleration and diversity is full of (to use Mrs. Clinton’s own phrase) "people who are nothing but misogynists." Large numbers of Democratic voters are sexists. Who knew?
But here’s another revelation. If Mrs. Clinton is correct that she is more likely than Barack Obama to defeat John McCain in November, that implies Republicans and independents are less sexist than Democrats.
It must be so. If American voters of all parties are as sexist as the Democrats, Mr. Obama would have a better chance than Mrs. Clinton of defeating Mr. McCain. The same misogyny that thwarted her in the Democratic primaries would thwart her in the general election. Only if registered Republicans and independents are more open-minded than registered Democrats – only if people who lean GOP or who have no party affiliation are more willing than Democrats to overlook a candidate’s sex and vote on the issues – could Mrs. Clinton be a stronger candidate…
Who knew, indeed?
Here’s an audio clip of Hillary Clinton talking to a Washington Post reporter about the misogynistic treatment she has supposedly received as a candidate, and how "surprised" she was by it.
Mind you, in Hillary’s defense — if I may be so chivalrous without giving offense — the reporter is really pressing this line of discussion on her, urging her to talk about this treatment that has "really pissed off a lot of women." So it’s not like she brought it up. They refer to a column over the weekend by the Post‘s Marie Cocco detailing men’s sins against Hillary, which I gotta tell you I had to go read, because I was really wondering what these two ladies were going on about… Ms. Cocco wrote that when this is all over, she "won’t miss" all this misogyny. After reading the list of sins (ranging from Andrew Sullivan down to some unnamed sleazeballs selling tasteless novelty items), I must confess that I did miss them, mostly (I think I did hear the one about "everyone’s first wife," secondhand). But then I wasn’t looking for them. And I don’t watch TV "news."
But given the opportunity, she complains that sexism has been way more of a problem than racism. That lucky duck Obama, huh? You would apparently have known all about this, but we men in the media have been covering it up.
Anyway, if you don’t want to follow the link, here’s a transcript:
Q. One of
the stories that has been well documented over and over again is basically how
you’ve been treated by the media. Can you talk about that a little bit, because
I get the idea that it’s really pissed off a lot of women.A. "I think
it has. I think it’s been deeply offensive to millions of women. … I believe
this campaign has been a ground breaker in lots of ways, but it certainly has
been challenging given some of the attitudes that have been forthcoming in the
press, and I regret that because I think it’s been really not worthy of the
seriousness of this campaign and the historical nature of the two candidacies
that we have here. But I don’t really stop to worry about it because there’s
nothing I can do about it."Q. Are women
going to be upset if you don’t get the nomination?A. I have
more voters now than my opponent. I have more popular vote, more people voting
for me.Q. Counting
Michigan and Florida?A. According
to ABC, and I think it’s a fair way to total it up because my name was on the
ballot they voted for me. But in any event, it’s one of the closest races we’ve
ever had and I think that a lot of people are deeply invested in their
candidates, so there will probably be disappointment no matter which of us gets
the nomination. And then it will be up to us to unify the party and make sure we
are victorious in November against McCain.Q. What’s
the scenario by which you could still win the nomination?A. If people
start asking themselves who’s the strongest candidate against John McCain,
because I believe I am.Q. Do you
think he can win?A. Sure. I
think he can win–I think I will win.Q. But short
of a scandal on his part do you see people coming to that
conclusion?A. I don’t
know, that’s why we’re not going to quit. We’re going forward. We’re going to
give the people in the remaining elections the chance to vote, which I think is
absolutely fair. And we’re going to resolve Michigan and Florida, which has to
be done sooner instead of later. And then we’ll see where we
stand.Q. Do you
think this has been a particularly racist campaign?A. I do not.
I think this has been a positive, civil campaign. I think that both gender and
race have been obviously a part of it because of who we are and every poll I’ve
seen show more people would be reluctant to vote for a woman to vote for an
African American, which rarely gets reported on either. The manifestation of
some of the sexism that has gone on in this campaign is somehow more respectable
or at least more accepted. And I think there should be equal rejection of the
sexism and the racism when and if it ever raises its ugly head. But it does seem
as though the press at least is not as bothered by the incredible vitriol that
has been engendered by comments and reactions of people who are nothing but
misogynists.Q. Isn’t
that how it’s always been though.A.
Oppression of women and discrimination against women is universal. You can go to
places in the world where there are no racial distinctions except everyone is
joined together in their oppression of women. The treatment of women is the
single biggest problem we have politically and socially in the world. If you
look at the extremism and the fundamentalism, it is all about controlling women,
at it’s base. The idea that we would have a presidential campaign in which so
much of what has occurred that has been very sexist would be just shrugged off I
think is a very unfortunate commentary about the lack of seriousness that should
be applied to any kind of discrimination or prejudice. I have spent my entire
life trying to stand up for civil rights and women’s rights and human rights and
I abhor wherever it is discrimination is present.
Four quick things:
Barack Obama, not to be outdone on the regular-guy front by Hillary’s boilermakers, strode decisively into a Raleigh bar tonight and ordered a Pabst Blue Ribbon.
As a result, he won the North Carolina primary. That is, you can’t prove that’s not why he won. If only he’d mastered the intricacies of Yuengling while there was still time in PA…
He also demonstrated that he could hold his brew by resisting a pitch from a perky saleswoman who wanted to sell him new kitchen countertops for the White House. Really.
Unfortunately, while the candidate was catching up on his drinking, his rival went and stole the Indiana primary — apparently. Obama, apparently feeling mellow, conceded that contest to her before it was even over.
So the madness continues.
Tomorrow, his campaign plans to work on his bowling. Once he cracks 100, they’ll teach him to bowl and drink beer at the same time, and then he’ll be unstoppable…
This has been a busy day and I’m just getting around to some basic things now. But I couldn’t let the day pass without noting how right Obama is about this:
Obama says rivals Clinton, McCain pandering on gas tax
By MIKE GLOVER and BETH FOUHY
Associated Press Writers
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Democrat Barack Obama dismissed his rivals’ calls for national gas tax holiday as a political ploy that won’t help struggling consumers. Hillary Rodham Clinton said his stance shows he’s out of touch with the economic realities faced by ordinary citizens.
Clinton and certain Republican presidential nominee John McCain are calling for a holiday on collecting the federal gas tax "to get them through an election," Obama said at a campaign rally before more than 2,000 cheering backers a week before crucial primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. "The easiest thing in the world for a politician to do is tell you exactly what you want to hear."
Clinton, who toured the Miller Veneers wood manufacturing company in Indianapolis, said "there are a lot of people in Indiana who would really benefit from a gas tax holiday.
"That might not mean much to my opponent, but I think it means a lot to people who are struggling here, people who commute a long way to work, farmers and truckers," Clinton said. She has called for a windfall tax on oil companies to pay for a gas tax holiday.
"Senator Obama won’t provide relief, while Senator McCain won’t pay for it," Clinton said. "I’m the only candidate who will provide immediate relief at the pump, with a plan."
With his comments, Obama continued a running dispute over whether ending collection of the gas tax is the quickest and best way to help consumers. Leading in delegates and the popular vote, Obama in recent days has focused on McCain, but he broadened that criticism Tuesday to include Democrat Clinton.
"Now the two Washington candidates in the race have decided to do something different," said Obama. "John McCain started it, he made the proposal, and then Hillary Clinton said ‘me too.’"
The plan would suspend collecting the 18.4 cent federal gas tax 24.4 cent diesel tax for the summer.
He said drying up gas tax collections would batter highway construction, costing North Carolina up to 7,000 jobs, while saving consumers little.
"We’re arguing over a gimmick that would save you half a tank of gas over the course of the entire summer so that everyone in Washington can pat themselves on the back and say they did something," said Obama.
"Well, let me tell you, this isn’t an idea designed to get you through the summer, it’s designed to get them through an election," said Obama. He said his call for middle-class tax cuts would be far more beneficial than suspending gas tax collections.
Obama took a different view on the issue when he was an Illinois legislator, voting at least three times in favor of temporarily lifting the state’s 5 percent sales tax on gasoline.
The tax holiday was finally approved during a special session in June of 2000, when Illinois motorists were furious that gas prices had just topped $2 a gallon in Chicago.
During one debate, he joked that he wanted signs on gas pumps in his district to say, "Senator Obama reduced your gasoline prices."
But the impact of the tax holiday was never clear. A government study could not determine how much of the savings was passed on to motorists. Many lawmakers said their constituents didn’t seem to have benefited. They also worried the tax break was pushing the state budget out of balance.
When legislation was introduced to eliminate the tax permanently, Obama voted "no." The effort failed, and the sales tax was allowed to take effect again.
Responding to Obama’s criticism, McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds said the Illinois senator "does not understand the effect of gas prices on the economy. Senator Obama voted for a gas tax reduction before he opposed it."
Bounds was deliberately echoing one of Democrat John Kerry’s most troublesome missteps of the 2004 presidential campaign. Kerry said of funding for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."
Obama and Clinton both opened their campaign day in North Carolina. Clinton toured a research facility and collected the prized endorsement of Gov. Mike Easley.
"It’s time for somebody to be in the White House who understands the challenges we face in this country," said Easley, in announcing his backing of Clinton. She then promptly headed for a string of events in Indiana.
"The governor and I have something in common – we think results matter," said Clinton.
Easley is popular with white, working-class voters that have formed the base for Clinton’s success in recent primaries.
Clinton also collected an endorsement from Democratic Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, who praised "her support in rural America, her commitment to national security and her dedication to our men and women in uniform."
Skelton, a conservative Democrat who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, was among a half-dozen Democratic House members called to meet with Clinton after she won the Pennsylvania primary last week.
While Obama is favored in North Carolina, the race in Indiana is very tight, and Obama was heading there Wednesday.
Obama collected endorsements of his own during the day: In Kentucky, Rep. Ben Chandler, son of former Gov. A.B. "Happy" Chandler, gave Obama his backing ahead of that state’s May 20 primary, and in Iowa, Democratic National Committee member Richard Machacek – a supporter of former Sen. John Edwards before he dropped out of the presidential race – switched his support to Obama.
Interest in the two primaries next week has been high. Officials in Indiana said nearly 90,000 people have cast early ballots, far outpacing absentee turnout in 2004.
At stake Tuesday are 115 delegates in North Carolina, and 72 in Indiana.
Beth Fouhy reported from Indianapolis. Associated Press writers Christopher Wills in Springfield, Ill., and Sam Hananel in Washington contributed to this report.
Obama’s the only one acting like a responsible grownup here. He’s also the only one speaking up for Energy Party values.
What McCain and Clinton are both doing on this is appalling. They’re treating us like two-year-olds, and proposing to act in direct opposition to the nation’s interests.
When it comes to my preference for Barack Obama in the contest for the Democratic nomination, I refuse to take a back seat to those worthies on the editorial board of The New York Times. However, I must protest that their urgent yearning for Hope and Change caused them to ignore rather obvious realities earlier this week:
The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.
Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.
When you say "Voters are getting tired of it," you mean you are getting tired of it, as am I. (Sure, you can say Obama still leads nationally poll, but "national" doesn’t count until November, and even then it’s state by state.) And yes, it’s demeaning, but this is politics, ya know.
And you’ve gotta hand it to the lady: It does work. It certainly did on Tuesday, anyway.