When regulating abortion is just the beginning, redux

The Human Nature blog over at Slate.com has posted an update to its story of a few weeks ago regarding HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt and his "proposed regulation to protect medical conscience" that, by broadly defining abortion to (perhaps) include birth control, allowed pharmacists to refuse to dispense birth control based on their conscience. When I blogged about this issue previously, I expressed a fervent hope that Health and Human Services would come to its (admittedly limited) senses and remove the language that conflated birth control with abortion. Nominally, this is the case - as Human Nature points out, the specific language that defined abortion in a manner that included birth control has been removed. However, because no other definition of abortion is provided, the possiblity is still there for the definitions of abortion and birth control to be conflated. Which means that the definition of abortion (and birth control) might eventually be left up to the courts. All in all, I'm not sure that I feel too warm and fuzzy about that prospect.

McCain's new ad

Did Obama just sink his own campaign?

I think he might have although only time will tell. Joe Biden - the definition of middle-aged white guydom and a Washington insider to beat all Washington insiders - is not exactly the first guy I think of when I think of 'change'.

The usually sensible Melinda Henneberger at Slate.com completely missed the boat in her Pro-Joe post today, and my problem with her argument pretty well sums up my general opinion about Obama:

• Henneberger thinks Biden's penchant for gaffes is charming and she favorably compares Biden's numerous slips of the tongue with those of the current President Bush, arguing that "voters actually liked it when Bush tripped over his own tongue; when he failed in his battle with blurting, they could relate." Um. Right. The only thing more charming than a president who seemingly doesn't know the difference between nuclear and nucular is a vice president who's highest praise for his running mate is that he's "clean".
• Henneberger states that "watching the Democratic debates during primary season, I always thought that a viewer who came to the exercise cold would have assumed Biden was the front-runner." This is not what you want said about your VP pick. Presidential tickets should have a lot in common with Dolly Parton - they should be top-heavy. A big worry for team Obama has got to be how to play up Biden's 36 years of Washington experience without making voters wonder why all those campaign signs don't say "Biden for President."
• Henneberger mentions that Biden's "heartbreaking personal narrative" is not something that he talks about often, highlighting his very Irish-Catholic restraint. Expect that that restraint will never be seen again. The Obama camp will be milking that tragedy for all it's worth over the next few months. Guaranteed.

All in all, I think Obama made a bonehead choice in Biden. And what's worse, he made it before McCain announced his VP pick. Now that Obama's made such a white bread choice, expect McCain to capitalize by choosing a running mate from one of the following three non-traditional categories:

• The democrat-turned-independent: Joe Lieberman. They get along great and Lieberman might give McCain more clout with both independents and democrats (not so much with Repbulicans).
• The female: any number of women have been floated as potential running mates for McCain. Women feeling marginalized by Clinton's failure in the primary and Obama's refusal to even vet her as a VP candidate might be well and truly won over by a female choice from McCain.
• A soldier: it's a long shot, but a left-field VP choice like General Petraeus would absolutely clinch the election for McCain. It would be such a slam dunk that Petraeus (or a similar military figure) has got to be on the short list.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if McCain picks either a soldier or a female for VP, Obama cannot win in November. With Lieberman, there's still a chance. We'll see.

The Clinton news round-up

A couple of interesting stories in the news about Hillary Clinton have gotten my attention this week, the first being a piece by Dahlia Lithwick at Slate.com concerning the dangerous game some Clinton supporters are playing by adopting the persona of the "Hillary Haridan" as their own. Latwick's overall point is surprisingly not one that had occured to me, perhaps because it seems so obvious - basically, it's that in the aftermath of the democratic primary, the persistent media image of Senator Clinton as a crazed and wild-eyed fishwife was transferred to her supporters. Senator Clinton had quietly withdrawn from the stage but scores of vocal Clintonistas remained, and their disillusionment became grist for the power-hungry, madwoman mill.

As I say, this isn't a particularly earth-shattering revelation; however, Lithwick takes the idea a step farther by pointing out the dangerous game that many Clinton supporters are playing by adopting the image of the madwoman as their own. By embracing their inner Clintonistas and proudly declaring themselves PUMA's, Lithwick argues that these women are appropriating and reinforcing the very imagery used to marginalize them. It's as if the monster in Frankenstein picked up a torch and joined the lynch mob.

While I see Lithwick's point, I'm not sure if I absolutely agree. There is, after all, a history in the US of turning the word used by the rest of the world as gendered epithets into in-group badges of honor - consider words like 'faggot' for the gay community or 'nigger' for the black community. By appropriating these words as their own, these marginalized groups removed at least some of their sting. If the MSM is afraid of the "Hillary Haridans" and their 'mad as hell and not going to take it anymore' attitude, that means that they're at least being taken seriously. Maybe if Senator Clinton had embraced her inner 'bitch' a la Margaret Thatcher, saying "I know I am but what are you" to all those kooks at Fox News, the campaign would have gone differently. Who knows?


Another story in yesterday's Newsweek finally asked the question I'd been waiting to come up ever since Obama started his slow slide in the polls - WWHD (What Would Hillary Do?). In a way, a small but significant portion of democratic voters (those Hillary Haridans) never stopped asking this question, even as the primary was decided and Clinton conceded. But as long as Obama's poll numbers made it look as if the outcome in November was a foregone conclusion, the WWHD brigade gained little ground among the party's mainstream. But, boy - what a difference a few months makes. In the wake of her defeat, Hillary more or less remained off the MSM radar, wholeheartedly threw her support behind Obama (or at least made it look that way in public) and noted that she would be happy to consider the VP slot (even though the Obama camp would rather poke their own eyeballs out with dull spoons rather than offer it to her - perhaps understandably). In the meantime, the God-like aura that had surrounded Obama started to wear a little thin. He didn't gain enough ground with key voters, he seemed unable to convince Clinton supporters that he was their man, he became a flip-flop machine, and he bent his own rules regarding running a clean campaign free of the usual political garbage.

Suddenly, it seems, Vice President Clinton doesn't seem like such a bad idea.

Personally, I think that the only thing that's going to save Obama from an ugly battle to November that will force him to completely abandon his principled stand on political issues is VP Clinton. She's used to taking and dishing the dirt, and no one would be a better attack dog for him. Nothing would shut down team McCain faster than an Obama/Clinton ticket. And now that Obama clearly needs a little political help, he would be smart to ask her.

Unfortunately, I don't think he's that smart. And no matter which middle-aged white guy he picks on Saturday, it's not going to do much to help in the lead up to November.

Sorry about the delay

To all you faithful readers out there (both of you!) just wanted to say sorry that I haven't been posting as much as usual these last two weeks or so. It's been a perfect storm at my house; with my dad in town, starting a new job, and the Olympics on the tube every night I just havne't been setting aside the amount of time I need to blog regularly. However, I hope to be back up to speed within the next week or so - especially because I know I've left so many people hanging wondering about Part II of my feminism series! ;-)

In the meantime, here's a great little blurb I found as part of today's Slate Sap-O-Meter coverage of the Olympics -

In a live chat, a Slate reader writes:

Whenever a broadcaster mentioned that Dara Torres was 41, I took to responding,
"Also, Jerome Bettis is from Detroit."

Slate contributor Josh Levin responds:

Every timeany interviewer would ask Dara Torres what message she wanted to
give America, she would say: "You don't have to put an age limit on your
dreams." Thanks for the advice, Dara. Also, a Zen question: If my dream is to
put an age-limit on Dara Torres' dreams, who wins?

A superb post from Language Log

I have decided to let Language Log do my blogging for me today - I found this post in my morning internet ramblings, and it is so [expletive deleted] awesome that I had to pass it on. So please, click on over to Language Log and read up on the fine art of removing scandalous language from journalistic-style quotations. All I have to say is this, my favorite quote from the article:

Summarily reject me? Summarily reject you! Mother summarily rejecter!

News Flash: Abortion won't make you crazy

A recent report by the American Psychological Association states that there is no evidence that a single abortion of an unwanted pregnancy causes any mental problems for the woman involved.

I'm especially intrigued by the following quotes from the MSNBC article and the report itself:

They said women who had mental health problems before becoming pregnant, women who worried about stigma or secrecy or those who had low self-esteem were more likely to develop mental health problems after an abortion.

"Across studies, prior mental health emerged as the strongest predictor of post-abortion mental health. Many of these same factors also predict negative psychological reactions to other types of stressful life events, including childbirth," they wrote in the report. (Emphasis mine)

These quotes bring up a couple of interesting points. First, who can forget those lovely folks in South Dakota who are now requiring doctors providing abortions to tell their patients that the procedure carries a risk of depression, suicidal ideation and suicide? In a perfect world, the good folks in South Dakota would call an audible and retract that ridiculous law, citing this report as evidence that they were incorrect. Undoubtedly, however, what will really happen is that SD abortion doctors will continue to be compelled to give their patients patently untrue medical information, thus possibly contributing to the very worries about stigma and secrecy that have been shown to be predictors of mental health problems in women who seek abortions. It's self-fulfilling prophesy! How convenient.

Second, if South Dakota insists on giving women the possible "risk factors" of abortion, perhaps they should also inform pregnant women of the "risk factors" of pregnancy. If the same types of prior psychological risk factors are good predictors of mental health problems following stressful life events - events like both abortion and childbirth - then it only makes sense that you should warn both women seeking abortions and women seeking obstetrics care that they are equally at risk for depression, suicidal ideation and suicide following the abortion or the birth. Right?

When regulating abortion is just the beginning

For those who thought that the frontline of the reproductive wars was the abortion debate, it seems we're about to be flanked. No longer do women need to worry exclusively about free access to abortion services. Now, apparently, we should also be worried about free access to basic birth control pills. So far, the regulation being circulated by the Department of Health and Human Services is still just a draft, but in its current form it seems to give private medical practitioners absolute autonomy to refuse not only to perform abortions or dispense emergency contraception, but also to refuse to dispense or provide prescriptions for basic birth control pills. (Read more here)

There is, of course, still the hope that the DHHS will come to its senses and revise this regulation to protect a woman's access to birth control. But then again, when was the last time any part of the current Washington establishment actually acted sensibly?

Voting done right

I just had the privilege of participating in my very first Washington State primary (I missed the presidential primary as we were still Kentucky residents when it occurred), and I have to say it was perhaps my most pleasant voting experience ever. Why? Let me count the ways:

• Voting in much of the state - and in the entirety of my locale of Thurston County - is done by mail-in ballot. At first, I admit this seemed more than a little weird to me. The whole concept of voting is not nearly such an event when it doesn't involve getting up early before work to drive to the local fire station or high school to pull a lever or push a button (or punch out a chad, for that matter). However, on reflection I find that mailing in my ballot is quite pleasant. It allows for more serious contemplation of your vote. No pressure to get out of the booth and let someone else use their constitutional rights. Time to google the candidates and consider their positions. And if you drop your ballot in one of the drop boxes around town, you don't even need a stamp.
• The top-two primary. After much debate and hand-wringing, this primary was the first in the state to use a party neutral, two-top format. This means that the two candidates with the most votes in the primary regardless of party will be the two choices come November. I LOVE this. I think it will really encourage voter turnout for both parties, that it is more in line with the will of the majority, and that it turns party-driven politics on its head. Fabulous. Sadly, it doesn't apply to the presidential election. *sigh*
• The candidate brochure. Why doesn't every state do this? About a week before Matt and I got our ballots in the mail, a handy magazine-sized brochure arrived in the mail. In form, it resembled nothing so much as the instructions that come with your tax forms - thin, newspaper like paper, etc. But in content, it was phenomenal. Inside was a picture of each of the candidates running for every office on the upcoming ballot organized in the same order that the ballot would be. And each candidate was given a few paragraphs to summarize their position and what they hoped to accomplish in office. Genius. No more voting for candidates and offices you've never even heard of before. Just consult your candidate brochure and pick the person whose policies seem to mesh with yours. I love this idea. Every state should adopt it. I'm just glad mine already has.
  

Huge Olympic coverage gripe

Those of you on the east coast have it made. You get to watch your Olympic coverage live in primetime. Those of us on the west coast are not so lucky. We get to watch our Olympic coverage in primetime as well, but it's not live - it's on a three-hour delay. And boy do those three little hours make a difference. Why? Because by the time the Olympic coverage actually goes on the air here, its outcome is already news. And boy do the local news stations love to yak about it.

Yesterday I had to change the channel three times to avoid hearing the outcome of several events I was looking forward to watching during last night's coverage. Despite my quick fingers on the remote, however, I still accidentally heard that Michael Phelps had won a gold medal yesterday. So the US Men's 4x100 relay team's amazing upset over France was no surprise for me; instead, it was a foregone conclusion before it even happened. What kills me even more is that the local news that immediately precedes Olympic coverage on NBC in my market still gave results for the very events it was about to broadcast. This is so stupid it should be criminal. Maybe I can understand giving results for events that are broadcast in primetime but which happened much earlier. However, for those events that were broadcast live on the east coast, the least the networks can do is embargo the results until the 11 o'clock news.

The pat ending to the anthrax mailings

How convenient is this? On Wednesday the government released a raft of documents concerning their case against Bruce Ivins. The documents purportedly detail the government's strong but circumstantial case against Ivins and show him to be the sole perpetrator of the 2001 anthrax attacks.

So - let me get this straight. A mere week after the only suspect in the case commits suicide, the government handily wraps up its case, producing evidence that took seven years to gather and yet still is only circumstantial. And although this evidence is far from a slam-dunk, the government still is able to neatly assure us that Ivins was working alone.

Well. If that isn't the prettiest outcome wrapped up in the neatest bow, I don't know what is.

Did you hear that?

That's the sound of what's left of John Edwards' political career - and his integrity - hitting the trash heap. Although I'm not absolutely sure that an individual's private indiscretions should always mean the death of their public aspriations, for a man who based almost the entirety of his presidential campaign on his morality and sense of family, the hypocrisy is just too much. Cheating on her while she was battling incurable cancer? How do you do that and then look yourself in the mirror every morning?

So - do you think people are going to take his word about the baby?

Yes, Virginia, there is a feminism, Part I

For several reason, feminism - and its twenty-first century incarnations - have been on my mind a lot lately. First, because of an excellent book I recently finished reading - Susan J. Douglas' Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media - that helpfully, cogently, and often humorously recounts the mass media's generally hate/hate relationship with American women over the past fifty years. Second, because of the first season of the excellent AMC channel drama Mad Men which I have been catching up on this past week On Demand. The first of these reminded me about the actual history of feminism in America - a history that is markedly different from the mainstream view of how the movement developed. (Just one example of this difference is alluded to in the picture that headlines this blog. Contrary to what most mainstream media will tell you - there were bra burnings as part of the feminist movement. The 1968 protest outside the Miss America pageant included bras being thrown into trash cans. There were, however, no matches.) The second reminded me about the stultifying climate of the 1950's and 60's from which the movement developed - a cultural climate viciously enforced the virgin/whore dichotomy, expecting the 'virgins' to stay home, raise the children and get dinner on the table my seven while demanding that the 'whores' be good sports about the sexism that surrounded them, work demanding jobs as secretaries and the like for demeaning pay, and be willing to service the boss at the office before he drug himself home to the drudgery of all things familial and domestic.

While no doubt the portrait of 1960 corporate culture that Mad Men paints is likely only a simulacrum of real life, the show has reminded me how very far women have come in a relatively short fifty years. The sexism we decry now has most often gone underground; no longer overt and obvious, gender discrimination is for the most part now covert and subtle. As sexism has become more difficult to point a finger at, it has simultaneously become less powerful - though I find myself disgusted at John McCain for refusing to chastise a supporter for calling Hillary Clinton a bitch, I can at least take comfort in the fact that Lt. Gen. Ann Dunwoody got her fourth star. This is not to say that sexism has become powerless - I think it played at least some part in Senator Clinton's ultimate defeat in the democratic primary - but I would argue what power it retains is a mere shadow of the oppression that Betty Friedan railed against in The Feminine Mystique.

But if gender stereotypes have come a long way in this country so, too, has feminism. Unfortunately, too often women my age tend to defend themselves against the mantle of feminism rather than embracing it as they should. Part of their instinctive aversion to twenty-first century feminism is, I think, the perhaps oppressive shadow that the titans of 60's and 70's feminism still cast and the seeming impossibility of reconciling that feminism with the lives women my age are leading today. I consider myself a feminist, but I am also a happily married woman. And my marriage has not meant for me the same sort of suffocation and unhappiness that many early feminists railed against. The sentiment that marriage was the end of a woman's life - that "It starts when you sink in his arms and ends with your arms in his sink" - is not one that most of the women I know share. Unfortunately, however, it is this Ypte of anti-establishment anger that has become indelibly identified with feminism:

And the crazy part of it was even if you were clever, even if you spent your adolescence reading John Donne and Shaw, even if you studied history or zoology or physics and hoped to spend your life pursuing some difficult and challenging career, you still had a mind full of all the soupy longings that every high-school girl was awash in... underneath it, all you longed to be was annihilated by love, to be swept off your feet, to be filled up by a giant prick spouting sperm, soapsuds, silk and satins and, of course, money. (Erica Jong)

For those of thus - and we are many - who entered into marriage or contemplated it without consideration as to how well we would be kept, such sentiments have served, among other issues, to ensure that when we mention feminism it is usually to disavow it all together. As recently as two years ago I distinctly recall beginning a conversation with the phrase, "I don't really consider myself a feminist..." This despite the fact that many of my most cherished beliefs dovetail perfectly with the concepts of personal freedom that feminism has long espoused.

What changed my mind? Stay tuned for Part II.

Cipro-gate

Please so immediately to Salon.com and read this chilling piece by Glenn Greenwald on the 2001 anthrax mailings. It's long, but I'll wait. Go ahead.

It's been a long time since I've thought seriously about the anthrax attacks and, if Greenwald is right, it's probably been a long time since you've thought about them, too (notwithstanding the recent headlines about Ivins' suicide). As such, I have difficulty trying to determine whether or not Greenwald is correct in his assertion that the anthrax attacks were a major motivator for the war in Iraq. However, if Greenwald is right, his piece paints an absolutely bone-chilling portrait of collusion in the mainstream media to bring that war to fruition. The most disturbing bit is Greenwald's quoting of prominent journalist Richard Cohen that he (Cohen) had been told in a roundabout way by a highly-placed government official to obtain and keep close a quantity of Cipro (the anthrax antidote) BEFORE the attacks themselves actually took place. At the time, Cohen wasn't an embedded report in Iraq where biological attack was a real possibility. The US wasn't even at war with Iraq in September of 2001. Instead, Cohen was keeping a supply of Cipro on him at all times while living and working in the US, all because of a shadowy tip from a government official.

I'm generally not one to champion conspiracy theories, but in this case the elephant in the room is just to big to ignore. Is Greenwald hinting that the US government was in some way behind the anthrax attacks and that they used them as a further excuse for war?

If I have to watch this, so do you

I...I just have no words. There are no words...

Obama really is the candidate of change

If by change you are referring to the fact that he changes his supposed beliefs at the drop of a hat.

A story on today's MSNBC.com notes that Obama has once again changed, this time caving on his previous opposition to expanded offshore oil drilling, "if that's what it takes to enact a comprehensive policy to foster fuel-efficient autos and develop alternate energy sources." I have to say, of all Obama's flip-flops, this one is the one that disappoints me most if for no other reason than it is the one that is most obviously the result of political expediency and not, as Obama claims, political compromise.

This is one of those issues where Obama had a real opportunity to stand up for what was right and eschew political pandering. And he blew it. By signing on to the idea of offshore drilling, Obama has done exactly what he criticized Hillary Clinton for doing earlier in the campaign when she floated the idea of a gas tax holiday - a proposal which he called a "shell game" that would mean little to nothing for consumers (see here). How convenient that Obama has now championed his own shell game, supporting offshore oil drilling that would produce no actual oil for at least another ten years and even that oil would more than likely be sold in foreign markets rather than in the U.S.

The American people may not understand this - but it was Obama's job not to cave to political pressure but to explain it to them. At the very least, if he really thought a compromise on offshore drilling was the only way to increase spending on alternative fuel sources, he could have insisted on a provision that would have forced any new oil found through such drilling to be sold only in domestic markets. His failure to do so is not only an environmental failure, it is a failure of political principle.

A fascinating turn of phrase about Sarah Palin

As the interest in who McCain and Obama will pick as their running mates heats up, I was struck by a piece in the Washington Times putting both Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and financial advisor (and former HP CEO) Carly Fiorina on the short list for the number two position. As it's always been my feeling that a woman should be elected to the presidency in her own right, but probably will be nominated to the vice presidency and then be forced to morbidly hope for a well-timed heart attack to fell the guy in the top spot, I'm all for a women as VP. And these two ladies seem perfectly qualified (and, incidentally, coiffed) for the job. What caught my eye in the story was this quote from Newt Gingrich:

Mrs. Palin is "a mother of five, is a genuine Alaskan, is a hunter, is a dog sledder, is very much for drilling for oil, has a great reform reputation, took on big oil on behalf of the people of Alaska," Mr. Gingrich said. "I think she would bring a level of excitement and uniqueness that people would have to stop and say, 'Boy, this is kind of intriguing.'"

How exactly do you "take on big oil" while simultaneously being "very much for drilling for big oil"? That'll show 'em. "Hey, all you big oil companies! I'm so pissed at your continuous efforts to profit from and strengthen America's addiction to foreign oil that I want you to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Take that!"

Update: Oops. Never mind about Palin. Just found this story at the Huffington Post.

Also - have you seen this video of McCain's response when asked whether insurance companies should be forced to cover the cost of birth control since they also cover the cost of Viagra? Watch his face. He wants to make a tasteless joke so badly. You can see it in his eyes.