Why We Need Obama: Women

Showing posts with label Women. Show all posts

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Palin and Women: The 'Mean Girl'

An interesting reader comment on Palin's debate performance from the Daily Dish:

I just want to point out that women of any intelligence recognize Palin as a female archetype we've had to deal with for years. In modern vernacular, she's a "mean girl," who is ambitious and has no trouble stabbing people in the back to get what she wants. This type of woman is terribly divisive, splitting women between adoring acolytes who want to be "just like them" and women who see clearly what's going on and can't believe that no one else (especially males) can see through it. If Rich Lowry has a girlfriend with a brain, I bet she'd like to strangle him. Right now, Palin is cocky, self-satisfied and believes she has fooled the world. This is good news. It's frequently the state of things just before a mean girl gets toppled from her throne. The waiting can be hard, though.

This female archetype knows no generational boundaries. My mom, who is a serious fundy and believes the Bible is a scientific review of creation, had not seen much of Palin prior to the debate.

Her only sense was that Palin was being persecuted for believing in the Bible. Even she was appalled by Palin's performance at the debate and thought the flirty phoniness was totally unbecoming a national political figure. You could almost hear a collective embarrassed groan from educated, non-neoconservative women all over the world who have worked their asses off to be taken seriously only to have this bimbo blatantly and on camera attempt to reduce the role of women to their ability to flirt.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

McCain: Morally Unfit for the Presidency

Sorry I am still AWOL but I just can't handle how depraved and perverse John McCain has proven himself to be right now. Luckily Andrew Sullivan sums up a lot of my angst and disgust more beautifully than I could:

For me, this surreal moment - like the entire surrealism of the past ten days - is not really about Sarah Palin or Barack Obama or pigs or fish or lipstick. It's about John McCain. The one thing I always thought I knew about him is that he is a decent and honest person. When he knows, as every sane person must, that Obama did not in any conceivable sense mean that Sarah Palin is a pig, what did he do? Did he come out and say so and end this charade? Or did he acquiesce in and thereby enable the mindless Rovianism that is now the core feature of his campaign?

So far, he has let us all down. My guess is he will continue to do so. And that decision, for my part, ends whatever respect I once had for him. On core moral issues, where this man knew what the right thing was, and had to pick between good and evil, he chose evil. When he knew that George W. Bush's war in Iraq was a fiasco and catastrophe, and before Donald Rumsfeld quit, McCain endorsed George W. Bush against his fellow Vietnam vet, John Kerry in 2004. By that decision, McCain lost any credibility that he can ever put country first. He put party first and his own career first ahead of what he knew was best for the country.

And when the Senate and House voted overwhelmingly to condemn and end the torture regime of Bush and Cheney in 2006, McCain again had a clear choice between good and evil, and chose evil.

He capitulated and enshrined torture as the policy of the United States, by allowing the CIA to use techniques as bad as and worse than the torture inflicted on him in Vietnam. He gave the war criminals in the White House retroactive immunity against the prosecution they so richly deserve. The enormity of this moral betrayal, this betrayal of his country's honor, has yet to sink in. But for my part, it now makes much more sense. He is not the man I thought he was.

And when he had the chance to engage in a real and substantive debate against the most talented politician of the next generation in a fall campaign where vital issues are at stake, what did McCain do? He began his general campaign with a series of grotesque, trivial and absurd MTV-style attacks on Obama's virtues and implied disgusting things about his opponent's patriotism.

And then, because he could see he was going to lose, ten days ago, he threw caution to the wind and with no vetting whatsoever, picked a woman who, by her decision to endure her own eight-month pregnancy of a Down Syndrome child in public, that he was going to reignite the culture war as a last stand against Obama. That's all that is happening right now: a massive bump in the enthusiasm of the Christianist base. This is pure Rove.

Yes, McCain made a decision that revealed many appalling things about him. In the end, his final concern is not national security. No one who cares about national security would pick as vice-president someone who knows nothing about it as his replacement. No one who cares about this country's safety would gamble the security of the world on a total unknown because she polled well with the Christianist base. No person who truly believed that the surge was integral to this country's national security would pick as his veep candidate a woman who, so far as we can tell anything, opposed it at the time.

McCain has demonstrated in the last two months that he does not have the character to be president of the United States. And that is why it is more important than ever to ensure that Barack Obama is the next president. The alternative is now unthinkable. And McCain - no one else - has proved it.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Whitman: Media Vetting 'Fair'; No 'Sexism'

Well, I guess Republican eBay CEO, and former VP short-lister, Meg Whitman didn't get the McCain's campaign's "Bash the Media!" and "Play the Gender Card!" memos today:

Fox News' Chris Wallace, responding to McCain campaign charges, asked Whitman, "Is it fair to call it 'sexism'? I mean, sometimes there are legitimate questions." Whitman responded, "I actually think it's completely fair for the media to vet Sarah Palin, just as they did Barack Obama and John McCain and everyone else who's running for office. I mean, you are running for the second highest office in the land, so I think it's the right thing to do."

Wallace followed up, asking about possible sexism in the reaction to Palin's candidacy. "I wouldn't say there really has" been sexism, Whitman replied.

Cry 'Sexist!', and Let Slip the Dogs of War!

Maureen Dowd is in excellent form recently with a scathing piece on Sarah Palin in yesterday's Times. She addresses both the perils of picking an unvetted Palin and the specious cries of sexism emanating from the McCain camp these days.

When you make a gimmicky pick of an unknown, without proper vetting, there’s bound to be a sticky press conference sooner or later. I watched it happen with Ferraro and Quayle, and I watched Mondale and Poppy Bush curdle with embarrassment but plow through.
The political unknowns, of course, want that tantalizing brass ring, so they’re not always completely forthcoming about their skeletons, if they’re lucky enough to be ineptly vetted. This is ironic, since the nominee who gets blindsided with these crises — Did McCain really know that this Palin reality show was about to pop and swallow his convention — is presenting them to voters as the most trustworthy people to inherit the nuclear codes.
Because Ferraro grabbed at the chance, without revealing to Mondale’s incompetent vetting team how damaging some of her husband’s financial imbroglios could be, she went from being a female icon to part of the reason it’s taken a quarter-century for another party to take a chance on a woman.
When McCain gets in trouble, he pulls out the P.O.W. card. Now Republicans are pulling out the sexist card.
Hillary cried sexism to cover up her incompetent management of her campaign, and now Republicans have picked up that trick. But when you use sexism as an across-the-board shield for any legitimate question, you only hurt women. And that’s just another splash of reality.

Carly Fiorina Plays Gender Card - Expect More

Carly Fiorina is a smug, mendacious liar (she was out peddling lies a month ago falsely claiming that McCain at one point was pro-choice) and is now leading the gender deception machine to attack any criticism of the supremely unqualified Sarah Palin as sexist and misogynist.

I really hope the American public will see through her bullsh*t and recognize her for the gender card-playing, lying hack that she really is.

Here's what this small, petty, brutish woman said today with a straight face.

I am appalled by the Obama campaign’s attempts to belittle Governor Sarah Palin’s experience. The facts are that Sarah Palin has made more executive decisions as a Mayor and Governor than Barack Obama has made in his life. Because of Hillary Clinton’s historic run for the Presidency and the treatment she received, American women are more highly tuned than ever to recognize and decry sexism in all its forms. They will not tolerate sexist treatment of Governor Palin.

Why Not Vetting Sarah Palin Matters

I just want to drive this point home because I may have been a bit obtuse about it over the weekend. The simple fact of the matter is that John McCain did very little (if any) vetting on Sarah Palin before choosing her as his running mate. This is not arguable; it has been confirmed to the New York Times that vetting staff did not arrive in Alaska or conduct inquiries until late Thursday of last week (the very same day McCain made his pick and the day before he announced it to the world):

"Aides to Mr. McCain said they had a team on the ground in Alaska now to look more thoroughly into Ms. Palin’s background. A Republican with ties to the campaign said the team assigned to vet Ms. Palin in Alaska had not arrived there until Thursday, a day before Mr. McCain stunned the political world with his vice-presidential choice. The campaign was still calling Republican operatives as late as Sunday night asking them to go to Alaska to deal with the unexpected candidacy of Ms. Palin." (emphasis mine)

I don't have an enormous amount of time to go into the myriad ways this demonstrates how incomprehensibly reckless and irresponsible this decision was.

I believe any reasonably minded person out there would agree that vetting a VP candidate for potential scandals and red flags is an enormously important process to undertake.

Just imagine if the vetting team (or the media) uncovers a deal breaker -- NOW; after the choice has already been made! It would RUIN the McCain campaign by driving the final nail into the coffin of McCain's supposedly high-quality judgment and decision-making skills.

As hilzoy opines:

As far as I'm concerned, the story about Sarah Palin is what John McCain's decision to make her his running mate says about his judgment. And what this tells us is stunning. It is basic, basic politics that before you ask someone to become your running mate, you vet them thoroughly. You want to know what you're getting into, and you don't want any unfortunate surprises. Apparently, McCain didn't bother to do this. That's astonishing. It's like starting surgery before you do an initial medical workup and diagnosis, or handing all your money over to a financial advisor before you find out whether she's legitimate. In this particular case, there are two huge problems with what McCain did.

The first is the most obvious: in choosing a Vice Presidential nominee, McCain is choosing someone who might well end up taking over as President. This would be true for anyone, but it's especially true in McCain's case, since he is a 72 year old cancer survivor. Anyone who "puts country first", as McCain is fond of telling us he does, would have taken care to ensure that that person was up to the job, and had no unpleasant secrets like, oh, past membership in a fringe secessionist organization. Not bothering to do the most basic due diligence before naming her as his running mate is staggeringly irresponsible.

The second is that McCain was willing to take a huge gamble not just with our country, but with his own political interests. As I said earlier, gambling with the country is worse, but gambling with your own interests is a different kind of bad judgment, and worth noting in its own right. If you are selfish enough to put your own interests above the interests of your country, that's awful. But it doesn't move you into the realm of the wholly unpredictable, the people from whom you truly never know what to expect. (It's like being one of those dictators who are nonetheless rational enough that things like deterrence can work with them: you are bad, but bad in a way that makes it possible to anticipate what you might do next.)
Being willing to take a huge and reckless gamble with your own interests is not like that. It's not cool and collected selfishness that leaves room for some hope that if your interests and the interests of your country align, you might end up doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. It's sheer impulsive stupidity: an unwillingness to think, in even the most basic ways, before you act. That's a terrible trait in a President.

Here's John Cole:

Vetting someone after you put them on the ticket [is] part of the change we can all believe in if we elect McSame.

And Ben Smith:

I can't remember the last introduction to the national scene this rocky, and it gets worse every hour — and even before the investigative reporters have settled in to Anchorage.

To Josh Marshall:

A lot of attention is being given to Gov. Palin's daughter's situation. The much bigger deal is the expanding trooper-gate investigation, the fact that Palin lied in her Friday speech about her purported opposition to the Bridge to Nowhere, her apparent former membership in the secessionist Alaska Independence Party, and more. Individually, you can come to your own judgment about how consequential these stories are. What they show pretty clearly now -- in addition to the news that the McCain campaign is only now sending in a vetting team -- is that John McCain didn't do any serious vetting of Palin before he invited her to join his ticket and, he hopes, become Vice President of the United States.
Fundamentally, of course, this is about John McCain. And the real issue here is what this slapdash decision says about his judgment.

And, finally, the New York Times:

While there was no sign that her formal nomination this week was in jeopardy, the questions swirling around Ms. Palin on the first day of the Republican National Convention, already disrupted by Hurricane Gustav, brought anxiety to Republicans who worried that Democrats would use the selection of Ms. Palin to question Mr. McCain’s judgment and his ability to make crucial decisions.

At the least, Republicans close to the campaign said it was increasingly apparent that Ms. Palin had been selected as Mr. McCain’s running mate with more haste than McCain advisers initially described...

Although The Washington Post quoted advisers to Mr. McCain on Sunday as saying Ms. Palin had been subjected to an F.B.I. background check, an F.B.I. official said Monday the bureau did not vet potential candidates and had not known of her selection until it was made public.

Monday, September 1, 2008

Buchanan and Scarborough Mock Palin Pick

Conservative commentators Pat Buchanan and Joe Scarborough in the below video openly mocked McCain's pick of Sarah Palin, highlighting how profoundly inexperienced she is.

What's more, they go on to dismiss the idea that her qualifications are anywhere near Obama's as Obama has been on the national stage a long time and running and excellent campaign who "validated himself with 18 million votes." And beating everyone, including knocking out Hillary.

They also blast the idea of Palin as a Hillary substitute as silly and state it would be seen as "condescending" to women.

Sunday, August 31, 2008

McCain Picks Sarah Palin? Seriously?

I just got back from my friend's wedding and have been absorbing the profoundly disturbing news that McCain made one of the most incomprehensibly irresponsible, politically motivated decisions in the history of modern presidential politics: the selection of Sarah freaking Palin as his VP. Are you kidding me? Seriously?

I've had some time to digest a large number of reactions from around the media and blogosphere and I am still unable to fully comprehend how shockingly reckless, craven and "manifestly unserious" this decision truly was.

On the one hand, you have Sarah Palin and how dishonest, inexperienced, extreme, corrupt and unvetted (seriously unvetted) she appears to be (see below for a 50-point list of what we know about her to date). Don't even get me started on the shameless tokenism that this represents. Even the Republican Alaska Senate Senate President had this to say of her:

"She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president? Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"

On the other hand, you have John McCain and how this decision so blatantly reveals him to be an intellectually incurious, cynical, impulsive, "shoot-from-the-hip" nutjob who is more concerned with winning an election than choosing a qualified person to fill the second-most important job in the world.

I will post more on the topic but in the meanwhile, check out this remarkable list of what we know about Sara Palin thus far, compiled by an intrepid kossack:

Sarah Palin has an Abramoff problem - a Pro-Palin illegal mailer was sent during her gubernatorial campaign on behalf of Palin by the RGA, the DC group that got money from Abramoff, Reed, etc.

She advocated AGAINST mine safety / pollution control

She has an ANTI-ENVIRONMENT RECORD and is on the wrong side of global warming and doesn't think polar bears should be listed as endangered because it interferes with her drilling plans.

She's against sex education - abstinence only.

She appears to oppose windfall taxes on oil companies at the national level but supported them to benefit her state.

Believes Creationism should be taught in science classes

Don't believe the whispers that she supportive of the GLBT community. She's opposed to state health benefits for same-sex partners and only vetoed a resolution that would have ended state benefits because the Supreme Court had already declared it unconstitutional.

She's opposed to universal health care and stem cell research

No foreign policy experience? According to the folks at FOX think she has foreign policy experience because "Alaska is near Russia." Oh, and she didn't even have a passport until last year.

She doesn't know what the Vice President really does.

This choice is NOT helping McCain's polling numbers, especially with women.

McCain only met Sarah Palin ONCE and talked to her TWICE making this a purely cynical and desperate political appointment by HIS CAMPAIGN not by him! She's not really HIS VP choice.

She's deeply connected to the Bridge to Nowhere.

She stated that she would force her own daughter to have a rapist's child.

She has 3 houses

Terre pointed out that she's connected to VECO - the company at the heart of Ted Stevens' troubles. She also received an endorsement from Ted that has suddenly disappeared from her webpage.

She called candidate Clinton a whiner. Why does everyone in the McCain campaign think others are whiners?

She apparently hasn't taken a stand on most major political issues

Her selection has created a major rift among the Republicans, especially Romney & Pawlenty.

Past quotes by Rove make Palin's selection look like desperation.

Palin may have been scrubbing her own wikipedia page

Sarah Palin, Buchanite - Palin supported Pat Buchanan in 2000, a fact which may alienate certain Florida voters. Hat tip to misslotus

She was vetted too quickly and McCain only picked her the night before making the announcement.

She's still focused on Alaska not the fact the she would be Vice President for the whole nation.

She participated in a profane on-air attack againt the Alaskan State Senate President and giggled at the word b*tch..

Like Bush and McCain, she can't admit when she's wrong.

She's linked to the Dominionist movement and Joel's Army.

The United Steelworkers have already spoken out against her.

She was a bad mayor who left her town's economy in tatters.

She supported Obama's energy plan, but suddenly these references are disappearing.

Some of the PUMA's believe that John McCain is patronizing them.

Additionally, this choice eliminates the "He's not ready" attack on Obama.

This choice raises the issue of McCain's age (Is Palin ready to take over if he keels over).

It also raises the issue of McCain's past unfavorable statements against women.

Additionally, this choice reminds us that McCain is an adulterer and raises the spectre that he is just a dirty old man with wandering eyes.

Palin's husband is on BP's payroll creating a possible conflict of interest.

She made extremely poor use of Eminent Domain during her time as mayor.

She favors censoring library books (Alert your local librarian!)

Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young (both under investigation) campaigned for her in 2006.

She didn't support McCain in the primaries.

The top 2 ALASKAN newspapers question her fitness for the job.

She supports aerial hunting of wolves even though it was outlawed by Congress. She's using a loophole.. Hat tip to Scarce

Undecideds apparently don't like the Palin pick. Thanks marabout40!

More environmental problems - She fighting to prevent Belugas from being listed as endangered. Thanks again Terre!

In addition to polar bears, belugas, and wolves, for the first time in Alaskan history she is supporting hunting black bear sows and cubs. Thank you for the information Bodean.

She's either going to be distracted by being deposed soon or she is going to draw negative attention by trying to avoid being deposed.

There have been discussion of witness tampering and possible impeachment hearings related to charges of her abuse of power

MEME: Palin's selection provides a clear example of John McCain's hasty decision-making and poor judgement on important issues (like who would be best qualified to take his place if he could not complete his term).

She wants to destroy 1.5 MILLION ACRES of ANWR, not the 2000 acres she has lied about on the news.

Palin stated "I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq.."

Friday, July 11, 2008

Carly Fiorina Lies About McCain Abortion Position

Carly Fiorina has turned out to be a perfect Rove-style surrogate for McCain, i.e. a lying hack who will say anything, even if easily contradicted by the facts.

THE LIE: In a recent speech in Ohio where Fiorina was trying to court female voters, she floated this bald-faced easily-debunked lie:

[John McCain] has never signed on to efforts to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

THE TRUTH: Here are the facts, from John McCain's own website under the heading "OVERTURNING ROE v. WADE"

"John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench."

Here's the San Francisco Chronicle's take on Liar Fiorina's lying lies:

[Fiorina is being] buffeted by intense criticism that, as a star campaign surrogate, she is playing fast and loose with the facts.

Yeah, to put it mildly...

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Poisoning the Well

I'm pretty significantly depressed this evening.

I went to a going-away function some friends at work threw me and I chatted with a friend of mine who I haven't talked to in months. As it turns out, she was a huge Clinton supporter and launched into a tirade about how Obama was terribly sexist throughout his campaign and that she planned on not voting in the general election as a result.

I have read a bunch of pontificating about how Clinton supporters are wounded and hurt that their candidate didn't win. I have read a bunch of commentary arguing that the benefits of Clinton's gender (in terms of her strong female following in the primary) were far outweighed by the rampant negative sexism employed to tear her down. I have bought into the general notion that most of this anger and grief over Clinton's fall was centralized among so-called "low-information" voters.

Well, I got a dose of reality tonight. My work friend is a highly informed, highly intelligent corporate litigator. She is the first truly engaged friend of mine I've come across to hold the views I noted above.

My conversation with her makes me depressed because a lot of the anger and vitriol that my friend (and thousands of other Clinton supporters out there) holds in her heart could have been mitigated somewhat by Clinton bowing out more gracefully without launching a months-long umbrage campaign about how all the horrible sexism in this country was the main thing holding her back.

Look, there was sexism in this campaign and there was racism. All true. But, let's be honest. Clinton didn't win the nomination for much more enormous reasons than her gender.

She ran an antiquated 1990s campaign in the 21st century.

She failed to attempt to leverage online donors until it was too late.

She relied on the profoundly flawed advice of Mark Penn, who will likely go down as one of the worst campaign strategists in modern memory.

She failed to contest the caucus states.

She ran an "experience" campaign in a "change" election season.

And the list goes on and on.

It really galls me to think that a strong progressive women like my friend will be turned off enough to either not vote (like my friend) or vote for McCain due in large part to Clinton choosing to pour gasoline on the simmering flames of sexism among her supporters.

I won't sleep well tonight.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Let's All Calm Down and Reflect

I appreciated the bulk of Clinton's speech yesterday but let's not all go overboard here:

It needs to be said that Hillary struck an extraordinarily difficult balancing act with real grace and eloquence. On the one hand, she needed to signal that she has built a movement of her own and to reinforce the idea that she is the undisputed leader of American women -- both as a genuine point of pride and as proof of her undiminishing influence. Hence the repeated references to the 18 million votes she earned.

This is buying into a dangerous meme, as The Jed Report highlights. Sure, she did well among women in many of the primary contests but Obama ran a strong second in the vast majority of states in which Hillary carried the women vote. He also won the female vote in 14 states. "The undisputed leader of American women" is a mantle both deceptive and dangerous. Let's not calcify the us-vs-them wound that needs to heal in the Party.

The vast bulk of Hillary's supporters, 90% or so according to most estimations based on current polling and historical precedent, will come to support Obama after a short time of unity-building. We need to get over the "you got your votes and I got mine" mentality.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

NARAL Pro-Choice America Endorses Obama

This is quite a nice coup for Obama. Today the national NARAL PAC, NARAL Pro-Choice America, endorsed Obama:

Today, NARAL Pro-Choice America PAC is proud to endorse Sen. Barack Obama for president. Sen. Obama has been a strong advocate for a woman's right to choose throughout his career in public office. He steadfastly supports and defends a woman's right to make the most personal, private decisions regarding her reproductive health without interference from government or politicians.

Sen. Obama has been a leader on this issue in the United States Senate. Since joining the Senate in 2005, he has worked to unite Americans on both side of this debate behind commonsense, common-ground ways to prevent unintended pregnancy. Sen. Obama supports legislation to provide our teens with comprehensive sex education, prevent pharmacies from denying women access to their legal birth-control prescriptions, and increase access to family-planning services.

We are confident that Barack Obama is the candidate of the future. Americans are tired of the divisive politics of the last eight years, and will unite behind Obama in the fall. We look forward to working with a pro-choice Obama White House in January.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Gallup: Huge Lead for Obama Nationally and Among Hispanics

Every new poll that has come out recently shows Obama routinely surging ahead.

For this post, I want to first highlight that Obama has come back from a 63%-32% disadvantage versus Clinton among Hispanic voters and now leads among such voters 50% to 46%:

For the national numbers, Obama still enjoys a comfortable 7-point lead over Clinton:

Finally, another bit of exciting news contained in the data is that Obama is now tied with Clinton among women voters nationally:

Read More: Obama Gaining Among Middle-Aged, Women, Hispanics

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