Month: May 2008

So Long, Ellen Malcolm

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by hilzoy Ellen Malcolm has an idiotic column in today’s Washington Post: “So here we are in the fourth quarter of the nominating process and the game is too close to call. Once again, the opponents and the media are calling for Hillary to quit. The first woman ever to win a presidential primary is … Read more

They Read The Onion And Thought It Was A How-To Manual

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by hilzoy I thought the Republicans in Congress moved beyond parody a while back, but this truly takes the cake. From a Washington Post article headlined “Republicans Vote Against Moms; No Word Yet on Puppies, Kittens“: “It was already shaping up to be a difficult year for congressional Republicans. Now, on the cusp of Mother’s … Read more

Why Did Clinton Lose? In a Word, Iraq

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by publius

I’m sure pundits and historians alike will be arguing for many years about why Clinton — who enjoyed such enormous advantages going in — lost the Democratic primary. (See, e.g., Karen Tumulty). Personally, I think the explanation is quite simple. Clinton lost the nomination because of Iraq. Period.

While that explanation seems overly simplistic, it’s more complex than you might think. Iraq hurt her not so much because she supported the war, but because the war interacted with her campaign — at this particular point in history — in a number of complex, harmful ways. Thus, what’s truly interesting is not so much that Iraq sunk her candidacy, but the particular manner in which it did so. Below the fold, I’ve listed several specific reasons why Iraq doomed her candidacy. While she deserves blame for some of these reasons, others must be chalked up to cruel Fortune.

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Close My Eyes! It’s All Pink!

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by hilzoy

Yesterday, NPR had a fascinating story about two six year olds who are transgender. You can either read or listen to it here; if you have twenty three minutes, I recommend listening to it. One thing that becomes very clear when you listen to it is that these are not kids (biologically, boys) whose parents put the idea of being girls into their heads. They came up with it on their own. They played with dolls, not trucks; they identified with female characters, not male ones; one decided to go trick or treating as Dorothy when he was two and a half (and that’s not the half of it; read or listen to the story.) As for the other:

“Around the age of 3, Jonah started taking his mother Pam’s clothing. He would borrow a long T-shirt and belt, and fashion it into a dress. This went on for months — with Jonah constantly adjusting his costume to make it better — until one day, Pam discovered her son crying inconsolably. He explained to his mother that he simply could not get the T-shirt to look right, she says.

Pam remembers watching her child mournfully finger his outfit. She says she knew what he wanted. “At that point I just said, you know, ‘You really want a dress to wear, don’t you?’ And [Jonah’s] face lit up, and [she] was like, ‘Yes!'”

That afternoon, Pam, her sister and Jonah piled into the family car.

“I thought [she]* was gonna hyperventilate and faint because [she] was so incredibly happy. … Before then, or since then, I don’t think I have seen [her] so out of [her] mind happy as that drive to Target that day to pick out [her] dress,” Pam says.

Pam allowed Jonah to get two dresses, but felt incredibly conflicted about it. Even though Jonah asked, she wouldn’t allow him to buy any more dresses for a year afterward, so Jonah wore those two dresses every day, nothing else, until Pam got sick of looking at them.”

Eventually, both sets of parents sought counseling, and got two counselors with very different approaches. One believes in trying to get children like this to stop trying to be the opposite gender. The other does not.

I can see both sides of this question. I ask myself: suppose I had a transgender kid, and there was some completely benign thing I could do — providing a diet with more of some vitamin, for instance — that would make my child completely comfortable with his or her biological gender. (Note: to count as benign, it would have to be something like dietary modification, as opposed to telling my kid to act more like a boy or girl.) Would I do it? I think so. Being transgender is not just no fun at all; it involves pretty serious surgery and a lifetime on hormones, and if something like a dietary modification, undertaken early enough, could spare my kid this, I think I’d go for it.

[UPDATE: Hob, in comments, notes that being transgender doesn’t necessarily mean surgery. True enough, and I was too quick to say that it did. Hob also says that I make it sound unduly grim: “many of my friends were having no fun at all for some part of their lives, but they are now.” To be clear: I didn’t mean that it’s never fun (and should have been clearer on that; of course it can be.) I should probably have said: it can be tough, which is more like what I meant. Also, I meant to include the parts when people don’t have fun: the part before you figure out what’s going on and what to do about it, for instance. Though, on reflection, I should probably have hedged that too: maybe for some people it’s never confusing at all, and people are never bigoted and vile, and there is no employment discrimination, and so forth. END UPDATE.]

But that hypothetical assumes something crucial, namely: that gender identification can be modified. Maybe in some cases it can: human nature being endlessly various, I’m sure there are boys out there who decide to be girls, or vice versa, but for whom this is malleable. (Thus the word ‘decide’, which would otherwise be completely question-begging.) I’m also sure that there are a lot of transmen and transwomen whose gender identification is not modifiable in any way we know of: people who try as hard as they can not to want to be a different gender, without success. And before I decided what to do in response to the fact that my hypothetical child did not identify with the body s/he was born with, I would want to have some idea which s/he seemed likely to be.

Here’s what happened to the two kids.

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Vito Fossella: Defending Marriage

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by hilzoy Vito Fossella was in trouble already: “The clock is ticking on Rep. Vito Fossella (R-N.Y.) — or “Vino” Fossella, as the New York tabloids have taken to calling him — who is battling not just drunken driving charges but much more personally scandalous allegations that could damage his party’s prospects in the November … Read more

McCain goes Racist?

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"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," he said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, McCain cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were … Read more

Oops!

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by hilzoy This really is astonishing: “Clinton picked people for her team primarily for their loyalty to her, instead of their mastery of the game. That became abundantly clear in a strategy session last year, according to two people who were there. As aides looked over the campaign calendar, chief strategist Mark Penn confidently predicted … Read more

Burma: It Just Gets Worse

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by hilzoy The news from Burma gets more and more horrific: (Image from the Washington Post.) From the NYT: “The top United States diplomat in Myanmar warned that the toll could rise to 100,000 if aid was not prompt. The French foreign minister, meanwhile, suggested invoking United Nations powers to force delivery of international relief … Read more

How To Do It

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by hilzoy Round about now, Hillary Clinton might be wondering: is it possible to run a doomed campaign that just brightens people’s day without leaving bitterness in its wake? Yes.

Lookin’ for a Suit and Tie Rap

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The Pentagon just released all of the documents that the New York Times relied on for its story on the Pentagon’s use of former military officials (and other so-called "experts") to surreptisiously parrot the party line in various media outlets and appearances.  There’s a lot of documents to wade through, but there are bound to … Read more

Kirchick’s Sloppy Logic

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by publius Jamie Kirchick — whose struggles with honesty have been discussed here — penned an odd column for the Politico yesterday. The argument is essentially that “the left” is hypocritical because it criticizes conservative religious extremists while “cynically” developing “a newfound love” for extremists like Wright. He writes: Yet the left, with its healthy … Read more

Final Thoughts Before Bed

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by hilzoy

First thought: it’s worth taking a step back and noticing that the gas tax pander didn’t work. At least, it’s hard for me to believe that Obama would have come as close as he did to winning Indiana in the face of the flap over Rev. Wright, the possible involvement of Limbaugh Republicans, and so on, if the idea of a gas tax holiday had really caught on.

Senator Clinton gambled on the stupidity of the voters, and she lost.* That is truly worth celebrating.

Second, the NYT:

“Clinton advisers acknowledged that the results of the primaries were far less than they had hoped, and said they were likely to face new pleas even from some of their own supporters for her to quit the race. They said they expected fund-raising to become even harder now; one adviser said the campaign was essentially broke, and several others refused to say whether Mrs. Clinton had loaned the campaign money from her personal account to keep it afloat.

The advisers said they were dispirited over the loss in North Carolina, after her campaign — now working off a shoestring budget as spending outpaces fund-raising — decided to allocate millions of dollars and full days of the candidate and her husband in the state. Even with her investment, Mr. Obama outspent Mrs. Clinton in both states.”

This is where the rubber hits the road. If the campaign is “essentially broke”, and if she doesn’t somehow manage to raise money on tonight’s results, then the Clintons no longer get to decide whether to stay in the race, period. They get to decide whether to stay in the race on their own nickels. I imagine this might be a sobering thought. (But why? They can spare the money more easily than most of their supporters.)

Third: as I’ve said in comments, I think the fact that she has cancelled her public appearances for tomorrow is serious. God willing, she will drop out, and spare us any continuation of this nightmare.

Fourth: it occurred to me this evening that if Obama is the nominee, it will be the first time in my life that someone I have supported in a contested primary has been the nominee. Starting with McGovern in 1968 and continuing for the next forty years, the people I have supported have an unbroken record of failure in primaries. It was almost enough to make me consider coming out for Kucinich or Gravel, just to jinx them. (Though both of them seem to have done a fine job jinxing themselves, without any help from me.)

If Obama gets the nomination, I will scarcely know what to make of it. It will be almost as strange as seeing the sun rise in the west, or cockatiels quoting Proust. These things just don’t happen to me.

I hope I have the chance to get used to it. It sounds like fun. 😉

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This is the End

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by publius Tonight, I think, marks the end of the Clinton campaign. I mean, it’s been over for some time, but tonight sucked the wind out of her rationale for staying in — particularly if Indiana flips when the Chicago vote comes in. Math-wise, tonight’s elections don’t change much. The math is bad for Clinton, … Read more

NC/IN Open Thread

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by hilzoy The networks seem to have called North Carolina for Obama at the very moment the polls closed. As I write, Indiana has not been called, though Clinton is ahead 57-43 with a third of the votes counted. CNN has the results for NC and IN with nifty maps: just hold your mouse over … Read more

Stop Voter Fraud By Nuns! Open Thread

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by hilzoy I wasn’t going to post on this story, but since I’ve decided to post an open thread, what the heck: “About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow bride of Christ because they didn’t have state or federal identification bearing a photograph. Sister Julie McGuire said … Read more

Burma

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by hilzoy From the NYT: “The death toll from a powerful cyclone that struck Myanmar three days ago rose to 22,500 Tuesday, with a further 41,000 people still missing, the government said, and foreign governments and aid organizations began mobilizing for a major relief operation. Shaken by the scope of the disaster, the authorities said … Read more

Hitchens Logic

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by publius Shorter Hitchens — Obama attended Wright’s church not because he was an aspiring Chicago politician, but because Michelle is a closet radical. The evidence? Her 1985 college thesis. The other evidence? None listed. All in all, a well-argued column. And bonus points if anyone can identify the logical relevance of the first two … Read more

Beat That, John Thullen!

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by hilzoy Maureen Dowd seems to have written this in earnest (or what passes for earnestness with her): “Proclaiming that the upcoming elections in Indiana and North Carolina would be “a game changer,” Hillary and her posse pressed hard on their noble twin themes of emasculation and elitism. Cherry-bombing the word “pansy” into the discourse, … Read more

We Owe Them Better

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by hilzoy Sometimes the news makes me very, very angry: “The number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care, the U.S. government’s top psychiatric researcher said. Community mental health centers, hobbled by financial limits, haven’t provided enough scientifically sound care, … Read more

Introduction – Out of Order

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by Eric Martin It is my great honor to announce to the distinguished readership of Obsidian Wings that I’ll be joining the gifted authors on this site on rare occasion.  Their invitation led me to question their judgment, as you are no doubt harboring your own doubts at this time.  In order to make them … Read more

Sit by the Fire in Your Shangri-la

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by Eric Martin At this juncture, the Bush administration and its allies are primarily relying on three publicly stated rationales in order to justify maintaining the crippling occupation of Iraq: (1) protecting the Iraqi people from the violence of a civil war that would flare up should we leave; (2) fear of an al-Qaeda takeover … Read more

John McCain Works Tirelessly — For You!

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by hilzoy The NYT has a story today about the increased costs of health care for people with insurance. It includes this: “Shirley Giarde of Walla Walla, Wash., was not prepared when her husband, Raymond, suddenly developed congestive heart failure last year and needed a pacemaker and defibrillator. Because his job did not provide health … Read more

More Larger Lessons From The Gas Tax Pander

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by hilzoy

A few days ago, publius wrote about some of them. I just want to expand on one of his points.

The gas tax holiday is bad policy. Clinton has to know this. If she does, then she has come out in favor of it for purely political reasons: because she thinks it will give her an edge over Obama. (Note: this is the charitable reading of her conduct. I assume she’s much too smart to actually believe that this is a good idea.)

Moreover, this didn’t have to be an issue in the Democratic primary. It’s not as though it was already on the table and had to be discussed. Clinton made it an issue, and is running on it. Which is to say: she has not only come out in favor of a bad idea for political reasons; she has introduced a bad idea into the Democratic primary, and she is running on her willingness to embrace it.

Clinton is presently making a big deal about the fact that she is “a fighter”. After this primary season, I don’t think there can be any doubt about her willingness to fight. What Clinton’s gas tax proposal tells me is what she’s willing to fight for. She is not willing to fight for what she thinks is right in the face of public pressure. She’s not even willing to restrict her compromises to cases in which public pressure to do something stupid already exists. She will sacrifice principle and the public good when it’s expedient for her to do so.

Which is to say: she’s a fighter, all right, but what she fights for is her own interest, not what she thinks is right.

Based on this episode, how much confidence can we have that she’ll really be wiling to go to the mat to combat global warming? None at all. Based on her vote for the Iraq War Resolution — a vote that was, at the time, seen (wrongly) as one that Democrats had to cast if they wanted to secure their own political viability — how much confidence can we have that she’ll be willing to go to the mat to protect our national interests or to prevent a pointless, stupid, destructive war? Likewise, none at all.

If there’s anything we should have learned from George W. Bush, it’s that generalized combativeness is not a good thing in a President. We need not just someone who’s willing to fight in general, but someone who’s willing to fight for the right things. If you think that the right things just are the things that advance Hillary Clinton’s political interests, then there’s no problem. But if you want someone who is willing to fight for good policies that are in our national interest, that actually address serious problems, then it’s worth recognizing that while she is more than willing to fight, she is not willing to fight for that.

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One other note:

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Communists Seize Control of Louisiana-06

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by publius The bitter Marxists in Louisiana, House District 6, voted in a Democrat yesterday in a district that went solidly for Bush (59%). I haven’t been following it closely, but it had the potential to create further headaches for Obama. Jenkins, the Republican, appeared to be closing strong by tying Cazayoux with Obama and … Read more

Oil and War

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by publius Steve Benen has the complete run-down on McCain’s most recent gaffe about oil and the Iraq War. A few thoughts, in no particular order: First, it reinforces my argument that McCain — paper credentials aside — is a weak campaigner. He’s extremely undisciplined and that’s ultimately going to cost him. It’s not just … Read more

Oh Noes! Girl Preznits!!!

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by hilzoy Via Pam’s House Blend, WorldNetDaily brings us How Hillary Will Lead America To Hell. It starts with a question of vital importance to the patriarchy nation: “The president is like the father of a big family, and who he is and what he is – his spirit – affects everyone, like the sun. … Read more

The Kantor Video

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by hilzoy There’s a viral YouTube video out there, in which Mickey Kantor is supposed to insult the people of Indiana. When I saw it, I recognized that it came from The War Room, which I have on DVD. So I went and watched it (note: if anyone else feels like trying this, it’s very … Read more

The Scalia! It Burns!

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by hilzoy I had missed this delightful bit of Constitutional interpretation from Antonin Scalia until Jim Henley pointed it out: “”I don’t like torture,” Scalia says. “Although defining it is going to be a nice trick. But who’s in favor of it? Nobody. And we have a law against torture. But if the – everything … Read more

Why Indiana Sort of Matters

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by publius Given recent media narratives, it’s easy to lose sight of just how irrelevant the Indiana primary is to the overall nomination. It seems at times that Clinton is just an Indiana victory from storming back into contention. But she’s not. Regardless of the ultimate outcome in Indiana, the delegates will essentially be split … Read more

NC Robocalls: More Thoughts

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by hilzoy

I wrote earlier about the robocalls in North Carolina. Briefly: a group called Women’s Voices Women Vote made robocalls that seemed to suggest that voters had to mail in a packet of stuff in order to be able to vote. The calls were made after the registration deadline for the NC primary, and caused confusion among registered voters who thought they might not be eligible if they didn’t mail in the packet. In this post, I wanted to lay out the facts as I understand them.

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