How Dare She?

Women Don’t Have to Vote for Obama: At least the Rs say what they mean

Women have worse problems than the fight for Roe v Wade. We have a far deeper cultural problem that exists within both parties. It’s more flagrant in the Republicans right now, but the Obama Democrat’s degradation of women while feigning interest in equality may be doing more harm.

So, the philanderer comes back with cheap roses. Out come the flowers and the candy. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice … you know the rest.

Of course, it’s not like he “fooled” anyone in 2008. I wrote consistently about his actions being more like an old boy Republican – and women didn’t listen. Obama called female reporters “sweetie” during 2008 and he said Hillary Clinton’s eight years of experience in the White House didn’t count because she was “just a wife.” And women didn’t listen.

Those of you who voted for him say he changed – it’s the same thing my sister says about her husband. Nope honey, he’s always been this way; you just had your blinders on.

What makes this relationship particularly dysfunctional is, after ignoring you and disrespecting you for four years, the sweet talk alternates with the “who else are you going to vote for?” threat. That’s like one of those signs you’re in an abusive relationship – your gut should be sending out alerts.

Obama’s sole campaign strategy for women this time around is that he is better than other guy. He says this in a smug voice, dangling Roe v. Wade over our heads, as if he knows women are trapped. It’s like that movie “The Truth About Cats and Dogs,” where the bimbo Uma Thurman character defends her abusive boyfriend to the independent Jeanine Garofolo character, saying, “Well, what are you gonna’ do? You gotta have a boyfriend, right?”

The thing is, Obama is giving the “who else are you going to vote for” line to all the other former suitors he’s dissed over the last four years: Hispanics, urban blacks, gays – who he pandered to only before a major Hollywood fundraiser. He plies each group just enough to placate, then he moves on and makes the rounds.

Let’s review how the last four years have gone for women, and ask what four more years of Obama will get you:

Changing the Guard? Romney’s Binder might be better

We have to consider the Presidency of Obama along with the corporate media who helped him win the 2008 primary and the election. The bill they sold was “we are over race, we are over gender;” join with us to have Obama lead us into a post-racism, post-feminist world. They highlighted and buffooned every real and imaginary mistake by Hillary Clinton (usually fed by Barack’s team) (just like they did this time around with Romney – also led by Barack’s team) to make Obama seem the only choice.

Take a look around ladies, and what does this “post” world look like? As I predicted, all those female and black reporters the media trotted out during the 2008 election vanished. The Sunday news shows are hosted by and filled with white men, with the rare token, and nonthreatening, woman (is Doris Kearns Goodwin the only woman knowledgeable about the presidency?) All of the political magazines are written nearly exclusively by men; the online blogs – nearly all men. I don’t know their races, but I can guess.

The online magazines – Huffington Post, Slate, have taken to having “women” sections now. Men write all of the key political articles and opinions on Salon; women write the lifestyle sections. It’s just like the 1950s, when women’s issues are separated from “real” issues.

Women have been nearly wiped clean of the political arena in the media – which is equated with reality in our culture. On one “Face the Nation” segment, Bob Schieffer announced they were going to have a segment to talk about “women’s issues” and he trotted out a few token female pundits who spent 10 minutes discussing their lady problems and were then ushered out so the men could finish the real discussion.

These were the people behind Obama, and manipulated by Obama, to get into office. I’m beginning to wonder if Mitt Romney’s famous binder of women might bring more women into political discussions than Barack has. At least Fox news has female commentators – they’re mostly bleached blonde and naked, but hey – they’re at the table, right?

Imagine if Barack and Michelle actually practiced what they preached, and announced Michelle was launching an initiative to stop discrimination against women in the media. What if, instead of pretending she knows or cares about gardening, that Michelle picked up her Princeton thesis topic of bias in the power structures and started demanding the major media outlets stop keeping women out?

Where’s the outrage? Where are the women’s groups?

We used to have women’s groups who reliably stood up to these transgressions. What happened to them? Once NARAL abandoned Hillary Clinton for Obama I knew we were in for some problems. It’s one thing that the mainstream media has been virtually wiped of serious female opinion, but with the Internet now – can’t they find other ways? If I start another group, will anyone out there join?

I wrote an opinion in 2010 about how the formerly powerful Michelle Obama has morphed into an opinion-less, false eyelash wearing kewpie doll in pink outfits. She’s almost like one of those Barbie dolls who giggles and says “Math is hard.” Laugh, yes, but it’s not funny that Obama’s Princeton and Harvard educated wife chooses to humiliate herself this way so that he will be re-elected – and he’s okay with it. 

When I published the Michelle Obama opinion, one of the founders of NOW (the National Organization for Women) sent me an email supporting the piece. Thing is, I heard little from women of my generation (born in the 1960s) or younger. Are women OK with a Princeton/Harvard Law grad needing to reassure America that she picks up her husband’s socks?

Even the usually insightful female commentators like The Nation’s Katha Pollitt don’t seem to see what the Democrats are doing to women. Pollitt wrote a piece titled “Women who love Republicans who hate them” (“The Nation” 9-17-12). But where is the love from the Obama Democrats, and the media outlets who love them?

Little difference between the Obama and Romney family structure

Barack says the two men offer fundamentally different visions. Can anyone tell me any fundamental difference between the Obama and Romney family structure? Michelle has said one good thing about him winning the White House is that Barack would finally be living in the same home as his children. Barack moved out of the family home when his children were small so he could live in another city and be in the state legislature. Michelle complained bitterly during those years – even in magazine interviews – about how Barack abandoned his parenting responsibilities and essentially left her to be a single mother, and jeopardizing her career opportunities.

And then – Barack makes moralizing speeches about how hard life is for working mothers? The only reason it’s hard is when working fathers like him don’t pull their weight.

Both wives now wear pink, send in cookie recipes to Family Circle, pose for Women’s Day spreads highlighting their children and their wedding day. If this is what Princeton/Harvard Law wins women these days, I’ll steer my daughter to trade school, instead. (See LA Times coverage, "Michelle Obama, Ann Romney pretty in pink at presidential debate.")

Don’t get me wrong – becoming a mother in my 40s is one of the most meaningful things in my life, and I love nurturing my son – but family life does not define me. But the campaign both men are using their wives for is to reduce women again to just motherhood, just wives –in subservient family roles.

In this case – is one choice really worse than the other? Why not go with the Republicans, in which case Ann Romney seems to be leading a more authentic life than Michelle Obama.

I argue Barack and Michelle might be more dangerous to women because they’re living a lie. He claims to be progressive, and yet abandons all child care to Michelle. She claims to be a strong woman and yet abandoned her career, her name, her outspoken identity to further his status. That’s very, very old school.

 

Why Obama would be fired on “The Apprentice”: His only vision has been his own re-election

Putting aside Donald Trump’s opinions and lifestyle, the judgment he shows running his TV show “The Apprentice” is quite astute. In the boardroom, he shows a shrewd, equivocal ability to measure a person’s strengths and weaknesses as demonstrated in the weekly tasks teams are assigned to perform.

Here is a rendering of how I imagine Trump would evaluate Barack Obama’s performance leading his team over the last four years:

TRUMP TO OBAMA:

“You came here talking a powerful message. People believed in you – you sold them a message about having the courage to hope for change. You presented yourself as someone who had strong visions of some kind of new, better America. You talked a lot about courage and vision yet, once you became leader, instead of executing on any of your promises – or even legitimately attempting to execute on any of them -- you embarked on a strategy of taking as little action as possible so as not to offend anyone.

The Fabian Strategy – “Run away rather than engage in battle”

‘From what I saw, you never engaged any negotiating or persuading skills. You never drew any lines in the sand. Over and over, you caved. You never fought for – anything. You sat back and waited for Congress to come up with ideas. From your campaign of change, you switched to a well-played Fabian Strategy of duck and cover.

‘Here’s how my buddy Jack Donaghy explains the Fabian Strategy on an episode of the TV show “30 Rock”:

"The Fabian strategy is based on the Roman General Quintus Fabius Maximus. He ran away rather than engage in battle. He would retreat and retreat until the enemy grew fatigued and eventually made a mistake. I abhor it as a military strategy, but it’s the basis of all my personal relationships" – Jack Donaghy, played by Alec Baldwin, on “30 Rock”

‘Rather than attempt to lead your team in pursuit of those grandiose promises, like Fabian, you retreated every time. Your opponents sensed your weakness immediately and they walked all over you. And while your supporters and the liberal media blame your weakness on the Republicans, I see it differently.

You weren’t weak – you were duplicitous

‘You weren’t weak – you were duplicitous. You never intended to make change – from the first days as leader, your actions show your only goal was not to make waves – to secure re-election. Instead of leading your team, you abandoned them for your personal gains. And the only thing I hate worse than a weak man is a man who doesn’t stand behind his word.

Re-election, re-election, re-election

‘Let’s review your actions:

1. No prosecution of supposed Bush crimes - When you took office, you had a rare opportunity to have the courage of your convictions and bring the Bush Administration to justice for all of those evils you liberals claimed he committed. You really blew that. Your liberal base would have eaten it up. But you went mute once you actually had the power to prosecute and investigate all of those supposed crimes. Didn’t you say he’d trashed the Constitution? Didn’t you natter on about how the U.S. shouldn’t torture terrorists? Well – what did you do about it? Nothing.

‘You were handed a majority in both houses of Congress and a monumental chance to draw a line from Bush, the man whose ideas you vanquished. Did you ever prosecute anyone from the Bush Administration? And four years later, even the ultra-liberal Fran Lebowitz says the Obama Administration is little distinguishable from the Bush Administration. The squander of all squanders – for what? Not to offend the Republicans? Are you a sissy? They went after Clinton like white on rice – do you not have any cajones?

2. You appointed Eric Holder as Attorney General - I will never understand why the liberal media never did any investigative reporting on Holder. The man epitomizes the old boy corporate lawyer. Yes, he’s black, but let’s face it – he’s the male version of Condi Rice. He has a reputation as a minority who found his way in a white man’s world by avoiding any appearance of helping other blacks.

‘Corporate lawyers are congenitally incapable of making radical decisions –you know that and I know that. You’re a lucky skunk that the media never challenged your intentions with Holder, but I know this meant you never intended a “hopey changey” Justice Department. You signaled to the powers that be that you would not be making any waves, and you used a black man to do it – brilliant for you, bad for your team of voters.

3. You cozied up to Wall Street & the bankers – You told your team you were going to “raise the masses” or some nonsense like that. Now, we all know Wall Street succeeds by exploiting the masses. Yet, you brought in a Wall Street gang to clean up Wall Street – again, amazingly, the liberal media gave you a free pass for that. The Nation saw through it – they said you rebuilt Wall Street instead of reforming it – but they’re left-wing pinkos, and you’d expect that. But I saw through it – it could only mean re-election. Or securing your post-presidential possibilities – but not a move for a man who promised to “raise the masses” – your words, not mine.

‘It would have been fun to see you liberals – are you actually a liberal anyway? -- at least try to rework the financial system. It was almost like you were trying to be Bill Clinton, and hang out with the cool kids up in Manhattan – but Clinton pulled it off; on you, let’s face it – it looked craven.

Ever political Obama makes hay of Hurricane Sandy victims

Compare Obama's Hurrican Sandy photo op (below) to his absence at the Gulf crisis.

Interesting that Mr. Hands-off President suddenly, facing a dead heat in a re-election race, discovers an interest in helping others. And so the guy got his face in front of as many cameras as possible during Hurricane Sandy, probably getting in the way of the governors and mayors who were trying to save lives and doing real rescue work.

Does anyone remember Obama's lackadaisical attitude towards the 2010 Gulf oil spill? The man was AWOL, prompting CBS news to write a piece titled "Obama finally leans into the Gulf Oil Spill." Compare Obama's Sandy photo op (below) to his absence at the Gulf crisis:

"As CBS News Chief White House Correspondent Chip Reid wrote following Mr. Obama's [Gulf Oil spill] press conference :

... while his performance was a good start on the road to recovery, what's still missing is Presidential presence. Democrats from James Carville to Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu say he has taken a serious hit due to his lack of visibility. In a disaster, people need to SEE that the president is involved, and it's a mystery to many friends and critics alike why Mr. Obama - a man with razor sharp political sensibilities - would be so out of public view on a disaster that has a huge impact on so many lives."

It's rare that any major corporate media outlet, other than Fox News or the Wall Street Journal editorial page, would openly criticize their darling Obama. In a typical testy, petulant response, Barack denied the obvious -- what even his own party leaders were saying, and insisted he had a presence at the Gulf-- apparently a ghostly one that no one but he could see.

A cartoonist, who also had trouble buying Obama's claim that he really was on top of the oil spill disaster, drew this image of Barack standing waist-deep in oil with a caption reading, "I have the Gulf oil catastrophe well in hand":

  http://www.cartoonaday.com/obama-gulf-oil-spill-speech/

Barack demonstrated no interest in actually personally helping the victims of the Gulf oil spill - or even making the appearance of looking as if he was personally helping.  And yet, this week there was Obama, stealing camera coverage from hard-working governors and mayors, and people who actually know something about disaster control.

I long ago developed a distaste for Obama's hypocrisy and petty willingness to make hay of serious matters, but I imagine those who stomached it enough to vote for him in 2008 won't be moved by this distasteful political grab.

What makes it more distasteful is Obama's constant nattering that Romney is making hay of serious problems for Romney's political gain. Children at my son's preschool make more defensible arguments.

Barack makes more hay of Giffords Gun Violence Tragedy

Perhaps no one but me kept track of how many photo opps Obama staged with the tragically injured Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. I can count at least three; he even tried to fly to Florida to be pictured with her while she watched her astronaut husband's launch - that had to be one of his low points. During his first photo opp with Giffords in Arizona, he exploited her despairingly violent injury, and the death of many others, with a self-serving speech that suggested somehow her suffering vindicated that his political opponents were evil - oh and he barely mentioned gun control. Then, in an op-ed he pledged some kind of action that has never come to fruition.

Weighty Newscaster Less Concern Than Nearly Naked Newswomen and Anorexic Actresses

Of the many damaging role models our media offers, I wouldn't start with a well-spoken, professional woman who shows up to deliver news fully clothed and not underweight -- that's not a problem, that's a near miracle.

So the angry guy who insulted the overweight news anchor claims to be concerned she is not a worthy model for girls. He went on to suggest that the appearance of Wisconsin news anchor Jennifer Livingston, left, was damaging the "health and well-being" of children in their viewing region.

I wonder how many hostile emails he has sent to CNN, FOX, CBS, NBC, or most any cable or network news show about how the nearly naked and underweight newswomen in hooker heels set a horrible role model for girls and women across the country? Day after day, we're treated to women with bare arms and legs with more of their bodies unclothed than clothed. (See image of Fox's Megyn Kelly, right.)

If he is that concerned about weight problems in our country, surely he must also have sent an angry email to the creators of the TV show Modern Family?

Two of the four leading men are obese, with the "Cam" character (below, left) seriously so. Critics and Emmy voters overlook his obvious health issues and twice voted Eric Stonestreet Best Actor in the role. In fact the critics, (who are mostly male), rave about the show and never mention any concerns that the obese actor is serving as a poor role model.

Why Eastwood Got the Simple Truth Right

Most telling was Rachel Maddow, the woman who studied at Oxford, declaring Clint Eastwood's 11-minute speech a "political disaster." Talk about hyperbole. She has lost all sense of proportion, living in a bubble where the liberals fall all over each other to diss conservative viewpoints, rushing to be the first to say what everyone else is going to say, afraid to have an independent voice.  

I watched Clint Eastwood's speech at the Republic Convention, half listening, while working at my computer. It was funny, charming, and odd, but in an intriguiing way.

He snuck in some prescient points; some spot on zingers about Barack's repeated failure to fulfill grandiose campaign promises. And then the line that stopped me, delivered with the skill of an actor:

“When somebody does not do the job, we gotta let ‘em go.”

Wow. Very, very effective. After a listing through the failed promises: Barack was anti-War until he got in office and started waging new wars; he sermonized about closing Guantanomo and then tried to get out of closing it...I forget the rest.

After a reminder that Barack failed to do the job he promised to do, a simple declaration that he really hasn't been up to the job at all. It was effective because it was so disarming. Because Barack never was up to the job, never had any qualifications to fulfill his many promises. The liberals in 2008 were so seduced by the idea that supporting a bigoted half-black man could provide them cover as they kicked a competent, qualified, powerful woman to the curb, that they blinded themselves to his many failings.

As a progressive who was never blinded by Obama and left the party after he was elected, I am now an independent -- independent thinking is not on display much in today's media. After the hullaballo about Eastwood's speech, I went back and listened to the whole thing, the entire 11 minutes. Eleven minutes! The entire liberal media and commentarors were in hysterics over a tiny blip in a four day convention? That they were trying to use a funny and short 11 minute speech as some kind of “proof” of anything is just as desperate as it sounds.

Four more years of this? The Democrats need a real candidate, now.

The Giffords' Tucson Shooting: Garden Variety Male Violence?

Teen-aged boys and young men become enraged when they don’t enjoy the power and control over their lives that is the birthright of men, especially white men, in our culture. … Congresswoman Giffords had committed the status offense of being a powerful woman, and the powerless Loughner needed to punish her.

By Lisa Nuss

USA Today marked the anniversary of the Arizona shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, and many bystanders, last week with a headline that read, “Tragedy Beyond Words.”

I have words. Four words precisely. I’ve been holding onto these four words over the year since the madman shot Congresswoman Giffords in the face in Tucson: Male Violence Against Women. I presumed the issue would surface. I waited… and waited. I’ve yet to find one major media outlet to mention, let alone consider, that what has been labeled a “senseless” act of violence actually fits an all too-familiar pattern: frustrated male entitlement attempting to reassert itself by punishing female encroachers.

Male violence against women is not my specialty, so I don’t have all of the data at my fingertips. But I live in this culture and I read the newspaper – one would have to deliberately ignore the periodic reports not to know this is an essential feature of our culture. How could you not know that at least 20% of women will be the victim of male violence – that’s 1 in 5; many estimates are as high as 1 in 4, or 1 in 3. And for those who are experts – who run national women’s organizations, or who are journalists in these fields – how can you not have analyzed this dynamic of the Arizona shooting?

Why the Occupy Movement Should Occupy Obama

... and Progressives Who Voted For Obama Should Occupy Themselves

Something always bothered me about the Occupy Wall Street movement. Like when something in a story doesn’t add up, but you can’t quite put your finger on it. It took me months to fingure it out.

I supported the initial sentiment, however unfocused it was. Sort of like I honk to support union protestors when they picket, wishing them luck as they take on “The Man.” Then a bit of momentum started to build, and people spoke with hope that the “movement” would catch on; that in cities nationwide “the people” would rise up to take back their country. A déjà vu feeling was niggling my brain, but when you have a three year-old, you don’t have much time to concentrate so I let it go.

Then one day the obvious finally hit me: we’d recently had a national election, less than three years before the Occupy movement began. They’d had a chance to “rise up.” They’d had an opportunity to make a different choice than corporate control, spending our health care and education dollars to bomb foreign countries, tax breaks for the rich, righteous hypocrisy. And instead, they voted for Barack Obama.

Really, shouldn’t they be protesting Barack Obama? His Justice Department had done nothing to bring the Wall Street wrongdoers to justice; he imported corporate bankers into the White House to run his economic policies. He’d wiffled and waffled on everything and never stood up for anything. In the Summer 2011, just before Occupy formed, Barack announced that rising tides would lift all boats in our economy. Doesn’t that sound like trickle down?

The more I think about it, any progressives who voted for Obama should occupy themselves. Obama's middle-of-the-road, don't-offend-anyone, say everything but do nothing track record was in full view when he ran in 2008. I know - I published about it regularly.

And those who shilled for Obama early in the primary, when democrats still had actual, qualified, experienced candidates with track records of doing SOMETHING -- the Michael Moore's, the Moveon.org's  -- when they joined the Occupy movement, that was the most absurd event of all. Their man who they promised would be everything to everybody was in charge - what could they possibly have to complain about?

[To be continued...]

Why Smart Women Marry Cads

I grew up in the 1970s in a progressive lower-middle class family; I imagined that the days of women coddling powerful men had been eradicated, like small pox.

By Lisa Nuss

Written July 2011 -- The spring headlines veered from news of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s harem, to John Edwards’ cover-up of his affair and lovechild, to Anthony Weiner exposing his private parts to girls and women around the country. In all three cases, early public opinion was swayed by the fact that each man had secured a strong and smart woman by his side.

 Midway through Congressman Weiner’s scandal, even as more tawdry photos leaked, Barbara Walters suggested that because his accomplished wife, Huma Abedin, was sticking by Weiner, so should voters. On "The View," Walters suggested that if his impressive wife didn’t think it was a big deal, then neither should we. On what basis should we let her bad choices affect our good judgment? Most of us smelled a rat from the start, and if Huma, however beautiful and smart, chose to plug her nose – it’s less a statement about his character than hers.

Let’s not forget that on the eve of Schwarzenegger’s 2003 gubernatorial election, Maria Shriver publicly vouched for her husband’s integrity. After dozens of women from Arnold’s past came forward alleging his sexual groping habits, Maria helped him win by staking her credibility against Arnold’s accusers. Then Maria went back to the cozy home she shared with her husband and children, and the mother of his secret love child.

Being successful does not mean women necessarily make smart choices about men – in these three cases, it seems that the super smart are even more capable of self-delusion. It’s worth asking, in this day and age, why do smart women put up with cads?

A curious bargain

Plenty of successful women choose to remain independent, such as the bachelorly Edie Falco and Diane Keaton. Many alpha women who choose to marry, like Ann Curry and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, select easy-going beta males who seem fine letting their wives have the limelight. Women today have a lot of choices – whether to marry, when to marry, whom to marry. I grew up in the 1970s in a progressive family, in a lower-middle class neighborhood of egalitarian state workers and teachers. I thought the days of women coddling powerful men had been eradicated, like small pox.

Yet Maria Shriver, Elizabeth Edwards and Huma Abedin each made the deliberate choice to lend their good name and loyalty to ambitious men who wore their arrogance on their sleeves.

Why is Michelle Obama Channeling Jackie O?

Written for Women’s eNews website

During Barbara Walters' interview with Michelle Obama last month, I never heard Walters say why she chose the first lady as the most fascinating person of the year.

I dug up the transcript, watched the video and confirmed that Walters never said why.

Michelle Obama did a lot that was fascinating before 2009. After bootstrapping her way to an elite college and law school where she was outspoken about racism, she left corporate law for high-profile policy work in politics and health care and won a powerful corporate board position. All the while she battled her husband to pick up his slack on the parenting and insisted on her own demanding career after his election to the U.S. Senate.

She told Vogue in 2007, "The days I stay home with my kids without going out, I start to get ill." She said she loved her work challenges "that have nothing to do with my husband and children."

Am I the only one who misses that formidable woman? She began slipping from public view during the primary when her negative ratings--spurred by media portrayals of her as angry and vehement--threatened Barack's campaign. She has yet to re-emerge.

She was nowhere to be seen during her national interview with Walters. It was as if the opinionated Michelle has been packed away somewhere in the China Room, a la "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."

Identity Reshaped

The woman in her place now insists that mothering is her only priority and her career was never a big part of her identity. She told Time Magazine in June, "I don't want to have a say" in national issues. Her standard stump speech now includes a line that she's lucky her husband handles all the "hard" stuff.

Why is such a powerful woman now mimicking Jackie O, who dumbed herself down for the media and trained her voice into a whisper? It could be a defensive ploy against a media and public ready to jump on any opinion she utters. My guess is it's more likely an offensive power play of her own, one I've seen many of my peers execute--retreating into the safety of female stereotypes for public consumption while finding outlets for their ambitions behind the scenes.

More on Michelle Obama

I wanted to share some of the authors who influenced my piece above, "Why is Michelle Obama channeling Jackie O?" I had to cut references to most of them due to the publisher's word count limit. 

The term "social sanctions" came from "Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide," by economist Linda Babcock and writer Sara Laschever.  They caution that women who are simply self-confident can be punished by “outright hostility and censure.”  The authors state what should be obvious by now, that “fear of these penalties makes many women hesitate to pursue their goals too directly.”   

They note the area of "social sanctions" has been little studied - but most of us in the corporate world have been unwitting subjects.  Women who don't defer are treated with all the subtlety of Whack-a-Mole, that old Santa Cruz Boardwalk game.

 

In "The Feminine Mistake," Vanity Fair writer Leslie Bennetts addresses the problem of highly educated or driven women who pretend they've lost their ambition and instead devote themselves to their husband's ambitions because "it's just easier." I'm badly paraphrasing, but with deft handling, Bennetts lets the reader wonder whether these women bear some responsibility for how their actions affect all women. Recently, I read a Harvard admissions counselor - a woman - ask why graduate schools should continue to invest so much in women if they're not really going to pursue their careers. This was 2009- -- not 1959. 

And yet I realize not everyone's comfortable carrying the banner against sexism, so why do I care if they just give up and go home (to supervise nannies and housecleaners that actually take care of the home)? 

 

Happy New Year from the Columbia River Gorge

Happy New Year from the Columbia River Gorge. Looking at etchings from ancient Indian petroglyphs that line the gorge walls, it struck me how universal the need to communicate is. Thousands of years ago someone carved these images to tell a story. My favorite has long been She Who Watches, pictured below.

Like the fabled she in the carving, I have been watching and have much to say. Parenting an exuberant one-year old and doing work that I value makes me grateful every day, yet left little free time for 2009. But I feel the need to start etching on those walls again. I dug through my pile of clippings from the past year and pitched a piece on Michelle Obama that I hope will spur discussion. It's set to be published in the next few weeks and once it is, I can also post it here.

Obama won't sanction groping staffer Favreau

When Barack allows staff members to engage in such degrading behavior, he teaches all of us - including his daughters - that women can be treated this way. That degrading others is okay. That's bigotry.

I've chronicled the juvenile arrogance and snarky, entitled sexist comments from Barack Obama and his staff for almost two years now. I knew it wasn't going to stop. And now comes more.

A reader emailed me the Jon Favreau story. Revolting. He's the boy on the left in the picture above, who thinks it's funny to grope the former first lady in a grotesque, entitled sort of way. The pictures got out about the same time Barack named Jon his head speechwriter -- and where is Barack's moralizing now?  Where is the Barack who's always exploiting his daughters to claim his interest in women's opportunities? Eerie silence. We all know if that same picture had involved a black person Barack would be whining at the top of his smoke-filled lungs about how racist everybody is.

Obama's Demagoguery is Dangerous for Democracy

Because Oregon's elections are done by mail, I have my ballot in my hand right now. I've carefully examined all of the presidential candidates' names and thought carefully about who I think is the best choice to lead America right now. I looked at my son, knowing this election would help set in motion how his life will be lived. Without pause I voted for Ralph Nader. And I know I will sleep tonight.

As the media rushed to declare Barack Obama's campaign as historic, some other element of history came to my mind. In my political science studies, we learned about demagogues who drew crowds of supporters but in the end were shown to be shams. Early on I said to myself, Barack is a demagogue. Why does no one see this? Here's the Webster's definition:

Demagogue: A leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power.

In history, demagogues were successful precisely because they knew how to tap into deep emotional fears and anxieties. They were wizards at manipulation, but in the end, all revealed to be crass manipulators for their own gain. Most of Barack's claims have already proven false but the hypnotized crowds still march for him. Evidence of his reversal on most of his primary promises haven't made a dent in his popularity - which I see as proof his support isn't based on anything rational.

In the primary he took many prominent stands, defending each on grounds of his moral superiority - and this is why people said they supported him.

• He said he was for public financing and ridiculed Sen. Clinton for big spending;
• He said he was for a quick withdrawal in Iraq;
• He claimed he was deeply religious, talked glowingly about his spiritual advisor who had guided his life and his family;
• He claimed to be against FISA which would give Bush more authority to infringe on our constitutional rights;
• He said he was non-partisan (although his record showed he voted with his party more than 90% of the time);
• He was against drilling in our oil reserves;
• And more than anything else he wooed people with the claim that if he'd been in the Senate he would've voted against the Iraq war resolution. 

Now he's reversed each of those positions he took on such moral highground. The biggest of all was the war, the wrench he used brilliantly to take the primary from Sen. Clinton - yet he voted for every war resolution since coming to the Senate and is now talking about sending more women and men to die in Afghanistan and to bomb Pakistan.

But the crowds are running away with themselves now and no facts to the contrary will stop them. Their support of Barack was never rational and it can't be understood with appeal to reason. Barack's supporters tell themselves they believe in him because he will be different and better, yet he's proven to be just as craven and hypocritical as many politicians.

The New Yorker and Barack's TruthSpeak

I don't know where to start.  Words fail me.  I haven't posted lately because there's just so much wrong with Obama's campaign.  His refusal to take public financing and his move to the center, after he said he was more ethical than Hillary because she refused public financing and moved to the center.  And now he's chasing her big donors and her D.C. contacts like a dog drooling after a fat steak.  I'm embarrassed for him - someone needs to be. Oh - wait - was that racist?  Are Barack's feelings hurt?  See, ...it makes my neck clench up just thinking about it. 

I apologize to readers for the delay but I am in the process of moving back to my home state of Oregon and starting a new job, so any extra time or energy I have left is devoted to figuring out the best teething toys for my baby and having long babbling conversations with him.  I find his baby talk more interesting than anything television news has to offer these days.  But this New Yorker business I can't let lie.

Again, where to start.  He can dish it out but can't take it?  People in glass houses....  You reap what you sow?  Barack based his entire campaign on taking cheap shots at Sen. Clinton, slewing character attacks at her right and left, smearing every tiny thing she said to appear racist, making fun of her constantly. The media was on board, with the male cartoonists vilifying Sen. Clinton with crude cartoons that made her look like a scary power monger because she was a woman with the same ambition Barack has.  Barack and the media were feasting on making fun of her, in almost archaic fashion like a fat king and his court gorging on pheasant and drunk on wine. 

Some said Barack couldn't be held responsible for how the media treated Sen. Clinton, but did you ever hear Barack denounce it?

And now the shoe's on the other foot.  A popular media outlet with some liberal tendencies turned its pen on Barack.  And Barack doesn't like it; his campaign called it "tasteless and offensive".  His zealous blogger maniacs who police everything said about their messiah-who-delivered-them-from-the-strong-woman, are hysterical.

A guy in my coffee shop whose pretty savvy on political issues, told me he thought the New Yorker cartoon was a little racist - that he's the "Jackie Robinson of politics" and having to take those hits as the first black in this position.  I told him I was having a hard time working up sympathy after all the hits on Sen. Clinton.  This guy's pretty fair minded, but just looked puzzled and said confidently, "That's different."

That's different.  That's what men always say.  Making fun of women isn't sexist - it's just humor.  Making fun of men - well, that's different. 

The Sexism of Obama's Campaign Is About Entitlement

Put a cigar in his mouth and he'd fit right in with a group of fat, old Republicans. Only - wait a minute. He's a slim, young, Democrat.

Last year, a cabbie in Manhattan with a thick accent told me, "This country isn't ready to elect a woman." I was taken aback. Sen. Hillary Clinton was riding high on her well-earned reputation as a 2-term US Senator who reached across the partisan divide for real progress. She had a double digit lead in the national polls and was raising enough money to compete as a frontrunner - things no woman has accomplished before. I thought that was all proof things had changed. She never raised the issue of her being a woman on the campaign trail - she focused on the issues so much that she was criticized as a policy wonk. That all changed when Barack won Iowa. Here was a man to put her in her place.

News analysts I previously respected - like Chris Matthews on MSNBC, editorial writers I devoured, like Bob Scheer and EJ Dionne, starting writing the most base, disrespectful language about Sen. Clinton. Words that had vanished from the media since the 1990s when the right wing talk radio nuts called her a femi-nazi.

Something about Barack's campaign has fueled this toxic stream of sexist slurs that spew from so many corners, I feel singed from their heat. It's not garden variety sexism  -- it's highly emotional, reactionary attempts to cut down a strong woman.  So many otherwise rational people have been swept into it. The nasty vulgarity on the internet, sent under cover of anonymity, is probably the most revealing. Young, liberal, college educated white men - some of Barack's key supporters - filled with such pent up rage which can only be seen as fear.

Supporting Barack allows bigoted men to halt the demise of old-boy male privilege

Anger, psychologists say, is just a symptom of other underlying feelings. I see fear in these young men - fear of losing the power they know they still get as men in this country. This may be the younger generation's way of protesting the demise of old male privilege, which still lingers. It's more subtle now, but they're still promoted past lesser qualified women, paid more than equally qualified women... the statistics are all there.

Some men object to my conflating the rest of the country's sexism with Obama's personal bigotry. I say - have you ever heard him denounce the damaging sexism put forth in his name?  It's all part and parcel of the primary fuel behind his campaign.

Obama Hypocrisy Watch

More than half of West Virginia voters said they found Barack Obama untrustworthy. Looks like they're catching on.

Recall that in the years after 9/11, Barack Obama took to wearing an American flag lapel pin. Then he took it off after he found he could win the anti-war vote by the sheer fact that he wasn't in the US Senate when they authorized the war resolution. When asked why he stopped wearing it during the campaign, Barack gave a typical sanctimonious, elitist answer about a pin not declaring patriotism (see Kristol on "Barack's Preening Self Regard").

Yet last week found Barack campaigning in West Virginia wearing, you guessed it, an American flag lapel pin, lecturing about patriotism.

It appears Barack will say, do, and wear anything to get elected. Oh - but as the returns came in showing Sen. Clinton's smack down in West Virginia, Barack's campaign churned out their spin emails claiming he didn't campaign in West Virginia. This caused even the normally wooden, and no Clinton fan, Wolf Blitzer to burst out an incredulous "He outspent her in West Virginia by more than 2 to 1! How can you say he didn't campaign there?" And then came the spin and the lies.

Then in his concession speech, Barack nattered on again about how "we all are tired of politics as usual."

Obama wears his lapel pin like his religion - on and off his sleeve when it will get him votes; discarded in an arrogant heartbeat when it no longer serves him.

Obama Sullies the Democratic Party With Pages From the Republican Playbook

The more Barack Obama continues his old-style negative politics, right out of the Republican playbook, and the more people support him, the more damage they do to the Democratic party. I read an article recently about how the Republican party is struggling to re-define itself. I wondered about the Democratic party, supposedly the party for equality but not anymore. Out and out bigotry spouted daily by Barack and his supporters in the form of vulgar and base sexism, making false charges of racism, and disenfranchising voters are shameful tactics and a dark turn in the party's history.

Swindling Floridians Out of Their Vote
How can you get more Republican than that? Millions of Floridians turned out to vote. Candidates weren't supposed to campaign but Barack broke the rules and ran national ads knowing they'd run in Florida. That's the kind of snarky politics as usual tactics that have marked his campaign. Then voters by the hundreds of thousands chose Sen. Hillary Clinton over Barack. And now he doesn't want their votes to count. Nor votes in Michigan. Both states overwhelmingly favor Clinton and he knows it. So the solution for someone who cheats like Barack is, steal their votes away. He opposed the fairest solution, which was to have a re-vote. If he really did stand for a new kind of politics, a new kind of integrity in the process, he'd want to count every vote. And this from a black American, whom the Republicans have notoriously tried to keep away from the polls. Now Barack works to take votes from Sen. Clinton supporters. If he really had any integrity, he'd want to win the race on his own merits. Different politics? No.

Negative Character Attacks
Barack's sexist slurs against Sen. Clinton are legion and I've detailed them before. He refuses to answer her challenges on the issues, and instead once famously accused her of being moody ("periodically down") and casts her legitimate challenges on the issues as some kind of negative politics. Nothing sticks to this guy! I'm saddened that my home state of Oregon seems to be favoring Barack. The Oregonian endorsed him in an editorial that listed no accomplishments of Barack. Not one. Because there are none. No experience, no accomplishments. They endorsed him because he has "integrity" and "authenticity,"with no examples of those traits, because, again, there are none. Certainly not in the way he's run his campaign.

Barack's character assassinations are right out of the Karl Rove playbook. Someone else wrote last year how uncanny it was that Sen. Clinton moved past all of the 1990s right-wing Republican attacks on her character by working hard to earn a stellar reputation in the US Senate as a bipartisan can-do leader. Then, in 2008, it's the Democrats - lead by Barack Obama and his old party cronies behind the scenes - who have revived the same slandering words used by the right wing talk radio crowd. That she's polarizing, devisive, etc., etc. There's no example that she's any of those things. But that's how character slander works. Exploit people's fears of strong women by throwing out the old stereotypes and sadly, they stick even without a shred of reality behind them. But if Hillary looks at Barack the wrong way, his campaign churns out emails shrilling that she's being racist to poor Barack.

Barack never engages on the issues because he doesn't have the chops. I heard Sen. Clinton speak in California last Fall and she focused so much on the issues the media were calling her a "policy wonk." Barack is the one who dragged this race into the vituperative place that it is. His supporters pollute the online political sites with nasty, vulgar comments about Sen. Clinton. James Wolcott wrote a piece in Vanity Fair about a blogger from Daily Kos who quit posting because, in her words,

...things have become progressively more abusive toward my candidate [Clinton] and her supporters.

She went to to say the bloggers on the site ""trash Hillary Clinton and distort her record with "horrid" and "sexist" comments. This was also my experience writing for the Huffington Post. The bloggers supporting Barack posted character attacks against Clinton and the commenters barrage any site that said anything positive about Clinton, like mine, with vulgar stuff about her weight. Here's a recent comment I deleted from my website that's every day stuff on the political internet blogs:

Hillary has finally gotten the ass-whippin' she so richly deserves. How could a fat, plain, bossy, husband-beater of a girl, who couldn't even pass her bar exams, and who, to this day, has never run any organization bigger than a Senate office, feel entitled to be President of the United States? Insane!

This is every day fare on the internet; every day fare from Barack supporters. Has anyone ever heard him denounce this bigotry? Funny, he was quick to denounce his own spiritual advisor of 20 years when he thought it would get him votes. But he can't denounce the sexism because it's what his campaign is based on.

Reverse Race-Baiting
For a while, it was clear the superdelegates favored Clinton. But Barack do-anything-to-get-elected-Obama, started floating this claim that if the superdelegates "stole" the election from Barack, blacks would boycott and not vote in the general election. That's gutter stuff even by Karl Rove standards. That's like the old Willie Horton ad, in the days of Republican spin-meister Lee Atwater. CNN pundits are still making that argument, that if superdelegates nominate Sen. Clinton it will cause an uproar and alienate blacks, who are 25% of the party. Now, I don't have the numbers with me but I'd wager women constituted close to half of the party, if not more. But no one's worried or even talking about alienating women by consistently undermining the candidate with the most experience and who led the national polls until sexist attacks ran amok.

As Geraldine Ferraro and others have pointed out, the superdelegates were put in place to do precisely what Barack doesn't want them to do - what's best for the party. At this point the superdelegates could salvage the party from the damage done by Barack and his supporters and nominate the only remaining candidate who continues to try to talk about the issues and why and how she'll take the country in a better direction than George Bush did in the last eight years.

Dee Dee Myers on the "Free-Pass Sexism" Against Hillary

So I vowed not to write anymore until my baby is born, as my midwives cautioned he hasn't "dropped" yet and the new-agey San Francisco theory would be that I need to make the baby feel like his mother is ready for him (as opposed to completely absorbed with this campaign). Taking steps in that direction, I have CNN on but it's muted while I play the baby calming Vivaldi. But then I saw Dee Dee Myers, the former Clinton press secretary who I have followed since and know her to be about the most objective commentator I can find along the lines of Donna Brazille, and I turned up the volume.

Turns out she's blogging over at Vanity Fair and I recommend anything by her. In this piece, "The Free-Pass Sexism of the Hillary Hate Brigade," she echoes a frequent point of mine -- that the sexism by the media and Barack and his supporters is so rampant that people seem to have forgotten it's not okay. The media and Barack and his supporters strain to defend Barack from the tiniest imagined insults while they can and do fling anything they want at Hillary.
Myers writes:

But what keeps me awake at night is the fact that in 2008, the press, the pundits, and her political opponents can still say almost anything about Hillary Clinton without penalty.

And the fact that no one ever raises this issue - leading even someone like Myers to wonder, like I have, if we're the only ones seeing this. I can only add that Barack's constant sexist attacks and crying racism while he's benefitting from sexism shows that he not only lacks integrity or character, but he's become a dangerous, divisive persona. He wields his weapon of demagoguery so recklessly now, knowing that dark, rank prejudices against powerful women are putting such an unqualified male candidate so close to the presidency. Myers made a point tonight that I made on one of my earliest Obama pieces (Who Does Barack Obama Think He Is?), that "a woman with Barack's resume would have difficulty being taken seriously."

And anytime a woman says any of this, the columnists line up to excoriate the "victim feminists." All I ask for, and I would venture all Myers asks for, is a fair fight. Let's take racism AND sexism BOTH off the table. But then where would Barack be?

Even the feminist apologist Maureen Dowd, who like the alpha females at my law school polices feminism with harsher tones (dare I say brittle) than the alpha males, pointed out in a recent column that yes, maybe, there is some sexism afoot in our media culture. (For Dowd, a major concession.) But, she went on to write, that's not Hillary's problem - Hillary's problems are unique to Hillary and brought on my herself. I have six books within reach on my bookshelf documenting that the treatment Hillary is getting is identical to the treatment every woman politician for the last century has received. But our major so-called liberal media outlets - CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times - continue to ignore this academic evidence and history in their so-called news reports, let alone in their opinion pieces.

Note:

If anyone doubts how personally Chris Matthews' animosity is against Hillary Clinton, see this video of him shouting at Dee Dee Myers because she wouldn't agree with one of Chris' opinions about Hillary. Beyond unethical journalism, it shows Chris is highly emotional about Hillary Clinton, which I've long pointed out by his sexist remarks like mocking her daring to wear pantsuits in the US Senate - which, by the way, is pretty much the uniform of the US Senate. If he gets apopletic about a woman "daring" to wear pants in the 21st Century, then how must he feel about a woman "daring" to run for president? Chris is so emotional about protecting the all boys' clubhouse that I can't watch him anymore and continue to be astounded that MSNBC won't take him off the air. I say ship him over to Fox and let him double team with the likes of O'Reilly.

Posted February 25, 2008

Obama's Sexism Strategy Rivals Nixon's Southern Strategy

According to an ABC News Report, earlier this month at Tulane University, Barack Obama made this sexist remark about Sen. Hillary Clinton:

"You challenge the status quo and suddenly the claws come out," Obama said. Barack's disrespect of Sen. Clinton sinks lower every day.

And then Friday there comes more. Sen. Clinton pointed out that Barack watered down a bill regulating the nuclear industry after being approached by lobbyists for the industry. A radio program verified the accusation. But Barack doesn't even bother answering the true charge - he just decides to paint Clinton as an emotional woman:

"I understand that Senator Clinton, periodically when she's feeling down, launches attacks as a way of trying to boost her appeal," he told reporters.

As I've written before, I was in law school for three years with young men like Barack. The sexist slurs rampant through Barack's language are taught and encouraged in young men in the elite law schools. Don't even bother responding to her claims; just mock and dismiss her as an emotional woman. I'm working on a memoir about the phenomenon now. He did the same thing during that contentious debate when Sen. Clinton merely repeated Economist Paul Krugman's challenge of Barack's praising Ronald Reagan. The Krugman column said,

the furor over Barack Obama’s praise for Ronald Reagan is not, as some think, overblown

Sen. Clinton repeated Krugman's words, referencing Obama's praise for Reagan and Barack just outright lied on public television and denied ever saying what he said. Sen. Clinton stared at him. She's a brilliant thinker ready to talk about issues and he responds with negative and personal attacks. He continues to dismiss her and condescend to her and then preach about how "negative" she is. Why are people falling for this? I had an opponent cheat like that in my law school moot court debates. I'd been an award-winning debater in high school and college and had him cornered; he just outright lied - made up a case out of whole cloth and was pronounced the winner. He went on to become editor of the law review. That's why this is all so familiar to me.

When will women - or men for that matter - say it's not okay for a man to be repeatedly rewarded for such base sexism? It's possible the tide may be turning. His latest attempts to refer to her as an emotional woman caused the normally non-confrontational female pundits to finally say enough. This is what the ABC reporter wrote:

According to this unofficial transcript, over at MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell and Norah O'Donnell seemed to suggest Obama may have been -- if not playing the gender card, then using language women voters might find offensive. Language such as "when she's feeling down" "periodically" she "launches attacks."

Nora O'Donnell: "He said, 'I understand when she's down, that she makes these kinds of attacks.' It's getting a little personal."

Andrea Mitchell: "It's getting a little personal and, very frankly, you know how deeply we interpreted every comment to look for some sort of racial motivation before South Carolina. A lot of people said it was there. But, you know, when you start describing a female candidate as being 'down' and 'striking back,' I don't know, that's a little edgy, don't you think?" Nora O'Donnell: "Yeah. And I think there's gonna be a lot more comments about that."*

Pro-Clinton blogger Taylor Marsh writes that words like this, in her view, indicate "a way of thinking about women. A way of demeaning women in power; even saying we're not up to the job. Seriously, Senator Hillary Clinton is a woman running for president. Not some emotional menopausal diva popping pills because she's depressed she broke a nail."

"Claws"…"feeling down"...I find it hard to envision Obama using the same language if he were facing, say, former Sen. John Edwards, D-NC.

I have to pause a little at the timid language of someone as accomplished as Andrea Mitchell - but these timid protests are a first in this campaign and may signal a shift.

Look up the definition of bigotry in the dictionary -- Barack's actions apply. He loves to discredit the good work and experience of Sen. Clinton while she was First Lady for eight years because she was "just a wife." People around the world still talk about Sen. Clinton's stirring speech to the Beijing Conference and her powerful declaration that "women's rights are human rights." But Barack is comfortable discrediting this accomplishment because she was merely a "wife" of a president at the time. Never mind that she graduated from a better law school than he did (Yale is far smaller and harder to get into than Harvard, one of the biggest of the Top 20 law schools). Hillary had an accomplished career of promoting social change long before that moment. He wipes away all of her accomplishments because she was a "wife."

This is how Barack dismisses Sen. Clinton's important efforts to reform health care back when no one else would take it on: "Hollering at Republicans and engaging in petty partisan politics didn't help health care get done."

Sen. Clinton took on health care reform in the 1990s with the same belief as Barack holds now, that it could be accomplished in a bi-partisan way. The history is clear that the special interests slaughtered the proposal with millions of dollars in scare-oriented TV ads, and even Democrats turned on the Clinton proposal because of their heavy connections to the special interests involved. By 1993 it was clear the Gingrich attack machine was in full bore and the Republicans would sweep the 1994 mid-term elections, so there was no longer motivation to support the Clinton proposal.

These events had nothing to do with Sen. Clinton personally - but Barack specializes in personal attacks on Clinton's character. That's how we cut powerful women to size. There's no "change" in that. That's old-fashioned sexism and disrespect for women. "Hollering," "petty" "just a wife," "claws come out"??? And this from the candidate whose campaign fires off four-page emails to the media trying to make everything Hillary and Bill Clinton say sound racist. The media loves it.

Tonight CNN reported that Sen. Clinton's negative statements about Barack are "confrontational." They made no comment about his sexist attacks. If she'd said the equivalent of what he'd said, it would've been the top story of the night. Instead, he attacks with impunity.

Just as Nixon knew there was racism to exploit, Barack seems invigorated by exploiting our fears of strong women. That's every bit as shameful as Nixon playing on racist fears to win the South.

Tonight Carl Bernstein criticized Sen. Clinton for "playing the gender card" by claiming misogyny which, according to him, is "nasty stuff." Blame the victim - attack her character. Last night, Newsweek's Howard Fineman, a supposedly neutral commentator for MSNBC, called Sen. Clinton an "inauthentic" "calculating" "ventriloquist for her husband." We're on a full-fledged witch hunt here.

See my new blog, "Obama's Sexism, Part II - It's about entitlement"