The tyranny of inequality

A recurring question has surfaced among the talking heads (over-)eulogizing Elizabeth Edwards: Why didn’t she run for public office?

She was certainly more likable than her husband and every bit as accomplished. But she was born in the 40s. In the South. Becoming president, senator or even governor was not a realistic goal. If you wanted political influence, best get hitched to the BMOC. Obviously she could have done better.

Inequality shallows the pool. We get *John Edwards when we could’ve had Elizabeth Anania. That’s not to say she would’ve made a great president, and, like 99.9 percent of us, she was no saint. She was a politician, and saints don’t enter politics.

But she was impressive. I admired her refusal to embrace the cult of the victim so ably exploited by another prominent female politician — one who had the good fortune of being born 15 years later.

*I’ve been criticized for piling on John Edwards, although I have to question anyone who wastes sympathy on a creep who abandoned his cancer-stricken partner in favor of a spiteful bimbo.

(“After learning who [Edwards] was, she gave her business card to one of Edwards’ aides. “It said, ‘Rielle Hunter. Being is free.’ “)

Precious.

As revealing as that affair was, this anecdote, from veteran Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, says even more about the shallow character of John Edwards.

Kerry talked with several potential picks, including Gephardt and Edwards. He was comfortable after his conversations with Gephardt, but even queasier about Edwards after they met. Edwards had told Kerry he was going to share a story with him that he’d never told anyone else—that after his son Wade had been killed, he climbed onto the slab at the funeral home, laid there and hugged his body, and promised that he’d do all he could to make life better for people, to live up to Wade’s ideals of service. Kerry was stunned, not moved, because, as he told me later, Edwards had recounted the same exact story to him, almost in the exact same words, a year or two before—and with the same preface, that he’d never shared the memory with anyone else.

I’ve yet to hear any rebuttals. Shrum has his agendas, but, considering the subject, are you surprised?

Related Articles

• Elizabeth Edwards dies of cancer (politico.com)

obama’s islam adviser says something very, very stupid

An outrageous whitewash from Obama’s adviser on Muslim affairs:

“The majority of women around the world associate gender justice, or justice for women, with sharia compliance,” said Dalia Mogahed, appearing on a British talk show hosted by a member of the extremist Hizb ut Tahrir party.

FYI: Not a peep about this on NOW’s website.

the world’s silliest feminist

She posed for a glamour shot on the jacket of her book, “The Beauty Myth,” that attacked media exploitation of women. She famously advised Al Gore to wear earth tones. Last year, she called the tasering of that University of Florida student (“Don’t tase me, bro!”) “an iconic turning point and it will be remembered as the moment at which America either fought back or yielded.”

Clearly, Naomi Wolf is an idiot. The evidence continues to mount; this essay, about Angelina Jolie, is as nauseating a piece of celebrity worship as you’ll ever read.

The magic of Jolie’s self-presentation? She makes the claim, with her life and actions, that, indeed, you can get away with it. All of it. Against every Western convention, she has managed to draw together all of these kinds of female liberation and empowerment. And her gestures determinedly transgress social boundaries — boundaries of convention, race, class, and gender — giving many of us a vicarious thrill.

another irrelevant victim of a nonexistent conspiracy

Naomi Wolf, who chose a glamour shot for the jacket of the book she authored on how images of beauty are used against women, is terrified.

The former image consultant has learned what Dale Gribble, er, Rusty Shackelford already knew: “Computers don’t make errors. What they do, they do on purpose.” Especially when programmed by Republicans:

Almost everyone I work with on projects related to this campaign for liberty has been experiencing computer harassment: emails are stripped, messages disappear. That’s not all: people’s bank accounts are being tampered with: wire transfers to banks vanish in midair. I personally keep opening bank accounts that are quickly corrupted by fraud. Money vanishes. Coworkers of mine have to keep opening new email accounts as old ones become infected. And most disturbingly to me personally is the mail tampering I have both heard of and experienced firsthand. My tax returns vanished from my mailbox. All my larger envelopes arrive ripped straight open apparently by hand. When I show the postman, he says “That’s impossible.” Horrifyingly to me is the impact on my family. My childrens’ report cards are returned again and again though perfectly addressed; their invitations are turned back; and my daughters many letters from camp? Vanished. All of them. Not one arrived. Try explaining that to a smart thirteen year old. Try explaining it in a way that still makes her feel secure and comfortable.

Let’s hope the agent charged with stealing Naomi Wolf’s mail isn’t under any illusions about their place within the conspiracy, aka “The Grid.” For comparison’s sake, think the lone paparazzo assigned to shadow Joyce DeWitt.

I’ll end with Rusty’s cautionary maxim: “Guns don’t kill people. The government does.”

how to be someone who forms lists telling other people how they should behave

Ever wondered how to be a (male) feminist ally?

Apparently believing in equality isn’t enough. There are rules and standards (among the tips: Think before you speak. Like that works.)

I’ve got a list for you — How not to be a stereotypical humorless feminist.

a hillary postmortem

It wasn’t sexism that cost Hillary the nomination: It was her own misjudgments and mismanagement of a campaign that had the massive support of the nationwide party establishment, constructed by her husband — to whom she owes her entire career, which has thus far been dismayingly free of any significant, concrete achievement. What kind of feminism is this — all smiley show and no substance? Hillary’s latest pose as tribune of the people is contradicted by her snobbish history of catering to the rich and famous as well as her indifference to the legions of small vendors whom her extravagant campaign has stiffed. And no true feminist would tolerate or enable that decades-long pattern of brazen philandering and crude sexual harassment that will forever brand the Clinton chronicles. When will our paleo-feminist dead-enders wake up to the psychological reality that compulsive seducers are misogynists?

–Camille Paglia

fear of lying

Clinton supporter Erica Jong lets loose with the hyperbole.

I didn’t know it would feel this bad. I didn’t know it would feel this personal. I’m all for a united Democratic party. But losing my last chance to see a woman in the White House feels like shit. And the gloating by the press is even worse. It sounds like “I told you so.” It feels like watching Joan of Arc burned at the stake. You can smell the burning flesh.

a convenient feminist

Camille Paglia is a serious feminist. As such, she refuses to take Hillary Clinton seriously.

Hillary has tried to have it both ways: to batten on her husband’s nostalgic popularity while simultaneously claiming to be a victim of sexism.

Well, which is it? Are men convenient sugar daddies or condescending oppressors? …

For all her claims of media bias and ill treatment by her male fellow candidates, Hillary has got off absurdly softly in this campaign. No one — neither her rivals nor mainstream journalists — has had the guts to explore or even list the bursting catalogue of past Clinton scandals, in which Hillary was nearly always hip deep. …

Charges of sexism have become Hillary’s rote strategy for evading scrutiny. But by entangling the noble movement of modern feminism with her own knotty psychodrama, Hillary is reinforcing hoary stereotypes about women. Will every losing woman candidate now turn on the waterworks and claim to be maimed by male pride and prejudice?

Contrast Paglia’s assessment with the dippy empowerment schtick proffered by Arianna Huffington and remind me why anyone takes that former cult enabler seriously.

never her fault

When the going gets desperate, the desperate blame the media. And their campaign strategists. And their opponent. And, of course, sexism.

Women felt this was their time, and this has been stolen from them,” said Marilu Sochor, 48, a real estate agent in Columbus, Ohio, and a Clinton supporter. “Sexism has played a really big role in the race.”

Entitled, just like her candidate. Where’s the evidence?

Mrs. Clinton’s supporters point to a nagging series of slights: the fixation on her clothes, even her cleavage; chronic criticism that her voice is shrill; calls for her to exit the race; and most of all, the male commentators in the news media who, they argue, were consistently tougher on her than on Mr. Obama

There was very little focus on her clothes, and fortunately I don’t remember any talk about her cleavage (cue Sideshow Bob shudder). Her voice is shrill, she should exit the race and she should be asked tough questions. Weak arguments, no case.

“When people look at the arc of the campaign, it will be seen that being a woman, in the end, was not a detriment and if anything it was a help to her,” the presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin said in an interview. Mrs. Clinton’s campaign is faltering, she added, because of “strategic, tactical things that have nothing to do with her being a woman.”

If she wasn’t a woman, would she be getting away with such obvious bullshit?

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is entering the Kentucky and Oregon primaries on Tuesday with one of the most pugnacious political messages of her campaign: That she is ahead in the national popular vote when all votes are counted, including from the unsanctioned primaries in Michigan and Florida, and that party leaders who have a vote as super-delegates should reflect this level of appeal.

This is exactly why she’s losing, and will lose. Now I see Loathsome Bill on TV playing the populist card, dismissing pundits who have dismissed his wife.

They don’t have to worry about filling up their gas tanks, he said, because they have a college degree and a job.

So do you, Bubba — maybe you should follow your own advice and shut up. And since you like hanging out with uneducated factory workers so much, why not move to Akron, or Allentown?

Just get off the stage already.

numbers don’t lie; hillary does

Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman, no doubt. But, as Ryan J. Davis proves, voters have been much more amenable to female candidates than African-Americans. Strangely, I haven’t heard Obama whine about that.

There are currently 14 female U.S. senators: Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). There is currently a single African-American senator, Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who is only the third elected since Reconstruction.

There are currently eight female governors in America: Linda Lingle (R-Hawaii), Jennifer Granholm (D-Mich.), Janet Napolitano (D-Ariz.), Kathleen Sebelius (D-Kan.), Kathleen Blanco (D-La.), M. Jodi Rell (R-Conn.), Christine Gregoire (D-Wash.), and Sarah Palin (R-Alaska). There is currently a single African-American governor, Deval Patrick (D-Mass.).

*Blanco is no longer Louisiana’s governor.

numbers don’t lie; hillary does

Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman, no doubt. But, as Ryan J. Davis proves, voters have been much more amenable to female candidates than African-Americans. Strangely, I haven’t heard Obama whine about that.

There are currently 14 female U.S. senators: Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). There is currently a single African-American senator, Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who is only the third elected since Reconstruction.

There are currently eight female governors in America: Linda Lingle (R-Hawaii), Jennifer Granholm (D-Mich.), Janet Napolitano (D-Ariz.), Kathleen Sebelius (D-Kan.), Kathleen Blanco (D-La.), M. Jodi Rell (R-Conn.), Christine Gregoire (D-Wash.), and Sarah Palin (R-Alaska). There is currently a single African-American governor, Deval Patrick (D-Mass.).

*Blanco is no longer Louisiana’s governor.

it’s a thin line between sexism and truth

Clinton sycophant Taylor Marsh is offended by this statement from Obama: “I understand that Senator Clinton, periodically when she’s feeling down, launches attacks as a way of trying to boost her appeal.”

Clumsy verbiage at worst (especially when you consider the source), though Tay-Tay sees it differently:

According to him, we women just can’t handle the stress of the big time. We get depressed, and lash out …”

Especially when a MALE candidate says this: “You challenge the status quo and suddenly the claws come out.”

Seems innocent to me. Maybe I’m just being insensitive. Maybe I require enlightenment from an indignant female:

Senator Hillary Clinton is a woman running for president. Not some emotional menopausal diva popping pills because she’s depressed she broke a nail.

Good thing he didn’t call Hillary shrill. Use it, and you’re automatically branded a misogynist. But what if a woman is, in fact, strident and intemperate? I suppose there’s a sexist connotation, but I’ve yet to find a more appropriate adjective.

And I don’t use it loosely. Dianne Feinstein, for example, is not shrill. Neither is Nancy Pelosi. Hillary is.

noted and quoted, hillary’s gonads edition

The old-guard feminist establishment has also rushed out of cold storage to embrace Hillary Clinton via tremulous manifestoes of gal power that have startlingly exposed the sentimental slackness of thought that made Gloria Steinem and company wear out their welcome in the first place. Hillary’s gonads must be sending out sci-fi rays that paralyze the paleo-feminist mind — because her career, attached to her husband’s flapping coattails, has sure been heavy on striking pious attitudes but ultra-light on concrete achievements.

–Camille Paglia

it’s a thin line between sexism and truth

Clinton sycophant Taylor Marsh is offended by this statement from Obama: “I understand that Senator Clinton, periodically when she’s feeling down, launches attacks as a way of trying to boost her appeal.”

Clumsy verbiage at worst (especially when you consider the source), though Tay-Tay sees it differently:

According to him, we women just can’t handle the stress of the big time. We get depressed, and lash out …”

Especially when a MALE candidate says this: “You challenge the status quo and suddenly the claws come out.”

Seems innocent to me. Maybe I’m just being insensitive. Maybe I require enlightenment from an indignant female:

Senator Hillary Clinton is a woman running for president. Not some emotional menopausal diva popping pills because she’s depressed she broke a nail.

Good thing he didn’t call Hillary shrill. Use it, and you’re automatically branded a misogynist. But what if a woman is, in fact, strident and intemperate? I suppose there’s a sexist connotation, but I’ve yet to find a more appropriate adjective.

And I don’t use it loosely. Dianne Feinstein, for example, is not shrill. Neither is Nancy Pelosi. Hillary is.

noted and quoted, hillary’s gonads edition

The old-guard feminist establishment has also rushed out of cold storage to embrace Hillary Clinton via tremulous manifestoes of gal power that have startlingly exposed the sentimental slackness of thought that made Gloria Steinem and company wear out their welcome in the first place. Hillary’s gonads must be sending out sci-fi rays that paralyze the paleo-feminist mind — because her career, attached to her husband’s flapping coattails, has sure been heavy on striking pious attitudes but ultra-light on concrete achievements.

–Camille Paglia