NEW YORKER COVER, BILL BENNETT AND ME

I was going to get right to this, and blog my head off about the New Yorker cover, but I'm getting ready to go to China for 3 weeks and am going nuts getting ready. I always get pretty anxious before going on a big trip, because, like everyone else, I'm worried that I'll forget something important like my toner, or favorite something. Everything I'd ever need is made in China, so what am I worried about?

But I've been pretty upset by that cover, and immediately canceled my subscription. My excuse was that the magazine has gotten pretty tabloidy, anyway, these days what with all of their boring celebrity profiles. I mean they try and make these incredibly ordinary people, so hip, so cool and after you're finished reading about them, you don't want a smoke, you just kind of scratch your head, and wonder why you just spent 20 minutes of your precious fleeting time reading crap because it's in the New Yorker. While I had an inkling, I never knew George Clooney was so dull.

Anyhow, I got the magazine today and took it with me to the sushi bar - I always have a sushi meal before I leave town just in case it's the last meal I'll ever have - and read this totally fun article about shopping in Shanghai by Patricia Marx that made me remember why I've gotten the New Yorker for oh, so many years. It was so en point, and so well written, and she made Shanghai sound so fun and funny...I can't wait!

Oh, I'm going to China for about 3 weeks and I'll try and blog a bit but I'm actually very happy to be away from the computer. FYI: I'm going to see the solar eclipse in the Gobi desert on the 31st, and touring around before then. If you ever get a chance to see a solar eclipse, and as beautiful as lunar eclipses are, do try and get to a solar eclipse once in your life...it's cosmic.

So, last night I saw Bill Bennett and James Carville duke it out on some talking puke-head show about the now pukey-infamous New Yorker cover, and I found myself agreeing with Bill Bennett for the first time in my entire life. And he didn’t look half bad compared to the live-action, cartoon that is James Carville. Man, can that guy get any weirder looking? Hey, he got his panties in a twist because he thought people were somehow picking on Hillary, because she’s a girl, about her looks, so I feel it’s AOK to pick on him. As I was saying, this guy is some cartoonist’s idea of a camel fart. Besides, can you understand what he’s saying? I caught just enough to hear that he was endorsing free speech and pontificated – no, that’s not the right word for him, more like ‘spewed’ - that satire was ok because it was political and it went back to the stone age or some such incomprehensible bullshit…what the hell, I didn’t get past that. Who knows what he the hell he was saying, and who cares.

My take on this is that he hates Obama, and anything that will take him down is good. Watch him seething with disgust, practically drooling venom as he garbles something just intelligible enough to hear that he’s 'down' with the cover. He thinks he's so sneaky the way he undermines Obama and tries to trash the Conqueror who dethroned Mr. Carville’s Queen. Everyone who knows me knows that I am not a fan of Republicans, but what in the WORLD does Mary Matalin see in that guy? I defy anyone to say he’s crazy sexy.

Anyone, I’m off topic here…so, I was saying that I agreed with Bill Bennett, which is setting off alarm bells as we speak. He absolutely seemed so reasonable about this. Does this make people who were outraged by the cover, uh, conservative? I’m not going there except to say, at times, there are idealogic convergences that are best left unexplained.

My bet is that there will be t-shirts aplenty with that cartoon image, and guess who'll be wearing them. Thanks, David Remnick, super sophisticated sophisticate who made a big mistake and can't admit it. Here is a real instance where an elitist just doesn't get it.

"It's the Supremes, Stupid"

TO: All people of all political persuasions, particularly those who, at this moment in time, feel wobbly about voting for Obama.

John McCain about Justice Alito: "I supported him, I thought he was a magnificent choice, I spoke on his behalf from the floor of the Senate...I've said several times that I'd like to find clones for Justices Roberts and Alito."

"Every town hall meeting, I've said, we're going to have justices like Roberts and Alito."
- John McCain

"Let me just look you in the eye," McCain told me. I've said a thousand times on this campaign trail, I've said as often as I can, that I want to find clones of Alito and Roberts. I worked as hard as anybody to get them confirmed. I look you in the eye and tell you I've said a thousand times that I wanted Alito and Roberts. I have told anybody who will listen. I flat-out tell you I will have people as close to Roberts and Alito [as possible], and I am proud of my record of working to get them confirmed, and people who worked to get them confirmed will tell you how hard I worked."
- John McCain

Source for above quotes:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-03-13-judges_N.htm#appointments

McCain and the Supreme Court
by STEVEN G. CALABRESI and JOHN O. MCGINNIS
Wall St. Journal; February 4, 2008; Page A14

"The judiciary is different. On Jan. 20, 2009, six of the nine Supreme Court justices will be over 70. Most of them could be replaced by the next president, particularly if he or she is re-elected. Given the prospect of accelerating gains in modern medical technology, some of the new justices may serve for over half a century."

A look at judicial appointments by the numbers:

President (term)	Ronald Reagan (1981-89)	George H.W. Bush (1989-93)	Bill Clinton (1993-2001)	George W. Bush (2001-present)
Supreme Court	4	2	2	2
Appeals courts	83	42	66	57
Trial courts	290	148	305	237

Bush has made key appointments to:

• the U.S. Supreme Court: John Roberts, 53, and Samuel Alito, 57, are the nine justices and the youngest of the consistently conservative, and were in the Reagan administration.

• the prominent U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, regarded as a steppingstone to the Supreme Court: Janice Rogers Brown, 58; Brett Kavanaugh, 43; Thomas Griffith, 53; and, before he was elevated, Roberts. Perhaps the most controversial was Brown, who as a judge on the California Supreme Court earned a reputation as a bold advocate of property rights and an opponent of affirmative action.

OK. Enough Already. FISA Go Away.

I'm so over it. FISA. I have spent waaaay too much time sending out tortured emails, reading interesting blogs and idiotic blogs, reading their comments, wailing about character and courage, listening to Russ Feingold, sending Russ Feingold money, defending my position, and I'VE HAD IT. The only good thing to come out it is that my son has been regularly emailing me. Man, I'm exhausted.

People are spinning this to death, trying to make sense out of Obama's reversal and his vote; projecting on to him a 'higher purpose' to make such a bitter pill digestible. Listen, why not not spin it, accept that he made a gigantic mistake, twice. To me there is no possible excuse for what he did. Period.

That said, here's where I stand: I am moving on. Getting ready for the next fish fry. And, still working my heart out to get Obama elected. I have written about my 'marriage' to Obama, and I will put this down as having our first huge fight, doors slammed, I hid his flag pin, and I stalked out. Now I'm back.

Did Obama just 'Swiftboat' himself?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/washington/10fisa.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

"The issue put Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the presumptive Democratic nominee, in a particularly precarious spot. After long opposing the idea of immunity for the phone companies in the wiretapping operation, he voted for the plan on Wednesday. His reversal last month angered many of his most ardent supporters, who organized an unsuccessful drive to get him to reverse his position once again. And it came to symbolize what civil liberties advocates saw as “capitulation” by Democratic leaders to political pressure from the White House in an election year.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who was Mr. Obama’s rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, voted against the bill."

This will prove to be the worst possible decision for Obama. In my opinion, and I HOPE I'M WRONG, he has just Swiftboated himself. He had a chance to reverse his mistake, and now with Hillary voting against it, her supporters will hammer open the crack in Obama's support, and push, even harder, for her name to be brought up for a vote at the convention. They are probably on the phones at this very minute.

This is so sad. I can hear a chorus of Democrats saying that's how we sabotaged Gore and Kerry. I respectfully disagree. Gore and Kerry were terrible candidates to begin with, and they were weak when it came to rebuffing GOP attacks, vote counts, etc. Obama is/was an incredible candidate, who made an near impossible run for Democratic candidate for President a success, because he represented real change, and what we thought was, finally, a breath of fresh air in our political hot air landscape. Wow. I'm bummed. Again, I hope I'm so wrong, but I hear a distant rumbling of the foundation of his support. I will vote Democrat in November, but I'm taking a vacation for now.

And, Pelosi and Reid, and the rest of that sorry gang have lost the confidence of the majority of the electorate long before this, but this is the last straw. I hope they're proud of their pathetic performance. Time to kick the bums out...all of them.

Hillraisers behaving like Hillbrats

Okay, this is news, right? OBAMA FACES RESISTANCE FROM TOP SUPPORTERS OF CLINTON is a headline from an article in the Wall St. Journal: http://tinyurl.com/5qzcra. You really must read it...it's about all of these little Marie Antoinettes running around starting PACs and websites, pretending to be political operatives while wielding their checkbooks like sabres so they can withhold their big bucks and punish Obama for winning the nomination.

This should have been published in Psychology Today. The narcissism and audacity of moneyed donors having a hissy fit because their goddess didn't win, is just too much as they are trying to create a hostage situation with their big bucks. Did I say goddess? Just take a look at the header on a website created just 4 them...actually the website is: http://together4us.com/index.html (notice the narcissistic "4 us"...not 4 ‘you’, the little people) The idolatrous, photo shopped pic of Hillary is amusing given the following quote representative of her cultish supporters snarling about gender bias: "Susie Tompkins Buell, a Hillraiser from San Francisco, said, "What really hurt women the most was to look back and see all this gender bias." Is she kidding? If they are so concerned about gender representation, then why oh why don't they put up a photo of the real Hill, battle scars 'n all? She's earned them. They should be proud of the way she looks. They’ve criticized others who have commented on her looks…why are they idealizing her? It's just weird. The website was created by Lynn Forester de Rothschild, an alleged businesswoman and Hillraiser, who portrays herself as Lady de Rothschild on the website. Talk about delusions of grandeur.

It's almost funny, but it's not because, worse than that, is the notion that they believe 'money doesn't talk, it screams'. And they are seriously talking about voting for McCain. Can you believe it? Twisted psyches go against their self-interest when they throw a tantrum and don't get their own way. So, McCain trots out his token high profile female, Carly Fiorina, to chat with the ladies and see how he can best hypnotize them into voting for him. They might feel a tad inferior, though, unless they can match racking up Cindy's $750,000 in one month credit card spree.

And then, there's the enchanting Daphna Ziman who started an action committee called Women's Empowerment because "Financially, "we don't want Hillary Clinton to be politically obligated to anyone, including Barack Obama," Ms. Ziman said." That sounds like feminist independence to me...but, who is Ms. Ziman financially dependent on that enables her to wield such illusory power?

The final straw, for them of course, is that these Hillbrats are not being treated with kid gloves. They call Obama 'aloof'. "But it is precisely this attitude that turns off some former Clinton donors, who were used to being treated to private audiences with the former first lady and her husband and exclusive events during campaign stops." If ever there was an example of a class divide, this is it. First of all, why don’t they give the guy a break and leave him alone so that he can give all his attention to running for President…so he can WIN. But, nooooooooooo, it’s all about ‘me’. They’re like school kids frantically waving their ‘hands up’ to be noticed, but it’s true…this is what they’ve earned all that money for…a tiny bit of recognition. I won’t even touch ‘ego’.

I know, I know. I sound embittered because you think I’m standing outside the tent. But that would be wrong. I’m pissed. I'm pissed because this jockeying for attention is a distraction and time sucker as far as the campaign is concerned. Operatives have to spend valuable time scurrying around to stroke these Hillbrats into submission. Oh god, I just want to scream, "Crybabies!"

Hey, I’ve been inside the tent, but I so prefer to be outside where the power really is, where the soul of the campaign, the grassroots movement is, where we sweat and slog, and often put our lives on hold so that we can do the essential work on the ground, day after day, for FREE. We don’t even get a signed baseball card. And we give money. Lots of money. We’re happy to do it, to do our bit to help effect real, concrete change from the misery of the last eight years. And we’re not whining. I have often said that it takes 10 seconds to write a cheque, but I/we’ve been on the ground for one year and five months now. And, irony of ironies, these Hillbrats will be the beneficiaries of our hard work when Obama is elected. Honestly, I don’t know how they can run into the arms of McCain…yuck, but they're used to selling themselves.

Marriage & Obama

These last couple of weeks have given me heartburn and heartache, and a chance I didn't want - to dig deep and think about, "Can this Marriage be Saved?" This whole thing is about Obama and me. Well, about Obama and me and 20 million others, but it's just a number.

So, a bit of background: I fell hard for Obama the first time I heard him in 2004 when he made that extraordinary, transcendent speech at the Democratic convention; and, yes, like millions of others, made a promise that if he ever ran for President, I'd work my ass off for him. None of us had ever dated a guy like Obama, an actual politician. Living in LA, yeah, some of us dated actors who played politicians, but not a bona fide, living breathing one. (Well, that's not exactly true, full disclosure - my wasband was a politician, and one of the good guys.) As a contrarian bitch, I wasn't attracted to Bill Clinton (never understood that one), thought Gore and Kerry were, well guys I would NEVER EVER date. I will not go into my voting record. Suffice it to say, I'm a Decline to State.

Anyway, time passed, we fantasized about the distant object of our affection, when one day, The Phone Rang. It was HIM. He wants to date us! He bought a white horse and he's comin' to towns everywhere, bringing a message of Hope and Change. We wept with joy. He swept us - men and women, children and dogs - off our feet, and we accepted his proposal of marriage, and the idea that we would reach new heights together, ride off into the sunset, happily ever after...or as happy as you can be in politics.

If you've stayed with me til now, it may sound like I'm some kind of pie in the sky, adoring-him-at-all-costs type of person, but this couldn't be further from the truth. While I have happily volunteered for Obama since he announced, I always reminded people that he was not the Messiah, that he actually was a real politician, and all that it implies. But, confronting the reality of his Primary Self and his new General Election Self, left me and many others, feeling like we had married one person, and then when the lust wore off, our love object morphed into his werewolf self.

I won't go into the issues, but they are pretty much summed up in this NY Times opinion piece: http://tinyurl.com/6s3px4

Blogs, petitions, alarm bells, outraged lovers vented their feelings of betrayal, but it all made us sound like suckers...didn't we know what marriage was like? So, now we're reeling with questions of, "What to do? Should I leave him? I'll never love anyone like I love him?! There's no one else. I'm downcast. Besides, he's great in the sack (strike that, but it sounded good)". Our beloved husband tripped out with centrists, consorted with conservatives, yet still unabashedly came home with perfume on his collar (is that Hillary?). Call a lawyer. I'm outta here. BUT WAIT. There's more.

He's even feigning like it's no big deal. "Well, let me tell you something, Buster, it IS a big deal, and we'll never quite feel the same way about you again...but, you're the best we've got and we hope that when you're done with your little affair, and you come back as President, you'll make it all up to us. Here's the verdict: We'll stay with you because of the kids, but in the meantime, while we're tolerant - it's the 21st century after all - it'd be nice if you cuddled with us once in a while...for old time's sake.

Like It Or Not...Here I Am

Oh god, I've joined the bloggosphere. It's humiliating. Now, I'm just like every sap who thinks their opinion comes the unknowable depths of their singular genius. Yikes. But, since going to Camp Obama last summer turned me from a contrarian bitch...ok not exactly a bitch, but a sneering, anti-authoritarian recusant...into a loving, near touch-feely team player, I'm feeling okay about this. Besides, I want the world to see how bloody smart I am, too.

So, welcome, and I look forward to your comments, be they rebuttals, verbose exhortations, acute analysis, or pointedly clever remarks...just, please, not too much slime...even a computer's feelings can get hurt.

Hey, you should visit my last blog, and singular post, from way back in 2005, when I also thought I might become a blogger. So, a post once every 3 years...try it, you'll like it: http://bloggerforsale.blogspot.com/