Hillary’s Gift to Women

In Friday’s New York Times, Susan Faludi rejoiced over Hillary Clinton’s destruction of the myth of female prissiness and innate moral superiority, hailing Clinton’s “no-holds-barred pugnacity” and her media reputation as “nasty” and “ruthless.” Future female presidential candidates will owe a lot to the race of 2008, Faludi wrote, “when Hillary Clinton broke through the glass floor and got down with the boys.”

I share Faludi’s glee – up to a point. Surely no one will ever dare argue that women lack the temperament for political combat. But by running a racially-tinged campaign, lying about her foreign policy experience, and repeatedly seeming to favor McCain over her Democratic opponent, Clinton didn’t just break through the “glass floor,” she set a new low for floors in general, and would, if she could have got within arm’s reach, have rubbed the broken glass into Obama’s face.

A mere decade ago Francis Fukuyama fretted in Foreign Affairs that the world was too dangerous for the West to be entrusted to graying female leaders, whose aversion to violence was, as he established with numerous examples from chimpanzee society, “rooted in biology.” The counter-example of Margaret Thatcher, perhaps the first of head of state to start a war for the sole purpose of pumping up her approval ratings, led him to concede that “biology is not destiny.” But it was still a good reason to vote for a prehistoric-style club-wielding male.

Not to worry though, Francis. Far from being the stereotypical feminist-pacifist of your imagination, the woman to get closest to the Oval Office has promised to “obliterate” the toddlers of Tehran –along, of course, with the bomb-builders and Hezbollah supporters. Earlier on, Clinton foreswore even talking to presumptive bad guys, although women are supposed to be the talk addicts of the species. Watch out – was her distinctly unladylike message to Hugo Chavez, Kim Jong-Il, and the rest of them – or I’ll rip you a new one.

There’s a reason why it’s been so easy for men to overlook women’s capacity for aggression. As every student of Women’s Studies 101 knows, what’s called aggression in men is usually trivialized as “bitchiness” in women: Men get angry; women suffer from bouts of inexplicable, hormonally-driven, hostility. So give Clinton credit for defying the belittling stereotype: She’s been visibly angry for months, if not decades, and it can’t all have been PMS.

But did we really need another lesson in the female capacity for ruthless aggression? Any illusions I had about the innate moral superiority of women ended four years ago with Abu Ghraib. Recall that three out of the five prison guards prosecuted for the torture and sexual humiliation of prisoners were women. The prison was directed by a woman, Gen. Janis Karpinski, and the top U.S. intelligence officer in Iraq, who also was responsible for reviewing the status of detainees before their release, was Major Gen. Barbara Fast. Not to mention that the U.S. official ultimately responsible for managing the occupation of Iraq at the time was Condoleezza Rice.

Whatever violent and evil things men can do, women can do too, and if the capacity for cruelty is a criterion for leadership, as Fukuyama suggested, then Lynndie England should consider following up her stint in the brig with a run for the Senate.

It’s important –even kind of exhilarating – for women to embrace their inner bitch, but the point should be to expand our sense of human possibility, not to enshrine aggression as a virtue. Women can behave like the warrior queen Boadicea, credited with slaughtering 70,000, many of them civilians, or like Margaret Thatcher, who attempted to dismantle the British welfare state. Men, for their part, are free to take as their role models the pacifist leaders Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. Biology conditions us in all kinds of ways we might not even be aware of yet. But virtue is always a choice.

Hillary Clinton smashed the myth of innate female moral superiority in the worst possible way – by demonstrating female moral inferiority. We didn’t really need her racial innuendos and free-floating bellicosity to establish that women aren’t wimps. As a generation of young feminists realizes, the values once thought to be uniquely and genetically female – such as compassion and an aversion to violence – can be found in either sex, and sometimes it’s a man who best upholds them.

Comments

[Brian]

Having seen McKinney speak on tv she seems distinctly inarticulate and unimpressive in a dismal sort of way that I can't imagine her championing anything with intelligence, sincerity, and energy. Her only mission seems to be an angry in your face one regardless of the pretext. The Green Party, you got to be kidding. I doubt her good intentions. Its just an available platform for her given designs on power and angerhood. Its too bad the Bush administration and their kindred Republicans made such a total irreparable mess of things that now we must endure and entire new shade of clown. Give the Green party chair to someone bright, articulate, positive, and dedicated to that cause please. This is like putting Tony Soprano in charge of Boys Town.

[Brian]

Just because we endured the Bush administration doesn't mean we have to give what remains of the country to the dogs. And that is exactly what is happening.

[chris]

Cynthia McKinney is a vile anti-white, anti-Semitic racist. She proves any jerk can become a member of Congress.

Obama will undoubtedly steer clear of her if he wants to win the election. She's bad for business as far as he's concerned.

[Brian]

maybe more of us should run for congress as I would think we could provide a better representation regarding people issues than what is going on now. Just because you manage to get yourself elected doesn't mean you are automatically a good Senator or Congressman/women. Just in the past bit, the Senate vetoed the Excess Oil Profits tax and continued the taxpayer subsidies to the oil companys in a rare raw spectle of who controls the US government. This admidst Bush promising to vetoe the bill if it did make it thus guaranteeing its failure before they even voted on it. I only found coverage of this in the Christian Science Monitor and nothing on it on the ABC, CBS, CNN, Reuters or Matt Drudge websites. Now this is a major story in my book on who owns the US government plain and simple for all to see. And the vast majority of our media failed to cover it, posting up so much pablum and junk in its place.

[Anarcissie]

Obviously anyone who is seriously against the established order of war and imperialism is going to have terrible things said about them. That's par for the course. However, if you are subversive enough to want to not waste your vote on more of the same yet another time, there she is: not only unequivocally against the war, but Black and female as well. There is also the eternal Nader, I suppose. Unfortunately the Libertarian Party candidate, Bob Barr, voted for the war, like Clinton, although he now says he's sorry. No, Obama didn't vote for the war, but he voted to support it until 2007 when even people in the Senate began to notice that the wind had changed.

[Anarcissie]

Here's the Wikipedia article on McKinney: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia_mckinney

[John]

Hi all,

This doesn't have much to do with the previous comments, but here it goes. Democracy does not work when 90% of the population are morons. In such a situation the wealthy elites wield tremendous power and they are able to persuade the government to help them. There is no way out of this, and even with Obama, it is corrupt to the core. Those of you left would be better off leaving to live in another country. There simply is too much apathy, unintelligence, rampant dog eat dog lifestyle for this to ever correct itself. Denmark is great, and so are most European countries. They have universal health care, free university education, low crime levels. There is an alternative. Our ancestors came here because they were desperate. Now it is time for us to go back home. America is just going to go down, and it will be a freak show. Save your family and those around you and leave. It is better to be a taxi driver in a "healthy" culture.

good luck! Bon Voyage.

[lc2]

Anyone seen the new issue of The Nation?

The profiles of several hedge fund managers are paired with profiles of people who work in their buildings. A security guard recently returned from Iraq will have to work for the next 20 years to make what a top hedge fund mgr. in his building makes ... in ONE HOUR.

Therein is the problem. Obama will do nothing to change this dynamic. Obama still labors under the delusion that the goal is to get everyone consuming more, to get everyone aspiring to be the hedge fund mgr. Witness Sunday's comments about education ... that everyone should strive for A's. Well should they, really? Or should we as a society strive to provide everyone who punches a time card a living wage, whether the job requires straight A's or not?

So yes Anarcissie ... my loyalties are with the Capitol Rent-a-Cop, not McKinney. Anti-war but pro-assault and battery? Doesn't work for me.

[chris]

anarcissie, McKinney accomplished only one noteworthy act while in Congress:

"McKinney immediately challenged House rules requiring women to wear dresses by wearing slacks."

She seems to believe the Bush Administration was orchestrated the 9/11 attacks and based on her efforts to obtain information, it appears she thinks the death of a number of prominent blacks -- including MLK -- were the results of various conspiracies working for the government.

[chris]

lc2, you said:

"A security guard recently returned from Iraq will have to work for the next 20 years to make what a top hedge fund mgr. in his building makes ... in ONE HOUR...Therein is the problem. Obama will do nothing to change this dynamic."

In other words, you believe in the general helplessness of Americans -- that people working as security guards have reached their full potential, that improving their positions is impossible due to the American class and social structure.

That also means you believe people working as Hedge Fund managers were granted their positions and also permanently cast into their place in the social order.

As usual, you've expressed your low opinion of Americans and the opportunities available. You seem to believe there are none.

Apparently it will surprise you to learn that Wall Street hires military veterans. All over Wall Street. Lots. All departments, all jobs. There are hedge fund managers who served in the US military.

Hence, the cheap attempt at creating a feeling of unfairness in the world by mentioning the pay disparity between the manager and the guard is really nothing more than a pathetic non-sequitur.

Maybe the guard will ask the fund manager what it takes to work in the financial world and the manager will tell him his best bet is to get a degree in finance and go from there.

Wall Street is unquestionably a place that is guilty of age discrimination. But undoubtedly the guard is young and free from that problem for quite a while.

All he has to do is discover his interest. Or not. The ball is in his court.

[Anarcissie]

It seems to me that getting into a shoving match with a Capitol guard is not quite in the same league as cynically voting for a criminal war in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed, maimed, terrorized, tortured, and made homeless, so I am somewhat mystified by the fascination this incident has for you all.

It may well be that Ms. McKinney is a hot-tempered fool. However, as far as I know she has no blood on her hands. That's important to me. It's my primary consideration, in fact. It doesn't matter much because I have no fear that my vote will affect the outcome of the election. It will, however, send a message: there is at least one person out here who doesn't buy the BS. (If you want your vote to count, you have to vote for someone who is sure to lose.)

As for Obama, certainly, he's an establishment candidate. It is amazing how he has charmed lefties who should know better. "When will they ever learn? When will they e-e-ever learn?" as Pete Seeger sang long ago (and may still be singing now). God knows what he will do when and if he gets into office -- more of the same, I would expect.

[Brian]

Anarcissie---well if you turn an angry black or white or brown or green or orange women on me I just leave her earspace so I for sure can't relate. With an angry white man I feel its more like some testosterone competition and its okay to pick up a rake. But you are right about the issue of who haves all this multiwar blood on their hands. I feel we as passive taxpayers are enablers of the administrations wars of choice. We also enabled it to hold people without a legal process they can challenge, and to even torture them, and we payed administration and military lawyers to green light all of it. Now if we don't pay our taxes we get put in jail ourselves. This is not to say we don't have real enemies and al queda is for sure purely a murderous enemy as it gets. And the taliban, and the janaweed, and hezbollah, hamas and that southern california fellow who does p.r. for al queda. I can't say I have been persoanaly attacked by them, but I have by angry black women been personally attacked verbally and every other which way simply providing a service. Everything is a big drama and issue for them, and then you wonder why men don't hang around in their community to father the children. Is all of this white people's fault in perpetuity? I feel very much a slave of the empire now except for my down time with I can daydream and eat chilidogs and sip apple juice and sort of be off their grid. When I want to buy some jambalya and the server is angry and scowling at me like I am athe enemy it just does something bad to our democracy. We should all tip our wait people well of course as they have expenses too. But what of all the blood on our government's hands? What if this is the only way to wage this kind of war? What if george bush and rummy is right and all the rest of us are wrong? How many ex-Iraq and ex-Afghanistan service men and women will become our new city and state police? Will they water board us and our children as tempers run ever yet shorter?

[lc2]

Anarcissie,

I understand your desire to vote for someone who is anti-war ... and I'm sorry that McKinney is one of the few left. A default candidate will not get my vote, though.

chris,

It's so basic, but you still seem to not get it. Regardless of how the Iraq War vet improves his station in life, *someone* will still have to provide building security. Someone will still have to clean toilets, someone will still have to deliver lunch, someone will have to touch up the paint by the elevator buttons periodically. How do we benefit as a society when we a large number of the human-intensive jobs that can never be outsourced, are paid below a living wage? It's a really foolish thing to do when you think about it. Think, chris, think.

[chris]

anacissie, McKinney is, as you said, a hot-tempered fool. I believe she also supports the drive for Reparations.

As for the charming of lefties by Obama, well, of course this story gets funnier over time.

The self-hypnosis of Democrats has extended itself to include possible vice presidential candidates. Among those on the list is Chuck Hagel. His appearance on the wish-list suggests the Democratic Party is so devoid of potential running mates that it's time to find a worthy Republican for the job.

I can't think of a bigger insult to Democrats than the idea that it's necessary to draft a Republican to create a winning ticket.

To paraphrase H.L. Mencken: The only people Democrats hate more than Republicans are other Democrats.

Anyway, Obama is the emptiest of Empty Suits. Even his most devoted supporters cannot give a single example of his legislative history -- but that fits the facts. He does not have a legislative history and his campaign, like the Seinfeld Show, is a campaign about nothing.

[Anarcissie]

I don't think Obama is an empty suit. I just don't think he's a leftist. As far as I can tell his ideology, principles and policy proposals aren't much different from the Clintons', or any of the other mainstream Democrats since the days of Truman. So I find his bewitchment of the Left pretty astonishing.

The fact that Obama accomplished little or nothing as a legislator is probably to his advantage and maybe to his credit, as with Lincoln and the Kennedys. Legislative accomplishment is generally akin to sausage manufacture: you don't want to know.

[Brian]

it seems to me the country is accepting the fact that Obama will be our next president. The republican party has so wrecked itself with a self-destructive arrogance that is completely baffeling to me. Watching the McCellen congressional testimony brought home the obssive partisan nature of the republicans once again where the ones interviewing McClellan simply attacked his reputation and put him on trial rather than discuss the content of his book. They continue to have such an arrogance and contempt for common sense and honest inquiry, and are exceedingly foolish to even attempt to protect the Bush administration that no longer even remotely passes the smell test. Its amazing the right wing of the republican base still holds McCain with contempt as they are lucky he is different enough from the usual republican running to possibly pick up independents. Then they blame the democrats as arrogant left wingers which is mere projection of their own intolerance. We do need to govern from the center as the Bush experiment and neocons so totally let us down.

[Anarcissie]

_I_ don't need to govern from the center.

But for those who do, I suppose the question is whether it is better to have in charge a group with no principles (the Democrats) or one with evil principles (the Republicans). I don't know how to explain the Republican ascendency of recent years -- a weird alliance of war freaks, religious fanatics, and the ever-greedy rich -- than as a preference of the American people for something over nothing. A preference which they may now regret.

[lc2]

I personally think McCain and Hillary Clinton would be extremely similar, i.e. centrist, in approach.

I think Obama would get nothing accomplished. He and Michelle would be too busy preening and getting distracted by identity politics and being fawned over by foreign leaders. Obama would be sneaking cigarettes and probably snorting coke in the same bathroom where Bill Clinton succumbed to presidential stress. Or maybe working on a big speech to "give hope" to rhetoric-starved people.

On that subject, hope: I saw this written the other day, and couldn't have said it better myself: the bitter truth is that "hope" isn't a consumer product. You need to make it yourself. Just like we can't "give" people democracy in the Middle East.

It has come to my attention that McCain may choose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his VP running mate. Gov. Palin is turning out to be the renegade that McCain thinks he is, has shown glimmers of ... and might really be, once this election is over. Palin has nerves of steel and a populist approach ... confounding Dems and Repubs alike since she truly acts as a public servant. It seems to me that, having given birth to her fifth child 2 months ago, there is nothing this woman can't do. Also the fact that her oldest child (son) is active-duty Army, makes me consider this ticket more qualified for the job of understanding the seriousness of war (unlike Obama, who seems to wish the whole nasty business would just go away).

I would give a McCain-Palin ticket more than a passing thought.

[Brian]

I agree Palin would make a fine veep and she would be better recieved than hillary overall when it comes to getting things done in congress and industry. McCain would be brilliant to pick a femal veep. So would Obama. It may well be the lasting legacy of hillary hanging tough is some other women out there will make it to veep. Alaska is due its turn frankly. There are a number of women candidates that just present themselves better than hillary in both parties without all that baggage. Hillary might be great as a cabinet officer where they let her construct her own franchise. Alarmingly Obama seems to have the same Bush thing for tight control of his aids and campaign people and I was hoping we could get past the robot stage of politics for a change. I would like to see an open administration that allows indepedence of thought and speech so that all the intelligence of its people can come to fore. With Bush their entire administration thinking is hamstrung by a few people who make all the decisions. I hope Obama's administration doesnt go that way too. Already the Obama campaign lines up their podium way too carefully to market an image and manipulate our minds. Its foolish to think anyone person is going to save the American dream or do all the necessary thinking for all the people. What we want is a manager who can get the ball rolling on things and deftly move us beyond all the road blocks washington beltwayers and corporate america are so likely to impose.

[Brian]

I am still befuddled by how we right now, today, have been forced into a tiny pen with two choices for our president, god and leader, barak obama and john mccain. Who or what forced these people down our throats> And why must we turn over the entire great power of our nation built up over 230 years and another 200 before that as colonies and territories to one of these two people?, (whatever remains after bush) plus the key to 5000 plus nuclear warheads? Its so crazy, so irresponsible. And Dick Cheyney said "so?", and "deficits don't matter" and "the insurgents are in the last throes..." and "fu" and "he's(a reporter) is an ah" and was Rummys supporter and main reason for being secy of state. Scarier is I think Obama wants to use this for some other purpose more keyed to narcissistic drive as if he will be better than Kennedy. Kennedy? He was a fairly mediocre president out side of just going with the times and moving civil rights foward, pushing the launch to the moon, and saying no to Nikita Kruschef(who built the Moscow subway) when we had clearly nuclear superiority. Otherwise he didn't do much. Nixon got us out of vietnamn, opened up china, advanced detent with the Russians, advanced the space program, modernized our navy and airforce, and got in paranoid trouble politically at the end. Both Nixon and the Kennedies cut their teeth on the mcartney and later mafia hearings. But the presidency has grown too big, too complicated for any one man to think they can handle it all. That is what is scary, neither hillary or obama seem to get the enormity of the job in todays world. I don't have a read yet on Mccain so I am not saying he is better and I disagree with his idea of picking supreme court justices as dyed in the wool conservatives. We are likely to be in a war in Iran or picking up the aftermath of an Israeli Iranian war with a worn down army, and old airforce fleet, and an overextended navy perhaps outmoded in todays world. We still live in a country that thinks its solution to the energy crises is to drill up every piece of land, build a whole slew of reactors, and not even site a nuclear storage facility for spent fuel. Our needs have gotten too big for our kind of governmental model and simply shuffling a new personality in there as our new found king is unlikely to help matters much. I really have to ask, what is wrong with us?

[Brian]

why is it everytime I sign on to AOL there is a picture of obama on their home page? Its nonstop. Why when I checked the abc news page today there is a big smiling picture of obama with cheering crowds behind him? And if they show mccain, they cast him in a creepy nonwinning light in the photos? I swear we are being programmed to elect obama everytime we visit a national news outlet or media source. Sometimes I have to go through a number of sign ins and on each home page there he is --obama. obama. obama. today on tv they cast him standing in front of a train trestle right as the train crossed the screen to show he had shucked his elitism. Now its getting harder and harder to trust him for me as he's being handled by shrewed marketers and spin-meisters already. Had enough of that with the repubs, you can see through them, and obama although a bit smoother is now easy to see through. Why can't they just be their own men and let some spontaneity happen? I am tired of being managed as a potential voter. I want to see a platform and who he intends to hire. something real for a change.

[Anarcissie]

Obviously Obama is doing whatever it takes to get elected. The behavior may seem odd to a rational person, but only a small percentage -- five or ten per cent -- of the electorate vote rationally. There was a good discussion of this in the New Yorker four years ago -- see
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/08/30/040830crat_atlarge
(http://tinyurl.com/43kxls)

Obviously the reason you see Obama a lot in the media is (1) he's a charismatic media star; (2) he's sufficiently conservative to pass muster with the ruling class.

[Brian]

well that is one interpretation that its all spontaneous and he's charismatic and all a natural course of evolving events. But my take is its much like a star chamber is picking and pushing him on us with all the tools at its disposal, money and the media and unfortunately the mess all the white men have made of things over the past 16 years. So now to keep everyone in the game they are passing the ball over to a new quarterback who will keep the peace. The media is all run by editors who answer to management who answers to advertisers and the government. So they do actively make decisions on what to publish, when, and how much and whether to photo imprint minds with visuals etc. But even if they were just doing their business thing, this obama revolution is still being artfully pushed and directed, readjusting to every criticism. Its like we have no choice and that aid of his who called hillary a monster might have been simply projecting how their camapaign operates itself. If the events around obama were more spontaneous and he carried himself off well I would be more ressured. Obviously the right and republicans in general are in major disarray and that creates a power vacuum to which the people pushing obama can come in and do all sorts of things that may turn out not to be the best for us. He talks much like a socially minded centrist, but his people sound like robots and social fascists really. I don't hear them asking many questions, they simply have an agenda. The wars we are involved in now have probably cost over a 100,000 lives and created several million homeless refugees. That is big frankly and we are in total denial using this campaign as some type of self assuaging salve. Its true that wallstreet and corporate america have walked away with a huge chunk of people's wealth including retirement, health care, and child care money during the Bush administration and no-one but Eliot Spitzer did anything, and they conveinently got him over things I could care less about but which the ruling class can use to destroy its enemies. Without a contervailing force we are still in deep trouble. You can't spin integrity and we all know the spin test for that now. While obama's campaign is starting to put out some platform goals and ideas finally his spin meister's still dominate the show and that means they value image every bit as substance and likely even more. While I admire Caroline Kennedy as smart and human I worry about the others on his veep selection commitee as being just more of the same. I don't think outside of dragging us into war the Bush administration has lead on anything. just a little window dressing. All they have done is reshift the budgets and beuracracy towards conservative business and republican interests. They have frozen any real activity on the part of the various cabinet agencies and regulatory agencies and if anything wasted time burning tax dollars. Anyone who tried to do anything was cashiered and they are only letting Paulson have a longer leash as they do see we are in a slow burning economic crises and they promised him the room to move and he has the 100 million saved to be more his own man, yet they keep him in check. I think one of the biggest let downs of this administration is the willful freezing of agency activities, especially the fda, food safety, epa,sec,fcc and energy. They literally stopped any progressive social betterment in its tracks where ever it came into conflict with business interests. If you want something to impeach a president for malfeasance for there it is totally separate from Iraq. What is more critical to our society than the quality of our food, environment, the plenitude of our energy, and regulation of our financial markets. The democrats ineffective efforts to argue for the people's interests over business interests is striking and a sign of how far our country has shifted from the last quarter of a century. The right even wants more including rolling back roe vs. wade all the way to Roosevelt's New Deal which includes social security. And on the other hand the basic accounting errors and budget projections of this administration has thrown our national finances into a tizzy. And we all know that credit card is going to demand payment one day or simply take it from our standard of living if we don't pay up with our future money. If they are that manipulative on reporting money issues, or that imcompetent I don't even know what to say. Its like wallstreet and subprime and siv's and all the millions of mortgages under water now as housing prices keep falling. While its our society as a whole and not just the administration's fault, they have failed in their leadership role for all the people of this country to simply help business. So when i see a big obama spin machine in the works with collusion and encouragement from the media I worry. I especially worry about his campaign personnel who will soon become officers in our government, cabinet secratarys, aids, and heads of all the agencies down to three levels deep. So while obama talks reasonable, he has aids doing strange things and its not good enough for him to say they are simply off the reservation and fire a few here and there. And now there is another lead up to an Iranian war that is likely to increase in the coming weeks and could become a real issue by the election or shortly after. Its a real dilemma and unfortunately a real problem as Iran intends to go nuclear as they know the power it will give them in their neighborhood and it also fits into their fascist armegeddon mythology among their ruling class of clerics and revolutionary gaurds now business moguls and generals with their own budgets and special projects that don't even answer to the secular government. This is one reason I don't want to be spun into picking our next president because the advertising is good, because will he have what is necessary to handle another war? Obama is very light on resume though a fast learner but he hasn't done his due diligent research by really analyzing these military issues. I don't think you can rationally negotiate with Iranians who's shadow government kidnaps people right and left, feeds terrorists groups, imports actual munitions and missles they know are killing people, and lies and worse thinks its "logically" superior. The Iranian leaderships narcissism is at least as bad as it gets and their intense ethnocentricity is as well making a dangerous almost Nazi Aryan mentality except that half of the population is nonpersian and has other interests so its not a monolithic state but its slowly tightening up to be one with all the repressive regieme tactics. I don't consider mccain a brilliant tactician either even given his military background. He was basically a young pilot who spent a lot of years in a prisoner of war camp. That doesn't make 5 star general material frankly and should be seen for what it is. He might have better relations with the pentagon but outside of that its almost a draw. So what do we do? what do we do?

[Nancy]

Very well-said. I liked Senator Clinton before the primaries, but liked her less and less as they went on. Sure, her positions and ideas are all well thought-out and dead-on. But whom are you going to bring on-board with tactics like those, with a persona like that? At this critical time in history, people need to unite to do the work that needs to be done. Obama will be a true "uniter" --the opposite of the false "uniter" now in office.

[EarPeace]

I've regarded Ehrenreich works with combined suspicion and intrigue. I wondered and still question the motivation to 'uncover' the atrocities suffered by the poor and working class. Nobody thought that being poor and exploited was a cakewalk to begin with. Only now, thanks to the explicit details in these (lucrative) books, there is insult to injury ("look how poor they are!"). I suppose everybody's gotta have a hustle...a schtick...a gimmick, whatnot...

Also, it must be hard work to gather information for and get books published, and I do respect that, to the extent that Ehrenreich was more connected to the publishing world than most writers are to begin with.

But as I said, I'm also intrigued, and have found these blog entries and comments worth the time it takes to read them.

With that said, I take this opportunity to relate how absolutely sickened I am by the obvious machinations and sewer-grade ethics of American media. In a desperate and sneering attempt to prove that racial equality exists in a country whose government and ruling class had to be forced into ratifying a Civil Rights Act only 44 years ago, we are subjected to the beatification of a candidate whose sole qualification for being president is that he's dark enought to prove those of us with keen memories wrong. I don't buy it. I don't trust it. None of us should.

[Celia Williams]

Have you forgiven Hilary now she has shown her unequivocal support to Obama? Her concession speech was gracious and inspiring. The time to move on has passed though and now we can only hope that Obama can win the presidency without too much pandering to special interests. Obama is just another man in my view.

[Mara]

Barbara writes: "As a generation of young feminists realizes, the values once thought to be uniquely and genetically female – such as compassion and an aversion to violence – can be found in either sex, and sometimes it’s a man who best upholds them."
Very true. Yet, there is something particularly horrible about a female Hitler. It's not PC to admit, but there it is. I think women, symbolically and genetically, hold the main claim to nurturance + power, rather than sheer, brute power, alone. Although women can fall sway to a dominance mode under patriarchy, easily enough. Still, last I heard, it's mostly men who are doing the raping, beating and killing. Not always, but mostly. Faludi, does sounds like an idiot, though, for trumpeting how cruel and hard Hillary can be. Although I think Hillary would have been smashed for being too soft Or too hard, either way. As for young feminists, I hardly think it's admirable that they took potshots at all the "old" feminists. Unfortunately, appearance and age are surefire targets for a woman to be attacked on, by Both sexes.

[Chip]

Obama is the ONE , He Can Save Us , He Will STOP WAR
He Will Stop World Warming , he Will Stop Hunger and Poverty. The WHOLE World wants OBAMA for its Leader . People who don't must be dealth with Severely , they are the Rich and Powerful they MUST BE ELIMINATED . So You Must pledge YOUR LIFE in the CAUSE For OBAMA , If You Do You Will be Rewared if Not You Will be Pushed aside . Left to DIE in a NON Obama area. Join Us or be Eliminated !!!!!!

[awake]

interesting article...

[cerebus]

"perhaps the first of head of state to start a war for the sole purpose of pumping up her approval ratings"

ROFLMAO

[Shootingsparks]

Clinton is exactly as Chris Matthews described her "she's a likudnik" literally, and to the bone.
ziocon...
great blog, just stumbled across it.

[jennifer]

Barbara,
I honestly don't know where to start. Should I obliterate your race card, or allow you to feebly hold on to the only negative the Obama campaign could throw at Mrs. Clinton? Unlike Mr. Obama, who has never done a day or single act of unpaid community service in his life, Mrs. Clinton went straight from actually graduating in the number one position from her law school to working for peanuts for a black run child's right not-for-profit. Calling her racist smacks of the same hypocrisy those who hammered the nails through Jesus' wrists would one day attempt to repent in the depths of hell for.

Jumping from race to war, you make the claim that at least Mr. Obama did not vote for the war. This is akin to saying at least he did not hammer one of the nail through Jesus' wrists; of course, his not being born b.c. or being a senator during the vote precluded either a thought process or vote one way or another. I also did not vote for the war--does that make me electable?

Finally, like Hillary Rodham Clinton, I am angry too. Angry at a failing social structure that falls mostly on women and children, but MOSTLY angry at women who are blind to the fact that they bear a responsibility for this failure. MORE welfare is not the solution. Less children and more responsibility is. And this does not make me bitter, it makes me smart.

I am writing this post about 150 days after Mr. Obama stole the election. Since taking office he has made the team of Bush/Cheney look both smart and compassionate. If I wasn't crying I would be laughing. Eating your words must be a sickening proposition. I hope you choke on each and every one of them. each and every one.

[Gift Ideas]

Now Obama is the president of USA