March 15, 2010
Winning at all Costs
George Pickett: Colonel, think on it now. Suppose that we all joined a club, a gentlemen's club. After a time, several of the members began to intrude themselves... into our private lives, our home lives. Began telling us what we could and couldn't do. Well, then, wouldn't any one of us have the right to resign? I mean, just resign. That's what we did. That's what I did and now these people are telling us we don't have that right.
Pete Longstreet: I got to hand it to you, General. You certainly do have a talent for trivializing the momentous... and complicating the obvious.
Reading the debate between Jonah Goldberg, Andy McCarthy and Paul Mirengoff, I couldn't help but think of one of my favorite scenes from the movie, Gettysburg. In it, the Confederate army are sitting around a campfire debating the merits of The Cause. In the end, their passionate and heartfelt rhetoric is trumped by the dour practicality of an experienced battle commander:
I don't think on that too much anymore. I guess my only cause is victory. This war comes as a nightmare. You pick your nightmare side. Then you put your head down and win.
I've mostly stopped writing about the war. I won't go into the reasons for that here: I could write a book on that topic and still not begin to cover it well. Let's just say it's a sore subject for this Marine wife. But it strikes me that this issue is being overcomplicated with a lot of talk about Islam and Islamism and treason when in essence the merits of the demand for transparency with regard to the so-called 'al Qaeda 7' are really quite simple.
I don't know - and frankly don't care - what motivated these attorneys to represent accused enemy combatants. Questions of motivation are not only politically charged, but nearly impossible to prove definitively. So far as the merits of the disclosure request go, it doesn't even matter whether some detainees were innocent.
The simple fact of the matter is that if any of the attorneys hired by Eric Holder's Justice department are guilty of offenses like these, they are - by definition - unfit to hold public office. In fact, I'd argue that if they are guilty of such acts, they deserve to be disbarred:
We obtained Justice Department accounts of some of those incidents under a Freedom of Information Act request. Examples included an incident in which a lawyer sent his detainee client the transcript of a virulently anti-American speech that compared military physicians to Joseph Mengele, the Nazi doctor of Auschwitz, called DOJ lawyers "desk torturers" and suggested that the "abuses carried out by U.S. forces at Abu Ghraib . . . could involve the President in the commission of war crimes."Other incidents listed in the FOIA material included: a lawyer who was caught in the act of making a hand-drawn map of a detention camp's layout, including guard towers; a lawyer who sent a letter to his detainee client telling him that "we cannot depend on the military to do the right thing" and conveying his message of support to other detainees who were not his clients; lawyers who posted photos of Guantanamo security badges on the Internet; lawyers who provided news outlets with "interviews" of their clients using questions provided in advance by the news organization; and a lawyer who gave his client a list of all the detainees.
They ought to be disbarred because defense attorneys are bound by the rule of law. In fact, it is arguable that attorneys, by virtue of the legal expertise they possess, should be held to an even higher standard than laypersons. Even the most sincere and zealous advocates cannot pick and choose which laws they will obey, no matter how desirable the end result may seem to them:
At Guantanamo, "legal mail" is strictly limited to correspondence between counsel and a detainee that is related to representation of the detainee, privileged documents and publicly filed legal documents. But even "legal mail," according to the rules mandated by Judge Joyce Hens Green in a 2004 protective order, prohibits lawyers from giving detainees information relating to military operations, intelligence, arrests, political news and current events, and the names of U.S. government personnel. Lawyers are forbidden from discussing other detainee cases not directly related to the representation of their own client.
The real irony here is that these attorneys justify their own malfeasance by claiming their actions were necessary to uphold the rule of law. But one does not defend the rule of law by violating it.
Regardless of the legal merits of their respective positions, a common thread unites Pentagon interrogators, Gitmo personnel and civilian counsel who volunteered to defend the sworn enemies of the United States: exigency. They all claim their acts were necessary to save lives and uphold the rule of law.
The Department of Defense claims it was trying to save the lives of millions of American citizens, the overwhelming majority of whom are innocent. The civilian attorneys, on the other hand, claim they were protecting the lives of a small number of accused enemy combatants (some of whom may be innocent). That's a pretty fundamental difference but in the end it, too, is irrelevant. Arguments can be made regarding the relative weight to be applied to ends and means when protecting millions of innocent lives vs. a few possibly innocent lives. The fact remains, however, that having explicitly rejected exigency as immoral and unethical, these attorneys cannot then claim exigency as a defense for their own actions. They cannot claim to defend the rule of law by violating it. And clearly they cannot be trusted to act on behalf of the U.S. government if they refuse to abide by our laws.
Questions about whether Islam and Islamism are one and the same or whether the acts of detainee counsel rise to the level of treason are interesting questions, but in the end they, too, are beside the point.
We deserve to know if the Eric Holder has nominated attorneys who violated both the law and the code of professional conduct they promised to uphold when they became members of the bar. There is no separate code or set of rules for detainee counsel. One does not prove the end does not justify the means by adopting the very tactic one claims to oppose. If winning at all costs - even in wartime - violates the basic tenets of civil society, one has to ask: how do these men and women sleep at night knowing they have become everything they claim to hate?
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March 13, 2010
The Black Bra (as told by a woman)
I had lunch with 2 of my unmarried friends.One is engaged, one is a mistress, and I have been married for 20+ years.We were chatting about our relationships and decided to amaze our men by greeting them at the door wearing a black bra, stiletto heels and a mask over our eyes. We agreed to meet in a few days to exchange notes...
Here's how it all went.
My engaged friend:
The other night when my boyfriend came over he found me with a black leather bodice, tall stilettos and a mask. He saw me and said, 'You are the woman of my dreams. I love you.' Then we made passionate love all night long.The mistress:
Me too! The other night I met my lover at his office and I was wearing a raincoat, under it only the black bra, heels and Mask over my eyes. When I opened the raincoat he didn't say a word, but he started to tremble and we had wild sex all night.
Then I had to share my story:
When my husband came home I was wearing the black bra,
Black stockings, stilettos and a mask over my eyes.
When he came in the door and saw me he said,
"What's for dinner, Zorro?"
Thanks to Fausta.
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March 12, 2010
Friday Nite Dedication
For Pile. And Don. And all my dearest, oldest friends.
When the road gets dark
And you can no longer see
Just let my love throw a spark
And have a little faith in me
And when the tears you cry
Are all you can believe
Just give these loving arms a try
And have a little faith in me
This song didn't make a big impression on me the first 35 times I heard it. But it snuck up on me.
...and one to bring y'all up:
Now I'm in my car
Ooh, I got the radio on
Now I'm yellin' at the kids in the back
Cuz they're banging like Charlie Watts
You think you've come so far
In this one horse town
Then she's laughing that crazy laugh
Cuz you haven't left the parkin' lot
Time is short and here's the damn thing about it
You're gonna die, gonna die for sure
And you can learn to LIVE with love or without it
But there ain't no cure
It's just a slow turning
From the inside out
A slow turning
But you come about...
Thanks for being there, all these years.
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*sigh*
Are these folks out of their minds?
The World Association of Girl Scouts and Girl Guides hosted a no-adults-welcome panel at the United Nations this week where Planned Parenthood was allowed to distribute a brochure entitled "Healthy, Happy and Hot." The event was part of the annual United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) which concludes this week.Happy, Healthy and Hot The brochure, aimed at young people living with HIV, contains explicit and graphic details on sex, as well as the promotion of casual sex in many forms. The brochure claims, "Many people think sex is just about vaginal or anal intercourse... But, there are lots of different ways to have sex and lots of different types of sex. There is no right or wrong way to have sex. Just have fun, explore and be yourself!" The brochure goes on to encourage young people to "Improve your sex life by getting to know your own body. Play with yourself! Masturbation is a great way to find out more about your body and what you find sexually stimulating. Mix things up by using different kinds of touch from very soft to hard. Talk about or act out your fantasies. Talk dirty to them."
My favorite part: page 8.
Some countries have laws that say people living with HIV must tell their sexual partner(s) about their status before having sex, even if they use condoms or only engage in sexual activity with a low risk of giving HIV to someone else. These laws violate the rights of people living with HIV by forcing them to disclose or face the possibility of criminal charges.
Call me old fashioned, but no one has a "right" to expose a partner to a potentially deadly disease without their knowledge or consent. But then I didn't think a patient's bill of rights included the right to demand sexual services from female health care providers either.
Silly me. No wonder I'm confused.
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Happily Never After
All government —
indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment,
every virtue and every prudent act —
is founded on compromise and barter.- Edmund Burke
Recently while reading a friend's essay, I found myself pondering the wise words of Edmund Burke, not in their intended sphere, but as applies to men, women, and the holy state of matrimony:
This NSFW "Best Divorce Letter Ever" via the ever-contradictory Gerard, who writes so well at American Digest on more (to me) congenial topics, that one shouldn't get one's knickers in a twist about it.I have to say, tho, that it left me feeling rather grimy. As all my friends and relatives know, I am the proverbial repressed WASP and proud. The more I read of such points of view (even when just internet froth) the more I appreciate my spouse, and think that it would be better to be celibate or live like a hermit than join the casual sex crowd. I found the letter both funny and appalling. Of course I read on...We are all voyeurs some of the time. It was a bit like reading National Geographic as a child: look at all those naked people, is that what people look like under their clothes?
"Is this how people really think? How awful."
That's a thought I find myself having more and more as I traverse the Internet. But I was bothered by the title of the essay. Since when did it become prissy or prudish to expect people not to behave reprehensibly? Like Retriever I fully realize the letter (along with the one she linked earlier) was meant to be a joke but if so, it's a bitter and barbed one. I've never thought of myself as a prude, but more and more these days those words seem to have become the ne plus ultra of argument enders. No need to acknowledge - much less respond to - the argument being advanced. The speaker can safely be dismissed. After all, he or she is a prude and who pays attention to those people? Their very refusal to acquiesce to your world view makes them - by definition - unreasonable.
But still, I wonder: when did it become unacceptable to have standards? To hold out hope for - to expect - not demand, not compel, but champion what we think is right? Let's face it - we're all adults. Few, if any of us possess the power to force others to our will. So why are we faintly ashamed of the weakly flickering impulse to virtue; as though to walk the walk as confidently as we talk the talk diminishes us in some way? Makes us chumps?
Laughable. Deluded, even. We're like little children afraid of doing something that isn't cool. The other kids might laugh at us.
Continue reading "Happily Never After"
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So, What Are Your Major Turnoffs?
This is something I wrote about 5 years ago during an extended hiatus from blogging. I brought it back here to VC because it bears on something I'm going to write about later today.
Good Lord how do I find this stuff? Not writing about politics is going to be the death of me. There ought to be a 12-step program for former bloggers trying to kick the habit. I don't have time to read literature (what I thought I'd be doing with all this glorious free time I don't have). My work schedule is just too hectic right now and my brain is completely fried from editing. That leaves my other major recreational interest...
Well I suppose there is alcohol too, but I fail to see what there is to write about there and Hubris seems to have the whole drunk-blogging metier pretty well covered. At any rate, muddled in with an inordinate amount of psycho-babble, this woman is exploring her control issues:
I used to be a "frigid" wife.I knew even before I got married that I wouldn't be able to keep up the "schedule" of sex my husband and I had established during our courtship, and once I even warned him that it was going to have to slow down. But I think that went in one ear and out the other at supersonic speed, touching nothing in between.
Sure enough, not long after we got married sex became a battleground for us, and we struggled with the problem like two fish flopping around next to each other in the bottom of an open boat: gasping for a natural breath and injuring ourselves with every pointless, ineffectual spasm. [Ed. note: Lovely metaphor there]
To me it seemed simple: he wanted me to be his sexual appliance, a handy-dandy love machine that could be switched on and off at his command. I felt no desire, and I didn't want to "submit" to being handled and penetrated when I wasn't in the mood. If he really loved me, this sex thing, this "merely physical" part of our lives, wouldn't be such a big freakin' deal. And his pissy, furious responses to my refusals only made me more sure that he didn't really love me. He just wanted to use my vagina.
To him it seemed simple, too. If I loved him -- as I consistently claimed -- why didn't I want to make love?
Actually there probably aren't too many women who haven't had those thoughts at one time or another, but "I wouldn't be able to keep up the "schedule" of sex my husband and I had established during our courtship..."? Good nightshirt... did she pencil him in on her DayTimer right next to having her teeth cleaned and the every-other-week bang trimming at Chez Kenneth? *Not* a good sign.
I don't know what scares me more here: that she had a "sexual renaissance" or that she felt the need to blog about it. Did she discuss it with her husband first? How does he feel about having their bedroom difficulties aired over the Internet? Seems a rather hostile way of working out your problems. In all fairness, however, I'm not sure the issues were all on her side:
Continue reading "So, What Are Your Major Turnoffs?"
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March 11, 2010
Man...
I have got to get out more.
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Why I Rarely Watch TV News...
...in a nutshell (warning: language NSFW or small children):
Also, this from the folks across the pond. Jeez. Even their parodies sound more intelligent than ours.
via The Other VC
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March 10, 2010
Losing My Battle Buddy
Shortly after The Spousal Unit informed me with his customary elan that there was one last deployment in the offing, my friend Carrie gave me a Battle Buddy necklace. Because it was summer (and because I'm constitutionally incapable of doing the normal thing), I doubled it up and turned it into an anklet.
Military wives talk a lot about the need for a support system when a loved one deploys. We rely on friends, neighbors, family, and most importantly other military wives who've been there and know the drill.
I haven't written much about this deployment. That's fairly typical for me. The more something bothers me, the less likely I am to want to discuss it. I deal with situations I can't control by attempting to ignore them. If I'm lonely, I clean the basement. Again. If I'm feeling sorry for myself, I clam up. I don't really want to talk about my feelings. I don't want other people feeling sorry for me. Like dour Pete Longstreet, I just put my head down and try to bull through it.
That's had a real effect on my writing because all this silence about things I can't control doubles back on itself after a while. It raises a barrier between you and your feelings and in the weeks and months that follow, that wall grows stronger and higher with each stifled thought. The thing is, though, some things can't be put off forever. I'll be muddling along and suddenly up from the graveyard of my subconscious shoots the dreaded zombie hand, fingers twitching menacingly as it thrusts upward through the compost of my soul. And I just know that if I don't deal with it, it will stir up the dust bunnies under the daybed and shrivel the houseplants.
Or the two week old green peppers in my crisper will begin speaking in tongues when I open the refrigerator door. And don't pretend that hasn't happened to every single one of you because I happen to know better. So much for the Super Woman act. When the Dreaded Zombie Hand appears, even the strongest of us know that the jig is up.
There was an omission in my support system. I left out someone who has been there for me through three deployments now: two that lasted a year and one I'm nearly 6 months into. I didn't intend to leave him out. It's just that sometimes you don't fully appreciate how much a loved one means to you until he's no longer there to remind you that you were never alone.
Unlike my other battle buddies, he walked on four feet instead of two. But his ears were always ready to listen and his heart was bigger than one might expect for someone who weighed a whopping 16 pounds soaking wet. As it turned out, it was his mighty little heart that failed him.
Sausage came to live with us 13 years ago. We bought him from a neighbor who had a sign in her yard:
Dachshund pups: 35 bucks
He was the runt of the litter. Originally we had wanted a female and she had another litter coming. Certainly it would have been more convenient to wait. But it was Christmas Eve and all his brothers and sisters had been adopted by loving families. No one wanted him. How could they have known that they'd passed over the best of the bunch?
He came into a home occupied by an aging beagle in the last months of her life. We'd hoped a puppy would perk her up but Sausage quickly became the bane of her existence. Molly had a bad hip and it must have galled her no end to be stalked by a pesky 2 pound bundle of doofyness who thought he was Rocky the Flying Squirrel. Sausage adored Molly. I wish I could say she returned his affection but that would be a lie. Still, she was unfailingly gentle with him no matter how he pestered her. He would take a running start and launch himself through the air, paws spread in all four directions water bug style, eventually making contact with a tiny "plop". After several weeks of this, poor Molly had finally had enough.
I've never forgotten the sight of her gently flipping him on his back and pinning him to the carpet by his outflung ears. An almost imperceptible growl and an extremely severe look were enough to ensure that he never jumped on her again.
How do dogs do that? How do they know that babies require different rules? In his final weeks, Molly was amply revenged. My two year old grandson was utterly obsessed with Sausage. At least 10 or 15 times a day he would burst into the room where I was working, grab Grandma's finger, and drag me to wherever poor Sausage was cowering. I would acknowledge that there was indeed a dog in the house and my grandson would toddle off, satisfied. From time to time, he would decide that the dog needed a large object placed on him while he was sleeping. Like Molly had done so many years before, Sausage responded to these assaults with patient resignation.
Unlike our experience with Molly, being around my grandson seemed to perk Sausage up. He did things we hadn't seen him do for months: climb stairs. Run. His little candle burned so brightly that I began to wonder whether part of the ailments he'd been plagued with recently weren't due to loneliness? With the boys and my husband gone, there was only me. Perhaps I had neglected him?
But the improvement in his health and energy was an illusion. One evening as my son and I worked to assemble a china hutch for the kitchen, he began throwing up. Or at least that's what we thought: surely he'd just eaten something disgusting. In the space of a few hours he went from bad to worse and I took him in to the vet around midnight. But I had no idea how bad things had gotten. I thought he'd get some stomach medicine and rally as he always had before.
They gave me a cardboard "casket" to carry him home in. That struck me as funny in a way. The box was many times bigger than he was, and as I dug a hole in my son's back yard on a blustery morning I had spaghetti Western visions of myself in a long calico dress on the prairie, wind blowing my hair into my eyes as I struggled with the frozen sod. Always the drama queen.
Sausage would have understood that I was laughing at myself and my one woman pity party. He understood a lot for such a small beast. He was the one who always saw the worst of me. My irritable flashes when he ceremoniously disgraced himself at the customary place under my dining room table. My shouted, "YOU ATE MY STEAK!!! YOU LITTLE THIEF!" during the last deployment when I put down my grocery bag to answer the phone. All the times when too many weeks of silence came pouring out in a flood of self-pitying tears.
If you want to know what real love is, get a dog. They are always faithful, always kind, and above all always forgiving. Even when you don't deserve it. Especially when you don't deserve it. They will wait up for you after everyone else has gone to bed: tail thumping the carpet madly as you walk inside after a long day at work.
The stud muffin in his bitchin' ski jacket. Always a hit with the ladies...
The silence in my house reminds me that I was never alone, even though there were times when it felt like it. Not while my battle buddy was there to stick a cold nose on my shins when I least expected it, or snuggle contentedly in my lap as I dozed on the sofa in the evenings.
Or steal my blankets.
There is nothing worse than a cold, wet nose on your shins. Except, perhaps, wishing you could feel that icy cold nose just one more time.
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True Grit
Every time I'm tempted to despair, I read something like this and suddenly America seems a great nation to me once more:
Hanley was leading a squad of 11 Marines on foot patrol in Garmsir City when a tripwire detonated the IED, his mother said."He actually was unconscious for a little while. When he woke up, he did not want to be on the gurney when they took him to the bird (the casualty evacuation helicopter). He wanted to walk," Diane Hanley said from her son's bedside yesterday.
"I asked him: 'I heard you walked to the bird.' His eyes were closed but he shook his head yes. I said, 'I bet that was your way of giving your men the thumbs up and the Taliban the middle finger.' He whispered, 'I ran to the bird.' He wanted (Taliban forces) to see him walking away so they didn't think they got the best of him."
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March 09, 2010
Needed: More Shower Diplomacy?
Kinda gives a whole new meaning to the term, "pressing the flesh", doesn't it?
In Massa’s weekly radio show on New York station WKPQ Power 105 FM, made available via the Web site of local station 13 WHAM-TV, he recounts running into Emanuel in the House gym, where the shower curtains had inexplicably been removed. “I’m ... naked as a jay bird, and here comes Rahm Emanuel, not even with a towel wrapped around his tush, poking his finger in my chest, yelling at me because I wasn’t going to vote for the president’s budget,” Massa said. “Do you know how awkward it is to have a political argument with a naked man?”
On the otter heiny, perhaps such unorthodox techniques might have helped old 'Bam win a few hearts and minds in the global community:
I recently asked several senior administration officials, separately, to name a foreign leader with whom Barack Obama has forged a strong personal relationship during his first year in office. A lot of hemming and hawing ensued.One official mentioned French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who is scheduled to bring his glamorous wife to the White House residence this month for a couples dinner with Barack and Michelle Obama. But in France, Sarkozy's bitterness toward Obama, the product of several perceived snubs, is an open secret, reported widely in the French press. In a speech at the U.N. General Assembly in September Sarkozy appeared to mock Obama's signature disarmament initiative, saying "we are living in a real world, not a virtual world."
Angela Merkel's name also came up: Obama and the German chancellor, I was told, share a down-to-business pragmatism. But Merkel, too, has been conspicuously cool toward Obama ever since he made Berlin a stop on his 2008 election campaign. She stopped him then from appearing at the Brandenburg Gate and was said to be miffed last November when Obama didn't show for ceremonies celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. Anyway, diplomats say that Merkel has a much warmer relationship with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
No one named Gordon Brown. That's fairly remarkable: The relationship between the sitting British prime minister and U.S. president has been consistently close over the past 30 years. Think Reagan and Thatcher, Clinton and Blair, Bush and Blair. But Obama has been portrayed as dissing Brown ever since he presented him with a set of DVDs as a gift during their first meeting in Washington a year ago. Last fall the British press reported that the White House had turned down five requests for Obama to meet Brown one-on-one at the United Nations or the G-20 summit.
Maybe what's needed here is a more personal approach. Then again, getting up close and personal doesn't seem to have worked too well for Rahm Emmanuel:
... [Massa's] naked-truth assessment of the brusque chief of staff: “Rahm Emanuel is [the] son of the devil’s spawn. He is an individual who would sell his mother to get a vote. He would strap his children to the front end of a steam locomotive.”
Meeee-ouch, girlfriend. And these are the smart people who were going to show us all how politics is supposed to be done?
Too funny.
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I'm Going on a Diet...
So *that's* why the spousal unit is generally preceded through the front door by a bottle of wine. Best line in the whole article:
In the current study, women consuming more alcohol ate less, particularly carbohydrates -- a finding seen in other studies. Moreover, it's been shown that women tend to expend more energy after drinking alcohol -- more so than that contained in the alcohol.
Hmmm. Now what on earth could account for that?
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March 08, 2010
Missing the Point, Big Time
Honestly, this really is not rocket science.
Our unusually smart commenters need to weigh in on the ageless question.
Age has nothing to do with the question of propriety. A state dinner is not a fashion show.
First of all, the disclaimers: Bruni looks lovely. There is nothing wrong with her breasts. They are lovely too. And I'm not shocked by her nipples, but then as the proud owner of two nipples of my own that's hardly surprising.
These things are all beside the point. If she's at a private function (in other words, any time she and her husband are appearing as Mr. and Mrs. Sarkozy rather than hosting an official state dinner as the President and his First Lady) Carla Bruni can and should dress as she pleases.
When did we lose the notion that heads of state (and when they appear at a state function, their families) represent something larger than themselves? Ms. Bruni's role was not that of a former model, nor was she simply "Carla". She was the hostess of a state dinner; the wife of the French President. There's a reason such affairs are snooze fests: the attendees (to say nothing of the host and hostess)are expected to exercise a little self restraint.
Bralessness and large expanses of cleavage are normal and expected at the beach or at social functions when people are expected to relax and be themselves. At work, however, they are considered inappropriate for a variety of reasons:
1. At work, employees do not act solely as individuals - they act on behalf of (and represent) their employer. Their behavior and appearance reflect upon their employers and it's not unreasonable to expect them to exercise more restraint and decorum than they would at home.
2. It's distracting and inconsiderate to provide that much visual stimulation to men who are trying to concentrate on their work and who are expected to treat women as fellow professionals rather than objects of desire.
As amusing as it is to watch liberated women like Taylor Marsh demand the "right" to expose their mammary glands to public scrutiny express their "sensuality" in the workplace and then shriek like scalded cats when some poor male coworker has the temerity to notice what they plainly want him to notice, I can't help but observe that such behavior is even more inappropriate at a state dinner than it is in the workplace.
It is not at all unusual for state dinners to involve guests from many different cultures, not all of whom are comfortable with scantily dressed or braless women. I have it on good authority that nipples attract a lot of attention from red blooded menfolk. Thus, it shouldn't take a brain surgeon to understand that persons appearing in an official capacity have a role to play that often precludes the full expression of their individual tastes - even though these tastes might be perfectly kosher in a more relaxed setting.
This is why Michelle Obama was widely criticized for being photographed in casual attire while exiting a plane and for wearing a brightly colored, sleeveless dress to a posthumous Medal of Honor ceremony. There was absolutely nothing wrong with her attire, per se, either time. The problem was that we expected more decorum (not to mention a sense of time and place) from the First Lady.
I can do and say things as "Cass" that I'd never dream of doing or saying as "the Colonel's wife" at an official function because whether I like it or not, my behavior does reflect upon both my husband and the Marine Corps. It has never been worth it to me to make a statement by affirming my individuality at such occasions because they're not really about me.
Adults used to understand that. I'm not sure when that changed.
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Much Ado About Sarah
Paul J. of Comic Nut's Jar has posed a question:
Sarah Palin, in my opinion, is a "throwback" type of politician.It's my belief that in this country's infancy the politicians were
people that led working, middle/middle-upper class lives. They saw a
way to serve their country in some capacity (be it a president, a
mayor, a governor, senator etc) and then they returned to their normal lives as American citizens.Today, we seem have nothing but career politicians. People born into
political families who seem to know nothing about how the average
American lives on a day to day basis.Palin reminds me of those politicians of old. She's your next door
neighbor, the other mom at your kid's karate class etc - but with a
keen political view.So here is my question:
Why did Palin stir up so much emotion? Do you think the reason she is so despised by some is that she threatens "The Elite's" control on
politics?Is it that the middle class is so disgusting to these people they
couldn't imagine a member of the unwashed mass leading people? Or is
she really just stupid? Or is it something else entirely?
First, let's deal with the factors identified by Paul:
1. Do you think the reason she is so despised by some is that she threatens "The Elite's" control on politics?
I very much doubt the average American harbors deep affection for members of the political elite. I find it even harder to believe the average voter has any real desire to protect or preserve their interests. Voters are more interested in protecting their own interests, however perceived or defined. To the extent a politician succeeds in identifying himself with those interests or in convincing the public he can deliver what they want, he will succeed or fail. This was Obama's greatest strength as a candidate: people heard what they wanted to hear in his speeches. Rightly or wrongly, they were convinced what he was selling was what they wanted.
2. Is it that the middle class is so disgusting to these people they couldn't imagine a member of the unwashed mass leading people?
I'm not sure what class has to do with anything. When Microsoft, Intel, GM or any other large corporation hires a CEO, they're interested in experience and ability, not social class. Being an everyman or woman might help people identify with you, but it isn't any kind of qualification for high office.
Here's a better question: what qualifications is it reasonable to expect in a candidate for the highest (or second highest) office in the land? Before throwing the question out to you all, I'll be happy to proffer my own criteria:
1. Leadership experience. When trying to decide whether a candidate can lead the world's largest superpower it seems reasonable to ask, "How much executive experience do you have, and how applicable is it to the Presidency?" As I noted in an earlier post, the job most like the Presidency is governorship of a large state. By this measure Palin was unarguably the most qualified candidate on the slate. On the other hand, Alaska is not California or Texas and she didn't have the depth of experience of a Ronald Reagan, a Lyndon Johnson, or a George Bush. The question here is, "What have you done in your lifetime that demonstrates you have the ability and experience to lead a country of this size?"2. Experience on Capitol Hill or a suitable substitute. Many a politician has seen his hopes of reforming Washington sink in the La Brea tar pit of partisan rancor. Therefore, it seems reasonable to ask whether the candidate can demonstrate the ability to build consensus for his platform and effect enough of a compromise to get fence straddlers on board? The question here is, "What have you done that demonstrates the ability to gain the cooperation of disparate factions behind a large scale initiative?
Though compromise has become a dirty word in politics these days, it is more necessary than ever.
3. Rhetorical ability. Preaching to the choir is fine when your choir is large enough to vote you into office, but the true test of political acumen is finding common ground with those who disagree with you: minimizing differences and emphasizing common interests. Presidents must deal with not only competing constituencies at home but with foreign nations whose interests often sharply conflict with our own. The fine art of sticking to ones' guns without arousing unneeded antipathy is rare. Often it involves not only the ability to state your case forcefully and convincingly, but also the ability to smooth the waters and provide enough political cover for at least some of your opponents to support you without alienating their own constituents.
I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the President or Vice President to have more experience and more ability than your next door neighbor. I like most of my neighbors, but I wouldn't vote for any of them for President. This isn't elitism. It's common sense.
3. Or is she really just stupid? Or is it something else entirely?
The over the top rants of her detractors, though highly entertaining, aren't terribly convincing. Palin is clearly not a stupid woman. Being deep selected as the VP candidate presented her with about as difficult a task as any politician has ever faced. To her credit, she performed remarkably well. It was hard enough being catapulted onto the national stage without sufficient prep time, but Palin was further constrained by the knowledge that it wasn't her campaign. She was expected to champion a platform she had no hand in shaping.
Joe Biden, an experienced political hand who faced none of the hostility the press directed at Palin, had a hard time remembering what he was supposed to support. His job wasn't half as difficult as Palin's.
I attribute the strong emotion Palin evokes to three things:
1. Her lifestyle. Palin's image and identity provide constant reminders of divisive social issues like the role of faith in public life, abortion, traditional marriage, and women's liberation.
To traditional conservatives, Palin champions everything they hold dear: family, God, country, traditional morals. But in a society where marriage and childbearing are declining, where many women have abortions from convenience rather than necessity, where women have chosen careers over home and hearth, Palin's life represents an unspoken reproach. The very qualities that endear her to conservatives make progressives and secular voters feel bad about themselves and she hasn't yet found a way to champion traditional values without seeming smug or preachy to those who don't agree with her. In her defense, I think this is a far more formidable task for a female candidate than it would be for a male politician.
2. Her directness, self assurance, and strong beliefs. One of the greatest challenges faced by conservatives is convincing secular America that one can have strong faith and traditional morals without wishing to impose either of these things upon others.
The conviction with which she defends traditional conservative values is music to the ears of her supporters. What they don't seem to realize is that these same qualities grate harshly on the ears of those whose beliefs differ from hers. The qualities that endear her to many conservatives play differently with independents and progressives. This is something Palin will need to address if she wants a place on the national stage.
3. The perception that Palin is underprepared and inarticulate.
Given the right venue and a narrow enough message, Palin can deliver a good speech. But at the risk of stirring up the wrath of you unwashed masses, I've never heard her present a clear and convincing defense of conservative ideas. For an example of what I'm talking about, read one of Reagan's classic speeches:
We have so many people who can't see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one. So they're going to solve all the problems of human misery through government and government planning. Well, now, if government planning and welfare had the answer—and they've had almost 30 years of it—shouldn't we expect government to read the score to us once in a while? Shouldn't they be telling us about the decline each year in the number of people needing help? The reduction in the need for public housing?But the reverse is true. Each year the need grows greater; the program grows greater. We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry each night. Well that was probably true. They were all on a diet. But now we're told that 9.3 million families in this country are poverty-stricken on the basis of earning less than 3,000 dollars a year. Welfare spending [is] 10 times greater than in the dark depths of the Depression. We're spending 45 billion dollars on welfare. Now do a little arithmetic, and you'll find that if we divided the 45 billion dollars up equally among those 9 million poor families, we'd be able to give each family 4,600 dollars a year. And this added to their present income should eliminate poverty. Direct aid to the poor, however, is only running only about 600 dollars per family. It would seem that someplace there must be some overhead.
That speech was made almost half a century ago and it remains a masterpiece. What has Sarah Palin produced that is comparable?
I say this, not to diminish her very real ability but to provide some context for my judgment that she's not ready yet. Ronald Reagan faced vigorous opposition both from within his own party and from his political opponents. But there's a reason he was called the Great Communicator. It probably didn't hurt that Reagan was a former Democrat who voted for FDR 4 times. He had an insider's understanding of liberalism and he used it to forge a concise, coherent conservative vision that attracted conservative and moderate Democrats as well as traditional Republicans and libertarians.
Perhaps some day Palin will be able to do that. She's not able to do it now, or at least she hasn't demonstrated that ability.
Posted by Cassandra at 08:29 AM | Comments (26) |TrackBack (0) | Blogroll VC!
