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The XX Factor: Slate women blog about politics, etc...
August 2008 - Posts
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In a Republican of McCain's vintage, I found it hard not to hear a patronizing tone as he introduced Sarah Palin today, though I'm sure he was bending over backward to avoid it: "Hey, what a feisty young gal I've got here." And something tells me this Read More...
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Not that I wish him ill, but wouldn't the most surreal outcome of McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate be that McCain gets elected, shortly afterward he dies in office, and the president of the United States becomes a 44 year-old breast-feeding, Read More...
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Sarah Palin has, if nothing else, generated a lot off buzz for the McCain campaign. And a lot of mixed reactions. Dahlia didn't like her speech, but I was charmed. Now we have higlights of the speech available, so everyone can see for themselves. Read More...
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Dahlia, you direct your rage at The Man and The Media whereas mine goes in another direction. This is the game conservative women politicians have played forever: grab power but know just when to defer. If they play it exactly right, they can shield themselves Read More...
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Back in the late 1980s, there was a moment when British newspapers suddenly started hiring women—columnists, editors, whatever—en masse. The explanation for this change was not that Rupert Murdoch, Conrad Black, or the other British press barons had somehow Read More...
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Sarah Heath Palin is not the only resident of Wasilla, Ala. , who got a career boost from the McCain campaign’s announcement that she will be No. 2 on the GOP presidential ticket. Alaska writer Kaylene Johnson ’s biography of the two-year Alaska governor Read More...
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Something that keeps running through my mind as the blogs light up with posts about whether Sarah Palin is a serious candidate or presidential arm candy: What would Chris Matthews and Rush Limbaugh be saying about Palin had she been Obama’s veep choice Read More...
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And I thought I was a big deal for doing this post with a four-day-old baby in my arms! To me, Palin is a much more familiar type—one for whom I feel something more complicated than awe. She is obviously not a homeschooling mom but reminds me a lot of Read More...
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Can we just stop for a moment and consider how amazing it is, in more than one sense of the word, that we have a vice-presidential nominee who has a son going to Iraq AND a baby? The time span itself leaves me flabbergasted. That is motherhood extended, Read More...
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I need to amend my earlier post about Sandra Day O’Connor. There’s a difference between being a less-than-perfect candidate and a painfully under-prepared one. Watch the Dayton speech . I am all for pandering to women, but not this way. Read More...
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In nature and on presidential tickets, symmetry is attractive. So both parties are offering us something old; something new; and something red, white, and blue, since both veep nominees have sons shipping off to Iraq soon. Though I think it's smart that Read More...
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Absolutely agree that this was an inspired, brave and buzz-y choice for veep. Everything the Joe Biden pick was not. I think Team McCain has gamed this age we live in better than the Obama camp, for which they deserve serious credit. Now this is gonna Read More...
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All right, now I'm excited. Back in March, I cast my primary vote for John McCain with confidence. His values, his stance on the issues matched mine better than those of any other Republican. His campaign was on a roll, the reports of its death the previous Read More...
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Just yesterday, I was thinking how waiting for John McCain to choose a running mate was like watching St. Peter's for white smoke; your little baby heart is hoping that the choice will be outside the box, sending a message of inclusion and care for other Read More...
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Emily Bazelon will be online today at noon with Slate 's Christopher Beam to discuss what Barack Obama should do now that the convention is over, what he can expect from the opposition, and what possible pitfalls he needs to avoid. Send in a question Read More...
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There was no Britney in Barack Obama's convention speech, which was a loaded triple-bacon burger of substance, quite restrained in its use of emotion, lest anyone accuse him of blinding us with mere rhetorical skill born of clear thinking, in a text he Read More...
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He kept it down to earth tonight, which was the plan and a good idea—too much making people swoon would prove John McCain's charge that what Obama really is is a celebrity. And Obama nicely turned away the celebrity dig with a description of how he came Read More...
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On the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, Barack Obama answered back tonight with a simple, “I Have a Plan.” He’s distilled the trademark soaring rhetoric and big ideas into a handful of crisp one-liners: “ The change Read More...
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I've got a bone to pick with Peggy Noonan's assessment of the Democratic Convention speeches in today's Wall Street Journal . Well, two. First, since when is Laura Bush "the most popular First Lady in modern American political history?" I know she polls Read More...
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Maybe, Emily, I didn't see Bill Clinton's speech the way you did because I actually expected him to do Barack Obama some good tonight. But then, that I expected better of him is an old, old story. History was made in the Pepsi Center this evening, when Read More...
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Bill, the original stickler for exact language , manages to give a roaring, inspiring endorsement of Obama without entirely selling out his wife: "Barack Obama is the man for this job." [Emphasis mine. Just sayin'.] Read More...
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Wow. I have spent these many months — years? — gnashing my teeth over Bill Clinton, ruing his narcissism and practically forgetting the good he did as president. And there he is tonight, showing us his best side: the commanding, masterful framer of Democratic Read More...
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Yeah, and she might also have whipped us up an omelet while she was up there, with feta, maybe, a little spinach, and some whole wheat toast would have been nice. But I personally am glad that Hillary did not sing any hosannas to Obama, or even try to Read More...
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Hillary did give a good speech — with the clear subtext that she should be giving it Thursday night, not tonight, and look what has been lost by her not being the nominee. She was strong and commanding and convincing. And then the camera cut to the face Read More...
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Hillary Clinton crushed tonight. Performed the pants off Mark Warner and Bob Casey and Deval Patrick and even the bolo-tied Brian Schweitzer -- who almost stole the show by mere virtue of the fact that unlike most of tonight’s speakers, he didn’t appear Read More...
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I thought Hillary did a great job tonight. I liked how enthusiastic she seemed about Obama and the Democratic Party generally. She didn't have that extreme tightness she gets in her face sometimes when she's saying things she clearly doesn't believe. Read More...
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When Hillary asked in her speech tonight, "Were you in it just for me?" she crystallized for me why I wasn't behind her. I think if you are in it just for her, you're kind of throwing away the election for the Democrats. Hillary has always been polarizing Read More...
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The fire-bright shade of orange Hillary picked to wear tonight must lie directly across the color wheel from the particular shade of punched-up blue that flanked the DNC podium. The contrast couldn't have been sharper. And I thought Hillary couldn't have Read More...
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Props to the lady in the electric pumpkin pantsuit. Because as Barack Obama's mama used to tell him, a little guilt is good for you. And Mama Hillary spelled that out again tonight, signaling to her people with all the subtlety of her bright orange outfit Read More...
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I have a strange soft spot for Michelle Obama, largely because she was born in 1964, the year I was born, and because she reminds me of women I knew in college. Our generation of women were not the first to get to the Ivy League. We had a different cross Read More...
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Au contraire, Emily : I think we should be mopping our brows with relief that Michelle Obama's speechwriters (or did she write it herself?) avoided the merest hint of sisterhood-is-powerful language or Hillary-identification in her speech. Sure, as a Read More...
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What I loved best about Michelle Obama's speech tonight was that it was fearless, but in a very different way from the fearlessness modeled by Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi. Here is a woman with a degree from Harvard Law School, who could have talked Read More...
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Michelle's master aim tonight: to knit herself to the American dream, the American story. How many times did she use those phrases? Her mother helped, with "I got to stay home with my kids," and her pursed proud mouth, listening in the crowd. Her handsome Read More...
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In August of 1980, I watched Teddy Kennedy's convention speech from the basement of a Holy Cross retreat house in Colorado Springs, where a bunch of us who had just graduated from Notre Dame and had signed up to spend a service year working in inner city Read More...
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Some people just still don't buy that Michael Phelps won the 100-meter fly by a razor-thin one-hundredth of a second. Even Slate 's own Will Saletan is skeptical , wondering if the sensitivity of the touch pads came into play. I've got to respectfully Read More...
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"If anything, the country shows every sign of yearning for Clintonism as a governing idea now as much as it ever has." -- Mark Penn, today in Politico So I guess the Politico called Mark Penn and said hey, cowboy, we've got some rope over here that would Read More...
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McCain's new ad " Passed Over " urges Hillary voters to see the fact that she wasn't chosen as Obama's running mate as a fresh betrayal—and evidence that he's just too wimpy to countenance a strong, truth-telling woman: "She won millions of votes,'' a Read More...
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The poor Old Capitol Blues and BBQs festival — it had the dubious honor of competing today, adjacent to the old state capitol grounds in Springfield, Ill., with the Obama-Biden rally. It didn't fare well, at least during the rally — the barbecue vendors Read More...
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It's not just the foreign policy chops; he brings some blood (and flab!) and jaw-flapping to a sometimes too-cool-for-school campaign. Voters actually liked it when Bush tripped over his own tongue; when he failed in his battle with blurting, they could Read More...
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I've sat through too many Senate hearings to be excited about Joe Biden, of the long pontificating question ( example ), for vice president. Obama-Biden: a ticket of orators. I know that HIllary—or rather, Bill—would have been the snake in the presidential Read More...
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Just heard that Biden is "definitely the guy,'' which makes so much sense that I worry it might not be true. ... No sighting of a bumper-sticker, though. Update: CNN's Candy Crowley reports that there is nothing today's young folk like more than text Read More...
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Does roll off the tongue, though I was sort of hoping they'd spell it Obama-Bi ... Not sure I'm convinced by that Obama-Bayh bumper sticker Trailhead posted on, which looks a little like the one from ‘04 that said "Bush-Voldemort." Or that's what I'm Read More...
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Doing research on something else entirely, I came across this item in the Phnom Penh Post's police blotter for August 22, 2008 (today): MOTHER SEPARATES RUNAWAY LESBIANS Oun Malis, 35, and Toucha Tith Thida, 25, a lesbian couple with Oun Malis in the Read More...
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In an op-ed in the Guardian this morning, Jessica Valenti , founder of the blog Feministing and author of the book Full Frontal Feminism , discusses what she believes has been the media's unfair treatment of Michelle Obama, wife of Barack. Valenti writes, Read More...
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Dahlia , when you're right, you're right; just walking around with a uterus is enough to get you committed in the court of public opinion, so why perpetuate the whole woman-scorned stereotype with self-destructive, Bat-lady behavior? Yes, rage is its Read More...
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Except for a bit of mostly innocuous fun-poking , the Beijing Olympics have pretty much steered clear of any sexist slip-ups. Until yesterday , when reports surfaced of the International Table Tennis Federation’s latest strategy for reversing low attendance Read More...
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Are we allowed to say that here? Watching Rachel Maddow sets my heart aflutter. And not just me, apparently! I hear that she attracts across almost all persuasions--straight and gay, women and men. Especially when she's allowed to appear, as in the photo Read More...
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And, Dana and Dahlia , even as a non-cable news-watching Luddite, I'm thrilled for Rachel Maddow's new gig. That Nation piece was the first time in months that I read a magazine profile on a major news commentator--and there has been a recent obsession, Read More...
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Dahlia, I'm also psyched at Rachel Maddow's ascension to the sweet spot at MSNBC, right after Keith Olbermann's top-rated 8 p.m. show. I love that Maddow is not just a non-Barbie doll; she's a 35-year-old out lesbian, with short-cropped hair and a straightforwardly Read More...
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Props to Rachel Maddow for scoring her own primetime show . And props to MSNBC for recognizing and rewarding monster talent . Maddow is whip-smart, funny, original, and living proof that women needn't spit and hiss to succeed on TV. May the road rise Read More...
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Meghan , I checked out that T-shirt sniffing study you flagged, and, well, it hardly implies a crisis for pill-users – or a pink slip for novelists. To recap: The researchers asked women to rate the smells of T-shirts worn by different men. For each woman, Read More...
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I admit, I was as enthralled as the next person with Michael Phelps' amazing run for eight golds at the Beijing Olympics, perhaps more so. I watched the races live, yelling at the TV; I rewatched them on the Internet (have you seen the 4 x 100 relay underwater Read More...
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