The XX Factor: Slate women blog about politics, etc...

Strike a Pose

Back to basics for a second here. We are getting rather divisive on "XX Factor" itself. True, I do not get Rachael's politics. I consider her a friend and a colleague and I admire her competence and her smarts, but on politics, she and I are on opposite ends of the spectrum. I don't get it.

But I want to.

I wish I could wake up one day with a conservative brain and see the world as Rachael sees it and see how the things she believes can make sense to her. I wish someone made conservative-colored glasses that I could try on. Oddly, I come from a family of conservatives, and I still don't get it.

I also feel bad that Rachael is surrounded by liberals. I imagine it's a bit how I'd feel if I worked at Fox News (don't overthink that comparison, please). And I feel bad that McCain and Palin are the candidates that Rachael is being put in a position to defend when their behavior is at times indefensible. I think we all agree that it is absolutely great to have Rachael's intelligent voice on XX Factor, especially since we don't all agree on the many topics we discuss here, and having her here leads to some lively debate, and hopefully some understanding.

But.

I think we are forgetting something. Obama, McCain, Biden, and Palin are first and foremost politicians. Palin is not of the heartland; she does not even feel of the heartland to me. Look at her wardrobe for one. I don't know anyone of the heartland who has a wardrobe like that. In fact, I live in New York City. I have freelanced at Vogue magazine. Even the people who work at Vogue don't have wardrobes like hers. She is wealthy. She is a celebrity. She is a politician. She is not like you and me. Her claims to the heartland are a pose meant to appeal to the Republican fantasy of the average American.

But neither are the others like you and me. They are all wealthy, educated (or, if you prefer: elitist) politicians. They are all posing.

Often it comes down to whose pose you believe in more, whose pose feels more authentic. Bill Clinton was a great poser.

Palin's "regular gal" pose feels particularly transparent. McCain is posing as a dyed-in-the-wool pro-life Republican (I remember I used to like him before he became a candidate in this election and was being himself more). Biden is posing as someone who would be happy in the No. 2 spot and agrees 100 percent with Obama's positions. And Obama is posing as ... I'm not sure what, exactly ... the candidate who cares?

I remember listening to a speech of his several months ago, and a line from a Joni Mitchell song popped into my head, "Pretty lies, when you gonna realize they're only pretty lies ..."

I love what Obama talks about. I want to believe. Please don't let him be telling us pretty lies. But this is what all politicians do, don't they? They make campaign promises—that they have no intention of keeping or that they are incapable of enacting once in office.

But I like what Obama is saying. He is at least saying the right things. McCain is not. In my humble opinion. And Palin is definitely not. She jumped right on the lying bandwagon so quickly, it makes me a little sick. Maybe she's a Washington outsider, but she has learned to be sleazy in record time. My sense is that she doesn't even know McCain that well, and yet she is willing to say whatever she has to—morals, ethics, common decency be damned.

I was particularly impressed with Obama when after Bristol Palin's pregnancy became known and a reporter asked him what he thought, he said that the families of candidates are off-limits, particularly the children. That's class. I can only imagine how the Republicans would have buried him if he'd had a pregnant daughter who was Bristol's age.

I don't think that even McCain believes what he's saying. "My friends," is a stall so he can think of his next talking point, the talking points devised by the party to get him elected.

But, back to the point. Let us not be so entrenched behind our candidates of choice that we cannot be critical of all of them. They are, after all, just politicians. Even Obama, whose pose is so convincing that I really hope it's not a pose at all.

Book-larnin'

There you go again, you pointy-headed Ivy Leaguers: trying to “understand” current events through the study of “history” (undertaken at Yale, of all places!). Sure, it’s fascinating to read about the Renaissance origins of the image of the mother-as-regent, fiercely protecting the husbands and sons who are really in charge of the realm. But isn’t it enough just to understand deep in our gut that Palin makes people feel, in some inchoate way … er, something vaguely positive about women and values and family and babies? Something warm and wonderful and maverick-y that inheres in her very person, independent of (indeed contrary to) any action she’s taken in office or any policy she espouses?

The smell of my daughter’s clean laundry makes me feel warm and wonderful about families, but I’m not electing a pile of it vice president of the United States. I’ve had it with hearing about Palin’s family. I want to know what the next administration we vote into office is going to do for our families—yours and mine.

Some Thoughts on Pigs in Lipstick

I'm trying to get work done on something else—a piece of writing and thinking not related to the Alaskan body-snatcher who seems to have invaded our collective brain—but my mind keeps returning to the trivial campaign flap of the day, this flurry of feigned outrage about "lipstick on a pig." Rachael's right that the Obama campaign's unfortunate choice of this phrase to describe the cynical repackaging of John McCain's economic plan opens the Dems up to charges of sexism. But I honestly can't decide: Is the use of the phrase, even if it does include a veiled jab at Palin, really sexist? After all, this is a woman who, in a much-praised convention speech (now being endlessly repeated on the stump) referred to herself as a "pit bull with lipstick." Isn't Obama's repurposing of a related metaphor just pointing out that, beneath that lipstick, the emperor's pit bull has no clothes?

As is being widely blogged today, McCain used the same figure of speech to deride Hillary's health care plan back in May. (The Christian Science Monitor reports that Dick Cheney also used it to demean Kerry's war record in 2004, and that Obama used it earlier in the campaign to criticize Bush's Iraq policy.) As far as I can recall, the Clinton campaign, which was never slow to seize upon opportunities for umbrage, let the phrase pass unnoticed (if anyone has a clip to refute that claim, please send along). Then again, McCain did preface his comparison with the sentence "I don't like to use this term." Why not? What would his disclaimer mean, if not that the phrase was somehow offensive to Hillary?

Pigs and pit bulls: two animals popularly considered to be unpleasant (though both can actually make smart and loving pets!), both repackaged with a slapped-on coat of Revlon (personally, I like Cherries in the Glow). The difference, of course, is that the pit-bull joke puts an admirable spin on the image of the dolled-up beast: Pit bulls are to be admired for their toughness and tenacity (and lipstick only makes them cuter!) while a pig is just a pig, cosmetics or no. What do the rest of you XX-ers think: If the Hillary campaign had cried sexism over the same porcine imagery, would you have given it more or less credence? And would you rather compare yourself to a dog, or have someone else compare your ideas to a pig?

The Rain in Spain ...

A guest post from XX reader, Nicole Beckton:

In thinking about Sarah Palin's first big national evening, I realized that one of the "benefits" of McCain's pick is his total control of—if not her image, that's now impossible—her policies, her ideas, all of her political substance. Because of Palin’s perceived lack of interest/indifference to serious foreign policy concerns and limited record of opinions on such matters, she is a dream pick for McCain because, unlike Joe Biden, who has thought substantively about global and domestic concerns for decades, Sarah Palin is a relative blank slate.

Palin is an ultra-conservative who seems likely (because of her lack of experience) to pretty much accept anything the McCain campaign tells her to think about foreign and domestic policy. In fact what she has been asked to do, in preparation for this evening, is to simply parrot McCain on every ideological and policy level: To not have a mind of her own, to not have come to her opinions on our most pressing problems through careful thought, reflection, analysis, or legislative action. She is clearly willing to do so. That’s why Lindsey Graham raves that “she's smart and she will learn over time.” That’s why McCain advisers have said that part of her appeals for him was that “he felt she would be able to be educated quickly.”
Palin is thus the attractive new face of neo-conservativism with no recorded policy thoughts of her own. As a woman, this is more insulting to me than the fact that they barely vetted her—although I'm disturbed by that too! I think they vetted her just enough to know they could control her big policy positions ... unlike Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Olympia Snowe, Meg Whitman, and other more qualified female GOP leaders. Simply put, it feels like they picked a woman with no record or opinion on tough FOREIGN POLICY positions ... but with extremely strong views on DOMESTIC social issues—all of which seems to me to say, she's being kept in her place.

Palin and Cable TV

Slate's Jim Ledbetter sends in the following guest post:

The irony struck me while watching cable television from my Denver hotel room on Friday morning: A kind of token feminism had finally hit the Republican Party, and was immediately being questioned by—of all people—cable television commentators. Does anyone believe that the blowdried blonds (male and female, but for purposes of this argument, female) who read newscasts from teleprompters are chosen strictly for their journalistic skills? Putting women in front of the camera—like putting women on the covers of magazines—is a proven way of attracting the attention of media consumers both male and female. It should come as little surprise that the McCain campaign—which has never come anywhere near 50 percent support in any credible national poll—sought to apply this same media logic to politics. Don’t get me wrong: I share completely the view that Sarah Palin is not qualified to be the vice president of the United States, and that McCain’s choice is a world-class act of cynical political calculation, rather than any attempt to put “Country First.” At the same time, neither liberals nor conservatives have figured out the right balance between rewarding “qualified” women and sheer representation of women in places where it is deemed to matter. The logic of affirmative action is that given equal or near-equal conditions, preference should be given to members of historically underrepresented groups. The current contortions through which Republicans are trying to argue that Palin is qualified can be read as an argument that gender representation trumps experience, an argument not unfamiliar on the democratic left, and certainly not on cable television. And anyway, if McCain and Palin end up losing, who doubts that CNN and Fox will be competing to offer her a show?

The Palin Paradox

The misogyny gap

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 instead of McCain’s? Would we be seeing Sarah Palin nutcrackers by the weekend? Would Fox News be airing a segment next week about her “nagging voice” in which so-called experts opine that ‘“men won’t vote for Sarah Palin because she reminds them of their nagging wives.” Would Chris Matthews liken her not-yet-ready for primetime voice to “fingernails on a blackboard?” Having watched Palin’s tribute to Hillary in Dayton this afternoon would Matthews accuse her of “playing the woman card?” Will he repeat the great wisdom that “"modern women" like Palin are unacceptable to "Midwest guys?” Will Tucker Carlson cop to the fact that every time he sees Palin, “I involuntarily cross my legs?” I don’t doubt Sarah Palin will face brutal misogyny in the coming weeks on the trail, and that infuriates me. But I’m willing to bet she won’t be called a “she-devil” or “bitch,” it won’t be happening in primetime, and it won’t be considered hilarious.