The Passenger

Yes, We're Still Alive

......but we've been so disgusted by recent polls that it was hard to get our thoughts organized.  But seriously, we've gotta hop back into this game.  The world needs The Passenger!!!!

(Tongue planted firmly in cheek.....)

The Sleeping (Non)Giant Is Awakening....

Could The Passenger be coming out of a long, long hibernation?  The world may be waiting breathlessly, on the edge of its seat.  And the wait may soon come to an end.  Stay tuned....!

No Sh*t. Well, Maybe a Little...

The first post in weeks, and what is it devoted to?  Poop in a box.  Really.  Some brilliant minds have created a company that takes the dirty work out of telling someone how you really feel.  If I'd known this service existed on November 3, 2004, they would've gotten a ton of business from me.  What a world....

(Seriously, more substancial posts forthcoming.  We're just awakening from a period of hibernation....!)

The Old Scheherazade Bit: Bill Hicks and Jean Shepherd

The Old Scheherazade Bit

Kevin Booth’s Bill Hicks: Agent of Evolution

E.B. Bergmann’s Excelsior, You Fathead!: The Art and Enigma of Jean Shepherd

     Both Bill Hicks and Jean Shepherd have needlessly fallen into pop cultural shorthand; most remember Hicks as “the comedian censored on Letterman” due to the CBS Standards and Practices’ fear of his jibes at pro-lifers and the religious right.  To many of Generation X and beyond, Jean Shepherd is the voice of the nostalgic TBS staple “A Christmas Story.”  Bergmann and Booth manage to create fuller portraits of their subjects while acknowledging that the notion of a definitive understanding of either is impossible.

     Bergmann eschews an objective portrait of Shepherd in his title: not only does he refer to the cult radio monologist as an “enigma,” much of the book documents the process by which a near mania for anecdotal monologue rendered the true details of Shepherd’s life indistinct.  Fundamentally, Shepherd was of the school that believes if the lie is better than the truth, then the lie will serve.  I personally remember an aircheck tape of a four hour New York radio interview of Shepherd in which he dexterously placed his father in James T. Farrell’s Lonigan novels, described the ins and outs of working in a steel mill, and talked about his father supporting his siblings as a pool shark in Chicago.  Shepherd’s con included substantiating his more outrageous connections with “this really happened” and “now, this is true.”  What emerged was a collage of gutsy American life, yet there is some debate over how many of these things actually happened.  Shepherd made his tall tales representative of American reality through a clever seduction of the audience.

     Does this yarn-spinning approach of Shepherd’s seem nostalgic?  It shouldn’t, for nothing aroused Shepherd’s ire like the sentimental rehashing of the past, among other forms of lazy thinking.  In his tales the past was found to be somehow inadequate, filled with continual disappointment, albeit in a humorous way.  To make his standpoint compelling, Shepherd familiarly labeled his overnight audience “night people” to contrast them with the mediocracy that ruled America’s daylight hours. Shepherd’s rhythms are missing from Bergmann’s book, but, in his defense, how could they not be?  No number of transcriptions (and the book is dense with them) could truly capture the essence of Shepherd’s craft, an illusion of shared history and a common mission against the “creeping meatballism” endemic in post-war America.  One of Shepherd’s few heroes, turn of the century humorist George Ade, once simply stated, “Avoid Crowds.”  Shepherd revealingly chose this basic statement of cultural skepticism to end an essay on George Ade that was just as much an essay on the origins of Jean Shepherd.  Bergmann illustrates how time has falsely dulled Shepherd’s non-political radicalism, mostly due to the transitory nature of his medium.  Though Shepherd wrote books, his autobiographical radio novel of an American life was his masterpiece; a legacy occasionally recorded by a worshipful fandom, but unfortunately fragmentary in its survival.

     Bergmann does not shrink from the drawbacks of someone so content with self-mythologizing.  While there are many fans who felt a human touch in Shepherd’s work, in his personal life Shepherd was less of a warm presence.  The absorption with which Shepherd delved into his life often made him divorced from others (including his own children, whom he often claimed didn’t exist for the sake of his hipster image) and at other times megalomaniacal.  Many of us can remember the moment when a breezy raconteur at a party turned into a self-aggrandizing bore; Shepherd was a tightrope walker in this sense.  In his personal life as well as in his work, Shepherd saw himself as distinct even as he created a sense of empathy with his listeners.

     Shepherd as a pioneer defied the medium’s rhythms, often showed contempt for its practices and means of financial support, and above all its hypnosis of what H.L. Mencken, a philosophical cousin of Shepherd’s, called the “booboisie.”  For this, Shepherd substituted his own form of hypnosis.  As with Henry Miller’s autobiographies, digression was the destination, brilliant or maddening depending on the vagaries of individual taste.  Shepherd, as a very public and pop cultural voice of dissent, seems unique for the 50’s and early 60’s of his heyday.  Bergmann’s book may never get at the truth of Shepherd’s anecdotal self-history (at times Bergmann can’t even substantiate the basic facts of Shepherd’s life), but it’s a noble stab.

     In the end, Bergmann’s book is an admirable attempt at the unknowable: what was behind Shepherd’s pasteboard mask.  Kevin Booth supplements the process for his friend Bill Hicks in Agent of Evolution, fighting rumors, revealing uncomfortable truths and substituting the man for the martyr at every step.  Agent of Evolution also accepts that its subject can be enigmatic, not because of deliberate fictionalizing as in Shepherd’s case, but because we are all ultimately enigmatic to our friends and relatives.  Booth’s book focuses on the mystery of Hicks’ motivations.  Why did Hicks approach stand-up comedy (an overexposed, crowded field by the late 80’s) with the zeal of a preacher, challenging the limits of humor?  Hicks’ approach contained both the darkest gallows humor and a neo-hippie optimism about human nature, a combination familiar to anyone who has read Mark Twain’s early humane masterpieces (Huck, Tom, etc.) before his slow slide into the brilliant venom of his later years.

     Booth’s book of personal recollections and biographical reminiscences from friends creates an oral biography that reveals Hicks as a vulnerable man who often, like Twain, saw the discrepancy between human capabilities and human endeavor too clearly.  The young Hicks grew up in the Bible Belt bourgeoisie with a concealed weapon of irony, stealing glimpses at the pioneers of stand-up comedy despite parental disapproval and an early bedtime.  From the beginning, comedy was an opposition for Hicks, straining at the boundaries of the acceptable, and ultimately a means of escape.  The professional and personal were one in Hicks’ life, and Booth’s book demonstrates how everything from psychedelic experiences to the idiosyncrasies of Hicks’ parents became fodder. 

     Substance abuse and difficulty with relationships characterized Hicks’ off stage life until a few years before his death from pancreatic cancer in 1994.  With his head clear from sobriety, Hicks delivered a series of focused, classic performances from 1989 until his death which were captured for posterity on CD and television.  In these, Hicks mainly attacked the lip service we pay to our ideals.  Hicks was dangerous, often to himself, for the sake of the truth.  Although Hicks had his admirers in certain parts of the country, his “Flying Saucer Tour” landed in strange hostile outposts, making Margaret Cho’s “edgy” rants before an agreeable audience seem like a mutual admiration society.

     Because of this mirror holding, Hicks’ humor caught on much faster in the UK, where irony and the piss-take are touchstones of the culture (anyone who thinks we have a “culture of irony” should compare prime time television comedies).  In the end, it was the appreciation of UK audiences that preserved Hicks’ legacy, allowing him to do two extensive, uncensored performances for television, Relentless and Revelations.

     Hicks and Shepherd were satirists with a love for their audiences like a mother has for a wayward child.  In Shepherd’s case, the result was ultimately a benign monomania.  The fundamental similarity between the two, other than their status as world-class talkers, was the way in which their styles demanded that listeners choose on the fly whether to be part of a conspiracy against received ideas.  Shepherd’s approach was seductive.  Hicks indicated that one didn’t have a choice and that until people lived in freedom and with respect for each other, life was spiritual war.  How both managed to be funny and engaging without being coldly didactic was perhaps the most impressive among their many skills.  Booth and Bergmann grasp this fundamental quality and thus deepen the reader’s appreciation of their subjects’ art.

-Dante Garland

 

Give Me A Break (Please)

One of the main problems with the national Democratic Party is that many of its leaders act as if the electorate is overrun with children.  Granted, voters often make poor choices and can behave like children, but we seem to be caught in a vicious cycle where politicians pander to the lowest common denominator, and the voters respond by refusing to fully engage themselves in the political process (why bother?  The politicians only speak in platitudes and generalities anyway. 

Case in point: the reaction of party strategists to recent comments by Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean, and John Kerry regarding the war in Iraq.  In reference to Bush’s handling of the Iraqi War, Dean likened the conflict to Vietnam, and he said "(The) idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong." This has predictably drawn the fire of the Republicans, who call the remarks unpatriotic, disrespectful to the troops, cowardly, and so on and so forth.  More alarming is the reaction of some Democratic leaders, notably Joe Lieberman, who have distanced themselves from Dean’s criticisms by saying they’re not productive. 

Likewise, John Kerry’s recent remarks on “Face The Nation” have been taken out of context and twisted by the Republicans.  Answering questions by Bob Schieffer, Kerry said:

“...there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the–of–the historical customs, religious customs. Whether you like it or not…Iraqis should be doing that. And after all of these two and a half years, with all of the talk of 210,000 people trained, there just is no excuse for not transferring more of that authority.”

The Rush Limbaughs and Bill O’Reillys have jumped on the remarks, contorting them to claim that Kerry said our soldiers are nothing more than terrorists.  Anyone who saw the appearance or reads the interview (or has half a brain) realizes that Kerry was not likening U.S. troops to Osama Bin Laden or Yasser Arafat.  But even some Democrats are nervously wondering aloud whether Kerry, Dean, and Pelosi are blowing opportunities for the Democrats to make gains right now.

The situation is maddening, because Dean and Kerry are merely voicing their opinions, speaking out on a botched war that the President seems unwilling and unable to correct.  It’s not being defeatist to recognize incompetence in the war planning and execution, and it’s not unpatriotic to call the administration in it.  And it’s really dangerous that talk show hosts (like the despicable Mike Barnicle in Boston) are making unfounded comments about Democrats being weak on defense, being defeatists, etc, repeating them over and over like a mantra, and shaping people’s opinions in almost subliminal ways. 

The Democrats have to realize that it’s not only ok to stand up and criticize how the war is going, but it’s a show of strength and patriotism to do so.  If the party at large had Dean and Kerry’s backs rather than getting all wishy-washy whenever they state “this war ain’t going well,” maybe we could get past the ridiculous notion that Democrats have no authority on national security issues.  Republicans own national security--right up to the point where they get us stuck in a war with no exit, no plan, and nothing more than recycled strategies that didn't even work in Vietnam.  It's time for the Dems to step it up....

Love Molecules

Crazy, passionate love has a shelf-life of 1 year.  Go figure.  And here I thought it was just that the magic went up in smoke...

PR, PR, And Nothing But PR

Being one of those trapped in the rat race, I wasn't able to catch President Bush's speech yesterday in which he tried to reassure the country about Iraq.  A lot has happened since he gave his last major address on the war; American deaths have topped 2,000, stability in Iraq is nowhere in sight, Bush’s approval ratings have gone in the toilet, and former staunch allies like Rep. Murtha calling for withdrawal.  The whole tone of the Iraq debate has changed from "We will be greeted as liberators, and the Iraqi oil will pay for this quickie war" to "Sweet—Vietnam for a new generation, minus the draft (so far)!"  And for the first time, the Bush White House has really been put on the defensive.

I did get to hear the speech on the radio, though, and it sounded far from the confident, stately projection of the Commander-In-Chief  that the White House needed or hoped for.  Bush's stilted language, in which he constantly tripped over his tongue while speaking in a hesitant cadence, coupled with more vague pronouncements about how things were going alright, all made him sound like a man backed into a corner.  Bush did not offer new insights into what the ultimate goal is or should be.  It all added up to another lackluster pr job by the White House, rather than a moment to level with the country. 

At this point, there's probably no one who honestly thinks there's going to be a flowering of Jeffersonian democracy in Iraq when all is said and done.  And most people probably realize that this is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better: more lives will be lost, more  blood will be shed, and our soldiers will be strained even more than they have been.  Even staunch Democrats can recognize how difficult it must be for the administration to admit this; it’s akin to political suicide.  But let’s remember that this is also the path this administration paved, promising the rosiest and quickest of scenarios.   

In his article about the speech, the Washington Post's Dan Froomkin hit the needle on the head when he said: "…nothing Bush said is likely to change the fact that he has a big credibility problem with most Americans."  This is true, and he is starting to sound like the boy who cried wolf when he keeps promising that we’re about to turn the corner.  We all remember when the vice president declared that the insurgency was in its last throes, earlier this year, and if it sounded hollow then, it sounds downright ludicrous now. 

This is the same pattern the United States government was in during Vietnam, and only Tet opened the nation’s eyes to the Johnson administration’s lies.  In Iraq, there’s almost a mini-Tet happening every day, and the question continues to be: When will the Bush administration drop the PR and really level with us?  And what is the plan to (eventually) leave Iraq without it becoming a black hole?  When the government starts to get serious about these issues, then they can announce their major speeches on the matter.  Until then, we’re just going to continue to mourn the split between Nick and Jessica (sob)...

The Grinch who pretended that there was a war on Christmas

A Dennis Hastert press release. A Washington Times article.

I know. This has all the makings of a real news event.

House Speaker Hastert has decided to rename the "Capitol Holiday Tree" the "Capitol Christmas Tree." Now, in solid Bill O'Reilly style, Hastert just can't believe that the secular crew doesn't want anyone to call a Christmas tree a Christmas tree. Except for one thing. The Republicans changed the name themselves. The article mentions in passing that the Capitol Christmas Tree was so named until the "late 1990s." Pop quiz time, which party held the speaker's chair in the "late 1990s"? Hint: same one as today. To say nothing of the plain fact that the far more famous "National Christmas Tree" at the White House has maintained that name. And for this to even be an issue, one must forget that the only December Holiday featuring a tree is Christmas. Would anyone be confused about which festival a "Holiday Menorah."

But that's not the point. The point is that every single winter, like clockwork, the conservative media flies of the handle looking for ways that Christmas is under fire. For example, "Calling a Christmas tree a Christmas tree has become a politically charged prospect in jurisdictions across the country -- from Boston to Sacramento and in dozens of communities in between.
    "It's a growing problem," said Jared N. Leland, spokesman and legal counsel for the Becket Fund, a District-based legal and educational institute. "Celebrating the season with Christmas trees ... and leaving them named 'Christmas' is simply recognizing the religious nature of people. Christmas should be able to be called Christmas." "

But is it really politically charged? Do most people really care about the holiday preperations of their City Hall, which the article cites as dire (though it notes that up in Boston, Mayor Menino will refer to a "Christmas Tree" in his lighting ceremony)? In New York, perhaps the nation's most famous Christmas Tree is put on display at Rockefeller Center. Which serves only to demonstrate that state sponsorship is hardly a necessary component of religious celebration. Does anyone think that City Hall would do a better job? Either way, the separation of Church and State clearly does not represent a war on Christmas (which is a non-existent conflict in either case). Moreover, this particular example, as written up in the Washington Times, is completely manufactured. The House Republican leadership changed the official name of a tree just so they could change it back. Also, do we think that anyone walking by the Capitol Tree has any idea whether it is officially labeled as "Christmas" or "Holiday"?

Inexcusable

The government's efforts to help foreign nations cut off the supply of money to terrorists, a critical goal for the Bush administration, have been stymied by infighting among American agencies, leadership problems and insufficient financing, a new Congressional report says.

More than four years after the Sept. 11 attacks, "the U.S. government lacks an integrated strategy" to train foreign countries and provide them with technical assistance to shore up their financial and law enforcement systems against terrorist financing, according to the report prepared by the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress.

Read the rest of the article here.

This is at once astounding and, sadly, unsurprising in the least. How can we make so much noise about the war on terror but achieve so little? It seems that increasingly, by shunning alliances, the administration has missed the opportunity to deal with the systemic causes of terror. We haven't done nearly enough to get at the root of the problem. Of course, we also haven't done nearly enough to finish prosecuting the specific crime of the September 11th attacks, with the chief perpetrator still at large. It seems unlikely that without strong alliances we will be able to do much to help or force nations to "shore up their financial and law enforcement systems against terrorist financing."

Capitol Buzz

This morning, a new site called capitolbuzz.blogspot.com has been brought to my attention.

Now, while the "buzz" isn't really buzz, the site is still pretty solid. It starts off pretty strong with a series of pictures of Ken Mehlman looking confused at a bar, continues with a tip about the Santorums taking a handicapped parking space, and wraps up recent content with a picture of Bush in tights (and some pretty funky running shoes), which is funny mostly because he still gives the photographer the standard deadpan political wave.

Anyway, check it out.

Election 2008: Pick 'Em Edition Round One

So the media is big in horse race coverage, and conflict, and mud-slinging, and the endless back and forth, and the issues get ignored, and yes, it's all true, but for now, pretend we don't care.

You might want to know, who will get elected President in the fall of 2008?

Let me begin answering that question, by getting to work on another: Has John McCain peaked way too early, or is he really such a juggernaut? Matt Yglesias handicaps McCain's chances thusly:

. . . Under the current circumstances, it's very much in the interests of the Democratic Party and many liberal institutions to play up their points of agreement with the Senator. It's also in the interests of the White House to try and stay more-or-less on his good side. And McCain has always been adored by the press. As a result, he's very popular: People only hear good things about him.

. . . . McCain has also pulled off the neat trick of alienating cultural conservative leaders without making any substantive concessions to cultural liberals. I know his polling looks good now, but I think if he somehow manages to get the nomination he'll fare much worse than people expect. On the other hand, my track record of political prognostication is pretty bad.

McCain's poll numbers, as shown in recent Hotline poll, are impressive. What is unclear is what poll respondents actually know about him. Are his numbers solid, or are they more akin to Joe Lieberman's numbers in 2002 and 2003? One response to those numbers, for Democrats, is to act as though if he wins the nomination, 2008 is hopeless. I don't think that's true, but either way, "if he wins the nomination" is a big if in John McCain's case. The Republican primary voters sent him home once before, and they might again. Will George Allen's Southern Conservative Good Ole Boy vibe remind voters of George Bush? Will Brownback pick up steam with the right-wing base? If McCain is able to beat them, what will he be forced to reveal to "swing voters" in the process?

But back to Matt's point, which is perhaps more interesting, and one that I agree with. John McCain has pulled an amazing trick, and finds himself in an environment inverted from Hillary Clinton's. Where she is a somewhat moderate Democrat who is viewed as quite liberal, McCain is quite conservative and viewed as a moderate. Moreover, the way that he lost to George Bush in 2000 plays up this idea. He carried New Hampshire decisively and did well in Michigan. But, he lost South Carolina, and was beaten there by ugly means. This helped to ingratiate him to the media, as well as win him character points with many political observers. McCain's character goes generally unquestioned. This won't be the case in a campaign. Moreover, he simply isn't as moderate as people expect. He makes good noises on campaign finance reform, tax-loophole closing, and the environment (relatively speaking). But many of his "maverick" positions are more in tone than in effect. For example, he talks of balancing the budget. Which Bush tax cuts will he repeal? He has not always parroted Bush's language on Iraq, but where (until his recent torture bill) has he split from the administration on policy?

Will people like what they see, when McCain is on television every day? Can his image be sustained for another three years? Does he have anywhere to go but down? One thing is for sure, the media loves competition. The press will give ample time to any of McCain's rivals who attack him. Or has he truly hit a critical mass of support and good will?

I'll be watching closely a few issues in particular. First, how does McCain deal with abortion? As mentioned earlier today, it will, in some form or another come before the Court. How loudly will he play to the Republican base? Next is immigration. This is shaping up to be a big issue in 2006 and 2008. How hard-line will he get? Third, on the budget, will he make compromises, or run on more irresponsible tax cuts, perhaps this time coupled with more service cuts as well? Fourth, on Iraq, will he put on his partisan rose-colored glasses or get serious? His primary audience probably won't want to hear about how badly George Bush screwed up, but the general election voters will be hungry for a new solution.

McCain's definitely riding high right now, but will he stand up to scrutiny or fold?

By the way, Matt referenced Brian Nyhan in the post that I quoted. His blog is a solid read as well.

The Roberts Court: about to get much less hypothetical.

Now that John Roberts has moved well past his Senate confirmation hearings, his tenure as Chief Justice is about to get serious.

Charles Lane at the Post, via feministing:

The case is Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood , No. 04-1144. If the court divides 5 to 4 with Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in the majority but cannot produce a decision before O'Connor is replaced, then the court will have to redo the case in its next term.

But if not, "it could be a vehicle to revolutionize abortion law if they want to use it," said David J. Garrow, a Supreme Court historian and specialist on abortion law at Britain's Cambridge University.

The case stems from a 2003 New Hampshire law requiring teenagers to tell a parent before getting an abortion. While the law has an exception for girls who would die without the procedure, New Hampshire lawmakers omitted an exception for other non-life-threatening health problems because they felt it would render the law meaningless.

The new law has never been enforced, because two federal courts have said the lack of a health exception made it unconstitutional.

The Bush administration supports the New Hampshire law, telling the court in a friend-of-the-court brief that the case "may have direct relevance" to its defense of the federal law banning the late-term procedure that its opponents refer to as "partial-birth abortion" -- a law that has been struck down by lower federal courts in rulings that the administration has asked the Supreme Court to overturn.

For their part, a coalition of pro-women's-rights organizations, including the National Organization for Women, the Communications Workers of America and the Ms. Foundation, has filed a brief in which it suggests that a ruling in favor of the New Hampshire law could "cast women's constitutional right to choose and the interests it serves into a continuous state of insecurity." The brief is one of 34 friend-of-the-court briefs in the case representing the views of clergy, interest groups and politicians on both sides.

At the heart of the matter is a relatively arcane issue having to do not with whether the law is unconstitutional but with how the court goes about deciding it is unconstitutional.

In 1987, in a non-abortion case, the court ruled that a law could only be struck down "on its face" -- that is, before it goes into effect -- if there is no possible constitutional way to enforce it.

But in a landmark 1992 abortion ruling, Planned Parenthood v. Casey , the court seemed to apply a different standard to state abortion regulations, noting that such rules would run afoul of the Constitution if they posed an "undue burden" to women in "a large fraction of cases."

If the court were to apply the more restrictive 1987 standard to abortion laws such as New Hampshire's, or, eventually, to the federal late-term abortion ban, it would become much harder for abortion-rights advocates to defeat regulations in court. "The substantive potential of it is huge," Garrow said.

Roberts was adamant that he is a small C conservative type of guy. Not one to rock the boat, huge fan of precedent. The question is: which precedent? Also, if the White House is eager to tie this case to its wish to ban so-called "partial-birth" abortion, how far are they willing to go in arguing that women do not have the right to have their lives saved or health protected?

Wait, Stuffing Wasn't Around 200 Years Ago?

In an odd sense of timing, the inventor of stuffing has passed away.  Really, it would have to happen right before Thanksgiving, wouldn't it? 

Bush's Next Supreme Court Nominee

There's something inherently amusing about a president and a turkey in a photo-op.  I don't know quite what it is, but god love 'em....

Deny, Retract, Pretend: Not a lot of respect coming from the Schmidt crew.

So the question of the day is: do Jean Schmidt and Danny Bubp think that their constituents, fellow legislators (at various levels), and consumers of national media are all idiots?

Bubp, via Karen Tabor of the Ohio GOP, is denying the quote that Schmidt attributed to him on the floor of the House. Schmidt's Chief of Staff, Barry Bennett, claims that her remarks weren't intended to be personal.

This is some of the sorriest garbage that we've seen in a while. First the statement itself, and now these lame-brain explanations. It's funny to think how pleased she must have been with herself, or her staffer who came up with that quick turn of phrase, before she said it. It's fitting, particularly since she chose to call somebody a coward, that she and her buddies have been forced to beat such an undignified retreat.

In any case, Jean Schmidt is in the process of becoming a great case study for the theory that there's no such thing as bad publicity. Most members of Congress would kill to be impersonated on Saturday Night Live after being in office for less than three months. Sadly, the material the offered up was more public access than NBC.

So who are these Ohioans anyway?

So, when I first saw footage of Jean Schmidt slurring John Murtha, my first thought was that I couldn't believe she would take it there. I was angry. Those were personal, fighting words, and she said them in the austere halls of Congress. Nothing wrong with spirited debate, but calling a man a coward, particularly a man who is clearly not one, is pretty low. In any case, Murtha showed class by rising above, and later in the evening Schmidt was forced to feebly retract her statement. My second thought was, who the heck did she just say she was delivering a message for?

Max Blumenthal has the answer. Danny Bubp is a right-wing activist (and a recently minted state legislator in Ohio) who has joined with Schmidt several times working on such projects as keeping "under God" in the pledge, the Ten Commandments on display in local public schools. All the while ranting about "activist judges." At a campaign rally for Schmidt, Bubp attacked Paul Hackett and declared that Bill Clinton "loathed the military." So, at least now that Schmidt's on the biggest stage, she hasn't forgotten the old play-off mantra: dance with the one that brung ya. The only problem is that culture war red meat won't improve the situation in Iraq. Wait, maybe that's not the only problem.

Blondesense pointed the way.

Does Kerry Healey want to break up families or not?

Kerry Healey, potential GOP Candidate for Governor of Massachusetts, should Mitt Romney shock the world by skipping the 2006 election to focus on his 2008 Presidential bid, is totally against gay marriage. In the same breath, she claims to see no difference between the parental capabilities of gay and straight parents when it comes to adoption.

So here's the question, if she gets that gay couples can make great parents, why is she so intent on playing the homewrecker and breaking up marriages that are already on the books? This is not an abstract issue in Massachusetts. We're talking about real people and actual marriages.

On a sidenote: the Republicans have grown fond of putting up various measures directly on the ballot in various states. Things like gay marriage bans as well as harmful TABOR initiatives. Along with all of this, we've heard a lot about the importance of the "will of the people" and watched them try to tar and feather the judiciary, and sometimes even the whole notion of representative democracy. Two questions: where were these complaints when the 2000 Presidential election was settled by one deciding vote on the Supreme Court? When will these conservatives demand that we get rid of the Electoral College and have direct Presidential elections, with each citizen's ballot weighted evenly?

Praise For The President's Words

Words of praise for President Bush?  Seriously??  HERE???

Well, qualified words of praise, at any rate.  A Washington Post article in today’s paper reports on the President’s attempt to take things down a notch in the escalating verbal wars between the political parties in regards to Iraq: 

Summoning reporters between meetings with Chinese leaders here, Bush said he welcomed the political battle over the war as a "worthy debate" and rejected attempts to question the patriotism of those who oppose it. He also said he did not want the bitter conflict to degenerate into a partisan showdown.

"People should feel comfortable about expressing their opinions about Iraq," the president said. "I heard somebody say, well, maybe so-and-so is not patriotic because they disagree with my position. I totally reject that thought. This is not an issue of who's [a] patriot and who's not patriotic. It's an issue of an honest, open debate about the way forward in Iraq."

Without being asked, Bush praised Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), a decorated Vietnam War veteran and hawkish legislator who last week declared that the Iraq situation had become so bad that the United States needs to immediately withdraw troops.

"Congressman Murtha is a fine man, a good man, who served our country with honor and distinction as a Marine in Vietnam and as a United States congressman," Bush said. "He is a strong supporter of the United States military. And I know the decision to call for an immediate withdrawal of our troops by Congressman Murtha was done in a careful and thoughtful way. I disagree with his position."

We have every right, based on history, to question the President’s motives for suddenly taking the high road.  Perhaps his advisors feel that the attack dog position is best left to the President’s surrogates.  Perhaps this is just a ploy to make the President seem above the political battles, and to help him regain some of his lost luster.  Or perhaps there is some other, equally sinister reason that Bush is suddenly acting like an adult in a government full of children. 

Whatever the reason, though, it is a welcome change in tone from the White House, and it would be nice if the rest of Washington could follow that example.  It has already been noted on this site how shameful some of the Republican critics have been in smearing all who dare to question the White House's Iraq venture.  The White House itself even initially smeared Congressman Murtha, likening him to a flakey, extremist, cowardly liberal.  But President Bush, whether he sincerely meant it or not, has spoken in clear, responsible terms about how the argument should be conducted. All voices should be allowed to be heard without questions of patriotism or charges of cowardice arising.  Iraq is indeed a complicated, very emotional subject, and it deserves a full public discourse. 

The question now is whether the President’s surrogates will lay off the smears and attacks to allow for that discourse, or whether this was just posturing.  However it plays out, the words ring true. 

Framing Feminism

There's a big post on feministing.org about the perception of "feminism" at Saint Mary's women's college.

Writer Samhita quotes the following, at length:

Junior Erin Kotelnicki is one Saint Mary's woman who refuses to identify herself as a feminist. For Kotelnicki, 'feminist' is synonymous with extremist.

"I feel that feminism is a very extreme term," Kotelnicki said. "It is one thing to be a very powerful woman but being a feminist is a totally different thing. A feminist is almost an extremist in women's rights."

While she largely generally supports women's rights, Kotelnicki said she cannot classify herself as a feminist because her views about women's rights are somewhat conservative.

"I would consider my views not to be submissive but instead more traditional," Kotelnicki said. "I believe that women should have just as many rights as men but I am more traditional in the way that I believe a man should take care of his wife and his children. I feel that this idea clashes with feminism.

Let me quickly note that in general, something about the frequent use of the term "framing" makes me queasy. It's not that Lakoff's work isn't important. It is. And it's not that public figures shouldn't be careful about their word choice and consider the subtle baggage and implications that certain phrases carry with with them. They should. It's just that I've heard far too many people take all that stuff too literally, almost to the point of comedy. And more to the point, talking about framing, at length and in public, is counterproductive. Ask Al Gore how helpful it is to have internal discussions about presentation spilled over into the public view. In other words, the type of thinking that is encouraged in Lakoff's work is important, but the amount of Op-Ed ink that got spilled on it, re: The Future Of The Democratic Party, was a drag.

That said, if there's ever been a case of contested, misunderstood, and misrepresented language, the term "Feminism" is it. Clearly, the term (which Answers.com defines as: Belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes), has taken a beating over the years. I quite happily call myself a feminist. From these plainly modern views has somehow grown an association so strange that a young woman would go to lengths to actively distance herself from it, interesting saying that "feminist is almost as extremist as women's rights." I've always believed strongly that in America, the position of equal rights is never an extremist one.

Feminism has been seriously and rigorously attacked over the years. It is frequently painted as representative of the excesses of the 1960s and conflated with the perceived decline of "traditional values" and at times even good old fashioned romance. Groups like the ardently right-wing Independent Women's Forum do their best to convince people that the rise of feminism has led to the end of chivalry and a joyless young adult world devoid of dating, or anyone buying anyone else flowers, ever, under any circumstances. To me, this not only falsely characterizes the real world, it also draws patently false comparisons and arrives at an absurd conclusion. It is however, not an entirely uncommon misperception, at least where the term "feminism" is concerned, if not it's meaning, as defined above.

As Ms. Kotelnicki of Saint Mary's makes clear--as far as her views represent commonly held ones, which I believe that they do--the discussion of equal rights between the sexes quickly devolves into the idea that talking about them too loudly will lead to some sort of social deviance or the breakdown of the family unit. To me, that fear seems entirely misplaced.

Congressman Murtha and Jean Schmidt

Congressman John Murtha (D-PA, 12) stood up last week and spoke, in my view, with passion, with experience, from the heart, and with the wisdom that comes from having experienced combat and serving a long and distinguished career. Many might disagree with his stand that the US should withdraw quickly from Iraq, however as a decorated Marine of 37 years, I think it is fair to say that John Murtha has fairly and honestly earned the respect and admiration of his Congressional colleagues, or at least he ought to have. At the very least, his personal courage seems as though it doesn't require further explanation or need greater proof.

So for the most junior member of Congress, Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio, 2) to call him a coward on the floor of the House, and to do it by cowardly claiming to speak for someone else, was completely shameful. There's really no other word for it. What she said was a direct character assault on someone who is so clearly out of her league. Of course, she offered nothing new to the matter before Congress. She provided no new idea about how to win in Iraq, no new insight on what such a victory might look like, or any remedy for our seeming incapacity to appropriately provision our troops in combat.

John Murtha has spent his adult life in the service of this country, proving himself both a bold soldier and Representative. He has aquitted himself well and proved very effective for the people of the 12th district of Pennsylvania. Though he has a moderate streak, he has been a strong Democrat on improving the minimum wage and expanding health care coverage to the uninsured.

Jean Schmidt is completely unproven. She has spent her adult life as a right-wing activist, lucky enough to be married to a spouse who is able to provide seed money for her political career. In her campaign, she brought no new ideas to the table, and was notable only for her willingness to attack her opponent, Paul Hackett, for spending too much time outside of the district. He was serving in Iraq with the Marines. For her efforts, she won with a narrow margin in a district that handily elected Republican Rob Portman by safe margins for years. If Hackett won't stand for the Congressional seat again in '06, I hope at least he will help recruit a strong candidate and campaign hard on her or his behalf. Last week Schmidt embarrassed herself and her constituents. Quite simply, she doesn't deserve a full term in the House.