Archive for February, 2008
MSNBC has been kind enough to put their Super Tuesday telecast up for free online, and Obama looks to have done really well in Georgia, winning 86 percent of African Americans, and 43 percent of the white vote. Several commentators seem genuinely moved that an African American has been able to capture the vote of over 4 in 10 white Americans from the deep South.
I’m worried that this is going to raise expectations too high, but it is exciting news nonetheless. Even MSNBC is excited, and not in some stir up ratings sense. History in the making. I think the vivid memories and pictures of the resistance to the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s make racism a more attention-grabbing obstacle to overcome than sexism. It seems fitting with the ongoing struggle for women that even while making history they must play second fiddle to a man making history.
Anyway, here’s to a historic night for Obama.
February 5th, 2008
Just from anecdotal evidence talking to cab drivers, convenience store clerks and naive freshman, there is more discussion and excitement surrounding Obama’s candidacy, filtering down into all corridors of city life, than I’ve ever seen for a campaign.
February 3rd, 2008
For a long time I have felt that Sex and the City was not only bad and obnoxious, but bad for women. When I saw a Times op-ed piece in 2003 saying the same thing, I was somewhat hurt they hadn’t tapped me to write it, but glad that they were getting the word out.
It’s not that women shouldn’t talk or care about men and shopping and such things, but it is a mistake to create a show that wraps itself in the mantle of feminism and then suggests that there is nothing more to the life of an independent woman than men and shopping and such things. HBO inspired legions of young female fans by romanticizing the materialism and superficiality of the Manhattan nightlife and helped to usher in the new era of faux feminism that acts as a buffer zone for any real worries about the continuing inequality between the sexes that happen to come close to permeating the public dialog.
Similarly, there is nothing wrong with a columnist who decides to write op-eds that are short on substance, but rich in snarky jabs at political figures, that almost always reinforce played-out caricatures. Such columns do nothing to advance political debate, but they can be entertaining, and there certainly seems to be a market for them. It is more problematic however, when said columnist purports to be new era feminist, while at the same time undermining the most powerful woman in the country by contributing to the cheap, misogynistic narratives surrounding that candidate (or “Queen Beeâ€, as Dowd calls her).
It is also a shame that this columnist has such narrow and misguided views of what it means to be sexy, what it means to be smart, or what it means to be a journalist. And it is downright tragic that such a self-absorbed, intellectually shallow writer too often represents the only female voice in the op-ed pages of the paper of record. This is not to say the Times doesn’t carry its share of unreflective, intellectual lightweights — Tom Friedman, Bill Kristol and Frank Rich all come to mind — but it’s more disappointing to see such poor work coming from the most prominent female journalist in the country.
I worry that many women believe embracing male ideals of sexiness constitutes a more modern version of liberated feminism. Likewise, as someone who too often relies on cutesy sarcasm and one-liners to stand in for insightful criticism, I see Dowd using similar devices (although much more effectively) to create the facade of intelligent commentary. It’s not that easy to be liberated and it’s not that easy to be smart. I very much agree with the idea that a smart, sexy feminist is not a contradiction in terms, but I think that Dowd embodies only the most surface-level realization of those concepts.
Hillary Clinton is a smart woman. She has a better understanding of the power apparatus in Washington than almost anyone else in the country. She has maintained her frontrunner status despite the best efforts of a hostile and sexist media, and has consistently proven a better spokeswoman for her own cause than anyone else affiliated with her campaign. I don’t encourage reverence for public figures and I don’t want Clinton to become president, but the baseless grounds for which Dowd trivializes her candidacy and her as a person (not to mention her assertion that Clinton hurts feminists) are contemptible. And I did call Clinton a robot and I am a hypocrite. What’s your point?
One can attempt to make the empirical case that Clinton is manipulative, controlling, or diabolically ambitious. But using rumors, innuendo and sparse anecdotal evidence to portray what is at best a hunch as indisputable fact is unethical and beneath a Times columnist.
February 3rd, 2008
In the cover piece for next week’s Nation, Chris Hayes provides one of the best and most realistic Obama endorsements. You should read it. I will also be adding his site to FTP’s blogroll, because he is a standout kid.
Here is an example of the useful info that can be gleaned from his blog: In his victory speech in SC, Obama mentioned an elderly woman who sent him a $3.01 money order and a verse of scripture. In all likelihood, the $3.01 is what’s left after you purchase a 5 dollar money order with a $1.99 service charge. Sounds like sending money when you’re poor is about as fun as taking out a subprime loan.
February 2nd, 2008
One of the biggest knocks on Obama from the left, is that he doesn’t offer a health care plan that requires all Americans to purchase coverage.
Paul Krugman and Ezra Klein are infinitely more qualified to discuss the merits of mandates than I am. But while they have convinced me that mandates are hugely important in terms of strategy — because you have to guarantee universal coverage at the outset to prevent Republicans from whittling away at the number of insured — in terms of actual policy, they seem quite problematic.
Massachusetts, the state I live in, is a perfect example.
If you are dirt poor, you are wholly subsidized when purchasing health care. Good, good. If you fit somewhere below 300 percent of the poverty level (which is 62k for a family of four), you will receive some assistance in paying for health care. If you don’t have health care and don’t qualify for subsidies, the government will assist you in purchasing a low-cost plan from a private insurer. If you didn’t do this by the end of 2007, you will lose the $219 from your tax return, and more in subsequent years.
Because people living above the “poverty level†are often, in fact, still very poor, some folks will still not find it economically feasible to get insured. I think there are decent arguments to be made on both sides about whether the number of folks getting screwed is acceptably low. But the important thing to remember is that Massachusetts is a very liberal state with an abundance of good hospitals, and university-funded medical programs.
It’s quite likely that any kind of national plan would squeeze the shit out of people who make just enough to be on their own in terms of subsidies, but not nearly enough to afford health care, and I think the percentage of people who would fall into that unenvied category would be much bigger, because let’s face it, Massachusetts is not that representative of the rest of the nation.
So, to oversimplify the debate, it comes down to forcing some people to pay for what they can’t afford and leaving them out until there are more inexpensive options. Ultimately, I prefer mandates, but I think much more important is the amount of money any plan secures to provide the neediest with coverage, and to offer quality, inexpensive health care to all Americans.
February 2nd, 2008
I have no idea what got into the CNN moderators last night, but they seemed determined to hold a respectable, substantive debate. And it turns out that when you give Obama and Clinton good questions, they give good answers. I felt the questions they asked that were critical of the candidates were entirely appropriate, and included more as a way of getting them to elaborate on a position, than to catch them in some gotcha sound bite.
Clinton proved that she is her own best surrogate by far. I would much rather listen to her advocate her own candidacy than listen to her husband, Mark Penn, James Carville or Robert Johnson. On the issue of health care — which for once got the attention it deserved — she was able to convince me that she might be the best vessel for change.
On Iraq, Obama repeatedly highlighted his initial opposition to the war, and demonstrated how that will put him in a better position to defeat the Republicans. I’ve never before seen him do this so effectively, on what should be one of the defining issues of his campaign. He also mentioned McCain by name a number of times, proving that this hope and new politics he talks about doesn’t preclude calling Republicans on their crap.
If Clinton didn’t have the corporate-friendly, war-friendly record she did, if she had surrounded herself with more ethical and visionary advisors, if she had reigned in the racist insinuations from her campaign, and I could judge her solely on what she said in last night’s debate, I still wouldn’t vote for her. But I would be damn excited that for the first time in my lifetime the Democrats had two great choices for president who looked very likely to be competitive in November.
And if I had to bet on Obama becoming a transformational president or becoming a disappointment once in office, I would bet against him. But the notion that he could be a great president, and that Clinton could be a powerful ally in a filibuster-proof senate; that is an exhilarating proposition.
February 1st, 2008
Next Posts