Feminists hate Hillary

The Nation has an article on Hillary's problems with feminists here. Surprisingly to some (though not to me), they don't much care for her. I especially like the point that being the first woman in the White House would be overrated. How would that materially improve the lives of women? The article says a lot of things I agree with--i.e. it would be better for women to have a more liberal, male President who will fight for their rights instead of a calculating, unprincipled female who is willing to give away the store to seem more reasonable, which is the HRC modus operandi in spades. This is a must-read for HRC supporters.

Some quotes I found interesting:

"Having a woman in the White House won't necessarily do a damn thing for progressive feminism," writes Bitch magazine founder Lisa Jervis in LiP magazine. "Though the dearth of women in electoral politics is so dire as to make supporting a woman--any woman--an attractive proposition, even if it's just so she can serve as a role model for others who'll do the job better eventually, it's ultimately a trap. Women who do nothing to enact feminist policies will be elected and backlash will flourish. I can hear the refrain now: 'They've finally gotten a woman in the White House, so why are feminists still whining about equal pay?'"

I found myself enraged by this pro-HRC argument. Check it out for yourself:

"There's not one man of either party who is at the top of the race right now who, if he were a woman, would be taken seriously," says White House Project's Marie Wilson. "We wouldn't tolerate the lack of experience or the marital history [of Rudy Giuliani]. If Obama were a woman, and I don't care how articulate or wonderful, we'd be telling her that she didn't have enough experience." Or, as Susan Estrich wrote in her 2005 book, The Case for Hillary Clinton: "Imagine if Hillary weren't a woman. She'd simply be the best-qualified candidate, with absolutely everything going for her...."

I agree with the points about Rudy and Obama, but WTF is the last line about? What, being a political husband (in this example) for a long time and a Senator for six years would make you an ideal candidate? How about never apologizing for a vote that you say was wrong (even though you never really say that either)? How about buddying up to big business and Rupert Murdoch? How about lacking any sort of media skills or cohesive worldview, let alone new ideas? If Hillary were a man, she would be under constant attack by the blogosphere for what she believes, and rightfully so, since she's virtually a pro-choice Republican if you go by her stated stances.

I cannot stomach dishonest Hillary apologists, and these sorts of arguments drive me batty. I count Obama's experience as a State Senator more highly than Hillary's tenure as the First Lady of Arkansas, and just being around politics doesn't mean you learn it by osmosis. She totally screwed up health care in the early nineties, which is pretty much her only substantive policy experience outside of the Senate. By my count, Obama has about 10 years as an elected official, with Hillary having six. I don't know about you, but that argument is baloney.

She goes on to say: "If she were a he--Harry Rodham, let's say--the Democratic Party would be thrilled." Not so. We've had neoliberal, waffling candidates for President with armfuls of experience and a fair amount of hawkishness on military matters. Was anyone thrilled with the notion of John Kerry as President? Kerry was perceived as a liberal but was really a moderate, center-left, DLC-type Democrat, just like Hillary. He never had the enthusiastic support of the left flank--he was just the designated non-Bush choice. Kerry was every bit the male version of Hillary, down to being wholly uninspiring and subscribing to the weather vane theory of politics--just point the way the wind blows.

In sum, Hillary Clinton = John Kerry. And, oh yeah, the latter lost, just like the former will. Case closed.

I love the title of this article:

Louisiana Mayor Bans Sagging Pants

Boy, I know that Katrina was tough on the state and its population, but they actually demoted Louisiana to being just a city? Ouch.

Plus, isn't this gripe, like, ten years old? I recall my parents complaining about sagging pants when I was in grade school. Why, I don't know. I guess cause it seemed sort of gang-like. It does sort of show the faulty thinking among many parents: it's not the pants that make you a gang member. The murdering and selling drugs are what do that. Gangsters just happen to like loose-fitting clothes.

P. S. Isn't this a clear First Amendment violation? I've been lead to believe that freedom of expression is guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Then again, the GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR! obviously requires some sacrifices. If we let our children wear sagging pants, the terrorists will have won.

Late breaking news: Bush to appoint political hack to senior policy position!

Reuters has the story here. You might remember Ed Gillespie--certainly, he remembers you. He was the RNC chair during George W. Bush's 2004 election. Then he did some other stuff, now he's back. Really, the Bush Administration doesn't really bring in new blood, they just recycle the same people over and over again. Some examples:

• Robert Zoellick: US Trade Rep->Assistant Secretary of State->World Bank Head
• John Negroponte: Iraq Ambassador->Director of National Intelligence->Assistant Secretary of State
• Rob Portman: Congressman->US Trade Rep->OMB Director

Etc. etc. Gillespie does indeed have a lengthy biography in politics. Much of it deals with politics instead of policy, although he did have a prominent role in drafting the Contract on America. Much of his bio involves public affairs work, which would be good, if Bush actually cared about what the public thought and used PR for any other reason than trying to convince people that he's right. It says something about a man when he thinks fundamental philosophical and political differences in his country are primarily a PR problem.

In any event, Ed Gillespie will soon become a senior counselor to the President. I'm not sure what the job entails, but if it has anything to do with policy, Fast Eddie might be out of his league. Not that it matters, since this Administration hasn't even bothered with policy since about 2002.

The Lieberman Puzzle

The Nation gets all allegorical with this piece on a hypothetical Lieberman Presidency. The real target is fairly obvious, and I agree that the "any Democrat" argument is a hollow one. I don't have any reason to believe, for example, that a Hillary Clinton presidency would be much better than a Mike Huckabee presidency. Indeed, if anything, the former would probably be worse. I think that Huckabee would be more likely to bring the troops out of Iraq than Hillary, regardless of their respective rhetoric on the issue. Not to mention that Huckabee has good things to say on a number of other issues, such as the environment. Were he in charge of the GOP, he would likely be able to pursue several liberal concerns better than Hillary would (although I doubt that is going to be his pitch to GOP Primary voters).

Still, I think this article doesn't quite understand the Lieberman phenomenon. Lieberman might have voted for the Iraq War in 2002, but he was not very outspoken about it until after 2004, when he was badly defeated in his run for the presidency. Let's keep that in mind: he ran in an election to replace George Bush. That event seemed to be a shattering experience for Lieberman, who did not receive a coronation. Instead, he was mocked for his declaration that he was gaining "Joementum" and his declaration that he was in a three-way tie for third place in New Hampshire (which even he had to think was a silly thing to say). Before that, he was generally a good Democrat who had some independent (read: pandering) stances on cultural issues. Since that run (and the Ned Lamont primary challenge last year), he has become so angry at the Democratic Party that he has moved closer toward Bush on Iraq and even further right than him on Iran for what seems to be purely personal reasons. It's very clear to me that Lieberman is an attention whore who needs to be written about as being an independent, moderate Senator, but he's certainly not a sensible centrist on the issues anymore. He won't defect from the Democrats, as the press loves a dissenter, and Lieberman loves being covered by the media. Still, it's interesting to see "Holy Joe" go from being the reasonable Joe of 2000 to becoming a lot like his fellow Connecticut native Ann Coulter. In any event, the $20 I donated to Ned Lamont is seeming more and more prescient as time goes by. Connecticut is supposedly changing their state anthem, and I've got a suggestion that works on a couple of levels: Won't Get Fooled Again, by The Who.

P. S. The truth about this election is that the best candidate is the one who is no longer with us. Paul Wellstone would have been a tremendous candidate. Very liberal, to be sure, but he was a genuinely principled and good man, and it was easy to sense that about him. Plus, he had ideas, and he was right on Iraq from day one. I don't think the Democratic Party ever recovered from his loss, and although Russ Feingold has stepped in as the conscience of the party, he's not Wellstone. It's not every day that you find a living embodiment of your princples, but Wellstone certainly was one. Not sure how the MS would have played out...

Evolution schmevolution

A number of people (mostly on the left, although not exclusively) have an issue with the relative levels of people who believe in evolution in this country--specifically, the number of Republicans who say they don't. I'm not sure if they just don't like the man from monkeys idea (which is something that I'm not wild about, but willing to accept) or if they believe that God created all the species on the Earth as they are now, and that none of them have evolved at all (which is crazy and plainly contradicted by Darwin, with fairly incontrovertible evidence). In any event, if evolution is wholly false, it is difficult to explain away all the biological advancements of the past 150 years, which all build upon evolution.

Anyway, the ratio of average Republicans who believe in evolution is inverse among the GOP Presidential candidates. I'm actually amazed that that many Republicans do believe in evolution, although obviously the GOP isn't all evangelical, and many of the more business-oriented conservatives (and some other groups like Mormons) would not likely have a problem with evolution. I find this encouraging, actually: having grown up among evangelicals, I know that disbelief in evolution is virtually an article of faith among them, hence the 68%. However, being that about half of the people out there believe in evolution (which seems higher than it used to be) and that the GOP goal is not the elimination of evolution from the classroom, but rather just the teaching of intelligent design alongside it, I'm not too worried. One of the good things about my generation is that we're less tied to orthodoxy than the boomers. I'm actually encouraged by this poll, to be honest, and I'm not too afraid of creationists in general. The stakes for that argument are low--not so much when one talks about the neocons.

I'm not sure I like the either/or question with faith and science. We're supposed to believe in science, but not to accept it as fact. Nothing is ever proven in science, there's just evidence for or against the proposition. Faith, on the other hand, is inherently unprovable (regardless of what Kirk Cameron says). One of the things I really loathe, though, is that evolution is dismissed for just being a theory. Folks, a scientific theory is not the same thing as one of Cliff Claven's bar-room theories--it's a hypothesis backed up by all available evidence. No amount of proof turns a theory into a law. As for me, if science says something is true, I generally believe it. There's too much uncertainty in this world, and I'm not going to throw away the little fact that we have. I'd just as soon start with the facts and reconcile them to my faith, rather than going vice versa.

Why Fred Thompson won't unite the GOP

So, he's all but in. Fred Thompson is going to run for president...maybe. He announced his exploratory committee last week, and the actor-turned-politician-turned-actor is already a major force in the race, matching Rudy Giuliani's showing in the current Rasmussen poll. Thompson's visibility from Law & Order, coupled with his effective campaigning skills and "tough" demeanor, have already made him the choice of many a Republican. He has been repeatedly referred to as Reaganesque and many Republicans hold out hope that he will be able to reunite the GOP. His Senate tenure reveals a generally conservative voting record, and he has been visible in some other ways as well, such as the John Roberts confirmation. With three frontrunners that, for various reasons, are supposedly unacceptable to the base, the right is no longer even bothering to try to find the best, most qualified candidate (Mike Huckabee, who already happens to be running) and go instead to Hollywood glitz in a rather pathetic attempt to mine Reagan nostalgia yet again. Only this time, it isn't going to work.

The reason for this is simple: immigration. Despite the unified showing among all of the GOP candidates (minus John McCain) opposing the recent Kennedy-McCain immigration bill, there is a great deal of conflict among Republicans regarding this issue, and the intramural squabble is unlikely to be resolved by the entry of a new candidate who, like all the others, opposed the bill. The conflict is largely among the conservative base, who loathe the very notion of amnesty and essentially want to build a fence and close the borders, as opposed to the party's more moderate wing and business Republicans, who see the strategic value of comprehensive reform to usher in Latinos to the GOP and feel that the base is simply xenophobic and ignorant of the economics of the immigration debate. This is the rare tussle among Republicans, who are usually more disciplined about these things, and it is the even more rare fight that pits the Republican elites (such as Bush) against his most ardent supporters. To say this is a mere disagreement is to be guilty of quite an understatement: what we have here is nothing less than a full-blown civil war between two increasingly intractable factions of the GOP, and although the immigration bill is gone for now, the issue will be back. What's really extraordinary are the types of people turning on the President right now. Administration stalwarts like Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn, who I cannot remember otherwise opposing Bush in any way, have more or less declared war on the Bush plan, and in a party where discipline and obedience are prized attributes, this development is a surprising one.

So, this is the environment into which Thompson enters: two sides to the immigration debate, with each growing increasingly less respectful and more contemptuous of the other. One might think that nominating an anti-immigration candidate might smooth over problems with the base, but that approach comes with a price. The pro-immigration elements of the Republican Party really want this legislation to pass, as it will mean more Latino immigrants (through a guest worker program), which means smaller payrolls. If it doesn't, it's not inconceivable that the pro-comprehensive forces might decide to back the Democrat, as the Dem frontrunners are generally friendly to their kind of immigration policies. So much for reuniting the Republicans.

In any event, I find it difficult to see just how Thompson is supposed to reunite the GOP. Despite having a level of folksy, down-home charm, the man has yet to articulate ideas on many current issues. Even though he's popular now, there's no reason to believe that his solidly conservative outlook will distinguish him from all the other solid conservatives in the race. And his acting career is hardly a substitute for executive experience. He's a Senator, and a former one at that. He will undoubtedly try to play the outsider card, although that dog simply won't hunt for Thompson. Eight years in the Senate, coupled with more as a lawyer and lobbyist in D.C., makes him one of the biggest insiders in the race.

Ultimately, while Fred Thompson might very well be up to the task of reuniting the Republican Party, there is no evidence up to this point that he will be able to do so. Too bad for the Republicans, who have hitched their hopes to this guy in a way which can only be described as irrational.

P. S. I realize I've written a fair amount about Fred Thompson in recent days. I'll stop writing about the man...for now.

Bill Richardson

This article, from TNR, is a pretty interesting look at Bill Richardson, formerly a much-buzzed-about Presidential candidate and likely VP nominee. Now, after weeks of floundering about (ho-hum debates, disastrous Meet The Press showing), those hopes seem less likely to come to pass. Richardson does indeed have a terrific resume and is palpably more authentic than some of the other major candidates. Unfortunately for him, he is not a naturally gifted politician: he's unable to provide a pithy soundbite, he hardly comes off as a commanding presence, and while he does have a resume, I agree with John Dickerson that the whole is less than the sum of its parts. He'd be a great choice for Secretary of State, though. Better than Joe Biden, although Al Gore would be good in that slot as well.

The article broadly assesses Richardson, but it could have stood to show more about the primary problem with his campaign: despite his resume, he is still often totally uninformed about serious issues. The Byron White gaffe is telling: White was on the court for about 30 years, from the Kennedy Administration until 1993. Roe v. Wade does indeed fall in this range, as it was decided in 1973. Hey, I admire Byron White, and his reasoning on the abortion issue is interesting: although personally pro-choice, he just didn't believe that abortion was a federal issue, and the Court couldn't interfere. I can respect that opinion--not so much his majority opinion in Bowers v. Hardwick, which allowed states to keep sodomy illegal for another 20 years.

One week

It has been about a week since I started this blog, and it's been quite a bit of fun for me so far. I've enjoyed reading the (sparse) comments left so far...please leave some if you wish. Chances are that I'll be able to engage you personally if you do.

I recently finished Season 2 of 24 from Netflix. I think I've come to the realization that, despite the inevitable urge, 24 is not a show that goes well together if you watch a bunch of them back to back. Still, it's generally a pretty good show, and while it goes overboard on the torture (part of the reason why I liked Season 1 so much--not as much of that), it's not as easily reductive as a right-wing show as people would have you believe. I thought the second season was actually a pretty clear denunciation of Bush's post-9/11 foreign policy, and the allegory fit pretty well. War fought for the purpose of national self-esteem. What a disgrace.

Oh yeah, and remember the immortal words of Adm. Fred Thompson from The Hunt for Red October, "The Russians, son, don't take a dump without a plan." Words to live by!

Fred Thompson is crazy

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for this quote. Conservatives love to link their pet issues with one another: immigration to terrorism, as in this example. My favorite was a few weeks ago, when some right-wing blog tried to tie abortion to immigration (with laughable results).

Sullivan's analysis is also dead on, and is far more succinct than anything I could write. Anyone who thinks this actor is a viable leader needs to read his post.

P. S. He used to be pro-choice, too.

P. P. S. He's not Reaganesque!!! Reagan had a clearly-defined philosophy and he had a record, as well as executive experience. His ideas were bold for his time, but he was certainly qualified for the nation's top job. Thompson had eight indifferent years in the Senate, and a little bit of time as a government lawyer before that. That is, unless you count lobbyist-for-hire as government experience, which I don't. He stands for the same generic conservatism as all the other Republican candidates (save Ron Paul) and he has no ideas to speak of. While H. L. Mencken might compliment him for that (albeit backhandedly, like he did with Calvin Coolidge), I'd just as soon know the precise ways in which he would like to screw up our country is all.

P. P. P. S. Why are Republicans so enthralled with "strong leadership"? It's not even so much about strength, but the appearance of strength. Have these conservatives who see Thompson as tough considered that he his toughness might very well be an act, considering he is an actor!

Colin Powell for VP?

Yesterday, Sullivan floated the notion of an Obama/Colin Powell ticket here. It would be rather a genius idea in the ways he described, and it would entice Republicans who have become irritated at the way the Bush Administration has chosen to operate in the world. My take is that, outside of the oil companies, business conservatives are really angry at the Administration's foreign policy, because having everyone else in the world hate us is bad news when you're trying to sell them something. These conservatives might blanch at the concept of voting for a liberal Black Democrat, but with Powell on the ticket, I can see many of them bolting from the GOP to vote for Obama/Powell. It might be the only bipartisan fusion ticket that stands a chance of working (largely because Powell's stances on social issues are generally liberal), and despite his speech at the U. N., Powell is still pretty much universally admired, in part because of his consistent criticism of the Bush Administration in the past few years. I personally like this idea because of the statement it makes: instead of left vs. right, it's realists vs. neocons (i.e. Giuliani and most of the GOP field, minus Ron Paul). I do agree with Sullivan that, with this ticket, the election would be over, and it would be smart for Obama to tease this angle--the whole "me and Colin are a package deal" thing. I don't even think the all-Black ticket issue would matter, since both politicians are hardly traditional Black pols (i.e. Jesse Jackson) and have strong appeal with Whites.

This quote by the former General here is only going to feed the speculation.

Status Update: Sullivan brings up the topic again today. No mention of Powell's U. N. speech as a stumbling block among the left, but I happen to agree that this would be a pretty awesome ticket. Then again, in order for it to ever happen, Obama needs to beat Hillary first, which is where the real trick lies...