Wifey feminism
Wait wait wait wait – I don’t get it. I think this is exactly backward.
Clinton has benefited from a favorable gender dynamic that won’t exist in the fall. (In the Democratic primary, female voters have outnumbered males by nearly three to two.) Clinton’s claim to being a tough, tested potential commander-in-chief has gone almost unchallenged. Obama could reply that being First Lady doesn’t qualify you to serve as commander-in-chief, but he won’t quite say that, because feminists are an important chunk of the Democratic electorate. John McCain wouldn’t be so reluctant.
…What? Why is it supposed to be ‘feminist’ to think that being a first lady does qualify you to serve as commander-in-chief? What the hell is feminist about that? What is feminist about thinking ‘I am married to an important man’ is a qualification? That’s not feminist, it’s anti-feminist. Feminist is running on your own merits, not someone else’s. Parlaying wifehood into a career is not my idea of feminist. Using family connections and second-hand fame is not my idea of feminist. Riding on coat-tails is not my idea of feminist. Clinton is doubtless qualified, but the nepotism question makes her one of the last people in the country who should have tried for this particular job. I don’t feel one bit ’empowered’ as a woman by the fact that another woman is trying to use her marital arrangement as an elevator to the top.
It’s probably “feminist” in the same way that pole-dancing is “feminist.”
Watching the CBC news this afternoon, someone from the US (don’t ask, I wasn’t watching that closely) claimed that Hilary’s aiming for the presidency was taken for granted back during the first Clinton presidency. She was prepared to put up with the ‘cigars’ and the Monicas, etc., but her turn was coming. This may not have anything to do with feminism, but it does, if true, put her candidacy in a rather different perspective. Then it becomes a family matter, and a long-planned pitch for power, not a question of feminism at all – which brings OB’s reference to nepotism into sharper focus.
I think Hillary would be a good president. And all those years in the political storms are a good qualification for the job. However, the distortions that have been presented are not encouraging.
Obama seems to be a real talent as a person, but not to have, like, DONE anything in his political career. Hillary’s ill-fated medicare effort was surely a better qualification for presidency than wearing a golden aura and saying ‘hope’ a lot.
But I don’t get a vote, being a foreigner.
Actually, Barack Obama has had a great deal of direct experience in politics at the state level, and has a much better track record of forging successful compromises and coalitions than Hillary Clinton does. No one gets to be a U.S. Senator without decades of prior political experience, but Obama’s experience was as an actual elected official – not as the spouse of an elected official. Does anyone who repeats this ridiculous “experience” talking point from the Clinton campaign realize that Hillary Clinton waltzed into a Senate seat on the strength of her husband’s political career without having ever held an elected office at any level herself? I’m not saying she isn’t an experienced political operator: She is. But Barack Obama has more experience as an actual legislator, and he worked his way up rather than starting at the top – which I would argue is altogether superior experience in every way.
(Come to think of it, a lot of the differences between them boil down to Hillary Clinton starting out life at the top in almost every way, whereas Barack Obama worked his way up. The attempt to spin Obama as an elitist and Clinton as an everywoman would be comical if there weren’t so many dishonest hack journalists willing to harp on it as if it were truth from on high rather than even-emptier-than-average campaign rhetoric.)
Don’t buy the mainstream media’s parroting of Clinton and McCain campaign talking points. Clinton has been hammering the “Obama has no experience” mantra from the beginning of the primaries, but if you listened to actual campaign speeches and debates you’ll hear Obama peppering his discussion of politics with concrete examples from his own political experience – and Clinton spouting carefully rehearsed talking points. Yet because Obama actually has some charisma and cadence in his oration style, he gets labeled as all flash and no substance. Double standard much?
Sexism and racism have both been simmering under the surface of this campaign, but with a profound difference: Hillary Clinton’s campaign has actively exploited racism to capture votes, whereas Barack Obama’s campaign has to my knowledge never exploited sexism in any way.
And while I certainly understand OB’s position that there’s nothing feminist in thinking that being married to someone counts as job experience in your spouse’s job, that’s a very general sort of principle, whereas the Clintons are specific people. Even on the campaign trail when Bill was first running for President, the Clintons made much of their partnership – which is why Bill put Hillary in charge of health care reform when he got to the White House, which proved to be the second biggest blunder of his first term. (“Don’t ask, don’t tell,” being the biggest, IMO.) Obama would piss off a significant chunk of women if he appeared to denigrate Hillary’s role in the Clinton partnership in the process of criticizing (however justly) her overblown declarations of experience. He’d be much better off putting positive emphasis on his own experience – such as discussing concrete details of his genuinely impressive success in forging alliances in the Illinois state legislature – rather than attacking Clinton either for her lack of real experience or for her appropriation of Bill’s presidential experience as if it were her own.
That HC’s brand of ‘stand by your man, and keep your powder dry for later’ can be some kind of recommendation for office is surely one of the great tragedies of modern American feminism. There are no politics to this ‘feminism’ of hers, nothing but the possession of ovaries – though, according to some of her supporters recently, they are actually testicles [presumably unfortunately misplaced by a childhood hunting accident?]
G.Tingey: “the people of the USA are going to be condemned to repeat (because they have not learnt their history) one of the nastier episodes of the past: a religious dictatorship.”
LOL. Back that up in 12 months after Obama, Hillary or whatsisname is sworn in.
What are you smoking GT? The Queen is not, in any practical sense, the commander-in-chief of the UK armed forces. The very notion that she might start giving ‘direct orders’ would provoke a constitutional crisis. it’s the stuff of right-wing fantasy circa 1978, when ‘the country was going to the dogs’ under Old Labour…
Oh do you guys dare having a “USA-centred” discussion about the US presidential election?
The arrogance displayed by you septics is unbelievable; I tell you, it has to stop!
Arnaud, did you really mean septics?!
It is sad to see how something exciting (to wit: showing all people are similar enough to make it to head of state) has turned into something very boring (i.e. measuring to which extent people divide support along the lines of their colour of skin, or the shape of their genitals or their colour of collar).
Did you know that about 74% of the over 5 ft tall native indians with difficult pronunciation of the ‘r’ are ‘likely to vote’ John McCain if & only if he chose a running mate that is a native indian, somewhat taller than 5 ft & successfull in overcoming a ‘r’-pronunciation issue (assuming the Democratic running mate’s not meeting the same criteria, in which case the vote will be split evenly, and most probably along the lines of sex).
Why hold elections if a national census can do it quicker & more scientifically clean?
septic tanks = yanks
You need to brush up on your rhyming slang, Eric!
Tingey, duh, of course this discussion is US-centered; it’s about the US presidential campaign. Do you ever think before you comment?
Off-topic, but… If Jesus & Mo didn’t lag about one day behind conversations here at B&W, I would have to suspect that you are the wisely anonymous artist, OB.
The thing is, since this seems destined to become an Obama-love-feast, I wouldn’t call him a rabble-rouser at all. Eloquent, yes, and able to inspire people – if only the media spin let him. But he doesn’t thump the pulpit either.
I usually got the feeling that he genuinely tries to convince the people he is talking to, or sometimes with. And that, wherever in the US or in Europe, is a rare thing.
But yeah, big Obama fan here. (And big fan of Phil Nugent too; that’s were the link goes BTW…)
G, hee hee. No, I’m not the wisely anonymous ‘author’ – but I do know ‘author’ reads B&W regular-like.
Arnaud, no, I wouldn’t either for real, that was just jokey shorthand, plus I couldn’t remember Sunstein’s exact wording. I certainly do remember the substance though: it was about Obama phoning him one day to discuss legal issues around torture. They had a long, probing conversation. That’s the kind of guy he is.
Slobber. Drool.
Tingey, no, not ok, because the people in question (there are only 5 comments before yours) 1) are all talking about the specific case at hand, not about female heads of state in general, and 2) in any case nowhere say a female head of state is impossible. So your comment was just random, unargued, beside the point, and silly. So not ok.
You don’t get it, do you. I’m fed up with your comments in general. They’re nearly always hasty, full of typos, and mere repetitions of things you’ve said before. You said the other day that you guessed you’d made about 200 comments here total. What a joke! You take up 47 pages in the database; there are 30 comments to a page. And this is despite energetic deleting.
Your comments annoy me. I would not be displeased if you made fewer of them. Is this not obvious? Are you not aware that you repeat yourself a lot and that it wears very thin? Think about it. Take a quiet moment, slow down, and think about it.
G Obama has experience come on! other than being a nice looking chap who speaks well I cant think of any reason that the guy is qualified to be president, for gods sake people critisise G.W.B for having a thin resume this guy has a non existent one. Having said that Clinton is even worse her whole campain is a giant insult to women, I so agree with O.Bs take on this one.
Also G I think Obama,s toast after the God damn America Reverent Right thing, the G.O.P will use that along with his wifes stupid comment to paint him as a dangerous radical.
Richard, did it ever occur to you that my claim was based on actually learning something about the candidates rather than just repeating whatever I’m fed by the popular press? Some day, you ought to try doing something like that before spouting off about a topic on which your ignorance is very nearly total.
And if Obama is “toast” for some inflammatory comments by some preacher whose church he used to attend, then why isn’t McCain toast for being much more intimately connected to that absurd ultra-right nut-job Pastor John “Katrina was Divine punishment for New Orleans’ sinful ways!” Hagee? America’s corporate-owned mainstream media entertainment-focused “news” has tried very hard to maximize every moronic non-issue manufactured “scandal” against Obama (American flag lapel pins, for fuck’s sake?!?) – all while continuing to repeat campaign boilerplate about McCain’s “maverick independence” in spite of his hard right straight party line voting record and generally to minimize his many, many flaws as a candidate. Frankly, though, I don’t think the American public is all that keen on buying whatever line of bullshit the media’s selling these days. Americans in ever-growing numbers are growing sick to death of the war, corruption, scandals, lies, and economic ruin that constitute Bush’s only presidential legacy – and they know that John McCain is just more of the same. McCain is a war-mongering right winger who couldn’t even muster the political courage to take a strong stand against Bush on torture despite his own experiences as a POW in Vietnam. No amount of phony rhetoric about integrity and independence can survive McCain’s own actions, which reveal a profound lack of either.
I have a prediction for you: McCain’s going to lose states that haven’t voted Democrat since the 1970s. Barack Obama might even win my own very conservative state of Georgia, what with locally popular (for reasons that escape me) Bob Barr splitting the right wing vote by running as the (very conservative) Libertarian candidate.
G. Please dont asume that I do not know what I am talking about, I have studied American politics for 30 years and I am well aware of all the candidates and their faults. I would agree with you that Mcain is a flawed candidate but his relationship to Hagee is nowhere near as damaging as Obama,s relationship to his reverant and that is because for 20 years Obama sat in this guys church,he was married and had his children baptised by the guy, people will see that as his aproval of the veiws expresed by the pastor, the same cant be said of Mcain,s relationship to Hagee which maybe problematic but not fatal. If it were just the racist reverant Obama might ride it out but there is also a problem with his conection to Ayers of the wish I had planted more bombs school of thought and the isue of his wife only being proud of her nation when her husband is running for president, people in fly over country will not take kindly to that little gem. I like you think Obama is an atractive candidate (apart from his stand on the war) but I dont think he will be able to overcome the isues I have mentioned.
Sigh.
Oh, I am SO keeping clear of that one!
“people critisise G.W.B for having a thin resume this guy has a non existent one”
Oy.
No, I can’t leave it; I ought to, but I can’t.
“G Obama has experience come on! other than being a nice looking chap who speaks well I cant think of any reason that the guy is qualified to be president, for gods sake people critisise G.W.B for having a thin resume this guy has a non existent one.”
Bush has no resumé of his own at all. Everything he’s ever done has been on his father’s coat-tails, and he displayed a stunning lack of both talent and effort in all of them. This is not, to put it very mildly, the case with Obama.
What is it with you – always reminding us of your working class credentials, and then admiring a guy who has coasted on privilege his entire life?
Feh.
Richard, I didn’t assume you don’t know what you’re talking about – your own words provided convincing evidence of that, and your further words certainly haven’t contradicted my original impression. If you’ve studied American politics for 30 years, why haven’t you actually learned anything about it? And why does everything you say about American politics reduce to what I could “learn” from watching a few days of Fox News broadcasts?
Then again, you’ve been reading and writing the English language for probably even longer than 30 years, and you can’t put together a coherent paragraph to save your life. It makes me suspect that something is missing from your efforts in general. Both editing and critical thinking require two habits you seem to lack – pausing to consider instead of rushing through to the end, and being willing to correct errors.
G. you know why my written English is so poor so why the insult. I dont admire G.W.B I just dont think that he deserves the level of abuse that G. and many others heap on him. I notice that nobody has cited any evidence of achievements of Obama or given any reason as to why the guy is qualified to be president. The example you cite about the legislation passed by him is hardly an achievement G. capital punishment was a big isue in Illinois so he was hardly sticking his neck out over it. For instance L.B.J,s passing of the civil rights bill would be a good example of a legislator passing a bill when the tide was in the oposite direction?.
Also G. you didnt answer my point about what the G.O.P will do with Right,Ayers and his wife (unless you think an insult is an answer?). You know as well as I do that Mcain,s suragates will use this stuff to great effect and now they have you tube to help them, I just think he will suffer the same fate as Dukakis or Kerry,please explain why I am wrong on this?.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXJ0sVNttyU This is just a small example of what the G.O.P will throw at this guy.
Richard, your educational background doesn’t excuse you from editing your own writing. I read over what I write carefully – usually more than once – before I push the ‘send’ button. There’s nothing preventing you from doing likewise. I don’t expect high-falutin’ elegance – just minimal coherence and readability, which you do achieve when you bother to put in the effort. You don’t bother to stop and think before or after you type – and frankly, it shows in what you say as well as how you say it. You don’t have to be intellectually lazy, but you are – repeatedly. That’s why I grow impatient, especially with your repetition of mass media pablum.
In response to the bullshit “Oh noes! The black candidate’s preacher is sometimes angry and intemperate about race issues!” media frenzy, Barack Obama gave the most honest, difficult, moving, and genuinely insightful political speech I have ever heard, period. And millions and millions of people have watched or read it – 4 million plus views on YouTube alone! Obama has not only repudiated Reverend Wright straightforwardly and repeatedly, everything he says and does repudiates the narrow-minded extremism that Wright spouts.
In contrast, McCain stands by his anchor of a Pastor Hagee and could only produce a bit of absurd and embarrassing “I’m not anti-anything” waffling when directly confronted with the problem of his enthusiastic embrace of and political endorsement by a hate-mongering theocratic wing-nut. But apparently, theocratic wing-nuts are so thick on the ground in this country that it’s just not newsworthy enough to be ridiculously overplayed by the media. What is overplayed? The Tennessee GOP’s ridiculous smear campaign twisting a Michelle Obama quote out of context into a frenzy of jingoistic patriotism. Because you’ve seen it on the news for a few days, you think it’s a huge deal. I guarantee you, no one will even remember it in two weeks. Oh, I’m sure GOP smear-meisters will keep trying to drag some continued political capital out of bringing it up over and over, but that will only be persuasive to people who would never vote for Obama in any case. In fact, I’ve seen some indications that the attack on Michelle Obama is already leading to some backlash against her attackers: Apparently, Americans aren’t as stupid as the GOP thinks, and lots of people have serious doubts about the character of politicians who think slurs against the patriotism of a candidate’s spouse are a legitimate and worthwhile political argument.
Why am I bothering to argue politics with a man who can’t even recognize that G.W. Bush is the worst president in U.S. history? I keep hoping that you’ll stop believing whatever the right-leaning press tells you, I suppose. But if you don’t, it doesn’t matter. In ever-growing numbers, the people who matter – America voters – now see the far right agenda for the disaster it truly is. So many are seeing the light that Republicans are losing elections by massive margins in former strongholds like Mississippi. And it’s going to get a lot worse for the GOP before it gets better. The pathetic mainstream media’s unquestioning, uncritical enthusiasm for endlessly repeating every lame-ass smear the Republican political machine generates isn’t going to add up to much of a difference in the end – because the American people don’t trust them anymore, either. But you keep right on swallowing whatever the mainstream media feeds you, Richard. In the end, I don’t much care – because you don’t vote here.
“I just think he will suffer the same fate as Dukakis or Kerry,please explain why I am wrong on this?”
I think I can help there. Because he’s not Dukakis or Kerry! That’s why. Nor is he Gore or Mondale or Carter or Humphrey. He’s got a double-whammy that they didn’t have: he’s inspiring in a way that they couldn’t manage in a million years, and he has the substance to back it up. Any swiftboating is going to backfire this time, because it’s going to piss people off rather than persuading them. That’s my prediction.
Well thanks for answering me (good answers as well)I wish I could beleive that O.B I like the guy but my prediction is he will go the way of reporting for duty Kerry.
G. I watched his speach on race I thought it was great, although to me it came far to late, he only did this when rev right became imposible to ignore and had made even more imflamatory comments. I dont mean to offend any Americans here but the sad truth is that pastor Hagees views on gays ect will find favor with large numbers of Americans,I think it will help Mcain with his base and do small damage with independents who already know Mcain is not a hate filled right wing nut. Finaly G.W.B the worst president in American history please? in historical terms he will be remembered as a run of the mill centre right politician who,s administration was rather lack lustre.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/04/new-poll-shows.html I think Pennsylvania shows another problem for Obama he seems to have difficulty winning among working class whites, Eleanor Clift speaks to this. http://www.newsweek.com/id/137311
Dick Morris details some of the problems faced by Obama, for once I think he is right. http://jewishworldreview.com/0408/morris0409008.php3
Yes Bush the worst president in US history – the most ignorant, the least qualified, the worst flouter of the Constitution, one of the most corrupt, the most obstinate, one of the most deceitful, one of the most parochial, possibly the worst human rights abuser, by far the most internationally-alienating. He’s not center right, either, he’s extreme right, and his administration isn’t lacklustre, it’s an outrage. The signing statements alone make it a standout, and the signing statements are just part of a torrent of abuses.
There’s something odd about thinking Obama is comparable to Kerry…about saying you ‘like the guy’ yet thinking he’s the same kind of thing as Kerry. What is it, what’s the oddity…I’m not sure…It’s just so hacky, I think; so conventional wisdomy, so punditty, so wrong. It’s so blind –
Honestly, Richard, can’t you see it? Nobody was excited about Kerry (or Gore, or Mondale, etc etc). The Dems have a long and depressing history of putting up deeply uninspiring candidates (not that the Repubs are much better). Obama’s not like that, for a whole slew of reasons. He’s going to be much, much harder to swiftboat.
I can’t begin to tell you how much I don’t care what Eleanor Clift and Dick Morris think. They’re hacks; I’m not interested.
I would agree with a lot of that someone would have to be a corpse to not find Obama inspiring, I first saw him when he gave the key note speach at the Dem convention and I remember thinking this will be Americas first black president. I dont normaly take much notice of that pair but I thought they were making sence, I think that Obama has already been swift boated and he has not handled it well and that is now showing up in his primary contests. This may be because you live there I dont, I just think that sadly baring Mcains age or health becoming isues he will win.
Also American politics tends to follow quite conventional paterns,for instance the last inspiring presidential candidate(J.F.K)only won by less than one vote per precinct and the help of dead Chicago voters.
Worst human rights abuser? dosnt (if I could save the union without freeing one single slave)Abe Lincoln hold that dubious title?
Someday, somebody will have to take some time and try to convince Richard that the purpose of an argument is not to score points but to convince people.
That somebody won’t be me though…
What about supporting the Iraq war? Which nominee did that?