PETA, the headline-grabbing, news-savvy animal rights group that some serious animal rights advocates can’t stand, has pitchforked itself into the headlines again.

The target this time: Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream. The demand: Get rid of cows’ milk in ice cream.

This piece by Pajamas Media’s Michelle Catalano (a great conservative blogging powerhouse who left the political blogging scene a few years ago) she tells you what ingredient the always-provocative PETA suggests replace cow’s milk.

We bet you’ve guessed already….

This Guest Voice is by New York attorney Kip Zimmerman who read a post by Gloria Steinem that was much like the many other anti–Sarah Palin emails Democrats have been sending out. This is his reaction. Guest Voice posts do not necessarily represent the opinions of TMV or its writers.

Gloria Steinem, The Democrats And Sarah Palin

by Kip Zimmerman

Way to go Gloria! Except, isn’t a bit late for feminism now?

Where were the fems during primary season? Maybe I just didn’t hear them pounding the table with charges of sexism when Dems were letting reverse-racism(haven’t heard that term in awhile) dictate the nomination. I’m sure they didn’t stand idly by while Dems lost not only a clearly more qualified and viable nominee that would have championed women’s rights, but also maybe the best female candidate we’re ever going to see. Nah, they care too much and have been dying for just such a candidate since the ERA. I probably just wasn’t paying attention when they were saying all that stuff like, 6 months ago.

But hey, let’s all keep talking about Sarah Palin!

Aren’t the Republicans loonies for nominating her? And isn’t anyone who would ever even consider voting for them like, a total moron? And they’re not just dumb, but they’re like, kinda evil too. Especially all those really religious people - GOD I hate them! You know, with all those damn church-goers and country-music lovin’, rednecked gun-owners, I think we may be losing the country. I mean, if they should ever team up with people who are in favor of drilling and people without graduate degrees, what are real Americans like you and I ever to do?

This is serious. These weirdos represent the single greatest threat to the future of this country. You may have some legitimate concerns over the economy or the war or even the environment, but look, we all know those are really just the results of the natural business, terror, and um, sunlight & CO2 cycles. Besides, substantive issues don’t even matter that much these days. It’s all about not getting punk’d and keepin’ it real, yo. As long as we keep responding to every thing they throw at us, we’ll be fine. And I don’t mean just respond, but throw the smack down so hard that by the time they wake up, their clothes’ll be even more out of style. That way they and all their sympathizers will know not to mess with us, and we’ll win this election by making everyone else see just how stupid and unevolved they are.
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“Hockey Mom” is still pulling great ratings, but I saw my first “I’m sick of” comment in the media pages today. Tomorrow, “HM” episodes will have been on the air 24/7 for two weeks, with almost no change in the dialogue. Sarah Palin says the same lines, over and over again. It’s worse than being forced to watch nothing but “Survivor” 24/7 for two weeks. Pretty soon, nothing helps. You could put lipstick on “Survivor” and it would still be “Survivor.” 

That’s where we are. You could put lipstick on “Hockey Mom,” and it would still be “Hockey Mom.” The novelty is wearing off, as the novelty always does. If the show’s producers expect Sarah Palin to get John McCain elected, look for some re-invention soon. God help them if the audience starts calling for guest appearances from Joe Lieberman. 

Wherever that goes, “Hockey Mom” has been responsible for a great spin-off, “Lipstick Season,” which may be topping the Nielsens long after the election. At last, the media has a reality show that means something. Millions of American women are coming onstage to talk about what it means to be a woman in a society where “Hockey Mom,” which portrays a woman as a marketing tool, can become a hit. 

Millions of American men should be drawn to “Lipstick Season” too, but I’m only interested in one of them. Me. Karen has poured thousands of rounds of cannon fire into the television since “Hockey Mom” came on, and I find myself mystified. It is as if she is speaking a second language that I never heard before. I have fancied myself a hard worker where understanding women’s issues is concerned, but now I have to borrow a line from Olympia Dukakis: what I don’t know about women is a lot. 

I think it is a matter of women finally having a double standard placed so everyone can see it, and placed there by a woman in the employ, of all agencies, the Republican Party, which women think wouldn’t know a double standard if one came up and bit it on the leg. It’s very convoluted, very hard to follow, totally new in my experience. Someone on morning television speaks of Palin’s right to privacy, and Karen fires back, the kitchen shaking with the thunder of the barrage. She is visibly incensed and combative, that same intensity I have sensed in the national air since Palin came on the scene. 

I ask Karen to explain it to me, and she growls that the right to privacy is the bedrock principle of a woman’s right to choose what she does with her body. I try to put it together, but I have always been weak with any thinking that involves inverted or over-under-around-through logic: if this is right, then that is wrong, which makes this other thing right. It takes the form of, well, how can Palin do this, when that is so, or not so? 

It may be that Palin has pulled the pin on a gender grenade starting a war that women have been itching to fight, but couldn’t, because before, it was always a man pulling the pin. Is this a war that can only be fought with lipstick? Am I making any sense? I wish I knew, but I do know that I am feeling decidedly grateful in an over-under-around-through way to the GOP producers for “Hockey Mom” and the way it is setting the stage for “Lipstick Season.” I think it will be an epochal production.

Polls now show that Republican Presidential nominee Sen. John McCain and his Vice Presidential running mate Gov. Sarah Palin are winning the crucial battles for independent and women voters — big-time.

The polls show Democratic Presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama is not just sagging in these areas but politically bleeding — and losing the support of some critically-needed conservative Democrats as well. If this is just part of the McCain bounce, Democrats shouldn’t worry. But it could reflect more profound shifts due to the make up of the GOP ticket, Palin and McCain’s speeches, and the fact that the Republicans remain far more unified than the Democrats — a party that has not totally rounded up Hillary Clinton supporters. And Clinton continues to hold her fire on Palin.

Gallup Reports:

John McCain’s 6 percentage-point bounce in voter support spanning the Republican National Convention is largely explained by political independents shifting to him in fairly big numbers, from 40% pre-convention to 52% post-convention in Gallup Poll Daily tracking.

By contrast, Democrats’ support for McCain rose 5 percentage points over the GOP convention period, from 9% to 14%, while Republicans’ already-high support stayed about the same.

The surge in political independents who favor McCain for president marks the first time since Gallup began tracking voters’ general-election preferences in March that a majority of independents have sided with either of the two major-party candidates. Prior to now, McCain had received no better than 48% of the independent vote and Obama no better than 46%, making the race for the political middle highly competitive.

The independent vote shift is a huge one. Just look at the graph:

Just as many independent voters now seem to be flocking towards McCain, so are women voters – a politically toxic sign for Obama:

Read the rest of this entry »

When Indira Gandhi (photo above) was a candidate for the post of prime minister in India she was harshly described as a “dumb doll’ by even the strong men in her powerful party. Later, when Gandhi ruled with an iron hand she was described by her detractors and admirers as the “only man in her Cabinet of Ministers”!

The Times takes a look at the top women leaders with reputations for raising hackles. “It’s disgraceful what passes for controversy these days. From the media storm created last week, you would think Sarah Palin was the first moose-shooting anti-abortionist to ever take the world stage.

“Come to think of it, she probably is. But to really get tongues wagging back in the day you had to have a reputation for incest, torture, murder and stealing from the destitute.” More here…

The Independent believes that Palin power helped McCain draw level in race for the White House. More here…

At the post, “Sarah is the Fresh Air,” on Blogher, I found this comment today:

When can she be interviewed by reporters - I find it disturbing that the McCain campaign isn’t allowing Ms. Palin to be interviewed by reporters. What are they hiding?

According to Nicole Wallace of the McCain campaign, possibly never:

Oh, well, wait - maybe in two weeks, said Todd Harris yesterday, a Republican strategist who was John McCain’s communications manager. Why not for at least two weeks? Listen:

And in fact, did anyone see Sarah Palin on the Sunday shows this morning? Nope. Just the boys. Governor Sarah Palin, the candidate about whom we know the least, remains the person we’re seeing the least often and hearing from the most infrequently.

But is this scarcity of Sarah due to sexism?

The McCain campaign is so afraid that she might make a mistake that they’ll keep her out of the voters’ view for at least fourteen days - when there’s only 60 days left for voters to choose. Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic calls this move sexist:

The sexism that implies that someone cannot stand up to reporters because she is a woman is appalling. This entire pick, of course, is incredibly sexist, and the handling of her in the last week the most sexist double standard I have ever seen in American politics. Can you imagine Hillary Clinton saying she wasn’t going to answer questions for two weeks? Or Margaret Thatcher? Or Kay Bailey Hutchison? Or Elizabeth Dole? And none of these women were ever as close to global power as Sarah Palin now is. This is getting to Manchurian Candidate levels of creepiness. It’s deeply sinister and slightly terrifying.

And, Jay Carney wrote the following in regard to Nicole Wallace’s shrug off, in TIME’s blog, The Swampland:

…in [Nicole Wallace’s] smug dismissal of the media’s role in asking questions of the candidates, Wallace was really showing contempt not for reporters, but for voters. I bet there are a lot of undecided voters out there who were intrigued by Sarah Palin last night, but who don’t yet know enough about her — what she believes, what she knows — to be comfortable with the idea of her as vice president of the United States. It’s important to them to know if Palin can handle herself in an environment that isn’t controlled and sanitized by campaign image makers and message mavens. Maybe she can, maybe she can’t. As far as Wallace is concerned, it’s none of their — or your — business.

David Frum, of The National Review, wants the McCain ticket to win and wants to see more of Palin. In his post, “Why Bother?,” he answers Wallace’s laugh-filled opinion that no one cares if Palin ever meets with the press by saying that he cares, because in order to win, McCain needs to go beyond the non-Elitist vote that the controlled messages hit:

If you want to win a debate, you have to come prepared to debate for every audience at every level. We can all understand that it is unwise to refuse Oprah. But it is equally unwise to do only Oprah. It’s not just Jay Carney who wants more. As President Bush’s current numbers suggest, so does Oprah’s audience.

What other evidence have we seen that the McCain handlers might be sexist?

In this August 30 New York Times article, McCain adviser Charlie Black, when asked about Palin’s ability to handle matters of foreign policy, says:

…that [John McCain] viewed her as exceptionally talented and intelligent and that he felt she would be able to be educated quickly.

“She’s going to learn national security at the foot of the master for the next four years, and most doctors think that he’ll be around at least that long,” said Charlie Black, one of Mr. McCain’s top advisers, making light of concerns about Mr. McCain’s health, which Mr. McCain’s doctors reported as excellent in May.

And then, in regard to the same question, but this time posed by Campbell Brown, McCain spokesperson Tucker Bounds paints a similar image of a maiden at the feet of the experienced master:

Bounds: Governor Palin has the good fortune of being on the same ticket with John McCain, who, there is no question, is the most experienced and shown proven judgment on the international stage; he understands foreign affairs, he has a familiarity with the players across the globe—

Brown: Well, we know all that about John McCain, Tucker. I asked you about her, though, because we all know the role of the VP, as John McCain has defined it, is to be able to step into the job of the presidency on day one if something should happen to the president. So I’m asking you about her foreign policy experience.

What is going on here? Sure, often-maligned as not-too-bright former Vice President Dan Quayle was tightly-managed and, as Frum points out, very likely he shouldn’t have been - for more than superficial reasons. But would Charlie Black or Tucker Bounds have given the same portrait of getting educated at the feet of the master if the GOP veep choice had been Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee?

Let’s look at what the senior Bush’s campaign did with Quayle: they let him out, right away, and guess what? As this New York Times article from 1988 memorializes, he did a whole lot of talking, and getting into trouble.

So is the McCain campaign holding back because Palin is a woman, or because they fear what happened to Quayle? Dick Cheney wasn’t held back, nor was Bob Dole’s 1996 running mate, Jack Kemp.

Why is Palin being held back?

Subtle and not-so-subtle sexism. All of which needs to be called out.

I have almost a zero-tolerance for sexism at any level and don’t agree with the opinion that we dilute the cause of calling it out if we point it out when we see it, any of it.

For example, not all voters saw the sexism in the media coverage of Hillary Clinton. I tangled with Obama supporters in particular as to whether this New Republic image was sexist. And although I agree that Clinton didn’t lose because of sexism, it sure didn’t help her either.

The acceptance of sexism - subtle and not so subtle, from friendly and not-so-friendly corners, contributes to what I consider sacrificing the soul of feminism in order to at last get its face closer to the ceiling. By no means are we getting through any ceiling if the GOP ticket succeeds since Palin will be what got the man to where he is and will only re-entrench the image of women being the support behind the man.

The McCain campaign’s constant reference to Palin as a naif not only contradicts the image of a pitbull with lipstick, but reinforces the image that Palin is only the lipstick on the pig.

The result of tolerating these lower levels of sexism is the treatment of Sarah Palin that we’re seeing now, at the hands of the people who supposedly want to make her a queen in yet another pageant.

But many men and women decided a long time ago that there’s no value in winning the pageant trophy if all you get to do is look good while holding it.

Consider that tonight Governor Palin was speaking to ‘her people.’
Her people were indeed wowed.
Her talents are obvious.

However, in the larger world, it remains to be seen how Governor Palin’s many talents will play, for it is still sometimes true in our culture, no matter how developed we might be…

that a man who is bold in attack, is often seen as authoritative, manly
Sometimes a woman who is bold is seen only as ballsy, pushy, castrating, not womanly… in essence, not dependable.

–Men have rules of engagement in battle (most of the time) and can thrust and parry; and listeners often remark on ‘the debate’ and on the elegance or inelegance, buffooning or grace of each opponent. And men, whether lawyers or politicians or sport players, or other, are often invited to meet for rematch another day.
–A woman who uses smiling thrust-and-parry that draws blood or not, even when she is right and abov-board, is often seen as snide, covertly vicious, a harridan, a scold, trying to start a ‘cat fight,’.. in essence, untrustworthy. Women whom others decide are ‘cat fight starters’ are not seen as heroic as men often are, but as divisive. They are not invited to a gentlewomen’s rematch; they are often marginalized instead.

–Actual satirists who deliver satire seamlessly are often praised and create a following.
–Politicians who use sharp-edged satire, as Governor Palin did tonight, risk confusing a good number of ‘undecided’ listeners about whether their intention is comedic or serious, retaliatory or leaderly.
–A woman in politics or business who attempts scathing or skewering humor, is often enough seen as bitter, vengeful, overtly or covertly angry.

–when a man is quick to judge and arm a plan, he is often considered decisive, ‘taking care of business.’
–when a smart woman is very fast to be decisive, she is sometimes seen as impulsive, unreliable, in essence… labile.

–Even when a woman is right , when she carries a chronic scornful tone of voice, a rolling-eyes-at-ceiling look that is mocking, many persons react negatively… even those who might agree with her premise… for they know if she will do it to another, the day will come when she may aim same at them.

There is more to say, but this is an article, not a book. lol. Yet, I would say this last about women in general who are in the public eye…

I have written here at TMV before… that women in politics and high-profile positions are sometimes treated in the MSM with highly-unusual attacks on their looks, allusions to their menstrual cycles, their ages, their attractiveness, their sexuality, their wife-liness, or singleness; their children, or their not having children, what they do or don’t do with their families.

Too often, the words used to describe them sometimes seem way, way out there, serving no revelation, devoid of accurate facts, psychologically way more than just simple dislike or different preferences.

Yet, I think we all note that anyone who sticks their neck out publicly for political leadership –male or female– will be barraged by ‘everyone and their mother… and father’ … both pro and con.

Yet, are women in the political public eye treated more scurrilously than men? I honestly don’t know. It appears, however, that women are often treated ‘differently,’ especially when the opinion/analysis–media or otherwise– is purely negative.

1. She can deliver natural and biting satire in a funny way: parfum of The Simpsons, paraphrasing her speech here: ‘When they haul the Styrofoam pillars off Obama’s stage…. what is left that is real?’

2. She hired a writer who is an original rather than a ’speech-writery’ one… one who apparently enhances how/who she is, rather than trying to make her say lofty things. That’s not her style. (The speech writers of this election cycle, from ALL sides, often sound like the writers tacked together aphorisms from quote books they thought were deep, just changing the words around a bit.)

3. She has a huge talent for mimicking others, for observation of human traits, for memorization, as well as the knack for delivery that appears sincere; her gestures are absolutely cohesive.

4. She is fiercely feminine.

5. She is ace-smart

6. She is an outsider who tonight, consistently says disarming things ‘insiders’ would never say, hardly even think to say.

7. She has a good voice, not a whiny one. It’s slightly, as I said, to the satiric side, but also warm, clear, articulate.

8. She is bold and common-sensical regarding her own milieu, political and familial.

9. She is completely comfortable and gives the appearance of realness, as opposed to some of the thick personas slabbed on by some Washingtonians.

10. She is not afraid, not self effacing, not woman-only identified. She is a protectoress, a woman who guards the perimeters.

Later, I’ll offer some thoughts on the potential danger areas of some of her strongest traits.

For now, her standards and values and beliefs will no doubt be supported and quarreled with, slammed around, uplifted, condemned.

But, her innate gifts that she has honed and turned toward leadership, toward being a running mate now, her talents will continue to make her a formidable opponent. For anyone.

It would be an error to think she is Senator Biden’s opponent. She isn’t.

She is Senator Obama’s opponent.

CNN reports that evangelicals are rallying around Bristol Palin. And I’m glad to hear it. I’m glad that nobody is portraying her as a slut or whore. I’m glad that the evangelical community is reacting to the news with compassion given that they believe her to have engaged in what they see as immoral behavior, and I hope that they would demonstrate that compassion to all other women who have engaged in similar behavior — both on a micro-level (in personal relations) and a macro-level (in terms of public policy).

And I, along with everybody else who identifies as pro-choice, respect her choice to keep her child. That is, of course, implicit in the definition of “choice”.

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Gloria Feldt and Carole Joffee wrote this piece on Huffington Post in honor of the Labor Day holiday tomorrow. Please read the full post for the commentary, but here are the questions they want this GOP presumptive nominee for president to answer:

First, John McCain, do you think women belong in the paid labor force?

So if you accept most women will spend some of their lives in the labor force, do you believe women should earn the same as men, for the same jobs?

Can you explain to us why you voted-twice-against a reauthorization of S-Chip, the immensely popular state children’s health insurance program-a program supported by many in your own party?

Can you explain why your record on children’s issues generally is so bad that the nonpartisan Children’s Defense Fund in its 2007 Congressional scorecard on children’s issues rated you the senator with the worst voting record?

Did Ms. Fiorina fail to get your memo that in order to curry favor with the Religious Right your campaign had to adopt a strict anti-birth control policy?

Why have you abandoned your once nuanced positions [in regard to abortion]?

Senator McCain, where do you stand on these intersecting challenges facing working women?

Is it really your vision that women should be paid less than men, accept unsatisfactory childcare and healthcare for their children, yet have limited access to contraception that could reduce unintended pregnancy and abortion, and risk possible injury or death, when–if you are in a position to appoint Supreme Court justices–abortion becomes once more illegal?

They sure sound like a good place to start, on Labor Day no less.

As here at TMV, we’ve been all over the Palin pick at The Reaction, and our reaction was essentially this: what a pathetic pick. As our associate editor, Creature, put it, McCain “laid a big fat egg.”

Surely that’s clear. Right? Well, not necessarily.

I was listening to Buffalo sports radio — call me pathetic, if you must (I much prefer Toronto sports radio) — on my way home from work Friday afternoon. The two hosts, one of whom stressed that he wasn’t terribly fond of the Republican Party, were talking about Palin. How attractive she is. How “real” she is. How so unlike Hillary she is. How many bases she covers for McCain. What a great pick she is. And I thought, this is exactly how the pick is being received by much of the American electorate, the low-information electorate, the electorate without much of a clue.

It is hardly surprising that some men would find Palin more desirable, in many ways, than Hillary. After all, Palin isn’t, or at least doesn’t seem to be, much of a threat to their chauvinistic masculinity. She’s quite attractive. Back in 1984, she was Miss Wasilla, then Miss Alaska runner-up. She’s athletic and sports-minded, once a TV sports reporter in Anchorage. She’s a self-defined “hockey mom.” And she’s socially conservative, extremely so. So, to some men, she’s perfect. Sure, she’s gone on to become quite successful in the political arena, but it’s not like she dominates the men around her, or at least doesn’t seem to. Where Hillary is a threat, what with her determination and drive, Palin, simply put, is “real.” And it helps that she’s from a place a long, long way from Washington and doesn’t seem like a politician. So what if she has next to no experience and isn’t at all ready for the national stage, let alone the presidency?

No wonder Buffalo jocks like her, eh? They were quick to attack Obama for his campaign’s “lack of experience” criticism of Palin, but of course Obama does have significant political experience and has spent the past year and a half running for president. He has proven himself, and he has put his leadership and judgment on the line. What has Palin ever done?

Well, it doesn’t matter. McCain made a cynical pick. He is hoping to attract women, including disaffected Hillary supporters, simply by having a woman with him on the ticket. He is hoping to balance his old age with youth (and complete and utter inexperience). He is hoping to counter Obama’s case for change by linking his maverick myth to an outsider, a reformer, one with no ties to Washington. And he is hoping to capitalize on making what is being seen by some as an exciting pick. He’s old, cranky, and seemingly senile, but just look at that hot hockey mom next to him!

Yes, a pathetic pick.

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Often-times, when Democrats run a candidate for office who is not a White male, Republicans unleash with a familiar refrain. “He’s an affirmative action candidate”, to Barack Obama. “She only got there because of her husband”, to Hillary Clinton. And when these candidates do well, it’s not evidence of any merit on their part, or that voters critically evaluated them and decided they were best for the job. It’s because of “identity politics”: Blacks mindlessly voting for Blacks, women mindlessly voting for women.

I always kind of assumed that this was an argument made in bad faith. But the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin to be McCain’s VP candidate made me realize that conservatives really do seem to believe it…..

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American Princess writes on BlogHer and on her own blog. I’m not that familiar with it, but I spent a few moments there this morning. I like what I found - even though I disagree with it. If I were a conservative woman, particular in her generation (let’s just say I could be her mom - I’m finding I could be the mom of a lot of women who let me befriend them lately though!), I can imagine making very similar arguments in favor of Sarah Palin. Hattip to Denise for linking.

In her posts about Palin, American Princess deploys the debate points I’d make if I thought even for one minute that I could support Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate. But Sarah Palin and I differ on pretty much every single issue (i.e., I’m pro-choice, I believe that creationism is a fabricated construct intended to get religion into the public schools, I’m anti-gun, I’m against drilling in ANWR, and I have ideas about what vice presidents do), so this is a no-brainer for me: on the issues alone, I wouldn’t be voting for her, even if I lived in her hometown of Wasilia or her home state of Alaska, let alone as a VP candidate on the GOP ticket.

That said, the danger in accepting as acceptable all the arguments that American Princess makes in favor of Palin as a totally awesome, appropriate and best selection for the USA’s vice president, following in the footsteps of people like Dick Cheney, Al Gore, Walter Mondale and even George Bush the first, exists in what it means from here on out:

Recognizing, allowing and granting women success when they push for what women like myself have always believed was worth pushing for and using as debate points with employers, when looking for work after having children and claiming that being on the PTA and raising kids more than prepares us for leadership in pretty much any sector:

That those experiences do matter. Read the rest of this entry »

SATURDAY QUESTION: Is Barack Obama the Sex and the City Candidate?

Later today we should have fresh numbers out of Gallup which include interviews with some of the 38 million people who watched Barack Obama’s speech on Thursday night. At that point we should see if the convention’s 8 point bounce for Obama holds, grows or fades. It will likely be early next week before we begin to see the effect of the Palin nomination on these numbers. Looking ahead, though, was there a background reason hiding in the numbers that made the choice of a woman for running mate even more attractive to John McCain? This study from Gallup may shed some light on it.

Among all registered voters Gallup has interviewed in August (through Aug. 28), McCain wins over Obama by a 6-point, 48% to 42% margin among men, while Obama wins among women by a 10-point, 49% to 39% margin. The swing in the margin of support for the two candidates between genders is thus 16 points.

What might be even more curious is how that gap in support among women ties into the chasm between married and unmarried voters in their relative support for Obama and McCain.

Among American registered voters who are married and whom Gallup interviewed Aug. 1-19, John McCain is leading Barack Obama by 13 points; among unmarried American voters, Obama has a 22-point margin.

The Gallup study attributes this largely to a party line split, claiming that, two thirds of Republicans are married, but “a majority of Democrats are unmarried.”

Can that be written off as coincidence? I’ll confess, I was fairly shocked when I read that statistic. Can we combine these two studies and conclude that Obama is finding a wedge against John McCain in unmarried women? Is Barack Obama actually the “Sex and the City“candidate? I invite you to find your own explanation for these polling trends as a Saturday morning exercise to entertain ourselves.

UPDATE: With a hat tip to George Sorwell in the comments, James Fallows weighs in on the subject of Palin, saying the nomination is more like Clarence Thomas than Dan Quayle. Very interesting.

In Palin’s case, this seems to be a choice that looks forward to Election Day, and not one day beyond that.

Sri Lanka is today known more for the performance of its fine cricket team and the conflict between the government and the LTTE. The passing away of its highly talented and sensitive journalist Mallika Wanigasundra went almost unnoticed.

I came to know of her passing away while going through the website of another dedicated and respected Sri Lankan journalist Nalaka Gunawardene. I met Gunawardene in the late 1980s at Vestras, Sweden, where we had gone to attend an international semniar on “Media In Times Of Crisis”. For his website pl click here…

He writes: “Mallika Wanigasundara, who passed away on 4 April 2008 aged 81, went in search of causes and process that shape the everyday news headlines. She blazed new trails in issue-based journalism, covering topics ranging from health and environment to children, women and social justice.

“It was only last year that the Editors Guild of Sri Lanka and the Sri Lanka Press Institute presented her the Lifetime Achievement Gold Medal for Excellence in Journalism. In 1990, she was selected by the United Nations Environment Programme for the Global 500 award.

“Mallika was associated with the Sri Lankan media in one capacity or another for over half a century. Starting her professional career in 1956 with the Sinhala evening daily Janatha, she later moved on to English language journalism at Lake House where she worked first in The Observer and then at Daily News.

“Mallika also helped put Sri Lanka on the world map of development journalism. Beginning in the early 1980s, she contributed Sri Lankan stories to Depthnews, published by the Press Foundation of Asia based in Manila, and to Panos Features, syndicated globally by the Panos Institute in London.

“In those pre-web days, these services – when printed in newspapers and magazines - were among the most dependable sources for ground level reporting from far corners of the world. (Alas, both services have since gone the way of the Dodo – not to mention Asiaweek, South and Gemini.)

“It was characteristic of many accomplished journalists of her generation that they remained mostly in the background, shaping news coverage and analysis. Some even didn’t nurture a personal by-line, writing under pseudonyms or simply not signing their names on their work.” More here…

Adam Zyglis, The Buffalo News

As Democrats put Obama/Clinton issues behind them, the Republican identity crisis comes front and center in John McCain’s imminentdecision about a running mate.

Aside from Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who may actually turn out to be the choice, the longish short list is all over the identity-politics lot:

Mitt Romney, a super-rich Mormon the candidate clearly despises and holder of the Olympic record for flip-flopping on social issues;

Joe Lieberman, a McCain personal favorite, with the slight handicap of having run for VP as a Democrat, to say nothing of being a pro-choice Orthodox Jew, the prospect of whose presence on the ticket unsettles even the strong stomach of Karl Rove;

Tom Ridge, a pro-choice former governor with an undistinguished record as the first Homeland Security head, whose current work is sitting on the boards of Home Depot and Hershey;

Two business executives (Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina) with no political experience whatsoever but whose gender might appeal to die-hard Hillary Clinton dissidents;

And even Colin Powell, who would bring racial balance and a respected military career but whose most recent public service involved helping George W. Bush lie us into Iraq and is a septuagenarian only a few months younger than McCain.

After Bush-Cheney, it’s understandably complicated to figure out what enlightened Republicanism should involve this year, a problem with which McCain himself apparently wrestled after being sandbagged by Rove in 2000 when he considered switching parties himself.

If some voters have a problem wrapping their minds around the idea of Obama in the Oval Office, they may be equally bewitched, bothered and bewildered by whoever McCain chooses to be an elderly heartbeat away.

Cross-posted from my blog.

I like Rebecca Traister’s piece on the Party Unity My Ass loyalists in Salon very much but I love this woman.

The setting:

Whether they knew it or not, the PUMAs who had congregated next to the MSNBC stage were making the night of the man who has done everything in his power to destroy their purported heroine. They held aloft Clinton signs and hand-markered cards reading “Stop Delegate Intimidation!” and “South Jersey PUMA.” At one point, three women and three men holding “McCain” signs started a melodic chorus of “Clintons for McCain, sweetie, Clintons for McCain, sweetie,” in reference to Barack Obama’s bad habit of referring to women by that diminutive. Next to them, a man in an Obama hat shouted, “You’re all irrelevant! Jesus!”

But irrelevant is not how the protesters will be portrayed by a media that has been salivating over the possible disruption of the Democratic convention — by angry, broom-riding succubi! — for weeks. Never mind that there were probably no more than 50 shouting PUMAs. Never mind that every national political convention in modern history becomes a locus for vocal agitators. Never mind that over the weekend, antiwar protests had been larger. Never mind that in three days in Denver I had not spotted a single PUMA or Hillary protester until I found where Chris Matthews was broadcasting. Never mind the guy in the toilet outfit. To hear Matthews, and the talking heads at CNN tell it, these demonstrators were “ground zero” in a rift that could potentially destroy the Democratic Party and ruin its national convention.

And from the woman I love, Marie Wilson, founder of The White House Project:

“There is such a fear of women coming into power, that when they protest, they are given more weight,” said Marie Wilson, head of the White House Project, before speaking as part of the Unconventional Women’s programming, acknowledging the likelihood of protest. “Just the fact of women saying they support their candidate and want to make their voices heard sounds more scary than it would be if it were guys. That’s just part of backlash. But come on. When women gather around a water fountain, men get scared. People oughta just chill.”

Wilson acknowledges that there will be residual tension at the convention. But she sees the discord as a positive thing, a perhaps painful step in the right direction. “Putting issues on the table” — as opposed to keeping political frustrations pent up — “is what is going to bring people together.” Wilson believes that in the wake of Hillary’s run, “we are in the middle of a revolution. Women are stepping up and taking power.” She said her organization, which encourages women to seek elected office, has seen a 61 percent increase in participation in the past year. [emphasis mine]

Count 29 year old Hough resident, Stephanie Howse, Cleveland’s newest city council member, as part of that 61%.

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Memo to disaffected Clinton Democrats arriving in Denver: Forty years ago at the convention in Chicago, as a delegate supporting anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy, I was tear-gassed by the police of Mayor Richard Daley, a supporter of Hubert Humphrey. The Democrats lost that election and Richard Nixon moved into the White House.

The internal strife will be less riotous this week, but the danger of self-inflicted damage is just as great. The passions in 1968 were political, about ending a war, but the powerful feelings of 2008 are personal, about perceived sexism and disrespect for the first woman within reach of a presidential nomination.

From the sidelines, hopeful Republicans are shedding crocodile tears for Hillary Clinton with TV commercials about being “passed over,” and ardent feminists like William Kristol are bemoaning “The Democrats’ Glass Ceiling.”

Such sympathy is touching, coming from those whose political sensitivities have brought on a devastating war and economic chaos, but Democrats of all persuasions are faced with the challenge of not letting their own passion for fairness and justice lead to another victory for politicians whose priorities are power and privilege.

That would be cause for sadness beyond tears.

Cross-posted from my blog.

Lilly Ledbetter is the latest addition to the list of speakers at the Democratic convention next week, and her appearance may possibly do Barack Obama as much good as Hillary Clinton’s.

In today’s Washington Post, Ruth Marcus explains: “Ledbetter was on the losing end of a Supreme Court case last year on equal pay. A manager at a Goodyear tire plant in Alabama, she consistently received smaller raises than her male counterparts. The Supreme Court threw out her suit because, the five-justice majority said, she waited too long to complain, even though she didn’t know about the pay difference earlier.

“Now, a bill to fix this equal pay Catch-22 is pending in Congress–and the Ledbetter case has emerged as a key piece of Obama’s effort to woo women. In particular, working women, less-educated women, older women. Women who voted for a certain woman and haven’t come around to the guy who defeated her.”

Obama is co-sponsoring legislation to reverse the result in the case. McCain opposes it. When Lilly Ledbetter takes the stage in Denver next week, her presence may make a stronger argument for the Democratic nominee than anything Hillary Clinton could possibly say.

Cross-posted from my blog.