Steinem on Palin: "Wrong Woman, Wrong Message"

Today, instead of writing my own blog entry as I should, I am choosing to reprint something by a woman who sums up the trouble with McCain's vice-presidential pick far better than I could, and who has the battle scars from the centuries long war against women to back up her credentials and credibility. This appeared on the September 4, 2008, Los Angeles Times Editorial page. Thank you Gloria Steinem.

Palin: Wrong Woman, Wrong Message
Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

By Gloria Steinem
September 4, 2008

Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing—the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party—are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women—and to many men too—who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."

This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can't do the job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn't say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37 years' experience.

Palin has been honest about what she doesn't know. When asked last month about the vice presidency, she said, "I still can't answer that question until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every day?" When asked about Iraq, she said, "I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."

She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a $1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income or sales tax. Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate's views on "God, guns and gays" ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.

So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.

Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade, she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it also protects the right to have a child.

So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting for Palin's husband.

Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term bipartisan gains from this contest.

Republicans may learn they can't appeal to right-wing patriarchs and most women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite government into the wombs of women.

And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national stage from male leaders who know that women can't be equal outside the home until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their children.

This could be huge.

Gloria Steinem is an author, feminist organizer and co-founder of the Women's Media Center. She supported Hillary Clinton and is now supporting Barack Obama.

Time Flies When You're Having Fun (and Even If You're Not)

I have been deplorably absent from this blog. I could make excuses for this, listing all the many oh-so-important distractions that have kept me away, but I won’t. I’m back, and I shall try to do better.

The good news that readers were spared commentary on those hot headlines that are now cold, or at least lukewarm: Hillary’s out, Obama’s in; John Edwards is a cheating louse; and Lindsay Lohan may marry her girlfriend, Samantha Ronson. (And Ellen DeGeneres DID marry Portia DiRossi—yea!) There’s a lot more, of course. School started, summer ended; scientists have discovered that if we leave our earwax alone—put down that Q-Tip!—our ears will stay perfectly fine all on their own; Obama chose attorney and U.S. Senator Joe Biden as his running mate, presumably for his extensive experience in foreign relations and judiciary affairs; and John McCain chose Alaska governor Sarah “Barracuda” Palin as his running mate, raising the frightening possibility that the old geezer might kick off while in office and leave us with a President who is light-years to the right of George W. Bush and has even less experience (but a LOT more ambition and brains).

So many topics, so little time. When I can pick just one, I’ll be back.

Photo by Lara Porzak

A Pact By Any Other Name Would Smell As Foul

In the words of that great gaggle of goofs, those corny comedic commentators, Monty Python, "And now for something completely different." Well, perhaps not completely different, as I suppose since everything is politics, even this discussion touches on the topic of the past few posts. but this is not the usual Democrat v. Republican, or Left v. Right, but more a case of freedom of speech v. (commercially motivated?) censorship.

Perhaps that discussion fitting in light of the recent death of one of the country's most outspoken and infamous champions of free speech, comedian George Carlin. Carlin's masterpiece of social satire, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television," was more than just a stand-up riff; it was the launching point for a lawsuit that went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled that in the name of "decency," there were some things that shouldn't be broadcast in case children were listening. In fact, although almost every obituary I've seen so far on Carlin mentions the "Seven Words" routine, none has actually printed them. I'd like to list them here, in his honor: shit, piss, fuck, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits. It's frightening, but I don't even know if I am allowed to use these words on blogger. Will the morality police take away my laptop?

Which brings me to what I really want to talk about: censorship. Recently Time magazine reported that many of the 17 pregnant students at Gloucester (Massachusetts) High School had formed a pact to get pregnant at the same time and raise their babies together. (Normally only about 4 kids get pregnant there each year.) School principal Joseph Sullivan told Time that the girls—none of whom were over 16—confessed to being part of the pact. He also said that many of the girls had visited the school clinic for pregnancy tests, and "seemed more upset when they weren't pregnant then when they were."

Now, it seems, Sullivan's memory of where, when, and from whom he learned about the pact has become conveniently fuzzy. The mayor of Gloucester, Carolyn Kirk, says Sullivan is mistaken. "He was foggy in memory of how he heard the information," she said. "When we pressed for specifics, his memory failed him." She stopped short of saying he made the whole thing up.

Her view differs—sort of: "I am not able to confirm the existence of a pact…any planned blood oath," she said. According to her, the girls may have agreed after the fact to support each other, but that was not the same thing as making a plan to quadruple the typical birth rate at GHS. She had no explanation as to why one of the girls had sex with a homeless man, but I suspect a little bit of Orwellian/Carlinesque double-speak.

George Carlin once said, "I can remember when I was young that poor people lived in slums. Not anymore. These days, the economically disadvantaged occupy substandard housing in the inner cities. It's so much nicer for them."

Yes, and the good girls of Gloucester don't make pacts to get pregnant. They chat about how nice it would be if their children were to all grow up together and be friends with each other, too.

Visit This Site

Don't worry about the site's name. It's a satire, and a wonderful one at that. There are also some valuable links provided for you to get involved and show your support. Of course, if you "love plastic crap from China" or own a pharmaceutical company, you may not see the humor. By the way, you'll learn something, too:

"[Wal-Mart's] revenue in 2007 was $351.1 billion dollars. That exceeds the GDP (gross domestic product) of at least 155 of the world’s countries. 70% of Wal-Mart’s sales are of items manufactured in China."

Why You HAVE to Vote for Obama

Okay, for those former Hillary supporters who say they will vote for John McCain…have you not been paying attention for the past decade? Do you know what this man stands for? Look, I have some issues with Obama, too. But my disagreements with him pale by comparison with McCain. Here are just a few reasons why I refuse to let John McCain occupy the Oval Office:

Civil/Human/Workers' Rights

• McCain: He didn't like the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would allow employees who have been discriminated against take their cases to court...because he said it would "open us up for lawsuits...." You think? He's also against raising the minimum wage. The man's misogyny is legendary. He is in favor of adding legislation to the Constitution that discriminates—that is, to take away the civil rights of a minority. He has been outspoken about his views on same-sex marriage. "As president [John McCain] would nominate judges who understand that the role of the Court is not to subvert the rights of the people by legislating from the bench." Why not? Bush did. According to McCain, if I want to marry my girlfriend, I am endangering "the foundation of Western Civilization." Riiiiiiight. I should have such power.
  
  
• Obama: He intends to enforce civil rights and combat employment discrimination. He would extend the Family and Medical Leave Act, and raise the minimum wage. Now here's one place I think I may have a bone to pick with the kid: marriage equality. I think I looked over every inch of Obama's website, and could not find a single mention of the issue. But a little research shows that while he is against adding discriminatory language to the Constitution, he opposes same-sex marriage. We will just have to work harder to change his mind.

Safe, Legal Abortion

• McCain: He wants Roe v. Wade overturned (and will stack every court possible to get that moving). He also voted to ban late-term (read: life threatening) abortions. Obviously a pre-term fetus (that is, a fetus not yet viable), is "worth" more than a living woman. More misogyny from the crotchety old man.
• Obama: Believes in a woman's right to choose.

Climate Change

• McCain: At least he doesn't pooh-pooh global climate change, and both candidates support a cap-and-trade system on emissions. But McCain thinks that "market forces" will clean things up. Hello? Isn't that how we got here in the first place. Oh, and he wants a "global effort that would include developing countries to reduce greenhouse gases." Yes, I'm sure that those countries will make the difference between 30 years and 300... He did not vote for the Energy Policy Act of 2003, which would have mandated 40mpg by 2015. What's with the "market forces" that they can't engineer something better in 7 years? The League of Conservation Voters gave McCain a score of zero (24% lifetime) in its 0-100-point scale for those voting in favor of 15 different environmental votes during 2008. Why? Because he missed every vote. That's right. All 15.
  
  
• Obama: He voted FOR the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (35mpg "between 2011 and 2020," whatever THAT means). The League of Conservation Voters gave Obama a score of 67% (86% lifetime); it may have been higher had he not been absent for 4 of the 15 votes.

Taxes

• McCain: Wants to make the reward-the-rich Bush tax cuts permanent.
• Obama: repeal Bush tax cuts for those over $250,000. Note: the average American earns about $75,00. (That's not per person, but per family.).

Health Care

• McCain: Ah, more "market-based" solutions. Again, isn't that what we have now? It's clearly not working. He thinks we should pay doctors based on their performance, which sounds good until you really start thinking about it. It sounds to me like it will keep doctors from disclosing information to their patients, cause a rise in unnecessary (and expensive) tests "just to cover all the bases," and lead to a lot of bribery and corruption. Who will rate the performance? If one doctor has 2 out of 3 patients die, and another has only 1 out of 3 patients die, do we really know that the second doc is better? Maybe the second doc's patients were not as sick, had a less virulent form of whatever, or responded better to treatment.
  
  
• Obama: He would require coverage for all children (the money will come from the repealed Bush tax cuts), though he would subsidize health insurance for low-income families. He would also prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage to or charging extra for people with health problems (in other words, the people who really NEED health insurance).

Iran

• McCain: He says we should "form a European alliance" that would put economic and political pressure on Iran. In other words, if you are afraid of a bully, send in your big brother to beat him up. He also wants to "bolster [our] regional military posture to make clear to Iran our determination to protect our forces in Iraq and deter Iranian intervention in that country." That's rich. You see, bin Laden is a bad, bad guy. But the origin of his complaints with the U.S.—the sliver in his foot that infected his brain—was the fact that the U.S. built a military base in holy land, and despite promises that it was only temporary, continues to maintain a presence there. Now, if someone from another country built a military base in the middle of Arlington Cemetery or on the lawn of the National Cathedral, don't you think people here might get a little upset? Especially if that base was supposed to be a jumping off spot for attacks on neighboring countries? And I guess I don't see how engaging the military against Iran to protect the military engaged in Iraq makes much sense.
  
  
• Obama: He would engage in direct diplomacy. You know, talk to him face-to-face. Hear that? How many times do we say to our kids when they're pitching a fit and turning purple (as McCain often does), "Use your words"? Maybe McCain is just a victim of bad parenting. Hitting the mean kid just because you don't like what he says is not a good family value.
  

Iraq

• McCain: He is perhaps the one person in the country who still believes absolutely that we were right to attack a sovereign nation without provocation, that things are going great, and that we should stay there for 100 years if necessary. Voted to send more troops over there, and says there should be no timetable for bringing them home...although they "should" all be home by 2013. Unless, of course, they are in Iran. Or North Korea. Or Venezuela. Or Afghanistan. Or...

• Obama: He opposed the war from the very start, but of course he couldn't vote for or against it because he wasn't even in office then. He IS what's called a "junior Senator," which is another way of saying newbie. He voted against sending more troops, and says we should bring them home one or two brigades per month, which would have everyone home in 16 months. If he started on Day One, that sounds like the summer of 2010 to me.

Hold Your Nose or Hold Your Tongue

We have a "presumptive nominee." I don't need to repeat what a hard-fought battle it was—and battle IS the right word considering that their strategies relied almost exclusively on attacking each other—nor do I have to express surprise. the numbers were not in Hillary's favor, and the reasons why can be debated evermore, but not here. She's out, he's in, and just as we did when Bush stole the first election, it's time to Move On.

What I will say is that my pragmatic view of the results is at odds with many ardent Hillary supporters, mostly women, who have said publicly that they would rather vote for John McCain than Barack Obama, or that they will just stay home on election day. Words can barely express how angry this makes me, so instead I'll just lay out the positions side-by-side.

Let's take the second one first since it's the "easiest." (See the next post for #2) To those voters who would stay home out of pique I say , "How DARE you?" You cannot possibly have been supporting Hillary for the right reasons if you would abdicate your Constitutional right to make your voice heard when it counts most.

• What's that? You say one voice doesn't make a difference, especially with out outdated electoral college rigamarole? Wrong-o. If the 2000 election had been decided fairly, Al Gore would have won—on the basis of the popular vote. That means YOU.
  
  
• Okay, so your conscience won't allow you to vote for someone with whom you have ideological differences. Even assuming the next-to-impossible odds that you have ever agreed with everything—that is, 100%—a candidate says and does, how will your conscience feel if John McCain wins because all the rational people stayed home? Make no mistake: John McCain is Bush III—and potentially much, much worse.
  
  
• If you don't vote, you have no right to bitch. So what would you rather do—hold your nose for thirty seconds and vote (for Obama), or hold your tongue for four years

How are you spending YOUR stimulus check?

Recently the government mailed taxpayers a so-called "stimulus" check (these didn't go to the people who need them most, of course, namely those who didn't earn enough to have to pay taxes in the first place). The idea was that grateful Americans would rush out and spend their $600 windfall (actually, more like a rebate on the taxes they DID pay) on wide-screen televisions and investment broker fees, all in the name of shoring up our sagging economy. Realistically, it probably went into the tanks of all those 15-20 mpg SUVs.

It cost me $52 to fill up my Subaru last week. I can't even fathom the cost of filling the cars I see most often in my area: Navigators (12c/17h mpg), Land Cruisers (12c/15h mpg), Caravans (12c/24h mpg), Odysseys (12c/24h mpg), Escalades (12c/18h mpg), Suburbans (13c/17h mpg), and Hummers (12c/17h mpg). Makes my Subaru (20c/26h mpg) seem like an engineering marvel.

The Hummer has to be the prime example of the American Dream gone horribly wrong. It's a bad joke: an urban assault vehicle (almost none of them go off-road) that's exempt from federal fuel economy standards—because it weighs too much!—AND the gas guzzler tax (because it's a "truck"). At today's prices it costs about $120 to fill the tank, and given the average commute (and 85% of people drive to and from work by themselves), at 15 mpg...let's just say that the "stimulus" check would probably go towards a tank of gas and a cartful of groceries. (BTW: I'm not alone in my disdain. At least all I wield is vitriolic prose, unlike these guys.) See also this BBC story on the Hummer v. Prius twaddle.

This paragraph is an intentional digression. We will return to our regular programming following this message from our sponsor (me). There has been a Rush Limbaugh-fueled hoax burning its way through the Internet blogosphere to the effect that "the Hummer is ultimately more environmentally friendly than the Toyota Prius." Like most of what Limbaugh spews, this is patently ridiculous. While there are many posts that try to put this lie to rest, the best, most-reasoned, point-by-point discussion of why this statement is horse doo-doo is this article by Brenden I. Koerner in Slate.

Recently I read an article that tried to explain to me (mathematically challenged) why not cashing a $600 stimulus check actually made better financial sense than cashing it. The bottom line, as I understand it, is that thanks to Bush's $3.5-billion-a-week boondoggle, the government had to borrow the $168 billion it cost for the stimulus package. Now, if I fully understand it, this is about like charging those $300 and $600 checks against a big old VISA card. Speaking as one who cringes whenever she hears the words "Capital One," I can say that this is a very bad idea. The author, former stock broker Max Keiser, can explain it better than I, but I like his idea of holding onto the checks as mementos, and maybe even trading them on eBay. Now there's some creating financing.

I'd love to hear where you spent YOUR stimulus check (if you got one). Add your comments here. Maybe I'll set up a poll, too. I know if I HAD received a check it would have gone to Capital One...though it probably wouldn't even cover the interest on that debt given the exorbitant rates/fees credit card companies are allowed to charge. But that's a rant for another time...


Gas pump © Robert Mizerek | Dreamstime.com
(That's his typo, too.)

Up In Arms

What did Hillary say? Her exact words were these: "My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June." (In fact, while celebrating his win four hours earlier in the California primary.)

Suddenly, everyone is accusing her of saying that she is staying in the race because if Obama were to be assassinated, she would win the nomination by default. While I repeat that I am by no means a great fan of Hillary, I can't understand how you could listen to what she actually said and reach that conclusion—unless, of course, you are predisposed to hear everything she says in the worst possible way. I tend to believe her explanation:

"Earlier today I was discussing the Democratic primary history and in the course of that discussion mentioned campaigns that both my husband and Senator Kennedy waged in California in June 1992 and 1968. I was referencing those to make the point that we have had nomination primary contests that go into June. That's a historic fact."

She went on to add that "the Kennedys have been much on my mind that last days," and this rings true. The Kennedys have been much on my mind as well; any mention of tragedy and Kennedy in the same sentence brings me back to my preschool self, hearing the news from Dallas and seeing everyone around me stuporous with shock and grief. I must admit that one of my first thoughts when I heard the recent news about Senator Ted Kennedy's brain cancer was not, perhaps, in the best of taste. Rather, it was a dark thought equating the effects of a bullet with that of the admittedly slower but just as devastatingly fatal effects of a glioma, and mourning the fates of all three Kennedys.

What I really wanted to point out was that even if she had somehow meant to suggest that there was a chance that Obama might be assassinated, she would hardly have been anything like the first to think it, or even to say it out loud. More than a few African-Americans have admitted (e.g., from February 2008) to the fear that supporting Obama in his bid for the presidency might somehow put him in danger. Read the daily news. It is all too easy to imagine some whack job feeling compelled to pull a trigger to "protect" his racist existence. Reading the news, though, will also remind you that there may be even more whack jobs out there willing to do whatever it takes to prevent a woman holding the country's highest office. After all, women hold fewer than 15 out of every 100 board seats in the Fortune 500 companies today. (An aside: you may recall that John McCain opposed the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, on the grounds that women weren't earning the same amount of money as their male counterparts because they needed more "education and training," not because of any silly old glass ceiling or the prevalence of misogyny in the workforce.)

But I digress. My main point is that I don't think Hillary is staying in the race with the thought that her opponent might be "taken out" of the running. Secondary to that is my acknowledgment that even if she did think such a thing—and only the most bitter of cynics could believe this—she would only be speaking aloud what so many of us are afraid of, which is that the U.S. may still be so far behind other developed countries that many voters can't imagine having anyone behind that desk except a wealthy white man.

Dear Hillary

I'll be honest. You weren't my first choice as nominee. That would have been Al Gore, but unfortunately he has thus far declined to run. Given the choice between you and Mr. Obama, I must admit that I have reservations about both options. While I suppose if I were l leaning even slightly it would be toward you, overall, I cannot heartily endorse either of you as things stand. That being the case, I thought I'd pass on some of those concerns in hopes that my thoughts might actually reach you, or someone with some standing in the campaign who can evaluate and perhaps pass on these thoughts. If nothing else, it gives me a chance to speak up—though I may be speaking to an empty room.

1. Everyone who is paying attention would have to say that while Bush has been the worst U.S President EVER, his largest failings have been in the area of Foreign Relations. Clearly you have more expertise and experience in this area, yet so far your campaign's failings have all been mostly errors of, well, diplomacy and communication. There is no doubt that you are brilliant, dedicated, knowledgeable, and (on paper) the best candidate, but I worry that if you cannot run a campaign on your strengths rather than someone else's failings, as a "diplomat" you might prove no better than GWB. Obviously you are at an immediate disadvantage: a man can say almost anything and not be accused of having a character flaw, but anything faintly contrary that a woman says earns her the sobriquet "bitch." Nevertheless, you CAN disagree without denigrating simply by always having the better answer. Can you do this?

2. I think your husband was an excellent president, and his personal peccadilloes don't interest me; that's between the two of you to hash out. But I do think that he, and you, are too heavily invested in the status quo and what is generally called the "political machine." I am not naive enough to believe that any president can stand alone—compromise and negotiation are inevitable given the number of people and positions involved—but I do worry that you are too fearful to propose any real change…that is, any progressive change. I would love to hear you (or any of the candidates, for that matter) stand at a microphone and state unequivocally where you stand on every issue without pandering to a specific audience. For example, if it were me forced to state clearly what I believe, I would say the following:

• the government should NOT be allowed to run a deficit…
• the country should adopt a preferential voting (run-off) system at all levels, every vote should have both a paper backup and off-site digital duplicate, and the first Tuesday of every November should be a national holiday (paid with proof of voting, otherwise unpaid)
  
• a woman should be allowed to terminate any pregnancy under any circumstances up until the point of healthy viability without having to get the permission of anyone but her own conscience…
• capital punishment is always wrong…
• gay adults should be granted the exact same rights and privileges—and be held to the same standards and responsibilities—as heterosexual adults, including the right to marry, to adopt children, to be foster parents, and to hold any job for which they are qualified…
• social security, health care, and education should all be the responsibility of the Federal government, not private enterprise…
• all the troops in Iraq should be withdrawn as quickly and in as orderly a fashion as is technically feasible, starting today…
• and so on.

3. You need to look constituents in the eye and say something along these lines: "If I react calmly and with logic, people call me a cold, heartless, and controlling bitch. If I tear up or show any sort of concern or sympathy, people call me a weak, emotional lightweight. The truth is, I am human, just like you. I make mistakes like everyone else, but when you come right down to it, I am the best possible choice you have available to you right now to clean up after George Bush. I will need a lot of help, and I will appoint the best possible people to join me—not my friends, not people who donated money, not figureheads, not people I owe favors of any kind—the people who are the best suited for each and every job. It's not my job to ensure that the Democratic Party regains control of the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court for decades to come; it is my job to take care of all our citizens now and ensure that four years from now they will be better off than they are now. And if I do my job well, there WILL be Democrats in positions of power in the future, and they will remain there until they lose sight of the real prize: Democracy, not "Democrat-ocracy."

What Would Marjorie Say?

As the clamor for Hillary Clinton to concede the race for the presidential nomination grows ever more bitter and shrill, I find myself wondering what Marjorie would think.

Without a doubt the most brilliant person, bar none, I have ever had the privilege of meeting in person, Marjorie Williams was someone whose opinion on the matter would be guaranteed to be rational, well informed, and incisive, delivered with a deliciously wry wit. She wrote so fluidly as to make it seem effortless, and perhaps it was, for I saw her do it often enough in person: draw instantly upon some vast internal mental filing system for just the right fact, the right quote, the right word, then deliver a word-perfect analysis that left me in awe—and often in hysterics as well. She could toss off gems from obscure corners of the lexicon without ever seeming pretentious (feckless! insouciant! comity! encomium!), and listen to or read the most obtuse information and instantly synthesize a keen summary or commentary. She was amazing.

Her opinion on the current Democratic nomination would hold great weight. As an op-ed columnist for the Washington Post and the author of numerous trenchant political profiles for Vanity Fair on people in and around the DC political scene, she would have had no trouble sizing up this unprecedented situation and penning a clever, concise, and illuminating opinion. I'd be particularly interested in hearing her riff on the roles that gender and race have played in this particular contest.

Recently presidential historian (and alleged serial plagiarist) Doris Kearns Goodwin was quoted as saying, "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 [Clinton]." Marjorie wouldn't have repeated the oft-repeated, egregious contradictions to this (the men in New Hampshire asking her to iron their shirts, McCain calling her a bitch) and found a string of instances proving that Ms. Goodwin may have been spending a little too much time copying off the papers of her C-student subjects. She would certainly have reminded us how Hillary was staked out for the jackals for her husband's transgressions, and pilloried for failing to play her part as the wronged wife, neither falling tearfully to pieces and blaming herself nor filing for divorce.

Instead Hillary behaved with stoic dignity. For this she was accused of being cold and brittle—not to mention a lesbian. (Trust me, not all lesbians can pull off the "stoic dignity" thing. I'm proof of that.) Stoic dignity, apparently, belongs to the male of the species. When she teared up with joy after winning the NH primary (deservedly so), she was being a typical, emotional woman. Real presidents don't cry.

But Marjorie being Marjorie, she would have had a dozen perfect examples of blatant sexism, ones gleaned first- or second-hand and never before seen in print, and they would have inspired the proper amount of outrage among voters. But she would not have presented a one-sided condemnation of the prevalence and apparent sanctioning of woman-bashing in politics. She was always even-handed. In the late 1990s, she and her husband Timothy Noah wrote a back-and-forth email feature for Slate magazine called "At the Breakfast Table" in which they commented on the latest news. Marjorie wrote, "Smart feminists never strove (nor even wanted) to accomplish the impossible task of taming the male id, only to make it think twice before disporting itself in the public sphere." She herself was the ideal feminist: strong, independent, and unafraid to leap into a traditionally male bastion (in this country at least, the world of politics—even political commentary—is still populated for the most part by white men), and at the same time an adoring mother to two small children and passionately in love with her husband and the challenges and gifts of raising a family.

Unfortunately, you don't have to take my word for any of this. You can actually read about it in her book. The first half of The Woman at the Washington Zoo (PublicAffairs/Perseus Book Groups, 2006), you'll find some of her elegant political profiles. The second half of the book, though, is pure Marjorie: family vignettes, personal glimpses into her life, and—most heart-wrenching—the story of her own battle with the rare form of liver cancer that finally ended her life at age 47 in January 2005. It's a rare talent that allows someone to write in such poignant detail about her own diagnosis, her treatments (though told she had only several months, she nevertheless lived another 3 years), and her realization that she would never see her children grow up, and yet never sound morbid or self-pitying.

Oh, just read the book. You, too, will feel the loss. There will be so many things you'll wish you could ask her…and not just about politics.

* * *

By the way, in her piece on weddings, Marjorie mentions having been the "best man" at a wedding; she stood up for the groom, her high-school sweetheart and my then husband-to-be (I was young, okay? If she'd been gay, it might have been him playing bridesmaid for her; I loved her that much. He and I divorced almost two decades ago, but she was no longer single by then).

Photo by Elizabeth Kastor, from "Marjorie Williams: A journalist who made feminism matter," by Meghan O'Rourke, posted at Slate.com on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2005, at 11:07 AM ET.