Congrats on Pa.

 

In case you couldn't tell, I like Hillary Clinton.  I always have, from the moment she brazenly suggested that first ladies could be more than window dressing, to the moment she acknowledged the "vast right-wing conspiracy" anyone with half a (left) eye had already seen, to the moment she decided "standing by your man," could be the better part of valor, to the moment she announced her candidacy for this nation's highest office.  I have sent contributions; I have written letters.  I genuinely like the woman.  I even like Bill.  I wouldn't want to be married to him, but he was a good president, if not a good husband, and based on his politics, I like him.

Which is why this is difficult to say.

The two biggest problems with the Senator's campaign have been her husband and her staff.  Bill's re-dust-up over the South Carolina comments do his wife no favors.  He's not actually running for president, mind you, but it is difficult for the population at large to separate the two.  And he is larger than life; he throws a long shadow.  I would hope the former president would start being as careful of his wife's campaign as he was of his own - if not for her sake, or ours, at least for the sake of his own legacy, which has admittedly been tarnished of late.

And then there is Hillary's staff.  Whoever suggested she use the word "obliterate" on air should be fired.  The doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction worked during the Cold War, and the idea of preemptive threat (as opposed to preemptive war) is well-established as both acceptable and tenable.  Couching it in such, forgive the pun, explosive terms, however, is not. 

Senator Clinton went on, of course, to explain her position in detail (via TalkLeft, with worthy commentary), but the detailed, cogent, viable explanation doesn't make for the headlines "obliterated" does.  This is campaign 101 - don't let the soundbite overpower the actual message.  It should enhance and entrance, not smash and grab.

I still hope to be able to vote for Hillary in the general, but such mistakes make this more difficult than it ever needed to be, particularly given the proclivity of certain segments of our population to always assume the worst of any Clinton, irrespective of anything as niggling as facts.

...that portrays all who would prefer otherwise, given a choice between a white woman and an African-American man, as de facto racists - as if the woman had nothing to bring to the table outside of her race.

...that would assume anyone who had another first choice was a bigot.

...that believes that all who do not support it from the outset are either stupid or uneducated.

...that states that supporting an alternate in the same party means holding onto religious mythology for dear life - particularly when some are of the much-despised atheist non-class of quasi-citizenry (moi, merci beaucoup, vous le morceau de merde).

...that suggests that only stupid, willfully ignorant, racist idiots could possibly find any other candidate in the same fucking party even remotely attractive.

...that believes that 30 minute meals are inherently less satisfying than Chef Ripert's.

I love Ripert, and what's more, I can actually make his recipes - to a tee, fuck you very much. It just so happensI don't make my living as a chef, so I'm also very well acquainted with the 30 minute stoup.

Guess which recipes get used on a more regular basis, you high-and-mighty so-called "progressives?"  I'm a pro-choice, opposed to the death penalty, all for single-payer health care, firm believer in a progressive (if ostensibly flat-) tax, anti-torture, pro-liberty, motherfucking patriotic, salute-the-flag, father-in-law Vietnam (2 tours) and-proud-of-it (him and me) Marine, American.

I'm also a work-outside-the-home mother of two, with one of the boys needing therapy twice a week, who also needs to get dinner on the table.  I'm enamored of Ripert and Bayless and Colicchio and Desauliniers, but it's Ray and Deen and and Joy of Cooking, and my own mom, who make it onto my table more often than not - because they speak to how I live.

And I have a fucking college degree.  So bite my degreed, Nascar-hating ass.

...this has been a Public Service Announcement from Kiosan, who is fed up to *here* with the Obama mythology, merci beaucoup monsieurs et mademoiselles, so sayeth the toothless rube.

Senator Clinton has come out with a new NC Ask Me ad in North Carolina.  I like the premise - eschewing all of the punditocracy and blogospheric hype and getting down to brass tacks, as it were:

So, how do you think Clinton Rules will apply here?  Does she actually say something evil if you play the video backwards in a tornado while sucking on a pudding pop?

I'm assuming that most anyone who stumbles upon one of my political posts, and who has read thus far, is aware of the Bill Richardson (Gov., D-NM) endorsement flap.  On the off-chance I have a new reader whom I've entranced with my sublime turn-of-phrase, but who is as yet unfamiliar with the give-and-take peculiar to his endorsement of Senator Obama for President of the United States, I offer links.

Rather than offer a lengthy post on the merits (or demerits) of the various arguments, or the spuriousness of the claim that Judas was far worse because he turned in the physical location of his supposed friend at a most auspicious time for the opposition, rather than turning on his supposed friend at a most auspicious time for the opposition, or the question of whether or not 30 pieces of silver must translate exactly, or whether James Carville ever has anything substantive to say sans Cajun spice, I will simply ask this:

In today's hot-wired, plugged-in, always-on world, why hasn't Governor Richardson publicly fired (or allowed to resign) the person in charge of relaying his messages?  You know, the person who's supposed to tell him, even when he's on "vacation," of the important stuff that goes on, like say floods, or earthquakes, or school shootings - or when the former President of the United States leaves several messages?

Me?  I'd lose the slacker who couldn't be bothered to relay that message.  Particularly since the State of New Mexico press site seems to indicate no week between Feb 3, 2008 (the Superbowl) and March 21 (the endorsement) when the Governor was totally out of pocket.

He signed legislation; he vetoed legislation; he made statements and held legislative hours, yet never received a single phone message?

Odd, that, don't you think?

I do believe I have fallen through the looking glass.  Up is down, down is up, frogs rain down and bark at me with their beady little ears.

Funny, I don't recall dropping acid.

So many sites I once thought of as bastions of sanity, lost to me; covered in the ash of a needless, senseless, useless implosion.  Stop, people, just stop.

A year ago it was only the conservatives who vilified Hillary Clinton as a baby-eating, do-anything-to-win, non-cookie-baking, stand-by-your-man, lying, frigid whore.  Now everyone’s jumped on the blinder bandwagon.

Enough. 

Enough with the piling on.  Enough with the Clinton Rules.  Enough with the automatic assumption that Hillary is the Bride of Satan and that everyone who doesn’t hate her is a traitor.  We had 8 long, terrible years of that under Bush, and I have had more than my fill – particularly from my own side of the political equation.  Do we really need to stoop so low to prove we are no different from those we once claimed to despise?

I know I’m just one tiny, tiny blogger back in the fray after a very long absence; Iam nobody, and I know it’s extremely unlikely anyone’s paying attention – but I hope somewhere, someone hears my plea – because I'm really tired of seeing us eat our own with such utter joy and total, reckless abandon, and I really cannot imagine that I am as alone as I feel.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) made a tactical error when he suggested during an interview on Friday that Senator Clinton should bow out of the presidential race now.  In a later statement Senator Obama allowed that Clinton “can” stay in the race as long as she likes.  Neither Leahy’s statements, nor the follow up by Obama, have done Obama any favors with women of a certain age.

The statements have resonated with many women in a fashion counter-productive both to the theme of unity and to actually winning the general election.  Many women are using the word we're not supposed to use, "sexism."  Over on the blogs people are asking why the comments were sexist, “because a man said them?” asked more than one commenter.  In a word, yes.

It’s a matter of perspective, you see.  Some statements, when coming from men rather than women, reek of the legacy of patriarchy.  Women are as attuned to this as minorities are to the stench of racism.  The allowance that the little lady “can” stay in the race of she wants only compounded the error.  It’s patronizing.  It suggests Clinton somehow needs permission from party leaders to do what any other candidate in a close race would not only be entitled, but expected to do without requiring permission from anyone  – namely, head for the finish line and see who actually wins.

If the situation were reversed, with Clinton in Obama’s shoes and Obama in Clinton’s, then calls for Obama’s concession would be both equally premature and equally perceived as patronizing among those who expect no different from the old-boy establishment.

A further survey of comments on various news articles regarding the subject turn up such gems as “waste your vote on a lil’ woman,”  “a candidate whose idea of foreign policy is donning an apron and baking a batch of brownies,” and “The enemy was within...clothed in familiar suits (and pant suits).”  There have been, in fact, multiple mentions of “pant suits” over the course of the race, as if the suits that men wear do not somehow involve pants.

And then there are Clinton's knees and her neck, both showing signs that she's not a girl of twenty competing for the cover of Sports Illustrated.  There are comments regarding her failure to "keep her house in order," her "whining," her crying, all typical disparagements against females - uppity ones in particular.  There was "pimping" and the implication that Clinton's entire career rested upon the laurels of a scorned woman - as if she had no other qualifications, brought no mind or substance or anything of value to the table.  There was Limbaugh's grossly offensive, if somewhat oblique, comparison of a Clinton/Obama ticket to a sexual position.   There was "beat the bitch" and that rightwing political group whose name was designed to form an acronym of "the c-word."   Hillary is "castrating;" she is "emasculating."  Say what you will about the particular point on the spectrum, Leahy's comments play into a pattern of sexism that has been both blatant and subtle, from both right-wing and left: universal, and abiding, and infuriating.

Combine this with the equally patronizing “you’re likable enough, Hillary,” signs which suggest Clinton should “iron my shirts,” and the media’s insistence on charged language, and women who grew up living the less-than-equal treatment that same media now tells us is a bygone era cannot help but notice a pattern of inveterate sexism when it comes to depictions of and dealings with the Senator from New York.

If Clinton’s supporters made egregious comments mentioning fields and cotton, they would be castigated as racists, and rightly so.  Yet women are being told, once again, to ignore the current of sexism running throughout this primary season.  We’re being told, once again, that it’s really all in our heads.  We’re being told, for the umpteenth million time in our lives, not to worry our pretty little heads over such complicated matters as what we have a right to perceive as insulting.

Being a woman in this country often provides a vastly different experience from being a man, just as being white generally means a vastly different experience than being black.  Neither situation is fair, neither is justified, but both are just as real and as common as cornflakes. 

Much as entrenched racism has code words and phrases, so, too, does sexism, and women of a certain age know sexism when we hear it, much as men do.  The difference is that our hearing has been finely tuned through decades of living on the wrong side of the equation. 

So, rather than demoralizing Clinton’s women’s base with a “statement of the obvious,” the comments reminded many of the years we have struggled to be taken seriously in the public sphere, and of the sexism that still pervades modern day life, let alone politics.  Somehow I doubt that’s the result Leahy  - or Obama - intended.

You know, I've been entirely consumed with my own life for the last year or so.  My older son has dyslexia, my husband and I both have insurance companies that refuse to cover his therapy - though said therapy is supposed to be covered,  older son's teacher is worse than useless (and has generated so many complaints - outside of my own - that her contract is not being renewed), manufacturing (the industry in which I work) has taken a significant downturn, my dad had a heart attack, my mom with osteoporosis broke her leg, I sprained an ankle so badly it may never heal correctly, apparently I have carpal tunnel.  You get the picture.  It's been a spectacularly bad year for Chez Kiosan, and I've only begun to scratch the surface.

About six months or so ago, though, I was looking forward to at least being able to vote wholeheartedly Democratic, regardless of the nominee, in the next presidential election.  I am exceedingly sad to say I don't have the luxury of that illusion anymore.

I wanted very much to be able to vote my conscience with a major candidate.  While I readily admit to preferring Clinton at the outset, I was fully prepared to vote as enthusiastically for Biden, Dodd, Richardson or Obama should any of them secure the nomination.  That was before, however, my friends to left of me - and indeed, Senator Obama himself, insisted I was either stupid, a closet racist, or both, for not supporting him from the outset.

I cannot in good conscience vote for McCain, so I started trying to invent excuses - these were the opinions of his more rabid supporters, not the opinions of the Senator from Illinois himself, I theorized.  However, I signed up for his campaign emails - woe unto me.  I finally had to write a note to Mr. Plouffe - or, more accurately, whatever low-level staffer reads the campaign's emails (yes, I know, Hillary likely employs the same) - begging that the official campaign emails leave off making Clinton, a fellow Democrat, out to be the devil incarnate.  I must say I signed on for Hillary's emails early, and I cannot recall a one that called out Senator Obama as anything less than a human opponent; most didn't even mention him.

Super Tuesday came and went, and the pro-Obama faction on the net became both more virulent and more offensive.  Clinton supporters were morphed from normal, average, centrist Democrats into baby-eating, do-anything-to-win, idiotic, self-deluded, baby-eating (noted twice because it is a favorite meme and because it is well known that eating babies causes terrible indigestion), racist, NASCAR-loving, uncultured, baby-eating (acid reflux) heathens who couldn't be counted upon to vote with any conscience, let alone one they called their own.

I have given up Kos and HuffPo and even the comments on WaPo, as subsumed as they are by partisans so proud of their own penises that cannot even imagine anyone finding satisfaction elsewhere.  I have given up most of the blogs I used to enjoy because so many of the friends to my left have abandoned all good sense in favor of a leftist cult of personality which not only rivals that of Bush II, but completely overwhelms it.  I have given up completely on the idea of a fair and balanced media presence of any sort, when even my evolution and global warming-denying parents note that it might be an outside possibility that the news media haven't really been treating candidate Clinton entirely fairly - maybe - but that pimping comment and the stuff about her knees is fair game.

I began, I admit, preferring Senator Clinton to any other Democratic candidate, but I also began willing to vote for whomever the process settled upon.  Senator Obama and his supporters have, however, relieved me of that particular burden.  I intend to vote my conscience, and it calls for neither Senator McCain (whose typical Republican yes-I-lcheated-on-my-wife-but-at-least-married-my-mistress (unlike Bill) and 100 years' war I cannot stomach), nor Senator Obama (whose ties to the Chicago machine, whose woeful lack of record, whose inability to deal with his own committee assignments, and whose intentional divisiveness I cannot stomach), and Nader is a goof. 

I am currently formulating my write in vote.  I'm not sure who it will be yet, but it won't be McCain or Obama.

And let me preempt the "well, we don't need you" tripe I've seen from the rabid Obamists - yes, as a matter of fact, you do.  You need people who care about the process and who can be relied upon to vote.  You need people who don't like Bush but who still can't be bought in mere "I'm not Bush" coin.  Obama's most viable claim to the coronation nomination is that he can bring independents into the fold.  I'm here to tell you that independents who've paid any real attention to him are frequently turned off.  I have voted Dem in all but 2-3 races, I believe in the sanctity of privacy, that all people were created equal and are endowed with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  I believe the greatest of us owe to the least of us at least a bare minimum of supprt, if only to support the society upon which we all agree.  I believe healthcare should be a right and not a priviledge; I believe the tax system is completely out of whack; I believe watching out only for your own pocketbook robs you of a certain basic humanity.

And for all I'm undeclared, this insistence that I'm either an idiot, a racist, nor both has me guessing that since *I'm* not feeling terribly united there are many who feel less magnanimous than I who feel even less "united" by one of the most fundamentally divisive candidates I've been alive to witness.

Of course, it is entirely possible that Senator Obama and his supporters will prove me wrong in the general election.  I'll grant that it is likely that Obama will take the primary with more pledged delegates, more superdelegates and higher popular count (not necessarily including Florida and Michigan, which would merit an entirely separate series of posts).  It is possible that, inspite of the constant, unrelenting name-calling, core Dems will come out for Obama no matter how much he vilifies party centrists and their supporters.  It is possible that alienating lifelong Democratic voters who have felt allegiance to policy and platform over rhetoric and rancor won't matter.  It is possible that Carly Simon will record a top 40 hit this year. 

Remote, but possible. 

Um, psst.  Wanna know where the title of this comes from?  Go here.

Today the Democrats voted for their leadership team in the 110th House.  Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) became Speaker-designate by unanimous vote.  She will be the first woman to hold the position and I congratulate her on chipping through the marble ceiling.

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) won the job of Majority Leader by a vote of 149-86 (WaPo), beating Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), Pelosi's pick for the post (say that three times fast).  On issues outside of Iraq, and there are many, I believe Hoyer will be the more effective man for the job, and I am consequently glad to see he won.  However, by choosing - relatively late in the race - to back Murtha, with his questionable ethical background and history of opposition to campaign finance reform, Pelosi made this vote an unnecessary test of her leadership of the fledgling majority, bringing to bear pressures which created a schism in the House Democrats when unity, or at least the appearance of it, is vital.  I fully understand the desire to reward loyalty, but rewarding loyalty for its own sake at the expense of the nation should remain a defining trait of the Bush administration.  It is unfortunate that Pelosi chose this as the first test of her power and influence.  I don't believe the results accurately reflect her reach; the opposition, however, will now view her as weakened and unable to control her own caucus.  They will attempt to use this to their advantage, and it needn't have been so.

Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) was elected to be Majority Whip, while Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) will take over as chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. 

Yesterday President Bush did for bipartisanship the same thing he did for unity: he renominated six previously blocked candidates for the federal bench, and of course he wants them confirmed during the lame duck session (WaPo).

Over at Thinking Right, Jim Wooten thinks this a fantastic idea.  He's honest enough to admit that they have to be pushed now because they won't be confirmed after January, but he also suffers from the partisan myopia which assumes any objection to any act must be based on partisan politics - leaving no room for, oh say, independent thought, or conscience, or criminal acts or any one of a number of reasons which might also form the basis of a reasonable objection to most neoconservative proposals. 

In the case of North Carolina Judge Terrence Boyle, renominated for the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, one hasn't to search far to locate a reasonable objection - the 4th Circuit, one of the most conservative courts in the country (and so acknowledged by both sides) has reversed him more than 150 times, double the average reversal rate (Alliance for Justice).  Boyle's judicial attitude toward Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act is at odds not only with Congress (which may be expected from time to time), but also at odds with established legal precedent and with current Supreme Court decisions (Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law).  Boyle also sports a past rife with conflicts of interest, adjudicating "at least nine cases involving corporations in which he reported stock holdings -- a violation of federal law" (Courting Influence).

Michael B. Wallace, renominated for the 5th Circuit, received a unanimous "unqualified" rating from the non-partisan American Bar Association - he's the first federal nominee in 25 years to achieve that distinction (MSNBC).   Like bad news our of Iraq, the Bush administration immediately dismissed the ABA rating, saying that the ABA was entitled to their facts, but GWB had his own.

The WaPo article quotes White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore as follows:

"We are hopeful that the days of judicial obstruction are behind us," said White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore. Noting that a Republican Senate confirmed 15 of Bill Clinton's nominees to the federal appeals bench in his last two years as president, she added: "We are hopeful that President Bush's nominees will receive a fair up-or-down vote."

Hmm, perhaps.  The Senate did only hold 15 hearings on judiciary appointments during 1999-2000, and this would indicate they confirmed all 15 nominees upon whom they held hearings.  But under Republican Congressional control, 45.3% of Clinton appellate nominees were returned to the White House, and at the end of the administration 81 judicial vacancies still remained (Civilrights.org).  Republicans, therefore, particularly any of those in the Senate between 1996-2000, cannot speak from experience regarding productive bipartisanship with a president from the opposing party.

Arlen Specter (R-PA; Chair, Senate Judiciary Committee) stated that he would not move the nominations during the lame duck session.

Conservatives say they hope Bush is looking for a fight and will use this to test the Democratic commitment to bipartisanship.  Bipartisanship.  They keep using that word.  I do not think it means what they think it means.  Bipartisanship means working together to find viable compromise solutions, not Democrats remaining silent in the Congress and submitting meekly to Republican overlords because they've assumed divinity, invested themselves with pretensions to omniscience and appointed themselves Gods of the Earth.

Bush sending these already rejected (by a majority Republican Congress, no less!) nominees back to the lame duck Congress is not a test of Democratic commitment to bipartisanship, but a flagrant denial of it by this administration.  To think otherwise is to confuse "ham" with "potato salad."

Submitted without [much] comment:

Democrats
Definitely - Sen. Joe Biden (DE), Gov. Tom Vilsak (IA)
Probably - Sen. Hillary Clinton (NY), Sen. Barack Obama (IL), Sen. Chris Dodd (CT), Sen. Evan Bayh (IN), Sen. John Kerry (MA)
Possibly - Gov. Bill Richarson (NM), former Sen. John Edwards (NC), former VP Al Gore, Gen. Wesley Clark (ret)
Nope - Sen. Russ Feingold (WI), former Gov. Mark Warner (VA)

Republicans
Definitely - Rep. Duncan Hunter (CA), former Mayor Rudy Giuliani (NYC)
Probably - Sen. John McCain (AZ), Sen. Bill Frist (TN), Sen. Sam Brownback (KS), Gov. Mitt Romney (MA)
Possibly - former Rep. Newt Gingrich (GA) [shudder], Gov. Mike Huckabee (AR)
Longshot Fantasists - Sen. George Allen (VA), Sen. Rick Santorum (PA)
Nope - former Sen. Bob Dole (KS), lame ducks VP Dick Cheney and Pres. G.W. Bush, dedicated Freeper Chad Conrad Castagana

Not so much anymore.

With leadership votes scheduled for Thursday, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) have now locked onto their target - House Majority Leader under presumptive Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).  As of yesterday, the two men were making polite, if self-confident, noises regarding their respective chances, with Hoyer telling CNN that he understood Pelosi's endorsement but believed he had the votes to win.  I did not hear him question Murtha's ethics, though I saw it on many blogs.

That must've changed at some point in the last 20 hours or so, however, as CNN now characterizes Murtha as "blasting" Hoyer on "swift-boat style attacks" against his ethics.  Murtha published a letter accusing Hoyer of wanting to send more troops to Iraq rather then get some of the ones we have there out, and Hoyer replied denying the allegation as an accurate reflection of his current stance (it was true a year ago, but Hoyer has since shifted position).

Both Representatives come with their own attendant problems.  For Murtha, it is the memory of ABSCAM, his questionable earmarking policies, and a voting record that is one of the most socially conservative on the left side of the aisle (see On the Issues).  Hoyer, while he has a significantly more progressive voting record (also On the Issues), is plagued by his initial characterization of Murtha's call for immediate withdrawal as "precipitous", his own close association with K Street, and by the public perception that, because of his stance on Iraq, Murtha is somehow more liberal.

Even though the 2006 elections were almost as much about ethics as they were about Iraq, Murtha faced and was exonerated by the Ethics Committee in the wake of the ABSCAM scandal, so I'll agree to let that go for the moment.  That leaves both men with vaguely questionable practices when it comes to dealing with lobbyists, and their voting records.  Since the lobbyist question cancels out for each man, we are left with just the way they vote.

And Hoyer's the more progressive of the two.  Much as I'd like to back Pelosi's candidate, I simply don't think Murtha's the better man for the job.  Not the job of House Majority Leader, anyway, which is the position he's applying for.

I'm sure there are plenty who would argue my choice - but that's what Thursday's votes are for.  I guess we'll find out what the people actually doing the voting think sometime that evening.