AddieStan

Americans For Prosperity Dinner Disrupted by Occupy Protesters

2011-11-05T02:34:00.005-04:00

My pix of Ricky Lehner, who was halled out of the "Tribute to Ronald Reagan" dinner at Americans For Prosperity Foundation's "Defending the American Dream Summit," after he began mic-checking Fox News talker Andrew Napolitano, who was at the podium. Metropolitan police removed Lehner from the ballroom at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, forced him on to the floor, and went through his pockets. He was then escorted from the premises.

Read the whole story here, at AlterNet.

Uke Fest at Strathmore

2011-08-25T20:40:00.002-04:00

Ukin'it up with my pal, J. Scales.

How's Your 401K Today?

2011-08-03T07:08:00.002-04:00

Pat Robertson: Earthquake payback for Haiti's 'pact with the Devil'

2010-01-13T23:40:00.006-05:00

Cross-posted from AlterNet

Every disaster that befalls a nation -- hurricanes, floods, terrorism, earthquakes -- constitutes God's punishment of a people gone astray, according to Pat Robertson, who famously blamed feminists for 9/11 and gays for Hurricanes Katrina and Andrew. In the case of Haiti's devastating earthquake, he blames an ostensible deal that black Haitians made with the Devil in order to win their emancipation and independence from the French colonials who enslaved them. So, in Haiti's case it might not be God who did the nation in, but rather the Devil calling in his chit. "True story," according to Robertson:

[S]omething happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French, uh you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True Story. And so the Devil said "Okay, it's a deal." And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor. That island is Hispaniola is one island. It's cut down the middle. On one side is Haiti, on the other side is the Dominican republic. Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc.. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. Uh, they need to have, and we need to pray for them, a great turning to God and out of this tragedy. I'm optimistic something good may come.

Because, of course, black people couldn't possibly have the wherewithal to defeat their white oppressors without a little supernatural help -- and it sure wouldn't be coming from God, right?

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST

Suddenly "Negro" Is the Word on Everyone's Lips

2010-01-11T23:52:00.001-05:00

Cross-posted from AlterNet

The week that began with a minor controversy about a dated racial term used to describe African-Americans, and ended with a major one that involved the use of the word by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The word is "Negro".

First, the census. After finding that more than 50,000 census respondents wrote in "Negro" as their racial identification on the 2000 census, the U.S. Census Bureau decided to include it as a check-off option in the section of the survey where respondents are asked to identify their race. Many cried foul, seeing it as a derogatory adjective that hearkened back to the segregationist era. Others argue that elderly blacks may not view it the same way, and that the terms "African-American" and "black" may not be embraced by those descended from cultures other than the African-descended one whose people were brought to the land of the free in chains.

When I was a little girl, "Negro" was the politically correct term for those otherwise known as "colored" people or described by white people by a range of epithets, the most egregious being what we now call "the 'N' word." As a white woman who grew up in a very segregated New Jersey, I'm hardly qualified to wax forth on the appropriateness of the Census Bureau's use of the word Negro. (For an excellent discussion on the subject, see Melissa Harris-Lacewell's discussion with Rachel Maddow [video].) But I can see why the census-takers chose to use it. Harry Reid, now -- that's another story entirely.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST

Meet the Press: Levin & McCaffrey call for end to DADT

2009-10-11T10:55:00.004-04:00

Responding to President Obama's speech last night to the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest LGBT rights organization, Meet the Press host David Gregory asked his guests if the president will or should keep his promise to end the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy that prevents LGBT folks from serving openly in the military. (The policy has led to witch hunts of gay men and lesbians within the ranks.)

Here's your blogstress's insta-transcript:

DAVID GREGORY: Senator Levin, with the president live up to this pledge? Can he?

SEN. CARL LEVIN (D-Mich): I think he will and he can, but it has to be done in the right way, which is to get a buy-in from the military, which I think is now possible. Other militaries in the West -- the British and other Western armies have ended this discriminatory policy. We can do it successfully, but it ought to be done with thoughtfulness, with care, and with a buy-in from the military.

GREGORY: Gen. Myers, is it time?

GEN. RICHARD MYERS (RET.), FORMER HEAD OF JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: I can't talk about whether it's time or not, but I think the process that Sen. Levin outlined is exactly right. The senior military leadership needs to be part of this, the Pentagon needs to be part of this --

GREGORY: --Do you have an opinion about whether it's time?

MYERS: Well, I think somebody said, I think Sen. Levin said -- gays can serve in the military; they just can't do so openly. And they do, and there are lots of 'em, and we're the beneficiary of all that.

[LEVIN ROLLS HIS EYES.]

I'll leave it to the current folks to decide whether it's time or not.

GEN. BARRY McCAFFREY (RET.): There's not question that it's time to change the policy. The key to it isn't buy-in from the military; it's for Congress to change the law. They ought to do so, and I'm confident that the military will move ahead on it.

LEVIN: I think we'll do that, but we'll need the support at least of some of the military.

McCAFFREY: I think that's right.

GREGORY: But does it have the political resolve to make [UNINTELLIGIBLE]

LEVIN: I think he does, and I think many of us do; I thought it was a mistake to begin with.

GREGORY: Congress, as well, as the resolve to change it?

LEVIN: I think we will gain that resolve. But we've made other changes in this country. The military are the ones that ended a discriminatory policy against African-Americans, and if they can end it here, it'd be great progress.

GREGORY: And, finally, Sen. Graham: on that question, do you think the military should end the policy?

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-S.C.: Well, it's my belief that if you don't have buy-in from the military, that's a disservice to the people in the military. They should be included in this. I'm open-minded to what the military may suggest, but I can tell you I'm not going to make policy based on a campaign rally...

Outside the HRC Dinner

2009-10-11T01:12:00.016-04:00

Outside the Walter Washington Convention Center in our nation's capital, revelers arriving for the annual awards dinner of the Human Rights Campaign, which bills itself as "the largest national lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization," were greeted by members of Westboro Baptist Church -- also known as the home to the "God Hates Fags" crowd. Also on hand were members of Code Pink, the radical women's anti-war organization; Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry with a small band of followers and a giant photo of a dismembered fetus; and 100 or so LGBT activists who protested against HRC and Obama for being too passive in the march toward full equality.

Greetings, Earthlings (from the "God Hates Fags" crew of the Westboro Baptist Church).

I must not have the latest edition of the Bible. (Somehow missed this instruction.) More prophesy from Westboro Baptist.

Arguing the Bible with the Westboro Baptist android. Don't think anybody's mind got changed.

Can't we all get along?

Code Pink is peacefully annoyed with the president.

Randall Terry calls for homosexuals to stop killing babies -- wait, no, didn't anybody focus-group this? --

-- urges homosexuals to repent before a giant photograph of a dismembered fetus.

I prefer to smolder, actually...

Just because you're queer, it doesn't mean you love Obama -- or the Human Rights Campaign. LGBT advocates march in front of Convention Center.

Rick Warren has not been forgotten.

Close-up of Rick Warren sign.

No more Mr. Nice Guy.

Obama had promised to be a "fierce advocate" for LGBT rights. Evidently, some people think, "not so much."

From Davis, Calif., where they lead the Yolo County chapter of Marriage Equality USA, one married couple -- the second same-sex couple married in California in the months before Proposition 8 overturned marriage equality -- joyfully put their relationship in the face of their opponents. Together 35 years, Ellen Pontac...

...and Shelly Bailes...

...have at this guy, who stood above the crowd shouting through a bullhorn a call for repentance. "I used to be a homosexual," he crowed. But now he's cured.

Bullhorn guy's sign (partially blocked by Shelly and Ellen's).

Rainbow crowd moves in to block bullhorn guy with their signs and flags.

Shelly and Ellen show us what it's really all about.

912 signage

2009-09-12T22:02:00.012-04:00

Your blogstress spent the solemn occasion of the anniversary of the September 11th attacks observing right-wingers put their artistic skills into the service of hating the president of the United States. This sign-painting party took place at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill.

Just like arts & crafts class -- with a bit more rage.

So last month ago.

So that's the agenda!

But one envelope equals three liters of soda.

As opposed to those Christians who are all about atheism.

This image appeared on a series of signs by the same artist.

Somebody thinks his banana was taken.

And here I thought it was Bush who had that simian look.

912 March

2009-09-12T15:47:00.030-04:00

Kinda says it all.

Fashion statement.

Looks like they finally figured out what "teabagging" means.

Summertime has come and gone, my oh my.

Because God loves bullets. And guts.

Weary wing-nuts practice their Russian.

Were it not for the sign and the shirts, I could swear I saw these guys at the high-heeled race.

Stalin must be spinning in his grave.

Difference of opinion: He's Hitler, not Stalin, dammit!

Because, you know, they're all shady.

So nice I had to blog it twice.

So wholesome.

View from across the pool on the Capitol grounds. All those little dots across the water? Them's people. Lots and lots of angry white people.

Another view along the pool.

Obediently listening to the voices of the Astroturfers coming from the podium.

More around the Capitol grounds.

Pressed into service by his dad.

I didn't realize things had gotten this bad.

Because universal health care is a lot like the murder of innocents.

Nostalgic for the days when women could not vote.

Left their pashminas at home.

Amazing Grace.

The president as micro-organism.

The Tea Party aesthetic.

Marching up Pennsylvania Avenue.

The Culpeper militia flag in action.

Fixing up the militia flag for the big march.

Remembering Teddy

2009-08-26T10:35:00.005-04:00

Cross-posted from AlterNet

Photo Credit: Jocelyn Augustino

I remember thinking, he seems so much smaller in person. The year was 2003, and I stood directly behind Sen. Edward M. Kennedy on a makeshift stage constructed in front of the Department of Labor, at a rally for International Human Rights Day convened by the AFL-CIO.

I was on staff at the American Federation of Government Employees at the time, and was a member of the team that had put together the rally.

Those were dark days indeed for union workers. The Bush administration was in full throttle in its bid to take down the unions, and it had a special vendetta in its dark heart for unions representing government workers.

"We want this administration to stop being the most anti-worker, anti-labor administration that we have seen," Kennedy said.

Kennedy had just introduced the Employee Free Choice Act, a piece of legislation, yet to see the light of day, that continues to rankle the right. He dressed humbly, in a windbreaker that did little to stave off the bitter cold of a rainy December day in Washington, D.C.

"We have an agenda: the respect and dignity of workers in the United States," Kennedy told the crowd of 2,000 who gathered against the gloom. "As long as I have a voice and as long as I have a vote, I will be with you."

And he was. Today, the Employee Free Choice Act still contends for passage because of Kennedy. But that's just the politics. That day, his bond with regular people was apparent. On that stage, we had a full roster of workers from a range of unions -- parking attendants, hospital workers, airport screeners, Defense Department employees -- and Kennedy shook hands with all of them, and stuck around to hear their stories.

And that's just a glimpse of his commitment to working women and men. I hardly need to mention his commitment to health-care reform.

It's said that in exchange for his endorsement of Barack Obama for president, Kennedy exacted a promise from the young Illinois senator to make health care the centerpiece of his legislative agenda. And Kennedy didn't let Obama forget it. In his endorsement speech, Kennedy said, "With Barack Obama, we will break the old gridlock and finally make health care what it should be in America—a fundamental right for all, not just an expensive privilege for the few."

As I stood on that stage with Kennedy, the cold rain falling on me as we followed up the speeches with our motley rendition of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land," I thought, this is bliss.

Washington Post columnists say Hillary Clinton deserves a bottle of Mad Bitch beer

2009-08-02T15:39:00.005-04:00

Cross-posted from The Huffington Post.

By now, you're likely familiar with the parade of racists, sexists, conspiracy theorists and hatemongers on the payrolls of mainstream media: CNN's Lou Dobbs advances the claims of unhinged birthers; FOX's Glenn Beck calls the president a racist; MSNBC pays as an analyst Pat Buchanan, who says slavery was good for black folks. Not to be left behind, ABC welcomed to its This Week roundtable right-winger Michelle Malkin, who has referred to the first lady as President Obama's "cron[y] of color," and is advancing the conspiracy theory that Democratic health-care reform is designed to euthanize old people.

Bottom line: hate sells.

Eager to bring eyeballs to its Web site, the Washington Post this week got in on the act, producing a video featuring two star columnists, Chris Cillizza (reportedly a nice guy) and Dana Milbank (reportedly not), that suggests at a future White House beer summit, Hillary Clinton be served a brew called Mad Bitch.

Once the video began circulating through the blogs, the Washington Post chickened out and pulled the video from its site -- without apology to viewers, and apparently without disciplinary action for the columnists and producer Gaby Bruna.

This should be a huge story -- two respected, important columnists for a major media outlet all but call the secretary of state a bitch -- but corporate media would have to be willing to critique two of their own were the story to get legs. Not likely to happen.

In fact, a day after the video was pulled, Chris Cillizza was featured on the roundtable of this Sunday's CNN show, State of the Union, and was not asked a single question about his role in Mad-Bitchgate.

If the presidential campaign of 2008 was the mainstream media's teachable moment, it seems the wrong lesson was learned. Instead of the corrective soul-searching one would hope for among executives and editors at major media outlets as their on-air figures grappled with their inner sexists and inner racists during prime time, media bigs seem to have reached the conclusion that hatred sells.

READ WHOLE POST AND VIEW VIDEO

Do you read a newspaper?

2009-07-10T13:46:00.002-04:00

Tell the truth now, mes amis. (Your blogstress doesn't like it when you fib.)

Now, change your ways! Here's why:

Michael Jackson: the legacy of child-abuse

2009-07-07T09:46:00.004-04:00

So much has been written about Michael Jackson's life and death that there seems little else to say. But as the crowds gather today at L.A.'s Staples Center for his public memorial, I think it bears noting that the bizarreness of his life had a cause, and that primary cause is likely the abuse he suffered as a child at the hands of his father. A secondary cause is likely the internalized racism that his abusive father apparently absorbed from the culture around him.

It is not my intention to make excuses for Michael Jackson's creepy relationships with other people's children (whether or not they were pedophilic remains an unanswered question) or Joseph Jackson's horrific treatment of his own children. I do however, ask readers to consider how people become the way that they do, and to examine our culture as one of enablement.

In a sane world, Joe Jackson would have been jailed for what he did to his kids. Anyone who has watched Martin Bashir's documentary, Living with Michael Jackson, knows that MJ said his father "practiced us with a belt in his hand" and "he would really cut you up". When Bashir asks MJ if his father ever used anything more than a belt, you see Michael nearly dissolve, unable to speak for a moment. Then he says that his father would throw at the children whatever was handy, or just throw the children themselves against a wall. Michael says he was often used as the example of how to do a dance step correctly, and had to watch while his siblings were abused for not being able to dance as well as he did. Imagine what that does to one's psyche.

But it's the emotional abuse MJ received in adolescence from his father that seems to have pushed him over the edge. Just as he was at that awful stage in his development when he was no longer the adorable "Little Michael" who had won the hearts of America, Joe Jackson, by MJ's account, ridiculed that shape his son's adult face was taking, especially his African nose. "You didn't get that from my side," MJ says his dad told him. Because of that, he hated being seen in public, Michael tells Bashir. "I would have rather worn a mask," he said.

And so Michael Jackson created his own mask. In his work, he never stepped back from his black identity, even as he engaged plastic surgeons and dermatologists to eliminate the traces of his heritage from his face -- to destroy what had been a truly beautiful face.

But the theme of the mask in Michael Jackson's life and work extends beyond the wounds of racism. His own children look white, and he put feathered masks on them when he took them out in public. According to biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli, Joe Jackson once donned a fright mask and climbed through Michael's bedroom window while the boy lay sleeping, shouting and terrorizing him. In the film short, Thriller, Jackson himself dons the fright mask, morphing first into a werewolf, and then into a zombie-like creature, terrorizing a young woman he asks to "be my girl." In between the morphs, he's a sweet, adorable Michael Jackson. The obvious suggestion is that within Jackson himself, a demon lurks. The lyrics, to my ear, recall the terror of an abused child:

You hear the door slam and realize there's nowhere left to run
You feel the cold hand and wonder if you'll ever see the sun
You close your eyes and hope that this is just imagination, girl!
But all the while you hear the creature creeping up behind
You're out of time

In Beat It (a song I always took to be about MJ's father), Jackson suggests that the way to deal with abuse is simply to get out of the way:

You have to show them that you're really not scared
You're playin' with your life, this ain't no truth or dare
They'll kick you, then they beat you,
Then they'll tell you it's fair
So Beat It...

And so Michael Jackson has at last beaten it. He's released from his torment. He suffered a great deal to give us the genius of his work. He probably made others suffer, too. But his story is one about our society, not about his weirdness. May we all look within.

Stop the sexist rants against Palin!

2009-07-06T17:41:00.005-04:00

cross-posted from The Huffington Post

The ascent of Sarah Palin to the national political stage has yielded no shortage of material for legitimate criticism -- even legitimate derision. There's her famous lack of intellectual curiosity, her tortured syntax, and her alliance with a group of Alaskan secessionists, to name just a few.

But whenever Sarah Palin makes news, as she did big-time with her decision last weekend to resign her office as governor of Alaska, more than legitimate criticism hits the airwaves and the Web. Seeping through the Web's meshes and wafting through the airwaves is the acrid stench of sexism.

I'm hardly the first to notice this trend. At Jezebel, Megan Carpentier has been on the case since the presidential campaign, when Palin burst on the scene as John McCain's wild-card pick for his vice-presidential running-mate. So, too, has Melissa McEwan at Shakesville. But this latest burst of fresh hell leads me to take another approach: I'm asking readers to Tweet any sexist coverage they see on Palin with the hashtag: #palinsexism.

Why? As blogger Echidne of the Snakes observes, the takedown of Palin following her resignation of her office "may be mostly justified, but it allows the misogynists to join in, and they are not just attacking Palin, my friends: They are attacking women in general."

Just look what happened on CNN just moments after Palin's resignation broke into the airwaves: anchor Rick Sanchez speculated that Palin might be pregnant again. As if women don't work when they're pregnant, or make sane decisions while in the family way; as if Palin hadn't already worked through one pregnancy.

Michelle Goldberg observed that in Todd Purdum's Vanity Fair profile of Palin, several sources pegged Palin as having a textbook case of narcissistic personality disorder for exhibiting exactly the same kind of self-centered traits demonstrated by male politicians who are presumed to be sane.

Even on The Huffington Post, blogger Andy Ostoy referred to Palin as "the most famous MILF in America".

But Ostoy's narcissistic crudeness (like I really care who you'd like to do, Andy) is nothing compared to some of the comments made by readers of otherwise fine, upstanding liberal blogs. The intrepid Echidne went wading into those slimy waters (so you and don't have to), protesting as she did:

I hate McCain for what he did to me as a feminist, by putting me in the position of having to wade into the sewers of lefty blogs to find out what sexist crap might be floating around on the topic of Sarah Palin. I do that not to defend Palin but to defend the women of the future who might one day run for the office, and I do it with great bitterness, because I'm going to be told off for spending time on someone like Palin by all those who don't see that certain comments are not just about Palin but about women in politics in general.

And here's a taste (blech!) of what she found in the comments sections of Eschaton and Democratic Underground:

Let's put it this way.

Sarah Palin is probably a sexual object in the sense of most porn starlets.

Good sex (there is no other kind) but you want her out of your bed before the cock crows, because the thought of having to make small talk with her over breakfast repulses you no end.

==============

Palin's not hot. She's actually pretty dick deflating, in an ignorant-stupid-moralistic way. Sorry, but she's a typical 40 - something GOP woman that thinks with that push-up bra, tummy tuck panty hose, and makeup from hell that she still has it.

she doesn't.

================

she gets on national tv and rambles for 20 minutes...
And do we get a great shot of her tits? NO!!!!!

============

I could've straightened her out with a good, hard spanking, but Cindy wouldn't let me.

Now look what's happened . . .

--John McCain Editorial note from your blogstress: of course, that's not really John McCain writing

============

palin's pregnant with levi's love child.

===========

I hope she can become a spokesperson for drilling in ANWR now, and helping this country become independent of foreign oil.

She should pose naked on a drilling rig.

===============

she thought she was pulling of a cunning stunt with her announcement.

===============

This asshole is going to be a constant reminder of what you can do with NO qualifications

Goodbye you whore.

Enough already! Whether it's a news anchor, an unnamed source, a blogger or commenter, it's time to put a stop to this barrage of gender-based hatred. It's not only right; it's smart. There's plenty to criticize about Sarah Palin, her latest gambit, and others who share her politics without stooping to the lowest forms of name-calling. Keep the critique on the up-and-up, and you'll have more credibility.

So please join me in helping to put a stop to what really amounts to a war on all women: When you see or hear a sexist quote about Palin, Tweet it, and add the hashtag: #palinsexism.

Sarah Palin Will Be Back

2009-07-03T18:22:00.004-04:00

Cross-posted from The Huffington Post

There's nothing surprising in Sarah Palin's decision not to run for re-election as governor of Alaska. After all, if you've got a shot to become leader of the free world, it helps to have nothing but time to give the people of Iowa and New Hampshire in the year leading up to their caucus and primary, and that's hard to do if you have to run a state from which you can see Russia.

But Palin's decision to step down this month from the governor's mansion? Now that's a whole 'nother kettle of wild salmon.

Today we heard and saw Palin as we never have before. No, I'm not talking about the incoherence of her resignation statement; her incoherence in the infamous Couric interviews became the stuff of legend. Yet with all hectoring she took for her not-ready-for-prime-time performances during the campaign, her confidence never seemed to flag. But today brought us a different picture: Her voice quavering, Palin seemed unsure of herself as she sought to explain without explaining her reasons for stepping down before the end of her first term as governor.

Granted, Sarah Palin has had a very tough week, what with Todd Purdum's takedown in Vanity Fair, and the release of a testy e-mail exchange between the former vice presidential candidate and McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt.

By her own account, however, the week from hell is not what drove today's announcement. The decision had been in the making for a while, she said. But why? As her reasons, Palin noted the meanness of the media, and the hail of ethics complaints filed against her (in a state in which the bar is quite low for the filing of such complaints). Yet none of the complaints filed so far have stuck, so what gives?

The governor mentioned a resulting half million worth of legal bills for her and husband, Todd, but that should be chump change with someone with Sarah Palin's standing among the G.O.P. base. Surely, she could raise that with a legal defense fund.

Palin basically said she was getting out of the way in order to take one for the team:

Let me go back to a comfortable analogy for me -- sports... basketball. I use it because you're naïve if you don't see the national full-court press picking away right now: A good point guard drives through a full court press, protecting the ball, keeping her eye on the basket... and she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can win. And I'm doing that, keeping our eye on the ball that represents sound priorities: smaller government, energy independence, national security, freedom. And I know when it's time to pass the ball -- for victory.

For some reason, the very ambitious Sarah Palin finds the need to take herself out of public view. It's hard not to speculate that there's another shoe yet to drop. But don't count her out; she's as tenacious a political fighter as I've ever seen. She'll no doubt put the time gained of her early exit from the governor's mansion to good use -- perhaps studying up on issues for her visits to the people of Iowa and New Hampshire.

When I first speculated that she would be John McCain's vice presidential pick, people said, Sarah who? Despite colossal missteps, she emerged from the 2008 presidential election as the darling of the Republican Party, her running mate returning to the Senate as a has-been. Mark my words: She'll be back.

Chérie: A dazzling meditation on time and change

2009-06-25T19:14:00.000-04:00

Cross-posted from The Huffington Post

From the opening frames of Chérie, the viewer is drawn into an opulent, decadent world, at once foreign and familiar to those who have mixed with the denizens of high society in our own time. But the depiction of that world in director Stephen Frears' tour de force is no simple condemnation nor exaltation: the charms and moral ambiguities of France's Belle Epoch co-exist in this rendering of a gilded age at its apogee, most completely in the glowing figure of Michelle Pfeiffer as Léa de Lonval, an exquisite courtesan about to age out of her profession.

At its core, Chérie is a movie about time and the constancy of change -- a theme that could be esoteric and depressing, were it not for the stunning visual and aural landscape the filmmakers grant us, the stylized repartee that screenwriter Christopher Hampton draws from Colette's celebrated novel, and Pfeiffer's grounded, sexy and elegant rendering of the woman at the center of the film. Léa is both wise and playful, jaded and vulnerable, a ravishing beauty who looks every minute of her 49 years. In Léa, Pfeiffer offers a rendering of an aging woman such as I have never before seen on the big screen. Like Diane Keaton's character in Something's Gotta Give, she plays a woman with wrinkles who is undeniably sexy. But unlike Keaton's sweet and sexually uptight character, Léa is in full possession of her sexuality; she knows what she's got, knows she's still beautiful, yet has no illusions about society's contempt for the older woman as a sexual creature. Alone with her maid, preening before her mirror, Léa raises her arms above her head, and remarks, "Nice handles for such an old vase." So she opts to retire while she's still in demand.

Enter Chérie, played by Rupert Friend, who is the 19-year-old son of her rival, the retired courtesan Charlotte Peloux (Kathy Bates), still known to her by the pet name she bestowed upon him when he was a baby. Charlotte, a relic of her time, was a disinterested mother at best, and is now eager to deliver her spoiled, neglected and costly offspring into Léa's hands. She takes him in because she likes him, because she has something to teach him and because she wants a lover of her own choosing. He goes with her to her home in the south of France because he has grown bored with his life of debauchery in Paris, and winds up staying with Léa for six years, until Mama Charlotte contrives another plan for him -- one that will ensure her a handsome pension. Along the way, the worldly courtesan and the petulant young man fall in love, a love on which Father Time, if not Mama Charlotte, has imposed his limitations.

Chérie concerns itself at once with the peculiarities of time as it shapes human relationships; one cannot escape the age into which one has been born, after all. But within one's own time, a woman can opt to cling to old glories, or move with the current of the age. The turn of the last century heralded the coming modern age: the telephone and the automobile were among its innovations. Women's clothing changed in significant ways, as well: bustles disappeared from dresses, and dresses inflected with exotic forms eliminated the need for corseting. The glorious costuming of this film cleverly points this up: Charlotte is still dressed in the fussy, old style, while Léa glides about in Art Nouveau gowns that feature kimono-inspired bodices, loose sleeves, and skirts that are sumptuously draped, not frivolously gathered into confining waistlines. (I predict that Consalata Boyle's designs for Pfeiffer will be reflected in the 2010 fall fashions.)

The film speaks to changes still percolating in today's society. Because we meet Léa at the close of her courtesan career, we find her a liberated woman, one free to do as she pleases. She has money and beauty, a good mind and business acumen, and a young lover. She has the freedom to get her heart broken, and she does. Still, we're left with the sense that hers is a life fully lived.

Yet her young charge is still trapped in his mother's time, when an arranged marriage ensured one's future fortunes, and we find him enslaved to a most female fate while Léa possesses the independence to live in beauty. Chérie himself is a jarring character, a simpering young man with a love for pearls and fine fabrics, and ultimately far more vulnerable to the pain of love than his feminine paramour. Gender norms are reversed in Colette's story, which was written in 1920, in the aftermath of the Great War, but set in its ante bellum. Throughout Frears' film, change and indeed its backlash is suggested, and a sense of foreboding provides a faint undercurrent.

Though not every element of Chérie succeeds, it is a film that haunts the viewer days after the final credits have rolled. Special kudos belong to composer Alexandre Desplat for a stunning score, cinematographer Darius Khondji and production designer Alan MacDonald who, along with costumer Boyle, create a world into which the viewer longs to step, if only for one moment in time.

Chérie opens nationwide tomorrow, Friday, June 26th.

Media analysis: no women need apply?

2009-06-23T13:56:00.003-04:00

When MediaBistro announced its upcoming panel discussion titled "Finding a Business Model for News and Online Media", it listed only white men as panelists, thus joining a list of other apparently well-meaning organizations whose leaders tend to see only men as media innovators. In MediaBistro's case, this is particularly ironic, since the pioneering Web-based all-things-media outlet and consulting company was founded by Laurel Touby, a woman.

The Women, Action & the Media (WAM!) community took issue with MediaBistro's treatment, issuing this letter, to which your humble blogstress signed her proper name:

Dear MediaBistro and Demand Studios,

We applaud your efforts to create an “an open discussion about the business models, innovation, and power of community that are changing journalism.” But your selection of presenters on this subject has forced us to wonder to whom, exactly, this discussion is open.

We won’t stand for another panel exclusively composed of white males when the future of our media is at stake. As members of Women, Action & the Media, we know all too well that white-male-dominated conversations produce white-male-dominated media models. We ask you to stand with us instead, to create a sustainable new journalism that includes and supports all of us, including women and people of color.

It’s not hard to find qualified women to serve on your “Finding a Business Model for News and Online Media” panel. Here are just a few we’ve come up with today:

Tina Brown, The Daily Beast
Ada Calhoun, Babble
Gabrielle Darbyshire, Gawker Media
Nicki Gilmour, The Glass Hammer, founder and CEO of Evolved People Media LLC
Erica Gruen, Quantum Media
Kathleen Hall Jameson, director, Annenberg Public Policy Center
Carol Jenkins, president, Women’s Media Center
Rita Henley Jensen, Women’s eNews
Esther Kaplan, The Nation Institute
Dori Maynard, president, The Maynard Institute
Gina McCauley, Blogging While Brown
Laurel Touby, your founder at mediabistro.com
Sheryl Hilliard Tucker, executive editor, Time, Inc.
Joan Walsh, Salon
Tracy Van Slyke, The Media Consortium
Deanna Zandt, media technologist

Please let us know if you need help getting in touch with any of these exceptional women - we’d be very happy to help make those connections.

Signed,

Veronica I. Arreola, Writer, Founding Board Member of WIMN
Julia Barry, media/Web producer and consultant
Sarah Blustain, senior editor, The New Republic
Tara Bracco, writer and founder of Poetic People Power
Anna Clark, freelance journalist
Denise Di Stephan, freelance writer
Ariel Dougherty, Media Equity Collaborative
Emily Douglas, editor, RH Reality Check
Gloria Feldt
Jill Filipovic, Feministe
Jaclyn Friedman, director, Women, Action & the Media
J. Goodrich, blogger and freelance writer
Nancy Gruver, founder & CEO, New Moon Girl Media
Mikki Halpin, author and contributing editor, Glamour
Carol Jenkins, president, Women's Media Center
Rita Henley Jensen, Women's eNews
Sue Katz
Elaine Lafferty, former editor-in-chief, Ms. magazine
Lucinda Marshall, director, Feminist Peace Network
Emily May, HollabackNYC.com
Liz O’Donnell, freelance writer and AvantGuild member
Katha Pollitt, columnist, The Nation
Jennifer Pozner, founder and director, Women In Media & News (WIMN)
Miranda Spencer, freelance writer, editor, and media critic
Rebekah Spicuglia, media manager, Women’s Media Center
Adele M. Stan, independent journalist and Huffington Post blogger
Shira Tarrant, PhD, author, Men and Feminism
Tracy Van Slyke, The Media Consortium
Jayati Vora, Web editor, The Nation Institute
Andi Zeisler, editorial/creative director of Bitch
Jill Miller Zimon, freelance writer, Writes Like She Talks

Since the letter was sent, MediaBistro Tweeted that another panelist would soon be announced. To add your two cents, contact MediaBistro by clicking here.

Happy Solstice!

2009-06-21T23:59:00.004-04:00

Photo by Fergus McNeill; used through creative commons license

Hope the longest day of the year was a beautiful one for you, mes amis.

From the Times of London:

Druids began their incantations, Wiccan priestesses drew their cowls tight against the damp morning air and four half-naked Papuan dancers waved their hands in the air and went: “Woo, woo, woo”.

Only the guest of honour failed to put in an appearance at Stonehenge.

A record 36,500 people had gathered at the prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain to watch the sun rise. So many turned out to celebrate the solstice that roads had to be shut and the vast field converted into a car park for 6,500 vehicles was full by 3am.

Marriage in DC: pride and prejudice

2009-06-12T18:15:00.003-04:00

Here in our nation's steamy, sticky capital, as the annual Gay Pride celebration takes shape, temperatures are rising over the issue of marriage equality for queer folk. (Check out the Washington Blade for the skinny on the antics of the religious right's Rev. Harry Jackson, who was sent in by central casting to convince African-Americans that gays are their enemies.)

This essay by noted DC poet and cultural critic Reuben Jackson (who is not LGBT) aired today on WAMU radio. In his commentary, Jackson writes of his recent experience of anti-LGBT sentiment in a District restaurant, and the link between racial prejudice and anti-gay discrimination.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO "WORDS LIKE PUNCHES" BY REUBEN JACKSON

Right wing objects to Tiller murder investigation

2009-06-10T10:37:00.006-04:00

The U.S. Justice Department has commenced a probe of the murder of Dr. George Tiller, the physician who has been targeted for years by members of the far right for his willingness, at great personal risk, to perform late-term abortions to women in need. And Wendy Wright, president of the Concerned Women for America, has a problem with that.

According to the right-wing Web site, OneNewsNow, Wright said:

"This may be more of a nefarious effort than it appears on its face," she exclaims, "that in fact, the Department of Justice may be trying to smear pro-lifers, as if we all belong in the same camp, as if we all advocate violence, when it's [actually] just the opposite."

The proof of the Obama adminstration's nefarious machinations, according to the right, is the fact that it has not dispatched U.S. Marshals to military recruiting stations in light of the recent murder of a recruiter by a man who says he is a convert to Islam. But U.S. Marshals have been dispatched to protect women's health care clinics in the wake of the Tiller murder.

Let's see: the murder of a doctor by the member of a movement that has a long history of violence against the employees of facilities that provide abortion services to women is somehow unworthy of measures taken to protect other employees of such facilities against any future life-threatening assaults -- all because the U.S. Marshals have not been called to protect the U.S. military.

Furthermore, the murderer of the soldier is under investigation by the Justice Department -- by the FBI Joint Terrorist Task Force, to exact. The investigation began before the murder; unfortunately, there apparently wasn't evidence enough to lock him up at the time of the attack.

The comparison between the Justice Department's actions on behalf of abortion providers and its efforts to stem jihadist terrorism is a classic right-wing tactic: when one's wrongs are exposed, change the subject, even if false analogies are required to do so.

Well, that didn't take long...

2009-06-01T01:59:00.003-04:00

No sooner did your blogstress's Huffington Post piece about Ann Coulter's encouragement of violence against doctors who perform abortions then some wag who refused to even name your ecrivaine, called yours truly both dishonest and not reasonable for charging la Coulter with incitement.

Tiller Murder: Ann Coulter's happy day?

2009-05-31T17:11:00.005-04:00

cross-posted from The Huffington Post

The killing of George Tiller, a doctor who performed late-term abortions, will likely be attributed to some lone and deranged individual, acting on his or her own. (As I write, the suspect remains at large.) Indeed, Operation Rescue, the hold-no-prisoners anti-abortion group, issued an immediate statement from Operation Rescue President Troy Newman, decrying Tiller's shooting as "a cowardly act."

In fact, the hands are many in the death of George Tiller, some more directly than others. Take Ann Coulter, for example. I watched her describe, to a church full of right-wing activists, abortion-clinic doctors and health care personnel who were murdered as either having been shot, "...or, depending on your point of view, had a procedure performed on them with a rifle." And she's still out there today, spewing the same bile with violent force.

Several weeks ago, President Barack Obama's commencement address at Notre Dame University spurred controversy when anti-abortion activists pressed the Catholic university to withdraw its invitation to the pro-choice president. Coulter responded with the suggestion that for next year's ceremony, "Notre Dame have an abortionist perform an abortion live on stage? They could have a partial-birth abortion for the advanced degrees."

As if that wasn't enough, Coulter added this:

Being such a prestigious institution, Notre Dame could probably get famed partial-birth abortion practitioner George Tiller to do the demonstration at next year's graduation. Obama could help -- inasmuch as Tiller the abortionist is a close friend of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

George Tiller, M.D., was unlikely national figure, but to the religious right, he was Enemy Number One.

Close watchers of national news may have known the name of George Tiller from the extraordinary actions of former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, who, three years ago subpoenaed from Tiller's clinic the records of hundreds of women who had undergone abortion procedures there. Kline, a frequent speaker at religious-right gatherings, claimed he needed the records for an investigation as to whether Tiller was following the law, but many in the reproductive health community saw Kline's actions as an attempt to intimidate women who were considering undergoing late-term abortions. Kline's case against Tiller was dismissed in 2006, after Kansas voters booted the AG from office.

Tiller's name became part of inside-the-Beltway parlance with the nomination of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to head the Department of Health and Human Services, when campaign contributions from Tiller and his associates became a bone of contention in her confirmation process. (She has since been confirmed, and is now HHS secretary.) Sometimes, it seems, having friends in high places only increases one's danger.

So my question to Ann Coulter is: Did George Tiller have "a procedure performed on him by a rifle"? Did he simply get his just desserts?

If the murderer was not a follower of Coulter's, he certainly acted from the sort of hateful sentiment she disseminates in popular and right-wing media.

Consider this comment left by a reader of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune's posting of Associated Press coverage of the Tiller murder:

Although I would never do something like this, he got what was coming to him. Now he needs to answer to God for the thousands of innocent babies he has murdered.

Sounds like one of Annie's kids to me.

Half a loaf from California Supreme Court

2009-05-26T13:32:00.003-04:00

The California Supreme Court has essentially ratified Proposition 8, the ballot measure that nullified an earlier court decision legalizing marriage rights for LGBT folks. Yet Californians already married will be permitted to remain so, regardless of the gender mix of their marriages.

One suspects that the court could not agree on constitutional grounds for overturning the expressed "will of the people". Yet the legitimizing of marriages already performed calls constitutional questions of its own. The closeness of the Prop 8 vote suggests another electoral battle to come. From the Los Angeles Times

Prop. 8 upheld by California Supreme Court:

By Maura Dolan
10:08 AM PDT, May 26, 2009

Reporting from San Francisco -- The California Supreme Court today upheld Proposition 8's ban on same-sex marriage but also ruled that gay couples who wed before the election will continue to be married under state law.

The decision virtually ensures another fight at the ballot box over marriage rights for gays. Gay rights activists say they may ask voters to repeal the marriage ban as early as next year, and opponents have pledged to fight any such effort. Proposition 8 passed with 52% of the vote.

Sotomayor Nomination: Obama's Wedge Politics

2009-05-26T12:13:00.003-04:00

Cross-posted from The Huffington Post

President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court is stunning on many levels: She's the third woman to serve on the high court, the first of Latino descent and the first to grow up in public housing.

On her own merits, Sotomayor is a deserving nominee. Yet in his choice of Sotomayor, Obama has also made a brilliant tactical move -- one that not only shores up his standing with the Latino community and the women's rights community, but also serves to further divide the beleaguered Republican Party.

In discussions of this nomination, much will be said about the debt Obama owes to the Latino community for his 2008 electoral victory. As Politico's Ben Smith recently wrote:

[McCain] got 31 percent of the Latino vote to the 44 percent that George W. Bush took in 2004, according to exit polls. And it was enough to put much of the West and Southwest out of reach for the Republican Party, to give Florida to the Democrats and to hand Barack Obama the presidency.

The flip side of of that fact is the migration of Latino voters away from the Republican Party, largely due to the party's capitulation to the darkest inclinations of its base with regard to immigration policy.

Republican Senate leaders already have even conservative Latino figures feeling disrespected by throwing their early support to Florida governor Charlie Crist even before the primary, where his opposition is expected to be a popular and youthful Cuban-American, Marco Rubio, who was Florida's youngest House Speaker.

Can Republican senators really afford to oppose Sonia Sotomayor's nomination without further bleeding the votes of Latinos? Probably not. Yet, the hard right wing, which is likely to vilify Sotomayor based on a controversial decision she made in a difficult affirmative action case, will likely demand that GOP leaders oppose Sotomayor outright.

For years, the Democratic Party lay victim to the wedge politics practiced by the Republican Party, and seemed constitutionally incapable of fighting back on those terms. President Obama has no such reticence. Let the battle begin.

The world is on fire -- but Pakistan's civil war is our problem

2009-05-14T09:02:00.005-04:00

Did you know, mes amis, that Pakistan is now officially in the throes of a civil war? Out of the Swat Valley, where Pakistan's government had tried to compromise with the ascendant Taliban, now flow some 1.3 million refugees who flee a full-scale war between the two forces.

Why should you care? First off, many Pakistanis believe that the government's offensive in Swat was taken at the behest of the U.S. Given the toll on the civilian population, that can't be a helpful perception.

Then, of course, there's the matter of Pakistan, a nuclear power, flirting with chaos.

Next up -- Afghanistan. In truth, these are not separate problems. Afghanistan and Pakistan are the same problem for the U.S., and in many ways, problems of out government's making. Even if you only care about domestic politics, you had best turn your attention to this volatile region, for this mess really could ruin everything for Obama (and the rest of us).

Your blogstress has a new essay at The Guardian that addresses the apparent lack of interest in our nation's fate abroad vis-a-vis this troubling turn of events. Here's a snip:

David Miliband Meets the Bloggers

It was billed as a newfangled sort of event: a news conference between US bloggers and Britain's blogging foreign secretary at the New America Foundation, a Washington DC think tank.

There was plenty for David Miliband to talk about on Tuesday, especially given the fierce escalation of tensions in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the UK has a close alliance with the US, in a week that saw a White House meeting with the presidents of those smouldering south Asian nations, which share a border drawn a century ago by a British mapmaker.

Whither Afghanistan?

2009-05-07T13:57:00.005-04:00

When no less a sage than George McGovern warns the president against further involvement in Afghanistan, it behooves one to listen. Above, in an interview with the former 1972 Democratic presidential candidate -- who won that distinction for his opposition to the war in Viet Nam -- the American News Project's Harry Hanbury and Mike Fritz find McGovern warning President Obama of a possible fate like Lyndon Johnson's -- one in which a quagmire of a war puts an end to many grand social programs.

Still, your blogstress remains unconvinced that the the analogy is apt. For one, America was in no danger because of the Vietnamese civil war, in which we intervened. On the other hand, the al Qaeda attack on American soil was partly the result of the U.S. having walked away from Afghanistan in its hour of need just after its warlords so kindly won the Cold War for us. (No, Ronald Reagan did not win the Cold War; guys in turbans on horseback with U.S. Stinger missiles on their shoulders did. All it took was our fortification of a Pakistani tyrant, Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, who ran the weapons for us even as he jailed Pakistani women for the crime of having been raped.) Your écrivaine is not so sure that abandoning Afghanistan now is the moral thing to do.

Will Obama appoint a woman to the Supreme Court?

2009-05-01T12:24:00.006-04:00

With last night's news of the pending departure of Justice David Souter from the bench, all bets seem to be placed on a female replacement. The one woman on the Court today, the venerable Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is elderly and suffering from colon cancer. NPR's Nina Totenberg this morning ran through a list of possible contenders:

Possible nominees who have been mentioned as being on a theoretical short list include Elena Kagan, the current solicitor general who represents the government before the Supreme Court; Sonia Sotomayor, a Hispanic judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit; and Diane Wood, a federal judge in Chicago who taught at the University of Chicago at the same time future President Barack Obama was teaching constitutional law there.

UPDATE: Garance Franke-Ruta has more on this; women's group pushing hard.

One hundred days, poetry and change

2009-04-30T10:21:00.012-04:00

Subsequent segments of press conference found here.

So grateful to finally reach the 100th day, so that the media may come up with a new meaningless thematic obsession. (Time to stop counting days and get to the business of living a sober life.)

Because she was out reading her poetry at an open mic, your blogstress did not watch the president's press conference in real time, a circumstance she would have once deemed unthinkable. Your écrivaine is uncertain of just what this means, except that perhaps now that the country appears to be in capable hands, she no longer finds her vigilance to be quite so necessary.

Nonetheless, your Webwench could not entirely look away, and so midnight found her watching the video on her computer, marveling at the fact that it was possible to lie on a couch, netbook perched on knees, and watch tiny moving pictures (with excellent sound) that way. (Your cybertrix is sometimes easily amused.)

President Obama's customary elegance was in evidence, as he answered each question thoughtfully and with a minimum of scripted comments. Your blogstress saw him trip up only once, at the hands of NBC's Chuck Todd, who asked, "Can you reassure the American people that, if necessary, America could secure Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and keep it from getting into the Taliban's hands or, worst-case scenario, even al Qaeda's hands?"

I am gravely concerned about the situation in Pakistan not because I think that they're immediately going to be overrun and the Taliban would take over in Pakistan; more concerned that the civilian government there right now is very fragile and don't seem to have the capacity to deliver basic services -- schools, health care, rule of law, a judicial system that works for the majority of people. And so as a consequence it is very difficult for them to gain the support and the loyalty of their people.

So we need to help Pakistan help Pakistanis. And I think that there's a recognition increasingly on the part of both the civilian government there and the army that that is their biggest weakness.

On the military side you're starting to see some recognition just in the last few days, that the obsession with India as the mortal threat to Pakistan has been misguided, and that their biggest threat right now comes internally. And you're starting to see the Pakistan military take much more seriously the armed threat from militant extremists.

We want to continue to encourage Pakistan to move in that direction. And we will provide them all the cooperation that we can. We want to respect their sovereignty, but we also recognize that we have huge strategic interests, huge national security interests in making sure that Pakistan is stable and that you don't end up having a nuclear armed militant state.

It was that last sentence that got the president in a little trouble, when Robb pounced with a follow-up.

But in a worst-case scenario --

THE PRESIDENT: I'm not going to engage --

TODD: -- military, U.S. military could secure this nuclear --

THE PRESIDENT: I'm not going to engage in hypotheticals of that sort. I feel confident that that nuclear arsenal will remain out of militant hands. Okay?

But he had, just a sentence ago, acknowledged the possibility of Pakistan becoming "a nuclear armed militant state." Indeed, Pakistan, an enormous problem that barely registers as one in the minds of the American people (or much of the press corps, for that matter), looms forebodingly. I find it unlikely that the U.S. will be able to withdraw from South Asia any time soon, unless we are willing to leave both Afghanistan and Pakistan in states of civil war. Afghanistan borders Iran, which borders Iraq. Pakistan borders Afghanistan and India. Think: epic proportions.

On another matter, The Guardian's Michael Tomasky caught an Obama error when the president asserted that the British did not torture prisoners of war taken in World War II. Alas, they did.

Arlen Specter: No longer a "very good Republican"

2009-04-28T18:05:00.002-04:00

Having been ensconced in a poetry salon all afternoon, you blogstress has had no time to wax political on the peculiar turn of events that sees Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania -- he who pilloried Anita Hill -- becoming a Democrat. (Hooray for one more vote in the soon-to-be-filibuster-proof Senate!)

Until your ecrivaine is poised to pontificate on this glorious event, you may find amusement in her 2000 interview the same Arlen Specter, who, at that time, declared himself, rather sardonically, to be a "very good Republican."

CLICK HERE TO READ "VERY GOOD REPUBLICANS"

Tony Perkins to lead anti-marriage rally tomorrow

2009-04-27T11:40:00.003-04:00

From our friend Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council comes this loving invitation:

Dear Adele,

On Tuesday, April 28, Washington, D.C.-area pastors and pro-family leaders are gathering in the nation's capital to rally for man-woman marriage. The rally will take place from 10:00 a.m. to Noon on Freedom Plaza, which is located on Pennsylvania Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets, NW.

Come take part and express your support for traditional marriage!

Homosexual marriage advocates in Washington, D.C. are pushing the District of Columbia City Council to replace man-woman marriage with a law that will allow two men or two women to "marry." Just a few weeks ago the Council voted to recognize such "marriages" when they occur overseas or in the handful of other U.S. jurisdictions that allow them - most of them compelled to do so by activist judges who have ignored the will of the people. Let's remind our elected officials just what that will is: to protect marriage for our children and generations to come.

Speakers at the Stand 4 Marriage Rally on Freedom Plaza will include Bishop Harry Jackson, president of the High Impact Leadership Coalition, Derek McCoy of Stand 4 Marriage, D.C., and local community leaders. I'll be speaking as well.

Freedom Plaza is just a short walk from the Metro Center and Federal Triangle metro stops. Help us spread the word and draw a crowd to let the D.C. City Council and the national capital community know that marriage matters here too.

Thank you and God bless you.

Sincerely,
Tony Perkins

See y'all tomorrow at Freedom Plaza!

What has five pillars?

2009-04-14T12:22:00.005-04:00

Why, President Obama's economic program, according to himself (per his recently concluded speech at Georgetown University). They are:

* new rules for Wall Street that will reward drive and innovation
* new investments in education that will make our workforce more skilled and competitive
* new investments in renewable energy and technology that will create new jobs and industries
* new investments in health care that will cut costs for families and businesses
* new savings in our federal budget that will bring down the debt for future generations

What else has five pillars? Islam. They are:

* Faith or belief in the Oneness of God and the finality of the prophethood of Muhammad;
* Establishment of the daily prayers;
* Concern for and almsgiving to the needy;
* Self-purification through fasting; and
* The pilgrimage to Makkah for those who are able.

Get ready, mes amis, for the right-wing conspiracy theorists to revive the "Obama as crypto-Muslim" trope. That's why it's so fascinating that the president chose to wrap his pillars in a Gospel parable from Jesus's Sermon on the Mount:

There is a parable at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that tells the story of two men. The first built his house on a pile of sand, and it was destroyed as soon as the storm hit. But the second is known as the wise man, for when “…the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house…it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.”

We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand. We must build our house upon a rock. We must lay a new foundation for growth and prosperity – a foundation that will move us from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest; where we consume less at
home and send more exports abroad.

It’s a foundation built upon five pillars that will grow our economy and make this new century another American century...

Now, Obama's a pretty learned guy, and considering the baggage he carries on the American landscape thanks to his middle name, he surely knows from where his poetic reference to "five pillars" comes. The only possible explanation for Obama's use of the figure is a deliberate tweaking, as Eric Alterman has suggested is the president's aim with his massive agenda -- a desire to bait his enemies into looking intolerant and stupid. Hence the genius of the use of the parable, which bookends the "pillars" portion of the speech:

But from where we stand, for the very first time, we are beginning to see glimmers of hope. And beyond that, way off in the distance, we can see a vision of an America’s future that is far different than our troubled economic past... It is that house upon the rock. Proud, sturdy, and unwavering in the face of the greatest storm.

Gay nation gets Newt's goat

2009-04-13T11:17:00.009-04:00

Well, not quite -- the "gay nation" part, that is. But you gotta admit, for advocates of same-sex marriage, last week was stellar, especially in the melancholy aftermath of Proposition 8. Iowa's Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to ban same-sex marriage in that heartland state. That had Newt Gingrich railing yesterday, on "This Week With George Stephanopoulos", about the dangers of having the judiciary settle social issues: "[I]t's very dangerous for the country to have the judiciary become the chief agent of social change," said the former House speaker. I mean, look where that got us: having to go to school with black people and nixing the sexual harassment of women in the workplace. Bummer, man.

And Newt's philosophical opposition to Iowa's new marriage scheme left him defenseless against the Green Mountain state's newfound barrier-free approach to same-sex marriage. That's right, in Vermont last week, the legislature -- that's right, Newt, the elected representatives of the people -- overrode the governor's veto of a statute legalizing same-sex marriage.

Now, you had to bet that once the stars aligned to grant us this amazing turn of events, the right would see a galvanizing, fund-raising opportunity. So herewith, the video, "A Gathering Storm", that warns of a grave threat to the oppressed heterosexual majority should gay marriage become the norm:

While the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) folks assert throughout their video that same-sex marriage will somehow intrude on their lives, they never say just how.

Offering possible answers to that question, the indefatigable Lizz Winstead has produced a charming parody that features your blogstress's favorite conscious comic, Baratunde Thurston. Since that video is not embeddable, so you'll have to go to Baratunde's site to view it.

You can also find Baratunde's video here, at Shoot the Messenger.

Bill O'Reilly and Barbara Walters:A very limited View

2009-03-30T16:29:00.002-04:00

cross-posted from The Huffington Post

One would think that with four women co-hosts, Bill O'Reilly would have been put to the test in today's appearance on "The View" (ABC), given his producer's stalking of blogger Amanda Terkel and the uproar that has followed. But not one question was asked about the Terkel stalking, or subsequent efforts by Terkel's supporters to hold O'Reilly's advertising sponsors to account for their support of this outrageous bully.

Which leads one to wonder: Are the producers of The View so unaware of what is happening in media that they somehow missed the uproar (which was featured prominently on The Huffington Post, and to which O'Reilly rival Keith Olbermann devoted two segments)? Or was there a pre-interview agreement between O'Reilly and "The View" that he would not be called to account for these actions?

Quick review: two weekends ago Amanda Terkel went away for a weekend to an off-the-beaten-track town in Virginia, only to be ambushed by two male employees of O'Reilly, who stuck a camera in her face and accused her of hurting a rape victim, Alexa Branchini, and her family, and called her "dishonest." (Terkel's crime was to highlight on her blog comments O'Reilly had made about a different rape victim, Jennifer Moore, in which O'Reilly virtually blamed the young woman for her own rape.) Terkel's blog post was prompted by the decision by Branchini's foundation, which advocates for rape victims, to invite O'Reilly to speak at the organization's fundraising event. (For a more complete accounting, click the links in this post.)

But the clincher was the fact that O'Reilly never invited Amanda Terkel to defend her comments in-studio; instead he sent two men to trail her on the highway for two hours and then accost her.

I find it deeply troubling that among the hosts of The View, none asked O'Reilly about this. Except for one, these are women known as fairly progressive -- women who've no doubt encountered discriminatory and bullying behavior by men during the course of their own careers. In letting O'Reilly slide by as they did, they enabled this known misogynist, allowing him to appear before a female audience as a nice-enough guy -- not one who would ever send a couple of guys out to stalk your daughter while she's on vacation.

What's Bill O'Reilly afraid of?

2009-03-24T16:10:00.004-04:00

I have confirmed with blogger Amanda Terkel (see last post) that no one at "The O'Reilly Factor" ever tried to book her for a proper, in-studio interview prior to sending out Bill-O's stalker squad to trail her on a two-hour drive for the purpose of ambushing her on a weekend with a video camera. This leads one to ask, just what is Bill O'Reilly afraid of? He clearly didn't want to have a conversation with Terkel; he just wanted a videotaped reaction from her while she was being confronted by her stalker with false accusations.

Bill O'Reilly's Woman Problem

2009-03-24T12:00:00.006-04:00

Cross-posted from The Huffington Post

Abusive people often accuse others -- especially those who would challenge their behavior -- of the very act they themselves commit. And so we find Bill O'Reilly, host of Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor", accusing Think Progress blogger Amanda Terkel of bringing pain and suffering to a rape victim and her family.

Terkel's crime? Weeks before O'Reilly's scheduled appearance at a fundraising event for a rape-victim advocacy group, she reminded her readers that, on his radio show, O'Reilly had once blamed Jennifer Moore, a rape victim, and Moore's parents (segment starts at around 36) for the young woman's own rape and murder.

But it wasn't enough for O'Reilly to call out Terkel on his prime-time cable TV show. No, he apparently sent his male producer to stalk Terkel on a weekend day trip to a Virginia town two hours away from Terkel's Washington, DC, home, leading Terkel to assume that the O'Reilly crew had followed her on the highway in order to ambush her during her leisure time. At the ambush, O'Reilly producer Jesse Watters accused Terkel of bringing pain and suffering to rape victim Alexa Branchini and her family, apparently because Terkel had pointed out what O'Reilly said about the murdered Jennifer Moore: that she was "moronic", saying:

She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff. Now, again, there you go. So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at two in the morning. She's walking by herself on the West Side Highway, and she gets picked up by a thug. All right. Now she's out of her mind, drunk.

He equated Moore's fate with that of Mel Gibson, whose drunken anti-Semitic tirade -- which only expressed more crudely beliefs Gibson had stated while apparently sober --led to his own, self-induced public shaming.

Even more galling was O'Reilly's blaming of Moore's parents, not two week's after their daughter's brutal murder, for not having had the 18-year-old under curfew. No infliction of pain and suffering there, huh? Your daughter's body is found in a dumpster, and some blowhard with millions of listeners is describing your daughter as a drunk who all but deserved her fate, and blaming you for failing as a parent. The compassion virtually drips.

If you read Terkel's initial post about O'Reilly's slated appearance before the It Happened to Alexa Foundation, you will see that she in no way points a finger at Alexa Branchini or her family for having invited O'Reilly to speak at their fundraiser, however baffling that invitation might seem. She simply noted the invitation, and block-quoted the O'Reilly quote about Jennifer Moore that I highlight above.

For that sin, O'Reilly apparently chose to have a man stalk Terkel to accuse her, on video, of things she did not do -- but things O'Reilly has indeed done -- echoing the mindset of the kind of men who thrive on abusing women. (Lindsay Beyerstein reminds us that O'Reilly settled, out of court, a sexual harassment claim by his own producer.) O'Reilly is legendary for name-calling and false accusations, but when an organization like Media Matters (for which I have worked and whose mission I support) simply posts a transcript of something O'Reilly has said, he accuses the organization of "smearing" him. Smearing him with what? His own words?

It's not news that Bill O'Reilly is a bully. When kept to his side of the camera lens, that's his First Amendment right. And it's his producer's First Amendment right to ask questions on the street of any who would deign to answer them. But there's nothing moral in the physical stalking of a young woman blogger who simply noted on her blog something your boss said about a rape and murder victim. In fact, it's downright sinister, and typifies the threatening behavior to which young women are too often subjected by men who hate women.

It's time for the media community to weigh in and condemn this kind of hateful, bullying behavior of those who dare to report the truth.

Anti-gay robo-call

2009-03-04T01:40:00.005-05:00

Robocall - Tim Wildmon

Your blogstress's friends at the American Family Association have been buying airtime from whomever will sell them a bit of that public trust to spread their customary message of hatred of queer folk. Here's a robocall that went out yesterday, presumably to any and all who ever contributed a dime to AFA. Note that the call comes from AFA founder Don Wildmon's son, Tim. (Ever notice how some of these hate-mongering groups become a sort of full-employment plan for the founder's family?)

AFA's special, "Speechless: Silencing the Christians", may soon be coming to a cable channel -- or even broadcast channel -- near you, delivered as "paid programming". If you see it scheduled in your 'hood, you may wish to mobilize against the media outlet that sold the air time to AFA.

Here's the text of Brother Tim's message:

Hello, this is Tim Wildmon on behalf of your American Family Association, calling to sincerely thank you for your faithful support. With the help of friends like you, we've produced a new, one-hour documentary called "Speechless: Silencing the Christians". It details how the radical homosexual lobby has silenced Christians while labeling us a bigots in order to push their agenda across America. It will air on cable as well as network affiliates nationwide, so be watching for it. Your support makes this television program possible, so on behalf of your AFA, thank you again, and God bless.

Women to lead health care reform

2009-03-02T13:12:00.003-05:00

Today's announcement of President Obama's nomination of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to lead the Department of Health and Human Services; and Nancy-Ann DeParle, former director of the Health Care Finance Administration, as the White House point person on health care reform.

For several months now, right-wing groups have been using a potential Sebelius nomination as fundraising fodder. The pro-choice Catholic governor is particularly reviled by the right for her role in helping to defeat former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, who subpoenaed the medical records of some 90 women who had gotten abortions at the clinic of Dr. George Tiller, whom Kline dogged with allegations of performing illegal abortions. Firedoglake has that story. Here's a snip:

Kline was challenged for the Attorney General spot in 2006 by Paul Morrison. Sebelius helped recruit Morrison from the GOP to run against Kline, and Morrison received financial support from Tiller's PAC, which according to Novak and the forced birthers is sign of a -- you guessed it, grand conspiracy. The fact that even the Kansas GOP wants little to do with Kline doesn't really enter into the narrative -- after his defeat by Morrison he went on to replace Morrison as district attorney in Johnson County, taking the Planned Parenthood patient records with him. But he was defeated by another Republican, Steve Howe, who got 60% of the vote in a primary in January 2008.

Limbaugh at CPAC: Liberals are deranged; Obama is a socialist, community=communism

2009-02-28T21:53:00.009-05:00

Felled by the flu, your blogstress found herself unable to subject herself -- in person, at least -- to the hatefest that was the Conservative Political Action Conference, which took place this weekend in Our Nation's Capital. C-SPAN, however, denied her the pleasure of a blissful recovery, as she could not responsibly look away as more than 8,000 people assembled to declare their hatred of the new president.

And so she found herself tweeting the closing speech by none other than the sociopathic Rush Limbaugh who, one must marvel, has convinced a certain segment of the regular white guy cohort that the cause of all his ills are liberals decrying the granting of millions in TARP money to the inheritors of Merrill Lynch, whose then-executive, John Thain, spent $1.2 million for the renovation his office (including a $1,400 wastebasket).

While CPAC usually features elements of a freak show of hostile wing-nuttery (remember Ann Coulter calling John Edwards a "faggot"?), this year's conference reached a new high-water mark of paranoid authoritarianism, wherein the tropes usually advanced by a dedicated fringe were adopted by ostensibly mainstream Republicans. Newt Gingrich described Barack Obama's economic agenda as socialist, as did many of the CPAC speakers. And in introducing Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), Cliff Kincaid reiterated his claim, recently cited by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), that Obama was not born in the United States.

If this is the idea factory of the Republican Party, it is clear that the hard right, which had been pushed to the margins in the Bush-Cheney years, is again ascendant. It might be tempting to see this as a good thing, given how crazy they sound, but in an era where people are hurting, and likely to hurt for some time to come, these people are dangerous. Don't get too smug, liberals.

Below find your écrivaine's tweets of Limbaugh's speech.

Rush: Nation is under assault "from within" as never before because of Obama.
15 minutes ago from web

Rush: "Why would I want [Obama] to succeed?" O's agenda, he sez, is the restructuring of the country so capitalism and individualism die.
16 minutes ago from web

Rush referred to Maggie Rodriguez of CBS News as The Early Show's "anchorette".
#cpac 25 minutes ago from web

Rush: "Conservatives are naturally happy." Longer: It's a big country; there are so many to hate. A veritable cornucopia!
#cpac 30 minutes ago from web

Rush: "Were it not for Kerry's varicose veins, he'd be totally colorless." Then Rush wiped the sweat from his own quivering jowls.
#cpac 41 minutes ago from web

CPAC audience laughed when Rush said that John Kerry served in Vietnam.
#cpac about 1 hour ago from web

Rush: No need to fear liberals, because they're deranged. Better policy ideas are not the way to beat liberals .[Just call them names.]
#cpac about 1 hour ago from web

Rush: Welfare destroys families by making fathers unnecessary. [U-S-A chant from crowd.]
#cpac about 1 hour ago from web

Rush: Recession of the '80s was worse than this one. Obama doesn't mention it because we got out of it with tax cuts. Addie: What?!
about 1 hour ago from web

Rush: Our culture being "reoriented" so that the people who make the country work are cast as "the enemy".
#cpac about 1 hour ago from web

Rush: Joe Biden wondering how Jindal got his shift off from 7-11 to give the response to Obama's speech to Congress.
#cpac about 1 hour ago from web

Rush: Dems are "socialist, collectivist, Stali--" Cleverly stopped short of saying the full word, "Stalinist".
#cpac about 1 hour ago from web

Rush: Liberals don't care about raising revenue; it's "about control". Subprime crisis the fault of Barney Frank, Chris Dodd & Bill Clinton.
about 1 hour ago from web

Rush: Poor people are poor because of government aid, because aid destroys ambition.
#cpac about 1 hour ago from web

Rush: Obama trying to "foment anger" over a "created crisis". Rush declaring war on the War on Poverty.
#cpac about 1 hour ago from web

Shorter Rush: Obama wants to destroy America.
#cpac about 1 hour ago from web

Rush: Obama "gifted" and "talented". Are "gifted" and "talented" the new "articulate"?
#cpac about 1 hour ago from web

Rush: To take the country back, all we conservatives need is to nominate the right candidate. #cpac about 1 hour ago from web

Live-tweeting the president's address

2009-02-24T21:10:00.003-05:00

Follow your blogstress on Twitter for bon mots on President Obama's first address to a joint session of Congress: http://twitter.com/addiestan

Gay Man's God Wins "Best Creator" at Academy Awards

2009-02-23T03:23:00.004-05:00

The most astonishing thing about last night's Academy Awards was not the public cry for equal rights for queer folk -- though that was certainly welcome, and a breakthrough of major proportions. No, the most stunning thing to happen at the Oscars was the appearance of the very God to Whom your blogstress prays: the God that accepts her with all her blogstress ways, the God who made her has she is and likes her that way.

The moment came in the elegant acceptance remarks of Dustin Lance Black, who won Best Original Screenplay for his script for the movie, "Milk," based on the life of the assassinated gay rights activist, Harvey Milk.

I've got a preachy little post up on Religion Dispatches, complete with video of Black's acceptance speech.

CLICK HERE TO READ "GOD DOES LOVE YOU"

Greggus interruptus

2009-02-12T16:51:00.004-05:00

However unfortunate it is for President Obama to be caught flatfooted by the sudden withdrawal of Commerce secretary nominee Judd Gregg, it is a boon to women. As stated here previously, Gregg has an anti-woman, anti-civil rights record, and had no business leading an agency ostensibly dedicated to fairness in commerce.

Further, Gregg's withdrawal relieves Obama of any need he felt before to sacrifice our priorities in the name bi-partisanship, as Gregg has claimed ideological differences -- including over the stimulus package -- as his reason for pulling out.

And best, it opens the position to be filled by a woman. I nominate Laura Tyson, a trade whiz who chaired President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers.

So far, Obama's Commerce secretary nominees are like the drummer in Spinal Tap -- they just explode. Maybe the nomination of a woman -- one far more qualified for the post than either of the president's two male nominees -- will alter that dynamic.

Name DeLauro to Health and Human Services!

2009-02-06T18:06:00.002-05:00

CROSS-POSTED FROM THE HUFFINGTON POST

"THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE," shouts the tee shirt worn by an illustrated Barack Obama on the cover of the current issue of Ms. magazine. Gosh, I sure hope so. But signals from the White House are coming a bit mixed in these first two weeks of the Obama presidency, and I find myself looking for reassurance. Naming Rosa DeLauro to the cabinet, as the Secretary of Health and Human Services, would provide just the reassurance that I, and other of my sisters, are looking for.

Two days before the inauguration, I found myself seated at a table of feminist superstars at the Women's Ball sponsored by the National Council of Women's Organizations. Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation; Katherine Spillar, executive editor of Ms. magazine (which is published by Feminist Majority); Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation and Martha Burk, director of NCWO's Corporate Accountability Project (who famously led NCWO in protest of the Masters golf tournament for its location at a men-only golf club) all sat down to discuss their hopes for the new administration.

Smeal explained her hopes for a feminist future during Obama's tenure, including his signature on the Lilly Ledbetter Act, the bill that removes an onerous statute of limitations on a woman's ability to sue her employer for discrimination, which Obama symbolically chose as the first piece of legislation to bear his presidential signature.

Saporta piped up with Obama's promise to end the "global gag rule" -- that Republican executive order that forbade U.S. foreign aid to go to organizations that provide abortions or information about how to obtain one, even when the money was directed at non-abortion activities. And within days, the deed was done.

Sounds great. But the jobs-building piece of the stimulus package is notably lacking in jobs typically occupied by women, as Linda Hirshman pointed out on the op-ed page of the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/opinion/09hirshman.html. And there are still only five women named to the cabinet -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Hilda Solis, pending her confirmation as secretary of labor; Janet Napolitano as homeland security secretary; Lisa Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and Susan Rice, U.N. ambassador.

Then came the nomination of Republican Judd Gregg to be the next Secretary of Commerce. Sen. Judd Gregg, who is largely anti-abortion earned an 85 percent rating for voting with the National Right to Life Committee's agenda in 2007-2008, a 33-percent rating in support of the ACLU's agenda in 2007; a 40-percent rating from the LGBT rights group, the Human Rights Campaign, a five-percent rating from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and a 19-percent rating from the National Organization for Women (NOW). According to On The Issues, Gregg voted in 1995 "to disallow any funds in the Legislative Appropriations bill from being used to award, require, or encourage any Federal contract, if the contract is being awarded on the basis of the race, color, national origin, or gender of the contractor," and generally has an anti-affirmative action record. Ah-hem, President Obama: Bi-partisanship in support of white male hegemony truly is a vice. Don't forget that 56 percent of your vote came from women, and we make up the majority of the workforce producing the goods and services for which the commerce secretary is supposed to advocate.

Today, however, the sun came out a bit with the speculation (via The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder) that Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut would be selected to replace the besmirched Tom Daschle as secretary of health and human services. It's hard to imagine a better pick (especially since my personal favorite, former Planned Parenthood President Gloria Feldt, isn't likely to be offered the job). DeLauro is smart, knows health issues especially well, is a true feminist, and a passionate advocate for her causes.

The American people could scarcely hope to find a better and more capable advocate for their health and well being than Rosa DeLauro. The appointment of DeLauro would send a strong signal to the feminist community, and the progressive community at large, that the president is ready to truly deal women into the change we all want to believe in.

No on Judd Gregg for Commerce Secretary

2009-02-04T17:29:00.002-05:00

It was bad enough that President Barack Obama failed to use the opportunity of Bill Richardson's exit from the nominee stage to appoint a woman to his woefully gender-unbalanced cabinet, but then he appointed a guy who appears to have utter disregard for the financial well-being of women: Judd Gregg.

Gregg has a 20% approval rating from the ACLU, making him an anti-civil rights candidate. And he has consistently voted against making affirmative action measures apply to the federal government in contracting, including his vote "to disallow any funds in the [1995]Legislative Appropriations bill from being used to award, require, or encourage any Federal contract, if the contract is being awarded on the basis of the race, color, national origin, or gender of the contractor," according to On the Issues.

Reference: Bill HR 1854 ; vote number 1995-317 on Jul 20, 1995

All right, Mr. President. No more Ms. Nice Guy here.

RNC elects first African-American chairman

2009-01-30T16:06:00.002-05:00

It's Michael Steele, former lieutenant governor of Maryland.

Hope he sends Barack Obama a thank-you note.

Romensko changes disgusting headline about Couric

2009-01-29T15:18:00.004-05:00

This morning, the Romenesko blog, famous among journalists for its coverage of da biz, featured a link to Tom Shales' Washington Post piece about Katie Couric:

Another tongue-bath for Couric
This time from Shales.

When your blogstress returned from her lunchtime stroll, the hed was a bit more demure:

More love for Couric
This time from Shales.

Apparently, when a male writer expresses appreciation for the work of a woman in a man's job, it's almost like he's licking her -- until some editor comes to his senses.

Alas, your Webwench did not perform a screen-save of the original hed. You'll just have to take her word for it.

UPDATE: The "tongue bath" phrase comes from a blog post by Bill Wyman that appeared earlier this week on Hitsville, a post played big by Romenesko.

Dick Armey, bested by a broad, resorts to sexism

2009-01-28T18:15:00.009-05:00

The most astounding exchange just took place on MSNBC's "Hardball" between former House Majority Leader Dick Armey and Salon editor Joan Walsh. Host Chris Matthews had engaged the two to discuss the recent outrageous comments by Rush Limbaugh about President Barack Obama.

Matthews played this clip of Limbaugh, in which the radio host says of Obama:

LIMBAUGH: We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles, bend over forward, backward, whichever, because his father was black, because this is the first black president.

When Walsh asked why Republicans failed to apologize for Limbaugh's comments, Armey interrupted her: ~~with remarks to the effect of (paraphrase; transcript to come):~~

~~I'm lucky you're not my wife, so I don't have to listen to this kind of prattle all day long.~~

UPDATE: Sam Stein has the transcript at HuffPo

"I'm so damn glad you can never be my wife because I surely wouldn't have to listen to that prattle from you every day," Armey told Walsh, editor-in-chief of Salon.com. "That's what I'm talking about -- she's making a political malarkey here."

"Boy...that makes two of us sir," Walsh replied. "That was really an outstanding comment."

Even Matthews seemed stunned. ~~Walsh said the feeling was mutual, but that Armey's comments were uncalled-for.~~

Matthews failed to call Armey out in that segment, but in the next, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert raised the issue, saying that Armey owes Walsh and Matthews' viewers an apology. Matthews concurred that the "gender aspect" of Armey's comments were beyond the pale.

Will update as transcript and clips become available.

Speaking of singers

2009-01-23T12:23:00.003-05:00

"...interpretive skills generally gain in the course of a life well abused."

--Bono

Bono often annoys the crap out of me, but the man can write. Here's his first column for the New York Times op-ed section.

Rick Warren steps up

2009-01-21T15:01:00.003-05:00

He may not have offered the most profound prayer we ever heard, but Rick Warren, the right-wing preacher from California, offered a prayer at yesterday's presidential inauguration that was designed to bring people together. For this, he will surely take some heat from among the more political preachers of the right.

Your blogstress is thankful for favors, small and less so...

Big doin's, inauguration-style

2009-01-16T08:43:00.005-05:00

It's been a busy week for your blogstress. Her adopted city hums with the excitement of the impending inauguration of Barack Obama, and given the prime location of her Oppo Factory on Capitol Hill, she has become suddenly popular.

That aside, there have been no small measure of serious matters to which she must attend. First up: the promised repeal of the ban on queer folk in the military, which Barack Obama's spokesperson, Robert Gibbs, affirmed again last week, only to say a few days later that what he really meant to say is that they would get to it eventually.

At The Guardian's Comment Is Free site, your cybertrix makes the case for proceeding sooner rather than later:

CLICK HERE TO READ 'I'M BARACK OBAMA AND I'M HERE TO RECRUIT YOU'

The Rick Warren controversy, it seems, continues to roil. Tomorrow your écrivaine will discuss, with Mary Glenney on WMNF in Tampa, her own process for coping with the presence of bigotry on the inaugural platform, even as we welcome our first African-American president.

Last Chance Harvey Sweetly Maddening

2009-01-09T08:12:00.003-05:00

The best thing about the film, Last Chance Harvey, is the acting. What's not to like about a cast such as this: Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Eileen Aitken, Richard Schiff, Kathy Baker? Then there's the added bonus of seeing an actress of your blogstress's vintage playing a romantic lead. How often does that happen?

Joel Hopkins's script manages to give off warm and fuzzy feelings despite the fact that it hangs together by only the thinnest of threads. We are asked to suspend disbelief and curiosity throughout the film. Never are we to truly know why the Hoffman character's daughter possesses such contempt for him that she pushes him to the very margins or her wedding. "I wasn't a good father," is about all Harvey Shine, the character played by Hoffman, gives us to chew on, and the script nowhere fills in the blanks.

Following the travails of Shine, a washed-up musician on the verge of losing his jingle-writing job, we are asked to believe that jingles are still written afresh for commercials. Honestly, when's the last time you heard a new advertising jingle? The rule these days is the recycling of pop hits, a la Swiffer's obnoxious "Baby Come Back" campaign, wherein a discarded mop is given the status of a jilted suitor, and Swiffer the lucky gal's new, improved lover. Dwell on that a minute, mes amis, and you have an assumption not unlike Hopkins' -- that Kate Walker (Emma Thompson's character) should count herself luck to win a soon-to-be unemployed 60-something guy who is completely estranged from his family. If a cleaning tool stands in for a lover, then surely a self-involved schlub can stand in for Prince Charming.

Hopkins' lead characters are constantly on their cell phones yet, despite their interest in each other, neither ever asks the other for a number.

The story relies on the sublimated artistic inclinations of both characters, but only reveals Harvey's talent -- in a scene where he woos Kate Walker, the Thompson character, back to him by showing off at the piano keyboard. This after he has dissed her by essentially ignoring her at a party.

Later, we learn that the big hurt in Kate's life has to do with an exercise of her own autonomy. Had the rest of the film not been designed to generate sympathy for Harvey because of the mean women in his life, Kate's regret would have seemed more honest.

You will be forgiven, dear reader, for assuming your écrivaine did not enjoy this film. Actually, however, I rather liked it. Emma Thompson is delightful. And Dustin Hoffman is adorable. In fact, I seem to have a thing for Hoffman, even in -- or perhaps especially in -- his roles as the jerk. The Graduate, Kramer v. Kramer, now Last Chance Harvey: they each make less than flattering statements about women, and the first two are downright poisonous. But he's so cute!

Excusez-moi; it's time for my pill.

Stop the presses: SoapBlox not dead!

2009-01-08T13:36:00.003-05:00

You'll recall, dear reader, yesterday's madness about the meltdown at SoapBlox, a Web host for a number of progressive blogs, which was hacked by no-one-knows-who. There was much drama, as Paul Preston, SoapBlox's founder and keeper, prematurely declared his enterprise dead -- only to have a raft of contributors cry "Say it ain't so!" and contribute, via blog comments and other electronic means of communications, ways to salvage his servers.

All that may make this seem like less of a story than we originally thought (panicked visions of site files lost forever seemed to be coming true), but today's more sober assessment by Preston strikes your cybertrix as even more troubling than the original fear:

Starting on Tuesday, some of the SoapBlox servers were infiltrated by a currently unknown source for unknown reasons.

SSH access was acquired by the hackers, where they were able to install port scanning scripts on to the machines. SoapBlox servers were then being used to scan other servers across the Internet, looking for vulnerabilities.

The disruption of service was caused by our ISP disconnecting the affected servers when they became aware of the port scanning.

In other words, this was an attempt at a much larger attack, that would have affected far more than the impressive list of lefty blogs hosted by SoapBlox. Had SoapBlox's internet service provider (ISP) not pulled the plug on its service, much of the vast liberal cybersphere could have been infiltrated.

Very creepy.

Is the FBI working on this?

Progressive Web hosting service hacked to death

2009-01-07T11:35:00.012-05:00

UPDATE #2: SoapBlox seems to be backing off its announcement of its own demise, though the site's communicator, who posts under the handle "pacified", still doesn't seem to know quite what to do in the face of the Big Hack. He's apparently scrubbed this earlier post from his homepage:

SoapBlox is dead.All these hackers messing with our stuff, and we here at SoapBlox have no clue what to do. We don't have enough knowledge, time, money, or care to fix it.

So I hope the Hackers are happy.

If you want the data from your blog, we will get it. But we are not going to try and restore anything.

Consider this the "We're Out of Business" post.

UPDATE #1: Pam's House Blend is back up; no further word on the fate of SoapBlox. Blue Jersey still down, as is Swing State Project.

Just received word that SoapBlox, a Web-hosting service that caters to progressive sites, has been hacked so severely that it is reported to be dead, leaving a number of sites wondering how they might recover their files -- the content of their sites. Among these sites, sadly, is the wonderful Pam's House Blend ~~, and Stoller's Open Left.~~ While Open Left is part of the SoapBlox community, it appears to be untouched by the hacking.

Here's a list of other SoapBlox sites:

American Liberalism
- AZNetroots (AZ)
- Below Boston
- Be Think
- Bleeding Heartland (IA)
- Blogging for Michigan
- Blogs United
- Blue Forests (WA)
- Blue Hampshire (NH)
- Blue House Diaries
- Blue Indiana
- Blue Jersey
- Blue Mass. Group
- Blue Oklahoma
- BlueSunBelt.com
- Burnt Orange Report
- Calitics (CA)
- Cheap Round Trip
- Cobalt 6
- Encourage Education
- Colorado Pols
- CT Smart Growth
- Daily Kingfish (LA)
- Draft Rick Noriega
- Democratic Central
- Educator Roundtable
- Felicifia
- Fireside 14
- Florida Politics
- Florida Workforce Housing
- Free State Politics (MD)
- FluWiki Community
- Great Education
- GreenMountainDaily (VT)
- Howling Hex
- In A League of Her Own
- Interestingness.org
- Invest Every Month
- Left in Alabama (AL)
- Left in the West (MT)
- nmfbihop (NM)
- MassRevolutionNow
- Michigan Liberal
- MN Campaign Report
- myDedham
- My Left Nutmeg (CT)
- My Left Wing
- Muckraking Mom
- Never in our Names
- Open Left
- Organic American
- Organic Canadian
- Pacific Voices
- Pam's House Blend
- Peace is Active
- Peak Soil
- People's Republic of Florida
- Prairie State Blue (IL)
- Progressive Connection
- Progressive Historians
- Radical Russ
- Raising Kaine (VA)
- Red Mass Group
- Reform Fairfax
- Re-media.org
- South Carolina '08
- SquareState (CO)
- Swing State Project
- Talking Stoneham
- Texas Kaos
- Texans For Obama
- The Albany Project (NY)
- Tondee's Tavern (GA)
- Truth & Progress
- Turn Maine Blue (ME)
- USAbroad.org
- VT Impeach
- Wasatch Watcher (UT)
- Worldwide Sawdust
- WVa Blue (WV)

And Introducing ...
- Cure This
- Loaded Orygun (OR)
- Maat's Feather
- My Silver State (NV)
- Native American Netroots
- New Nebraska Network (NE)
- Plant's Review of Books
- RI Future (RI)
- Show Me Progress (MO)
- Stand for John
- BlueGrassRoots (KY)
- Docudharma
- SFKossacks
- Daily Delaware (DE)
- Bad Lands Blue (SD)
- Political Flesh Feast
- Mutuality
- West Michigan Rising
- EENRBlog

Special SoapBloxes
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More on Commerce

2009-01-07T09:21:00.003-05:00

The great E.J. Graff of the Schuster Center for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis, offers the following suggestions for Secretary of Commerce:

…Carol Goldberg, former CEO of Stop&Shop, major grocery chain in New England

…Rosabeth Moss Kanter, high-flying Harvard Business School prof

…Evelyn Murphy, former Lt. Gov of Massachusetts, Ph.D., economist, author, founder and president of WAGE (Women are Getting Even)

MoDo hearts Caroline

2009-01-07T08:11:00.001-05:00

Maureen Dowd makes your blogstress a bit crazy. When she's good, she's very, very good, and when she's bad she's a very mean lady. Today we find her in good witch mode, promoting the candidacy of Caroline Kennedy for U.S. Senate from the Great State of New York:

People complain that the 51-year-old Harvard and Columbia Law School grad and author is not a glib, professional pol who knows how to artfully market herself, and is someone who hasn’t spent her life glad-handing, backstabbing and logrolling. I say, thank God.

The press whines that she doesn’t have a pat answer about why she wants the job. I’ve interviewed a score of men running for president; not one had a good answer for why he wanted it.

You go, girl!

Name a woman to Commerce

2009-01-05T07:55:00.003-05:00

With Bill Richardson bowing out of the cabinet post to which he was named, an unforeseen opportunity to name another woman to the Obama cabinet. A female Secretary of Commerce would be especially meaningful, given this recent Catalyst study highlighting the paucity of women at the top of corporations (where they comprise 60 percent of the staff).

Who should it be? Geraldine Layborne, former head of Oxygen? Suzanne de Passe, former Motown honcho? How about Esther Dyson, the high-tech genius and venture capitalist?

Name your suggestions. Nature abhors a vacuum, now, doesn't she?

Hat-tip to Jill Zimon of Writes Likes She Talks for word of the Catalyst study via Women's eNews.

Women want stimulus, too!

2009-01-04T13:17:00.007-05:00

In our Viagra culture, it does not surprise your blogstress that women could easily be left out of the economic-stimulus-qua-jobs-building program that President-elect Obama has promised us. With their emphasis on infrastructure and green retrofits for job creation, the ideas being batted about appear to heavily favor jobs whose prerequisite skill sets belong largely to men. In the meantime, our health-care and educational infrastructures are also coming undone; these are sectors where women predominate, and little attention has been given to job creation in these human spheres.

Linda Hirshman, with whom your blogstress sparred most vigorously during the primary season, first brought this state of affairs to our attention on the op-ed page of the New York Times not very long ago.

Now, a group of women, including feminist economists, have launched an online petition to the president-elect, politely asking that half of the population be dealt into the new New Deal. Here's the text:

To President-Elect Obama:

We applaud your intention to establish a sizable and productive program that will help to stimulate the economy, and that will provide improved infrastructure for the country. However, we are concerned that, unless specific steps are taken, your program will provide jobs almost exclusively for men. Women are 46 percent of the labor force. Their unemployment rate is rising with that of men. Moreover, many millions of women are raising children without a husband or partner, and unemployment for them will mean great deprivation, and possible homelessness, for them and their children.

We suggest three lines of action that will insure that women get a fair share of the benefits from your program:

1. Revive and enforce the Labor Department regulations that require government contractors to institute affirmative action plans that provide a share of the jobs for women and minorities. Closely monitor the contractors for compliance.

2. In connection with the infrastructure projects, institute apprenticeships, and ensure that at least one third of the positions go to women.

3. Add projects in health, child care, education, social service that will both provide jobs to women, and also provide needed services to them.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN THE PETITION

Hat-tip to Katha Pollitt for spreading the word.

Worst Americans

2008-12-31T08:53:00.003-05:00

One of your blogstress's favorite Americans, Michael Tomasky, offers up his year-end list of 2008's worst Americans. Tomasky is the writer/editor at the helm of Guardian America, the online U.S. incarnation of the British newspaper.

CLICK HERE TO READ 'WELCOME TO AMERICA'S HALL OF SHAME

My Favorite Man

2008-12-30T16:26:00.004-05:00

Today, that would be Spencer Ackerman (a.k.a., Attackerman) who, in his vigilence, is defending the honor of the female sex against the designs of right-wing commentator Dennis Prager, who has been writing how married women are obligated to put out for hubby whenever the latter expresses his "needs".

Kyle of Right-Wing Watch suggests that Prager subscribes the "Phyllis Schlafly School of Marriage Counseling", the doyenne of the right having uttered this last year at an appearance at Bates College:

"By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don't think you can call it rape," she said.

Hat-tip to the fabulous Frankie G. of The Beltway Sewer.

Rick Warren faces a transcendent moment

2008-12-30T10:16:00.009-05:00

Your blogstress is still wrestling with the decision of Barack Obama (whom her feminist self supported all the way back in the primaries) to anoint the right-wing, anti-gay, anti-woman Pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the presidential inaugural ceremonies. Mon Dieu, mes amis! How to make sense of it?

One hopes that Mr. Obama has a trick or two up his sleeve in bestowing this honor on one who has compared pro-choice people to Holocaust deniers, equated gay marriage with polygamy and marriage between an adult and a child (and later denied having done so), and preaches that wives should submit to their husbands.

To many liberals, Warren's words are hard not to take personally, especially if you're a woman and/or a member of the LGBT community. This is no mere game of "dozens"; reports come in daily of LGBT people assaulted or killed for no other reason than being queer; meanwhile the terrorism of anti-choice forces has reduced abortion, in many areas, to a right that exists only on paper. (Abortion is available in only 14 percent of U.S. counties.)

Seeking to find a beacon of light in this disheartening pick, your blogstress has penned a piece for The Huffington Post, "Transcendental Invocation". Here's a taste:

[T]he predictable back-and-forth between left and right around this issue leads me in moments when my worser angels -- you know, the less-than-angelic angels -- of my nature have my ear to wonder whether or not we just got Souljahed out. Would Obama step on our tails to make us squeal in order to look "normal" to the pro-America parts of the country?

Let's consider another alternative -- please. Like any council of chiefs, the leadership of the religious right is often riven with jealousy and competition, as well as ideological differences between purists and pragmatists. Mainstream media have latched onto Warren's AIDS-fighting work in Africa and his preaching on environmental responsibility as evidence of his ostensibly kinder, gentler biblical Christianity though, by his own admission, the difference between Warren and authoritarian right-wing media mogul James Dobson is merely one of "tone". Yet Warren isn't really of the clique of religious-right leaders as we've come to know them: the Dobson mob, the Robertson cabal, the Falwell gang. (These form the syndicate that holds the rights to the GOP's electoral ground game; it is through their churches and associations that grass roots activists and voters are turned out.)

With his 25 million books sold and four megachurches with congregations in the tens of thousands, there's likely a bit of resentment against Warren among the council of elder pooh-bahs. (In his e-mail to followers, Tony Perkins snipes, "Let's hope that Rick Warren will use his channel of communication to the new President to press him for more pro-family policies-rather than simply being used by Mr. Obama to make political inroads with evangelicals.")

If the campaign revealed anything about the president-elect, it is his use of existing dynamics to his own advantage, knowing when to get out of the way of -- or lend a hand to -- Nature as she takes her course. The leaders of the religious right are far less dangerous to the rest of us when sniping among themselves. Could it be that, in elevating Warren so high above the rest, Obama has tossed an apple of discord over the right fence, a clever bait of distraction?

Perhaps I think too wishfully as I look to find a reason to believe.

CLICK HERE TO READ ALL OF "TRANSCENDENTAL INVOCATION"

Pastor Rick on gay marriage

2008-12-23T08:55:00.007-05:00

The pushback by the LGBT movement against the anointment of Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the inauguration of Barack Obama has been such that Warren felt compelled to go before his own congregants to clarify his views on gay marriage, taking great pains to say that he never equated gay relationships with incest or polygamy. (He just said he disagreed with allowing gays to marry, just as he disagreed with allowing adults to marry children, brothers to marry sisters, and men to have more than one wife. Not that he was equating them or anything.) Here's Pastor Rick:

CLICK THESE WORDS TO VIEW VIDEO

Meanwhile, on "Hardball" last night, Mike Rogers of blogActive and PageOneQ masterfully reframed the conflict over Obama's invocational choice as one that sees the LGBT movement at its most powerful, ever. Check out Digby's recounting at Hullabaloo:

...Rogers took a very unusual tack and said that [the well-known Reverend Eugene] Rivers coming on the show to defend Warren shows how powerful the gay community is and that he was very happy to see Warren changing his web site just today (to hide his more outrageously homophobic content.) He characterized this as a big victory for gay rights. ("I compliment Rick Warren on seeing the error of his ways and changing his Web site.") Rivers was agitated by this and seemed to be frustrated that the dialog wasn't taking the predicted path, rather sarcastically saying things like "well we're all happy now, I guess."

Here's Mike on "Hardball"

Happy Solstice, Mes Amis!

2008-12-20T23:57:00.001-05:00

Illinois edges Jersey for top honors

2008-12-10T17:19:00.006-05:00

While your blogstress's heart is in Jersey City, she does have familial ties to Chicago's South Side, so the pronouncement of one G-man on the comparative status of the Land of Lincoln was less painful, perhaps, than it was for her fellow dwellers of the Meadowlands:

Robert Grant, FBI special agent in charge of the Chicago office, said even the most cynical FBI agents were "disgusted and revolted" by what they heard on the recordings [of Gov. Rod Blogojevich trying to sell a Senate seat].

"If it isn’t the most corrupt state in the United States," Grant said of Illinois, "it’s certainly one hell of a competitor."

C'mon Jersey! You're slippin'!

Four Generations, Bad Music and Good Food

2008-11-27T01:17:00.003-05:00

cross-posted from The Huffington Post

On Thanksgiving Day, four generations of my family will gather at my parents' home to consume a meal largely beige in color, and devoid of anything green (save for the peas that come, frozen, in a bag with the little white onions).

"I was going to put out celery and olives," my mother said, "but then I always wind up with a year-old jar of olives takin' up space in the refrigerator. So, I figured, let's just skip it this year and see if anybody notices."

It's unlikely that anybody will. We'll all be too busy jockeying for position in the house we call Stanadu, looking to make the funniest joke, take the longest solo during the annual Making of Bad Music Cooperative that takes place in Mom and Dad's living room and trying to keep kids, grand-kids and great-grandkids from maiming themselves and/or each other. There will be disputes over how strong to make the coffee, and did you really have to bring something that needs to be cooked right now? Anyone who tries to direct traffic in the kitchen will be ignored and likely resented. Chaos is an imperative.

We'll annoy each other, laugh with each other, sing with each other, secretly cry for each others' difficulties, fret over who might next leave the planet, maybe have an argument or two, and have one hell of a good time.

Our American family, like many, was born of a thousand tragedies in the far corners of the earth. The 19th-century Irish potato blight, Mao's 20th-century cultural revolution, the 18th-century persecution of minorities in Eastern Europe, the 17th-century persecution of religious minorities in Britain, the centuries-long poverty of peasants in a handful of feudal societies, and the endless string of pathologies wrought by tragedy -- they're all part of our story. We're not particularly enlightened types; we didn't wind up being a biracial amalgam of cultural identities because of some angelic absence of prejudice, but, rather, because the combination of sexual attraction and a strong sense of curiosity led people to unexpected unions.

It's been a long time since every one of us in the greater nuclear-family constellation has been together in the same place; babies have been born since last this happened. My newest grand-niece, Julianna, arrived on Earth in the swelter of summer, during the heat of the presidential primary season. How lovely, then, that her first Thanksgiving should take place just as we, the unenlightened amalgam that is America, are about to welcome into the White House our first truly 21st-century president, himself the product of many unexpected unions -- beginning with his parents', and continuing with that of the disparate elements of the U.S. electorate who checked the same box on the ballot sheet.

On election day, my parents found themselves minding two of my nephews, 11-year-old Clark, and 8-year-old Dillon, who are half Chinese, a quarter Irish, and the rest a mix of Eastern European and some South/Central Asian mystery blend. They each took one grandson into their respective voting booths to mark the ballot for a man whose presence in the White House seems entirely normal to these children, who have no memory of freedom riders, who have yet to understand our nation's insanity regarding issues of race. (I pray that when they do come to understand, the understanding comes not harshly.)

Tomorrow, after we've not missed the missing olives and noshed on wine-swirled cheese food from a jar, after we're stuffed with turkey and Asian fruit salad and chocolate creme pie made from Jell-O pudding, after having consumed Mom's pumpkin pie and massive quantities of several varieties of tubers mashed with butter, we will begin making the bad music. There will be an Irish drum, a Chinese fiddle, a Romanian mandolin, a German-made ukulele, a dulcimer my dad assembled from a kit, and a bunch of guitars manufactured in Japan.

We'll perform our standards: "Teach Your Children", "This Little Light of Mine", "Rocky Raccoon", "Ripple", "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown," "Your Cheatin' Heart." Our raucous chorus will be as American as the apple pie that got passed over for the pudding tart.

For all these things, I offer thanks to the One who gives us breath.

Newt's back, and I'm a facist

2008-11-25T16:24:00.001-05:00

...and maybe you are, too. Did you oppose Proposition 8, the onerous California ballot measure that put an end to same-sex marriage in that state? Are you gay? Do you believe in the separation of church and state? Well, then, you just may be part of "a gay, secular fascism," according to our thrice-married former speaker. Now, why would the disgraced leader of a momentary revolution choose to hang his hat in this issue? Your blogstress explains over at The Guardian America:

When Georgia senator Saxby Chambliss found himself facing a runoff, his campaign called in the big guns, including Gingrich and John McCain, ABC News reported, to campaign for him. It is said that Jim Martin, the Democratic challenger to Chambliss, cannot win without strong support in his runoff battle from African-Americans. Gingrich and his compatriots have apparently taken note of two facts. First, in California, exit polls showed that African-Americans voted overwhelmingly against same-sex marriage. Second, Jim Martin is a friend to Georgia's gay community – named a "key gay ally", in fact, by the Southern Voice, Atlanta's LGBT newspaper.

CLICK HERE TO READ 'THE RETURN OF NEWT GINGRICH'

Sarah Palin on the "Today" show: workin' it

2008-11-11T18:28:00.003-05:00

Cross-posted from The Huffington Post

There a lot of things one can say about Sarah Palin, but this one cannot be disputed: by one measure, at least, she is true to her word. Sarah Palin is not going anywhere.

That, you'll recall, is what the Alaska governor and former vice presidential candidate told ABC's Elizabeth Vargas on the day before Halloween, "I think that if I were to give up and wave a white flag of surrender against some of the political shots that we've taken, that -- that would bring this whole -- I'm -- I'm not doing this for naught."

When her remarks were widely interpreted as indication of a likely 2012 presidential, she artfully dialed back. The day after the Vargas interview, she told me, "I'll be campaigning for John McCain's re-election in 2012."

That commitment now wiped off the slate by reality's eraser, Palin has set off on a charm offensive that will serve her well should she choose to toss her hat back into the ring of national politics. In this morning's Today show interview with NBC's Matt Lauer, Palin came off as endearingly combative, calling the unnamed leakers quoted in Newsweek "cowards", and cooking a halibut and salmon casserole for Lauer -- while being interviewed.

For the sit-down portion of the interview, which took place in the governor's office, she wore a jacket more reminiscent -- in color, if not cut -- of those she began the campaign with. Her hair was pulled up in a relaxed manner that suggested she did it herself. She denied all the talk about her alleged extravagance in the purchase of her campaign wardrobe, telling Lauer that her campaign duds were being purchased by the Republican National Committee before she ever even arrived in St. Paul for the Republican National Convention. Of Neiman Marcus, the high-end retailer that an unnamed McCain adviser claimed had been "looted" by "Wasilla hillbillies," Palin said, "I've never even been in those stores..."

Far more interesting than her denials, however, was her failure to deny Lauer's suggestion that it was the decision of McCain's people to keep her from the press, and her assertion that she would have liked to talk more to the media (which she once famously derided). "You can't just assume that the voters are going to be able to guess what's going on," she said, and that means talking to the media.

Which she's doing with a vengeance. Literally. Just ask those "cowards" who leaked the allegation about Palin not knowing that Africa is a continent, or that she greeted male campaign staffers while wearing nothing but a towel.

More important, though, than Palin's own self-redemption crusade is the national media's continued interest in her. And who can blame them? Like Barack Obama, Palin is a bundle of contradictions and seeming non sequiturs -- a bundle that represents the tensions in play in the lives of many Americans. In Obama, the tensions of race, culture and the structure of the modern, blended family were all brought into play. In Palin, as Katha Pollitt has sagely written, is the irony of the ambitious and talented woman who embraces a conservative, truly right-wing, worldview. As Lauer interviewed her in her Wasilla kitchen, it may have been the governor herself who made the casserole, but her hunky, blue-collar husband held the baby with utter comfort, patting him nonchalantly as if this is something he does every day (because it is).

I've heard liberals say that Palin's the one they want their president to face in 2012. And given her performance with Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson, I can understand why.

But Sarah Palin is not stupid. She's no Barack Obama, but she's not dumb. Needs a little schooling, but I suspect she's a quick study. And who knows what the president-elect will face in the next four years? Absent a credible ideology on the real problems facing America -- the economy, international relations, health care -- the Republicans have little left to run on but the culture wars. While that may seem so yesterday, the passage of anti-gay ballot measures in a handful of states on Tuesday proves the wars have not yet ended. And Sarah Palin could prove to be a great warrior icon -- Alaska's own Brigid, goddess of hearth and war.

In the Wasilla segment of Lauer's interview, the adorable grade-schooler, Piper Palin, was asked how she would feel if, when she's 11 years old in 2012, her mom came to her and said, we're going run again. (Lauer was not specific as to which office.) Piper turned up her palms and said, with a little laugh, "I don't know."

Her mom didn't miss a beat. "Would you want to do it again, sister?" asked Sarah Palin as she stirred the casserole.

Piper suddenly knew the right answer. "Yeah," she replied.

After all, she hadn't done it for naught.

Mama Africa has passed on to the next world

2008-11-11T18:18:00.003-05:00

In 2000, I had the great honor and pleasure of profiling Miriam Makeba, the great anti-apartheid activist, for Salon. She was at all times purely herself, cantankerous, generous and embracing life. May she rest in peace.

CLICK HERE TO READ 'THE RETURN OF MIRIAM MAKEBA'

Election Night Live Blog

2008-11-05T07:14:00.005-05:00

Here's a transcript of my Election-Night liveblog for The Huffington Post. I've cleaned it up a bit. Your blogstress so hates to learn that her slip is showing.

Adele Stan: Election Results Liveblog (11/04/2008)

3:26 p.m.

Adele Stan: The religious right, it seems, is already looking past today's election, looking to rally the base once more around the culture wars. Tonight the Family Research Council will host its first-ever election-night Webcast, following not just the presidential and congressional-level races, but paying special attention to those all-important ballot measures -- like California's Proposition 8, the passage of which will end the right to same-sex marriage that California's people won via a court decision several months ago. The issues touted in the teaser video sent around via e-mail by FRC's Tony Perkins include "abortion, gambling, man-woman marriage and stem-cell research."

Below find the code for doing your own opposition research. Get a little bored watching MSNBC and CNN? Check out Tony Perkins advising his foot soldiers on the their post-election battles, click here.

3:40 p.m.

Adele Stan: Called the McCain campaign office, located in northern Virginia, and got nowhere fast in answer to the question of where their local watch party will take place. Not having one, it seems, and not real clear on where any unofficial gatherings will take place. The Republican National Committee will have a party, I was told.

Meanwhile, over at a local Washington, D.C., office for the Obama campaign, a volunteer named Ruth told me that while the campaign isn't doing anything official, there are parties at two big night spots: the 9:30 Club and Busboys & Poets.

Now, where would you rather be?

3:49 p.m.

Adele Stan: Speaking of the religious right, you'll be hearing lots of talk after tonight about the future of the Repubican party. I'm among those who see a potential split -- the question is, will the right wing hold onto the party machinery, or will it march itself out with its grassroots ground game -- perhaps to a venue like Howard Phillips' Constitution Party? Here's my take on that potentiality, at Mother Jones.

4:44 p.m.

Adele Stan: The Huffington Post is reporting that Sarah Palin declined to tell reporters who she voted for in the presidential election. I'm thinking, Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party. After all, Todd Palin belonged, for seven years to the Constitution Party's state affiliate, the secessionist Alaska Independent Party. And CP Chairman Howard Phillips told me he would be interested in having Palin run as the party's presidential nominee next time out.

5:01 p.m.

Adele Stan: I spend a lot of time in D.C.'s jazz community, which is an extraordinary place to be, really. Among jazz musicians, as you might imagine, there's no shortage of opinions, particularly on things political. Though few people realize it today, jazz was once a very political music -- a form of expression that was anti-establishment by its very nature. At times, it went overt with its politics -- think Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit", or the civil rights era music made by Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln. However, because of our nation's less-than-benign neglect of our nation's great indiginous art form, jazz has been left to be the soundtrack for department stores, corporate coffeehouse chains and rich people's cocktail parties. Well, check this out: From Will Galison and his Orchestra comes a ditty worthy of tonight: "Takin' it Back With Barack"" Hat tip to my reader, Rico, who got this from DevraDowrite.com (she posts the lyrics), who got it from Jimmy Heath, who got it from James Moody. Now, there's some provenance for yas.

7:39 p.m.

Adele Stan: I'm hanging out for the moment at the Mother Jones Washington bureau, where the betting long ago left the realm of point spreads and electoral vote counts to what time the networks will call the election (presumably for Obama). The fellas are thinkin' somewhere between 10:45 and 11:16 EST.

I'm about to head over to a Presbyterian church in the Southwest section of DC, where an interesting mix of African-American jazz-lovers, and white gay and lesbian folks all find themselves under the same roof, on account of a jazz ministry and an "open and affirming" congregation. They've opened the church for folks to come watch election results together.

So here's a post that I tried to put up at around the 9:00 hour, I imagine. For some reason, I couldn't get program to load on my laptop from where I was working:

9:00 p.m. (estimated)

Adele Stan: Here in Southwest Washington, DC, I've arrived at Westminster Presbyterian Church, which was built in 1964 on the ruins of of the razed neighborhoods wrought by a policy known as "urban renewal" that involved destroying the village, ostensibly in order to save it (move it into faceless housing projects).

Westminster's co-pastors, Ruth and Brian Hamilton, made it their business to serve the neighborhood's historic denizens and its new arrivals, housing a non-profit community development corporation that promotes a nourishing jazz and blues ministry, as well as a significant AIDS-prevention program. Westminster is home to a thriving LGBTQ contingent in its congregation.

Tonight, all elements of the Westminster community are represented, as the sanctuary is tranformed into a theater of sorts, with MSNBC projected onto a screen just to the left of the cross, all run through a laptop run by Rev. Brian. Occasionally the screen freezes, but nobody seems to mind. This is a church without pews; the chairs are portable and tonight set at tables, where people chat as the results come in.

In addition to the regulars in the Westminster community here tonight is a table of Austrian graduate students. Nobody really seems to know how they wound up here, including the Austrians, who are all majors in political communications from Danube University in the town of Krems. Apparently, they asked their embassy for a list of election-watch parties, and Westminster wound up on the list. (I suspect the jazz connection for that one.)

I talked to a couple of the students, both of whom are journalists in their home countries. Hannes Gaisch marvelled at our electoral college system. "It's very complicated," he said. Katharina Seidl, a young woman with a chic, bobbed haircut and leather jacket added, "We all favor Obama." Indeed, the woman sitting next to her was wearing an Obama t-shirt.

9:15 p.m. (estimated)

Adele Stan: Back in TV land, somewhere around the same time, there was a weird exchange between Tom DeLay and Chris Matthews on MSNBC. At the time, I wrote it up this way:

Wait -- did Chris Matthews just tell Tom DeLay that he loved the way "you hate"?

Did he really just say, "We always know where you stand, buddy?"

Did DeLay just say very meekly, before being diappeared from the screen, "I don't hate." Wow!

9:58 p.m.

Adele Stan: If you were going to invent a Christian church the represented the new paradigm, it just might be Westminster Presbyterian Church. Take Rita, who staffs the door on Blue Mondays, when the church hosts its weekly blues concerts. An African-American woman in her late 40s, Rita is a scientist and technician who runs her own business. She was raised, she says, in the AME church, a traditionally African-American denomination that is rather formal in character, but was drawn to Westminister for both its music and the diversity of its congregants.

"You have the mix of people, the mix of sexual orientations and a progressive community," she said. She pointed to a tall, cylindrical sculpture made of stained glass -- a modern rendering of the burning bush that was made in the church's own glass shop. "This flame was [part of] a welfare-to-work program," she said.

On my way out of the church, I was stopped by a white woman in her 40s, wearing a gold t-shirt that said "Firefighters for Obama/Biden." Her husband sat with her, wearing a matching shirt. She grabbed me to say that she reads The Huffington Post every day. The t-shirt she really wanted to wear, she couldn't find, she explained. That would have been "Military Families for Obama/Biden." Her son is in the Army, now stateside, but has been on two deployments -- one to Kuwait, and one to Afghanistan. "I figured with a President Obama, he'd likely get to stay where he is, and with a President McCain, he'd probably see a third deployment."

12:43 a.m.

Adele Stan: Well, folks, it's been a night of great beauty -- but technical glitches. So please forgive the late entries. In fact, lemme work my way a bit backwards, if I may -- or at least skip to THE BIG MOMENT.

I left my multiculti church friends in DC's Southwest quadrant, running a bit behind, having crossed my fingers for a fast enough wireless connection in the church for longer than I should have.

I hoped to make it to my next destination in time to catch the moment when the map gave it to Obama. Instead, I found myself sitting at a subway stop -- and the only white person, as far as I could see -- when the voice of the station supervisor came over the public address system, saying, "Barack Obama is the 44th president of the United States. Three African-American women, all friends, sitting on the same bench as me, jumped up, shouting and hugging each other. We were all moist in the eyes. Then they noticed me. And embraced me. Little old grey-eyed, spikey-haired me. Then we were all standing in puddles.

When we all stepped on the train, the passengers looked at us, and yelled, "He won?!!" And the whole subway car erupted -- in joy.

2:05 a.m.

Adele Stan: On that subway train I found Henry Miller, a dark-skinned man, over 50, I'd guess, who is part of a superb a capella quartet called "After the Storm," whom Washingtonians know by their occasional and impromptu concerts at the Metro Center subway stop. Miller was among the riders who were receiving the news of Obama's election by the tears on my compatriots' faces, and he was all but beside himself. But taking note of the youth of the young ladies who had gotten on the train at the same time as me -- the strangers who had hugged me at the subway stop -- he felt the need to explain the cost of tonight's victory.

"A lot of people actually lost their lives so that we would have the right to vote," he said. "People were hung, they were lynched, they were tarred and feathered, and all other sorts of things that were happening. They were dragged on the back of pick-up trucks. And a lot of things took place with our people so that we could have the right to choose who we wanted to have run this country."

He was on his way home he said, to the same neighborhood where he was born and raised: Columbia Heights. A mix of gentrification and immigration has given the population a different mix than was there in Miller's younger days, but it's still home to him.

2:06 a.m.

Adele Stan: I collected some swell audio from my travels tonight, but I can't figure out how to get the file format right for upload. Maybe I'll figure it out before you wake up tomorrow.

2:27 a.m.

Adele Stan: As I sit in an all but vacant office building in downtown Washington, the occasional sounds of revelry and hoopla punctuate the silence.

But nothing could have prepared me for what I found on 14th Street, NW, in the block between U & V -- in fact, in the whole U Street corridor, where people spilled out of night clubs and into the streets, dancing and hugging. The cops gave up trying to move traffic and just cordoned off the area for an improptu street party.

Most of the people were young, but the astonishing thing was the mix of people -- really every color. I went to the great nightspot, Busboys & Poets, where the crowd ran the gamut of age and race. I sat next to a man in his 30s of South Asian descent who spoke with a British accent. People were literally dancing on the tables. Atop one table, a slender black man with long locks, dancing with a dark-haired young white woman. Atop another, three young men -- two white, one brown. At the table by the window? Three white women in their late 50s or early 60s. It was crowded, people were drinking, but no one shoved or groped. Had that lightness of being I last experienced (I think) at a Grateful Dead concert.

Meanwhile, across the street in front of the Frank Reeves Civic center was a scene that would have made Mickey Hart proud. A gaggle of drummers had gathered under a canopy -- again, a rainbow mix, including my good friend J. Scales, the self-styled "high priestess of homo-hop".

Yeah, I think not only are we the ones we've been waiting for -- we really are everything that scares Sarah Palin's "real" Americans. We need to start finding ways to make them less scared of us.

There was lots to love about Obama's acceptance speech, but the part I loved the most may not have been the most lyrical. It was the part were he told the people that had not voted for him that he would need their help. And that he would be their president.

Now we need to learn how to be their artists and writers and adorably wacky creative types, too.

2:35 a.m.

Adele Stan:

I managed to snag a cab out of U Street -- no mean feat, and I'm sure the product of divine intervention. The cab driver was a handsome young man in his 30s, from Morocco by way of Montreal. His family had left the homeland for Canada when he was 15. Then six years ago, he found his way to DC.

I expressed my marvel at having gotten the taxi. "Not many cabs tonight," he said. The cab drivers had stayed home to watch the election results, he said. Really? When they could be out making money?

"Most cab drivers, they don't have health insurance, " he replied. And they were banking on an Obama victory, he said, to change that for him. (And, no, Ezra Klein, I am really not making this up. This guy is your poster cabbie.)

4:35 a.m.

Adele Stan: After my travels, I arrived back at the Mother Jones bureau to find my colleagues and an a handful of their friends sitting rapt before a a television image of Obama, projected on the wall. The speech -- well, you know -- you cried in front of your own television. And though I'm so happy for myself and the rest of my weary, middle-age cohort in this result -- not to mention the many old folks who never thought they'd live to see the day -- this night was really about young people. They really did win this thing. Even when I spoke to older folks, it was their children and grandchildren whose future moved them to support Obama. The soldier's mother, the cabdriver who confessed he had no healthcare for his babies, the young ladies on the train whom the older man felt the need to remind of the cost of this victory. All the beautiful, joyful young people dancing in the streets. My young journalist colleagues intent on every word uttered by Barack Obama in his acceptance speech. This is their world now. Amen.

7:07 a.m.

Adele Stan: What it sounded like on the corner of 14th & U Street, NW, in Washington, DC, upon word of Obama's victory:

-------------------------------------
Comments from The Huffington Post

4:10 [Comment From Curt Descant]
Adele, Thanks for this post! I watched the video and enjoyed it. You also mentioned "Strange Fruit" and I found this video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs which brings both sadness and hope to my heart on this evening.

4:11 [Comment From NormBlon]
I will grieve for the Republican Party tomorrow, not because I would support it but about what the extremists and evangelicals have done to it. My advice to any centrist or small-c conservatives remaining is to let that bile-driven crowd keep the Republican tag, and form a new Conservative Party, principled, secular and intelligent. None of these virtues apply to the party of John McCain and Sarah Palin. History was made once today: history could be made again with a new Conservative party, starting tomorrow.

4:11 [Comment From Mike D.]
Hi Adele, TPM and Huff seem to be showing a lot of election problems in Virginia. I have been watching CNN all morning and they have not said a word about Virginia.

4:11 [Comment From carolb777]
wonder why that wasn't broadcast more,,the part about Palin's husband and the Constitution Party?

4:11 [Comment From Richard]
Adele, I hope I can relax sometime later tonight with a good scotch, and Brubeck's Take Five...if McCain wins, I'll need more scotch.

4:12 [Comment From Phil in CA]
Peeps lets get on the phones and make calls. I am on the Obama site blogs and people are getting reports from the field that the lines in FL, NJ and other places are slowing down. Have received emails from the campaign now asking people to get on the phones. Dont be complacent. http://my.barackobama.com/call

4:12 [Comment From Phil in CA]
Peeps lets get on the phones and make calls. I am on the Obama site blogs and people are getting reports from the field that the lines in FL, NJ and other places are slowing down. Have received emails from the campaign now asking people to get on the phones. Dont be complacent. http://my.barackobama.com/call

4:12 [Comment From comrade]
WIth Obama as president do you think there will be web pages with 1000's of Obamaisms like we did to bush????

4:12 [Comment From comrade]
Will we become communist country now?

4:12 [Comment From Darah]
I had hoped someone live blogging would say something nice about Sarah Palin

4:12 [Comment From DurangoSteve]
Chuck Baldwin... now there's a piece of work. He and the Palins might just be best pals.

Live-blogging the election today

2008-11-04T10:10:00.001-05:00

...for The Huffington Post.

Check me out there after lunch sometime. (Well, even a blogstress needs to vote, mes amis.)

Have you done your civic duty?

It's about equality, silly!

2008-10-29T11:48:00.003-04:00

Hard to imagine, but once upon a time, your blogstress was married. Because that is not a condition she is eager to repeat, she is often delinquent in weighing in on the issue of marriage equality. (It is, of course, all about me.)

But the fights over same-sex marriage now being waged across the country -- most notably, in California, where the Proposition 8 ballot measure threatens that state's equal-rights application of its marriage law -- are about more that your or my right to marry the consenting adult of our choice. This battle is about the fundamental equality of all human beings. Period.

Marriage indeed comes with serious responsibilities, as well as significant privileges. For instance, where there is no same-sex marriage, you likely cannot name your same-sex partner as the beneficiary of your pension, if you have one. You cannot be named "next of kin," so you may be barred from visiting your partner in the hospital. If a same-sex couple raises a child together, one partner may lose all right to custody should that couple break up.

And that's just the part about gay people. Then there's everybody else.

The war against "gay marriage" is not simply a war against queer folk, though we're clearly in the cross-hairs. Its a form of "spiritual warfare" waged on behalf of a world view that would subjugate women, inflict on unwilling participants a restrictive and fear-based religion, and marginalize any group that constitutes a minority.

Is that the world in which you want to live?

In California, vote no on Proposition 8. For information on ballot measures in your state, check out Hans Johnson's list at Progressive Victory [PDF file].

For more info on the bloggerific Write to Marry Day event, check out Mombian

Palin's Pal: A Feminist of Her Own

2008-10-29T04:39:00.003-04:00

cross-posted from The Huffington Post

Can you be a supporter of Sarah Palin and still be a feminist? Well, I guess you could call yourself a feminist -- that is, if you think that, as a woman, you still have rights equal to those of a man when:

* You do not have the right of self-determination over your own body
* Even if impregnated through rape or incest you are forced to bear a child
* You're told you're entitled to equal pay, but forbidden to sue for it under most circumstances
* Information on how to prevent your own pregnancy is withheld from you in sex education classes
* If you're a spiritually powerful or otherwise unusual woman, your harassment can justified as protection from "witchcraft"

In that case, I guess it could be said that Elaine Lafferty, a former Ms. magazine editor proudly stumping for Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, is a feminist. Otherwise, it just doesn't add up.

In an apparent diversion from answering the question of how a femiminst could possibly support an anti-choice ticket that also opposes legislation that would lengthen the statute of limitations in pay discrimination suits, Elaine Lafferty, in an essay appearing on The Daily Beast, admonished as sexist other feminists who challenged Palin's intelligence. This she conflated with actual sexism directed at Palin by male commentators. Nice try. But just because men (including right-wing men) have made sexist comments about Palin, and a few feminists, for good reason (given the media record), have mistaken Palin for being less intelligent than she is doesn't mean that Palin's a feminist. It just means she's a woman (a.k.a, sexism target) who can't name her least favorite Supreme Court cases, or tell us what magazines she reads.

The two feminists Lafferty insults are pioneers -- one was Ms.'s first and longest-serving editor; the other created and produces the first all-women political talk show.

I don't take lightly this challenging of Lafferty's feminist credentials; I've been on the receiving end of such criticism myself, from time to time, and I know the sting. But I've never supported an opponent of women't rights, and as a former Ms. staffer myself (before Lafferty's time), I feel betrayed by her support of a candidate who, taking advantage of an opening won by the efforts of feminists, would set back the cause of women's rights by decades.

I can't imagine how, as a feminist, one can support a candidate who couldn't bring herself to describe, in her interview by NBC's Brian Williams, an abortion clinic bomber as a "terrorist." Bill Ayers, she said, was a terrorist, but "others who would want to engage in harming innocent Americans or facilities that uh, it would be unacceptable. I don't know if you're going to use the word terrorist there."

Does Palin doubt that Claudia Gilmore, paralyzed from the chest down by the shotgun of an anti-choice fanatic, is a victim of terrorism? Perhaps during the long plane rides she describes in her Daily Beast essay, Lafferty could put that question to Palin, since she's the only feminist writer with any access to the candidate. (Would that Kathy G. or Ann Friedman could put a few questions to her.)

With no real refutation, Lafferty dismisses as hogwash any association of Palin with the far right. So, we are to make nothing of Palin's recent video shout-out to the annual convention of the Alaska Independence Party -- itself a secessionist movement and the state affiliate of the Constitution Party, whose platform calls for a return to the biblical law of the Old Testament. "The goal of the Constitution Party is to restore American jurisprudence to its Biblical foundations..." reads the platform preamble, which also claims the United States as a nation founded by Christians. First Dude Todd Palin belonged to the Alaska Independence Party for seven years -- until around the time his wife embarked on an unsuccessful run for the office of lieutenant governor in 2002.

I'm wondering if, on those long plane rides, Lafferty has asked Palin about the Wasilla City Council photo of her with a copy of the John Birch Society's magazine, The New American, sitting on the desk before her. The Birch Society, an anti-communist organization, also stands in opposition to most equal-rights movements, including the women's movement, according to the Web site of Political Research Associates, which researches right-wing organizations.

And while the blessing Palin received from one Rev. Thomas Muthee (famously preserved on video) asking for protection from "all forms of witchcraft" may seem pretty comical, it's really not when one considers that Muthee has a record of harassing women as "witches," having even driven one woman out of her hometown for allegedly causing accidents. It's a misogynist ruse as old as the Inquisition, and not one to be taken lightly as a part of Palin's belief system.

As far as I can tell, the biggest difference between Sarah Palin and Phyllis Schlafly is that Palin has expressed support for Title IX, the law that opened up educational opportunities, especially in athletic competition, to women. But other than that, she's pretty dern Schlaflyesque.

Like Sarah Palin, Phyllis Schlafly has long been the target of sexism in her own party. One of the conservative movement's foremost intellects, Schlafly is rarely celebrated as such, and instead finds herself relegated to the G.O.P.'s ladies' auxiliary. So, if I, as a feminist, decided to support Phyllis Schlafly in a bid for a job that offers a direct line of ascendency to the presidency -- would I still be a feminist? After all, I'd just be defending a target of sexism from people -- feminists -- who say mean stuff about her. And isn't that what feminism's all about -- empowering a female opponent of women's empowerment because she's victim of sexism? And to think that, all these years, I've gotten it wrong.

Hat-tip to Frank Gilligan of Beltway Sewer for the Blue Hampshire link.

2008-10-24T12:45:00.002-04:00

For more info on this bloggerific event, check out Mombian

The Palin Chronicles: Wedge-Setting 101

2008-10-02T18:42:00.000-04:00

Cross-posted from The Huffington Post

While at first she seemed a formidable force, Sarah Palin, in recent days, has offered her critics the delight of feeling blithely superior as she stammered her way through questions put to her by two network news anchors. But while liberals and progressives revel in the riches of embarrassment that Palin has rendered in her interviews with Katie Couric and Charles Gibson, they're missing the opportunity to exploit the Palin boondoggle for all it's worth.

Taking on Palin's shortcomings on their merits is all well and good but, alas, there are plenty of people, a.k.a. right-wing voters, who don't give a hoot about what she knows and doesn't know, so long as she opposes abortion and same-sex marriage. A bigger bang for the buck exists in exploiting the fissures within the right that the Palin candidacy has exposed.

Yes, a certain cadre of conservative columnists has called on Palin to remove herself from the McCain ticket for the sake of the cause. These folks -- George Will, David Brooks, Kathleen Parker, David Frum, Charles Krauthamer -- are mortified by the apparent know-nothingness exhibited by John McCain's vice presidential pick. But in reality, their opinions mean more to their counterparts on the left than they do to the foot soldiers of their own movement. These columnists are the right's own elite -- not the movement conservatives. As John McCain himself sneeringly described them, they are "Georgetown cocktail-party person[s]".

Movement conservatives, on the other hand, will have nothing of this notion that Palin is the problem. McCain's sinking numbers, they say, stem from his refusal to let Palin be Palin.

At the Constitution Day celebration of the Conservative Caucus two weeks ago, I had the occasion to speak with Howard Phillips, founder of the Conservative Caucus and the Constitution Party, the theocratic third party to which Todd Palin belonged for seven years through its Alaska affiliate, the Alaska Independence Party.

"Well, Pat Buchanan did a good column in which he said that she's a great gal, but she's being ruined by McCain, who's making her toe the party line," Phillips told me, in apparent concurrence.

In his September 16 column, Buchanan alleges that, during the Republican National Convention, the McCain campaign called off a meeting that Palin had scheduled with Phyllis Schlafly, the intellectual force behind the New Right's theory and rhetoric (and who will never be acknowledged as such because she is a woman). The McCain people, Buchanan said, said that Palin needed to rest up for her convention speech, but whisked her, instead, into a meeting with Sen. Joseph Lieberman and the American Israel Public Affairs Commitee (AIPAC), one of Buchanan's least favorite organizations on the planet. He goes on to say that Sarah Palin has become a neocon "project."

The neocons, he wrote, "are moving even now to capture this princess of the right and hope of the party."

Richard Viguerie, who with Phillips and Paul Weyrich, virtually founded the religious right, weighed in several days ago with similar sentiments: "McCain has to get rid of these Bush people around Palin," he wrote on Sept. 28, "along with the lobbyists and the folks from the Washington PR firms, and replace them with principled conservatives who have experience making the case for conservatism."

I, for one, have been flummoxed by Palin's sudden inarticulateness on matters for which movement conservatives generally have a raft of pat answers gleaned from their movement's literature. And that's where the problem may indeed lie. As The Guardian's Michael Tomasky recently suggested, it's possible that the reading Palin has done is largely in the journals of the right, and she may have been advised not to mention any of them, thus explaining her ridiculous reply to Katie Couric's question, "[W]hat newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this?" Palin: "Um, all of them..."

In fact, a photograph has surfaced of Palin at her Wasilla City Council desk; before her lays a loose leaf binder open to a publication by the John Birch Society, which made its name opposing both communism and the civil rights movement.

Buchanan suggested that Palin, left to her own devices, shows her true colors. "Sarah Palin is no neocon," he wrote. "She did not come by her beliefs by studying Leo Strauss. She is a traditionalist whose values are those of family, faith, community and country, not some utopian ideology."

Right. Her values lie in a dystopian theology -- but that's a column for another day. Back to Buchanan:

Wasilla, Alaska, is not a natural habitat of neoconservatives.

And her unrehearsed answers to Gibson's questions reveal her natural conservatism. Asked if she agrees with the Bush Doctrine, Palin asked for clarification. "In what respect, Charlie?"

Gibson: "Do we have the right of an anticipatory self-defense?"

Yes, said Palin, "if there is legitimate and enough intelligence that tells us that a strike is imminent against (the) American people, we have every right to defend our country. In fact, the president has the obligation, the duty to defend."

Exactly. The intelligence must be legit and the threat "imminent."

I imagine the same goes for the Supreme Court cases. The cases she would oppose as a movement conservative -- Griswold, which gave us contraception; Marbury, which gave us judicial review, for example -- would tip her hand, should she utter their names. So, instead, she was rendered mute.

At the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C., last month, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins told me, "I think there is no question that there was a lack of enthusiasm [for John McCain] among social conservative voters until he made that pick." They trust McCain, those social conservatives, as much as they trust elites like Will and Brooks. "You know, when there was discussion of a pro-abortion-rights running mate, nothing could dampen the base more than that, when 73 percent of delegates to the Republican convention were identified as pro-life," Perkins explained.

And who was one of those prospective "pro-abortion-rights running mate[s]"? Joe Lieberman, the guy for whom Buchanan's "princess of the right" was made to snub Phyllis Schlafly, la doyenne du droit.

If progressives really want to derail McCain's Zig-Zag Express, they'll put as much effort into playing up the backstage drama of establishment v. right wing as they will playing to the hall. Dare the Republican establishment to truly own Palin, and wave her defection from her right-wing colleagues before their eyes.

Don't allow Pat Buchanan to play a normal Republican on TV; challenge him to defend his columns on MSNBC. Make George Will answer to Richard Viguerie's complaint during his ABC News gig. If nobody will do that, e-mail the networks.

Step one: set wedge. Step two: grab mallet.

Live-Tweeting the Values Voter Summit

2008-09-12T11:00:00.002-04:00

Follow me on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/addiestan

Archbishop Eagan has no moral standing

2008-09-07T11:23:00.005-04:00

In this morning's edition of "Meet the Press", host Tom Brokaw confronted Democratic vice presidential hopeful Joe Biden with an admonishment delivered to Nancy Pelosi by Archbishop Edward Cardinal Egan of New York in response to Pelosi's assertion that "doctors of the Church have not been able to define when life begins and that over the history of the Church, this is an issue of controversy."

Egan issued a statement that concluded: "Anyone who dares to defend that they may be legitimately killed because another human being 'chooses' to do so or for any other equally ridiculous reason should not be providing leadership in a civilized democracy worthy of the name."

Biden handled the situation brilliantly, stating that his personal belief that life begins at conception stems from his faith (ergo, not science), and he has no right to impose his faith on others. When pressed on the Pelosi/Egan controversy, Biden showed off his Jesuit education, explaining that St. Thomas Aquinas asserted that human life did not begin at conception.

On the matter of the cardinal archbishop of New York, it is well-known that for the last 24 years, that spot is earned through a willingness to display contempt for women -- especially women politicians. In Egan's case, the contempt extends to young people of both sexes. Seems that once a fetus becomes a child, he or she loses all entitlement of protection from Archbishop Egan, who kept vicious predators in place in his parishes as priests, even after complaints of their transgressions against children had come to light. Here's a 2002 transcript from CNN's now-defunct "American Morning with Paula Zahn," in which Jack Cafferty interviews Eric Rich, a reporter for the Hartford Courant, the newspaper that uncovered Egan's cover-up of predator priests when Egan led the Connecticut Archdiocese of Bridgeport:

ERIC RICH: Well, what we were able to conclude is that Egan allowed several priests who were accused of sexual misconduct to remain in ministry for years after accusations surfaced and...

JACK CAFFERTY: So there was a conscious effort to not only allow the priests, who were accused of these activities, to continue, but to in effect keep this information also out of the public view, right?

RICH: That's right. There was that. There was that, yes. We had three priests that we focused on. One was a priest who actually had bitten the penis of a teenager during a nonconsensual sex act. He was one of three that Edward Egan allowed to remain in parish work.

Source:
AMERICAN MORNING WITH PAULA ZAHN
Aired March 18, 2002 - 07:11 ET

Live-tweeting the Republican National Convention

2008-09-04T21:49:00.002-04:00

Follow me:
http://twitter.com/addiestan

Here's a sample:
McCain to deliver his acceptance speech at 9:11 PM (CDT). Exploit much?

Amy Goodman arrested

2008-09-01T20:31:00.005-04:00

Amy Goodman, the host of Pacifica's "Democracy Now!" radio program, has been arrested in St. Paul while trying to free two of her producers. All manner of mayhem has broken out in the Twin Cities, with water hoses and tear gas being used in answer to ~~a handful of~~ some 50 or so ruffians who went on a window-breaking spree after breaking away from a 10,000-strong peace march. Yesterday, police raided at least one peace group's headquarters -- a private home -- with guns drawn.

Here's the press release from "Democracy Now!":

Amy Goodman and Two Democracy Now! Producers Unlawfully Arrested At the RNC

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
www.democracynow.org

September 1, 2008

Contact:
Denis Moynihan 917-549-5000
Mike Burke 646-552-5107, mike@democracynow.org

ST. PAUL, MN—-Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was unlawfully arrested in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota at approximately 5 p.m. local time. Police violently manhandled Goodman, yanking her arm, as they arrested her. Video of her arrest can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ

Goodman was arrested while attempting to free two Democracy Now! producers who were being unlawfully detained. They are Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. Kouddous and Salazar were arrested while they carried out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the Republican National Convention. Goodman's crime appears to have been defending her colleagues and the freedom of the press.

Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher told Democracy Now! that Kouddous and Salazar were being arrested on suspicion of rioting. They are currently being held at the Ramsey County jail in St. Paul.

Democracy Now! is calling on all journalists and concerned citizens to call the office of Mayor Chris Coleman and the Ramsey County Jail and demand the immediate release of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar. These calls can be directed to: Chris Rider from Mayor Coleman's office at 651-266-8535 and the Ramsey County Jail at 651-266-9350 (press extension 0).

Democracy Now! stands by Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar and condemns this action by Twin Cities law enforcement as a clear violation of the freedom of the press and the First Amendment rights of these journalists.

During the demonstration in which they were arrested law enforcement officers used pepper spray, rubber bullets, concussion grenades and excessive force. Several dozen others were also arrested during this action.

Amy Goodman is one of the most well-known and well-respected journalists in the United States. She has received journalism's top honors for her reporting and has a distinguished reputation of bravery and courage. The arrest of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar is a transparent attempt to intimidate journalists from the nation's leading independent news outlet.

Democracy Now! is a nationally syndicated public TV and radio program that airs on over 700 radio and TV stations across the US and the globe.

Video of Amy Goodman's Arrest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ

FEMA getting it done

2008-09-01T19:39:00.002-04:00

It appears that FEMA is doing a good job in Louisiana. Of course, the real test is yet to come, since FEMA's real job is to deal with the post-disaster issues of housing and general survival of storm survivors and evacuees. Your blogstress hopes the administration truly learned its lessons and has heeded the advice of what career civil service employees remain in its ranks. What happened during FEMA was not some sort of general incompetence on the part of FEMA's rank and file; it was the result of the politicization of the agency by the Bush administration. Indeed, well ahead of Katrina, FEMA workers tried to turn the attention of Congress to the lack of readiness created by political decisions made by the administration, but found no takers for the suggestion of an investigation.

Here's Siobhan Gorman of the Wall Street Journal's Storm Tracker blog:

After overseeing one of the largest evacuations in U.S. history, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will now shift its focus to taking care of evacuees immediate needs and then rebuilding communities lashed by Hurricane Gustav.

"We did a very good collective job in term of response, and we’ll do an equally effective job with recovery,” said Deputy FEMA Administrator Harvey Johnson, a retired Coast Guard admiral said Monday. "Act Two is about to unfold."

Gustavian politics

2008-09-01T15:31:00.004-04:00

In light of fears that the GOP will exploit the suffering of Gulf-Coast people to its own favor, Michael Tomasky says, not so fast:

Now consider a flood, especially in the aftermath of Katrina, and especially a flood hitting an urban area, a situation that finds many African American people being interviewed on television, as is the case today. Your average American is not going to bring information to this picture that will make her conclude that the Republicans are the party to handle this. She will think, without even really knowing that she's thinking it, that this is a matter for the Democrats to take care of – that the Democrats will handle this situation with more empathy and, post-Katrina, more competence.

CLICK HERE TO READ TOMASKY'S 'GUSTAV AND THE HARD-WIRED MIND'

Tear gas, water cannons on RNC protesters

2008-09-01T14:41:00.002-04:00

http://digg.com/world_news/Police_gasssing_protestors_in_St_Paul_h2o_hoses_horses

UPDATE: Joe Johns of CNN said the police were responding to a small group that broke away from the main protest in order to break windows and "generally make a nuisance of themselves."

Gustav hits Baton Rouge

2008-09-01T14:17:00.004-04:00

This is a problem for everyone in Lousiana, since Baton Rouge is the staging area for first response elsewhere in the state. Accoring to CNN, the FEMA command center lost power temporarily, and may now be running on emergency generators.

Your blogstress was in Baton Rouge less than two weeks after Hurricane Katrina, and it's hard to overstate the role of the Red Stick in managing such a crisis.

UPDATE: Turns out, according to CNN, that a transformer was blown, and the power company was able to reroute power to the command center.

Where's FEMA?

2008-08-31T19:17:00.003-04:00

Over at Democracy Arsenal, Moira Whelan asks why the military appears to be in charge of the management of the areas expected to be slammed by Hurricane Gustav. After all, this is supposed to be a matter for FEMA and the governor of the affected state:

I just noticed that the daily brief customarily done in advance of a hurricane is happening because Gustov is bearing down on the Gulf Coast…but a big shift here: the briefing is being given by NORTHCOM. So what does this tell us and why does it matter? It tells us that things are as broken as they were before Katrina.

The military, like EPA, Commerce, or anyone else, is only involved in emergency management to the point that they are requested to do so by the governor or the FEMA director (who acts on behalf of the President).

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF 'WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS HURRICANE?'

The Ridge/Lieberman fake-out

2008-08-20T23:32:00.003-04:00

Calm yourselves, mes amis! Yes, yes, I understand how exciting all this veep stuff is, and how thrilling it would be to see the religious right wing beside itself with the selection of a pro-choice vice presidential candidate by John McCain, the Republican heir apparent. I so hate to bust up this party, but do listen up: It ain't gonna happen. No way, no how.

And you diligent righties out there, doing your oppo, reading the HuffPo: Guess what? This is not about you. Hard to believe, I know; but it's really not. It's about that handful of Hillary Clinton supporters who are having a hard time bringing themselves to vote for the black guy. Really.

It was only eight years ago that this game was tried by a guy named George W. Bush, who had vanquished, in a dirty-tricks primary, a guy named John McCain, who was said to be on Bush's short list as a possible vice presidential pick. But the name that had everybody really excited was that of Tom Ridge, the former Pennsylvania governor.

In 2000, the Republican National Convention took place at the end of July in Philadelphia, which served to amplify the speculation over Ridge, who was well-known by local media. Meanwhile, a well-heeled group of Republican pro-choice women were promising trouble, threatening a floor fight at the convention. (They came within three delegate votes of pulling it off -- a terribly under-reported story.)

Bush held his veep card close to his vest while the platform hearings took place in Philly, just ahead of the convention. Keeping Ridge's name in contention, he created a sense of hopefulness among the women of the Republican Pro-Choice Coalition, only to pop their balloon two days before the convention with the announcement of the Cheney pick. Consequently, he had a rather peaceful run-up to the convention. And polling showed that Bush's numbers bumped up among Pennsylvanians when Ridge's name was joined to his.

A day or so after Bush announced his selection of Dick Cheney as his running mate, Tom Ridge revealed that he had privately withdrawn his name from consideration nearly a month before, but agreed to stay quiet while Bush floated it to placate those troublesome ladies.

Here are John Dickerson and James Carney reporting in the August 1, 2000, edition of Time:

Bush was so secretive about the process that he kept even his closest aides in the dark. He would poll them at senior staff meetings--"Give me your top three picks!" he would demand--but he would never play the game. He flirted publicly with "bold" contenders like Tom Ridge, Pennsylvania's pro-choice Governor, but never let on that Ridge had quietly taken himself out of the running in early July, citing family considerations.

John McCain was evidently paying attention. Ridge has shown himself to be an excellent toady to his party's big guns, and he's doubtless playing the same role for McCain that he did for Bush: selling his pro-choice principles to aid the misogynist, anti-choice cause. And the flotation of Lieberman's name serves much the same cause, with the addition of sending a signal to the portion of the Jewish electorate who ordinarily vote Democratic, but are reluctant to vote for Obama.

Serving a different purpose, McCain is borrowing a technique from the man his has come to hug. Unlike Bush in 2000, McCain's aim is not to appease a segment of his own party, but rather to lure in independents and those Democrats who are having a hard time coming to terms with their prejudices. By floating the names of Ridge and Sen. Joe Lieberman as potential running-mates, McCain signals to them, "See, I'm really not so bad. I understand you. I even like people who talk like you, who look like you."

With Lieberman and Ridge appearing to be in the mix, McCain baits the right to respond with its typical mix of threats and victim-consciousness, which will allow him to say in the end, "I'm so sorry, my friends, my base wouldn't let me run with your guy; but you know I'll do you right once I'm elected."

So, let's everybody relax a bit. And will somebody ask Tom Ridge if he's taken his name out of the running yet?

Cross-posted from The Huffington Post.

The One: McCain skips meanness; goes straight to evil

2008-08-03T18:30:00.004-04:00

This is not just a mean ad put out by the McCain campaign, though that it is. This is not simply a dishonest ad, though it's truly that, too. This is an evil ad. It makes a mockery of people's beliefs and presents Barack Obama as a false messiah. (That's anti-Christ to you, Bub. "So what?" asks Bub. "Oh, and that's Beëlzebub to you, missy.")

Two artfully clipped comments from Barack Obama appear here. The one in which Obama's says he's become a symbol omits the humble part of Obama's statement -- the part where he says it's not about him. When asked why he received such an enthusiastic reception in Germany, Obama replied that the crowds weren't applauding for him, they were applauding what his candidacy symbolized: "America returning to its best traditions." McFaustus cuts the quote to make it look like Obama is aggrandizing himself. Later, the ad presents Obama's joking characterization of how Hillary Clinton's campaign characterized him as if Obama is saying this about himself: that the voter will be bathed in a light that will "tell you to vote for Barack."

Seems like someone in the McCain camp is sitting at the famous Crossroads of blues legend, waiting for a deal.

Where's the blogstress?

2008-07-23T12:03:00.003-04:00

It may be tempting to think that your blogstress has simply abandoned her cause for the bohemian lifestyle of which she dreams, but temptation disappoints. Non, mes amis, your blogstress continues to spend her days consuming bon-bons in her dressing-gown while watching C-SPAN. These days, however, the results of her research are more often reported on the blog she now has at The Huffington Post:

www.huffingtonpost.com/adele-stan

Do tune in. Most recently your cybertrix broke the news of the apparent endorsement of Barack Obama's Afghanistan plan by the Afghan ambassador to the U.S.

Brian Beutler - staying alive, laughing

2008-07-02T22:54:00.003-04:00

This morning came word that your blogstress's colleague and friend, Brian Beutler, that gifted young reporter, blogger and crypto-crooner, had taken three bullets in his mass, thanks to a botched robbery on a Washington, D.C., street. And he lives. And cracks wise. And, miraculously, is expected to make a full recovery.

For the record, Beutler has done some of the best reporting on the Bush administration's flouting of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that she has read anywhere. And she would say that even if she wasn't his editor.

Scott Upright

2008-07-02T22:51:00.003-04:00

Your blogstress last week lost her good friend, the composer Scott Upright, to his defeat by a longstanding illness.

Scott was an artist of a most unusual sort; his gifts seemed unlimited to any one medium or discipline. He was an accomplished singer, composer, choreographer and designer. And cook. And human. And, above all, friend.

Your cybertrix is bereft.

AWOL blogstress

2008-07-02T22:48:00.002-04:00

With so much going on in the world outside your blogstress's mien, she has be slow to apply the cursor to her own breakaway republic. Do forgive, mes amis.

Rahm "the bomb" Emanuel plays it cool

2008-06-13T22:33:00.013-04:00

Check out HuffPo's Nico Pitney on the Democrats' congressional Chicago strongman and his role in the presidential contest.

Don't worry, he effectively tells Pitney; those who have not endorsed will come along soon.

CLICK HERE TO READ PITNEY'S 'DEMS NOT BACKING OBAMA? RAHM WILL DEAL WITH IT'

Tim Russert

2008-06-13T22:15:00.004-04:00

Word of the passing of Tim Russert, NBC News Washington bureau chief and host of "Meet the Press" is sad indeed. Sad because Russert appeared to so enjoy the twists and turns of this year's presidential contest, a contest whose end he will not get to enjoy from this earthly plane.

Your blogstress didn't know Tim Russert, but on the night of the New Hampshire primary, she enjoyed a rather charmed encounter with him. In the bar of the Radisson in Manchester, where tout le monde was eating dinner that night, I was standing at the bar awaiting takeout when Russert walked in with Mike Barnicle. The days and hours leading up to polling day had been quite the ride. Hillary was inevitable, then was destined to lose, according to pundits and pollsters. By the day of the primary, word began circulating that she might pull it off.

Making small talk, I asked Russert how it was looking to him. (The polls had yet to close.) Standing next to me, he unrolled a handful of papers onto the bar. They contained the network's own exits. He went through them with me, exuding the glee of an astonished kid. I just happened to be the bystander in the right spot -- next to a fellow who was looking to share his sense of surprise.

The guy loved his work.

Intersectional orientation

2008-06-11T14:24:00.002-04:00

Forgive your blogstress, mes amis, for having neglected you for so long. Your cybertrix, of course, was off doing worthy things, such as attending the National Conference on Media Reform (thanks to a scholarship from the outstanding organization, Free Press, Inc.), getting marooned in the Atlanta airport for a day on her way back to DC from Minneapolis, and then doing a lot of sweating in her 100-plus-degree oppo factory, which happened to lose its air conditioning on the hottest day of the year.

But now -- rejoice -- your Webwench returns with a new collaboration in The Huffington Post. In answer to Linda Hirshman's instruction to the feminist movement (something of a white woman's manifesto) that ran in the Outlook section of Sunday's Washington Post, Shireen Mitchell and your ecrivaine today responded with our defense of what has become known as "intersectionality." (Kinda sexy, non?)

To find out what that means, check us out in HuffPo:

CLICK HERE TO READ 'A FEMINIST FOCUS INCLUDES EVERYBODY'

Hillary as veep pick: a very bad idea

2008-06-04T19:29:00.003-04:00

Check out your blogstress's debut on The Huffington Post as a featured blogger commenting on why it would be such a bad idea for Barack Obama to name Hillary Clinton as his running mate -- especially bad for women.

CLICK HERE TO READ "HILLARY AS VEEP A BAD MOVE FOR WOMEN"

Great discussion of the Obama movement

2008-06-04T19:18:00.003-04:00

It may have taken place last month, but this discussion on GritTV about the phenomenon that is Barack Obama and the movement he leads is particulary timely now, the day after Barack clinches the nomination.

This segment features the force of nature that is Laura Flanders moderating a roundtable featuring three of your blogstress's favorite men: The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg, Afro-Netizen founder Chris Rabb and the brilliant novelist Walter Mosely.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH FLANDERS WITH RABB, HERTZBERG & MOSELY

Nomination night: history made

2008-06-03T23:21:00.003-04:00

And so Barack Obama continues his Taoist path to the presidency, delivering a speech tonight that failed to note the obvious: for the first time, an African-American has clinched a major-party nomination.

After Hillary Clinton refused to graciously concede -- delivering a speech that sought to hang her 18 million voters as a sword over the head of Barack -- Obama could, perhaps, be forgiven for beginning his valedictory with a sourpuss. Nonetheless, his response of praise for the former first lady only advanced his own cause.

I do think that all the hysteria among pundits and journalists about the fact that she did not concede tonight is just that: hysteria. They're all frantic over the fact that she used that opportunity to ask her supporters to write to her via her Web site to tell her whether or not to quit.

Oh, come on, people. What do campaign Web sites primarily exist for? The collection of dough. Her campaign is in debt. She needs more, and luring in her most dedicated supporters to say, "stay the course," gives her the opportunity to ask for more.

As for the veep, your blogstress just doesn't see it. She would be fine, but her husband would wreck it.

Obama needs to raise McCain's Iraq by one Aghanistan

2008-06-03T21:07:00.003-04:00

Watching John McCain speak tonight from Louisiana, throwing down a gauntlet to Barack Obama, it became apparent that McCain's election theme will be that Obama refuses to go to Iraq to meet with Gen. Petraeus to see the good work our troops have done there, even as he promises to negotiate with bad guys like Iran's President Ahmadinejad.

Obama needs to go to Afghanistan and challenge McCain to do the same. There, he should meet with the under-resourced troops who pool their won dollars to help get stuff done for Afghans -- sort of like inner city schoolteachers here.

The guys are getting nervous

2008-06-03T10:59:00.004-04:00

With Barack Obama poised to declare victory tonight as the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, conversations among liberals and progressives now turn to the veepstakes. Suddenly, I feel the nervousness of liberal white guys, many of whom have convinced themselves that the only choice Obama should make is of a white man with a military background.

Is all about the pragmatic goals of winning, they tell me. Gotta get those white, male votes. As if the white female voters who followed Hillary Clinton are chopped liver.

News for yas, fellas: The ladies' are the votes you need. The white guys who love the war are not going to vote for Obama, even if he has an antiwar general on his ticket. Pick an outright sexist like Jim Webb -- whose reasoning during the Tailhook scandal would have one believe that today's generals bear no responsibility for the rampant sexual harassment and assault of female soldiers by their male counterparts in today's Army -- and you'll alienate a whole lot of women while failing to win many white male warmongers to the fold.

Your blogstress's hunch: The prospect of a ticket that features no one who looks like them has a number of liberal white guys very anxious.

Get over it, guys. Welcome to the change we can believe in.

Obama: leaving his spiritual home

2008-06-02T06:04:00.004-04:00

And so it came to pass that Barack Obama felt the need to leave his church. After the egomania of retired Pastor Jeremiah Wright caused Obama endless woes on the campaign trail (not to mention a National Review cover story on black liberation theology), your blogstress finds some irony in the fact that the final blow to Obama's ability to remain both a member of Trinity United Church of Christ and a viable presidential candidate came in the form of a sermon from a Roman Catholic priest, Michael Pfleger.

Speaking a guest preacher in Trinity's sanctuary, Pfleger mocked Hillary Clinton's tearful moment in New Hampshire, saying she was crying only because she was losing to Obama, a black man, while she is white, "entitled", and "Bill's wife."

For one, your blogstress is not surprised to hear such sexist and demeaning comments flow from the mouth of a Catholic priest. Only this week, the pope reaffirmed church policy to excommunicate Catholic official who dares to ordain a woman priest, or any woman who would be so ordained. No misogyny there!

Still, I can't help but wonder if, had Chris Dodd or Joe Biden come this close to winning the nomination, they would have been forced to leave their churches for whatever disparaging remarks their pastors may have uttered -- perhaps towards women or queer people -- from their Roman Catholic pulpits.

You know the preacher likes the coldA brief history of the courts and the religious right on gay marriage

2008-05-20T09:01:00.005-04:00

From your blogstress's fellow traveler, In These Times columnist Hans Johnson, comes this informative analysis of California Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage last week in the nation's most populous state. Here's a taste:

Sixty years ago, against a steep and contrary bent of public opinion, the same court upheld the right of a Mexican American woman, Andrea Perez, to marry her African-American sweetheart, Sylvester Davis, in Los Angeles. It took two decades for the U.S. Supreme Court to finally follow California’s lead and nix all such bans on interracial marriages.

In the current marriage case, Carlos Moreno, the court’s sole Latino justice, and two others joined the ruling by George, an appointee of former Republican governor Pete Wilson. George became the court’s chief justice the very month (May 1996) that fellow Californian Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee to the U.S. Supreme Court, confounded religious conservatives by striking down an antigay amendment to the Colorado constitution. The measure aimed to obliterate and forever outlaw any protection in any area of life against antigay bias, no matter how severe. Kennedy countered with simple declarative grace that even a majority of voters cannot make gay people "strangers to the law."

CLICK HERE TO READ "CALIFORNIA RULES" AT IN THESE TIMES.

We are programmed to receive...

2008-05-16T20:35:00.003-04:00

Indeed the time did arrive, mes amis, for your blogstress to offer an adult-type comment on yesterday's decision by the California Supreme Court to legalize same-sex marriage. Adult-type meaning an expression of opinion that goes beyond your Webwench's native suspicion of marriage as a desirable state.

And so, your ecrivaine dares to posit, at The Guardian's lively opinion site, Comment is Free, that when the "gay marriage" decision becomes an issue in the presidential campaign, it will likely hurt John McCain more than it will the Democratic nominee.

CLICK HERE TO READ "MARRIAGE, CALIFORNIA STYLE" AT COMMENT IS FREE

Free to submit to the ties that bind

2008-05-15T13:54:00.002-04:00

Having been married once, your blogstress has never been one to beat the gay-marriage drum so loudly. While she understands that there are no equal rights for queer folk until we are free to marry within our own gender frames, it is an issue with such improbable personal ramifications for your Webwench that she has scarely ever worked up a dewy glow over it. Marriage is marriage, with all the attendant dynamics, and once was enough for your ecrivaine. She simply doesn't see where being married to a woman would be much of an improvement on that shopworn theme.

That said, today's decision from the California Supreme Court legalizing same-sex marriage is a mind-blower. It's good stuff on the rights front. Gonna be evil in the presidential election.

My solution? Keep the state out of the marriage biz altogether. Marriage is the business of the churches.

Bloch party

2008-05-13T07:25:00.004-04:00

The plot thickens in the strange tale of the paleo-Catholic, gay-baiting, Rove-hating Bush administration nemesis and appointee, Scott Bloch, who heads the Office of Special Counsel. We recently learned from the Associated Press (AP) that shortly after the departure of Karl Rove from the White House, a task force for an investigation launched by Bloch stood poised to request documents from the Justice Department, only to have Bloch shut down the probe.

The investigation was focused on the possible political use of federal prosecutors to smear Don Siegelman, the Democratic governor of Alabama, in a way that would prevent his re-election. It is suspected that Rove was involved.

I have long suspected that another investigation led by Bloch's office that looked at the use of government personnel by Rove's office in conducting political operations in the 2006 elections on behalf of the Republican Party was the thing that caused Rove to resign. But perhaps that was just the beginning. Even with Rove gone, the probe into the Siegelman matter may have led even beyond Rove.

Either way, Bloch, no saint himself, seems to have been unequal to his self-appointed task of exacting revenge on Turd Blossom.

Yesterday, Rove refused to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on his role in the Siegelman affair, offering only to answer questions in writing.