The last time woman took charge
The atmosphere is pretty charged lately, isn’t it? Are you hanging in there? It’s going to get increasingly stormy as immovable object meets irresistable force. The party is so determined to install Obama that is willing to tear itself to shreds before our very eyes to do it. And all this self destruction for what purpose? So Hillary Clinton will never be president? What’s that all about anyway? Will we ever understand why the powers that be want to squash her?
MoDo wrote a column this morning that I did not read because I couldn’t get past the blurb on the opinion page:
Hillary Clinton feels no guilt about encouraging her supporters to mess up Barack Obama’s big moment, thus undermining his odds of beating John McCain.
Ladies, putting aside the lie that Hillary is putting us up to this (she has absolutely nothing to do with our movement), is there something familiar about that sentence? Did it strike a bell deep in the corner of your mind where you have stored an unpleasantry? From personal experience, I can say that without exception, I have never met a man who did not behave as if his reason for being was more important than mine. No matter how supportive they were, when push came to shove, it was always my life that more easily sacrificed and compromised. My wishes and aspirations were a little less lofty. My gifts and talents a little less meaningful and worthy of praise. Nothing short of my winning a Nobel Prize, a Pulitzer and a humanitarian award would be acknowledged as sufficient for a life changing decision to go in my favor. Maybe even that wouldn’t be enough. When push comes to shove, where a man lives, what he does with his time, what career he pursues and what dreams he has will always come first. The only power women have in most relationships, ultimately, is the power to walk away from them. That is, if she wants to be judged a person in her own right.
This is what MoDo’s blurb is saying to me. Hillary Clinton, one of the most accomplished women this country has ever produced, a woman gifted by intelligence, tenacity, fortitude and perserverence, who has more qualifications and experience than either of her rivals, is expected to graciously step aside so her presence doesn’t mess up her less qualified male counterpart’s fading chances of victory. Maureen Dowd *enjoys* reinforcing this notion. She makes her living doing it.
When Hillary made her suspension speech, she said that women hadn’t broken through that glass ceiling yet. What is happening before our eyes right now is the final step to finally breaking through: asserting the right to be acknowledged as a person worthy of equal respect and not backing down in the face of overwhelming odds. If it messes up Barack’s life, who the f$^* cares? Why should she care more about his aspirations than her own, especially when it is *his* actions that are tearing the party apart? I have never seen a party so committed to ruining itself, its reputation, its very chances of survival, all for the sake of an ambitious, unprepared and unscrupulous man like Barack Obama. To watch this happen is like watching someone in the midst of Darwin Award winning behavior. It is both fascinating and horrifying.
We are witnessing the Democratic party, run by a bunch of white males, like Dean, Kerry, Kennedy, Carter, McGovern, Edwards, etc, telling this woman that she is less worthy. Incredible.
On a similar note: Anglachel has started posting again after an unbearably long absence. Today she has a piece that looks at what the Republicans are likely to make of the Democratic party’s decision to ditch its more deserving candidate for its weaker male standard bearer. I mentioned months ago that affirmative action would be our Achilles heel that the GOP would zero in on. Anglachel seems to have the same idea in Barking Up the Wrong Tree. Here is the money quote:
Obama is the candidate against whom this argument [affirmative action] can be deployed most effectively. You Obamacans can scream bloody murder at me all you want, but it is simply a fact. His race makes the argument easier to make, but it is his muddy personal history, his razor thin resume, and his questionable electoral wins that make him vulnerable. As Somerby pointed out, the squalls of “Racism! Racism!” do nothing but play into their hands as well because the Republican argument isn’t about race. It may appeal to racists, but affirmative action can be defeated even in California (in a way that gay marriage probably will not) because it is, at base, about economic competition and rules that deliberately confer advantage to a less formally qualified contestant. When Obama defenders can’t get out of primary campaign mode and reckless accusations of racism (because some well-off white liberals really can be shamed into voting for someone just because he is Black), they do nothing but reinforce the Republican charge against affirmative action; that it is merely promotion of race, it is not about potential or character or disadvantage (In what world is Barack Obama “disadvantaged”?), but about pushing qualified students and job applicants out of the way for lazy non-whites. It is simple for them to work in xenophobia and jingosim, too, by talking about promotion of “illegals” over “citizens”.
The dog whistle here is on behalf of McCain. He’s earned this job and he will make sure that you get what you have earned, unlike these effete Democrats (sorry, that’s always going to be part of the argument) who let themselves be bullied into placating interest groups and handing out unearned rewards. St. John the Maverick will give you straight-talk and an honest deal. On another day, I’ll get a bit more into the “high-minded ways” that Somerby mentions because that, too, is part of the attack on affirmative action, one the Obamacans of Whole Foods Nation seem incapable of understanding.
Just go read it. It’s excellent.
One final note. It seems that we have a resident poet. JohninCA writes many of his comments in verse and I thought I’d put a few of my favorite beauties on the front page today. I’m thinking that we need a poet laureate:
Benjamin Franklin’s opinion was sought
About what his peers in Philadelphia wrought.
“A republic, if you can keep it,” he said,
But which, without vigilance, soon would be dead.
There was no political party back then,
The vote was for whites, and only for men.
The franchise didn’t exist for the rest,
Outside those circles the right was suppressed.
Now there’s one party that plays loose and fast
With the primary votes that were cast,
Four delegates for one man it seized,
Fabricating the results as it pleased.
The price for its perfidy it must now pay,
As insurrection carries the day
Now is the time to be buried for good
Imposture and treachery for which it stood.
****
Down with dissembling, down the the lies
Down with the party with no other guise
To offer disquieted voters this fall,
Down with cabals where deception is all.
Down with the standard bearer and hack
Who lacking a teleprompter can’t back
Campaign themes of increasing duplicity,
While the nation prays that it soon spared will be.
****
Denver’s the city– there is the place
Where the party which has well earned its disgrace
Which dissembled with voters, and overreached
And the faith of its loyal activists breached
Must stare aggrieved voters clear in the face
The penalty for its behavior to face
The piper it paid; now it must hear the tune
And face the storm to erupt at high noon.
****
If I were a Democrat, my heart would break,
For arrogance this man must take the cake,
By fiat, four delegates he’s able to pull,
Now that they’re his, their state votes in full.
With dubious tactics securing the win,
Competition seems to be the only sin,
The thing that’s important, as Joe Stalin notes,
Is not the voters but who counts the votes.
****
Ludacris opened his mouth all too soon
His lyrics were more than inopportune
His words are the most unfortunate progeny
Of profane hatred, if not misogyny
Their tenor can end in no other result
Than undermining his candidate’s very own cult
While helping the backlash which, in the fall
Might just help McCain to go and win it all.
****
It’s hardly a reason for much surprise,
That D registration is not on the rise.
The party that put a knife in our back
Now finds that its base is beginning to crack.
It counted on victory in the fall,
But shouldn’t be sanguine about it at all,
The hare and the tortoise, that old fashioned tale
Suggests, in November, McCain will prevail
Filed under: Presidential Election 2008 | Tagged: affirmative action, Anglachel, Darwin Awards, johninCA poetry, Maureen Dowd | 251 Comments »
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The Confluence 