"President Barack Obama" has a nice ring to it

Happy Inauguration Day, y'all.

Generation O

I saw an Obama baby onesie the other day with those words on it. I like it. I like that my daughter was born into an era where a white woman and a black man were presidential candidates, and where a black man with an accomplished wife and two daughters won. I am still in giddy awe and amazement at this new era of our country. Regardless of what happens during the next four (or eight? dare I think it?) years, this is momentous. I dare to be optimistic about it. This is our new world.

My husband is a politics crack-whore

It's been four years since the last presidential election, so I'd forgotten what it was like. I remember sleeping on the pull-out sofa in the living room to watch the election returns, and the deep, weeks-long malaise that Seth fell into after the country inexplicably re-elected Bush. But I really forgot. And it's true-my husband is a hardcore political junkie. I follow politics, but I have a finite capacity for the news, commentary, punditry, poll results, etc. Not Seth. He's whipped up into an MSNBC/Talking Points Memo/Daily Kos crack-mainlining frenzy. Sometimes, if he's not worked up enough, he turns on Fox News so he can really start foaming at the mouth. For the last few weeks, it's gone like this: I drag my tired pregnant ass off to bed at a reasonable hour. The dog tries to hang with Seth, but fails, and follows me to bed. A couple of hours later, I inevitably wake up because I have to pee, and I stumble out of the bedroom into the dual glow of the Mac and TV screens, into the drone of Keith Olbermann's voice, Seth still hunched over the computer, looking for more YouTube video of the last debate. Some hours after that, Seth finally drops into bed beside me.

He's even been home sick for the last couple of days. I've found him semi-comatose on the sofa, wrapped in a quilt and the voices of pundits. All of the pundits. Yesterday, he stayed home in the morning, and finally went to work around 1:00. When we got home after 6, he immediately turned on the TV and laptop so he could see what he'd missed in that precious five hours. "There might be POLL RESULTS!" I think he was twitching a little. I ask him "either/or" questions: Do you want a stir-fry or pasta for dinner? He answers "yes," eyes fixated on the computer screen, scrolling down the Kos website. Again.

Also yesterday, he said, "Why don't we make one last big donation to the Obama campaign?" We've been donating in smaller monthly increments. I asked him how much. He named a figure. I pointed out how many square feet of wood floor for our kitchen that would buy. We haggled it down to a number that would only be a nice kitchen faucet or 20-25 cabinet knobs and drawer pulls.

Part of him would be excited for the baby to be born on Election Day, but only if Obama wins. The other part of him realizes his head would explode if two such momentous events happened at the same time. God, Buddha, Allah, Krishna, or someone help us if there are election returns and labor going on at the same time. Someone is not making it out of that scenario intact or alive.

Last night, on my nightly 2-hours-into-sleep bathroom run, I asked Seth if he was coming to bed. I pointed out that he's been sick, and he needs to get some sleep. Not even looking up from the laptop, he whined like a petulant child, said he'd come to bed, and said, "But you know how I get in even-numbered years!"

Yes, I know. I'd forgotten, or maybe I was more forgiving in newly-engaged, ooh-sparkly ring!, haze of happiness four years ago than I am in the grunty, heavy, bladder-compressed-ness of late pregnancy. I hope I can tolerate another month of this, and it had BETTER have a good, ending, damn it, US voters, or there is going to be one surly, pregnant, white, uppity, East Coast, liberal elitist bitch gunning* for your ass.

*Not that I own any actual guns, being an afore-mentioned uppity white elitist type, despite the recent Supreme Court interference with DC's gun ban. But I'm quite sure I could do some solid damage to you with a breast pump.

"Ari Fleischer - It Gets Worse"

Thank you Joan Walsh for summing this all up. Apparently, Fleischer (a.k.a. "the cavalry") went on "Hardball" last night to plug his new pro-war delusion advocacy group, Freedom's Watch (yow- could the graphics on this site be more cliched or treacly?). When he was pitched a softball by Mike Barnicle and asked what the name of the soldier was who was appearing in his organization's ads, Fleischer didn't know. Way to prepare for that one, Ari. Dubya should be proud.

"Barnicle showed a disturbing ad featuring an Iraq war veteran who'd lost both legs. The veteran supports the war and says it would be a mistake to end it. Pretty powerful. Barnicle praised the ad and asked Fleischer a softball question: Who's the soldier in the ad? And Fleischer couldn't answer. It was really unbelievable.

There are only four people, so far, featured in the Freedom's Watch campaign. The one in the ad run on "Hardball" is John Kreisel, who lost both legs near Fallujah in December 2006, near the end of his second tour. It's a searing story. Is it really that hard for Fleischer to remember the name of the guy whose tragedy he's using to flack his point of view? Heckuva job, Ari."

-- Joan Walsh

Where oh where did my crunchy granola liberal arts Vermont college go wrong?

So, Ari Fleischer and I went to the same college. We are both proud alums of Middlebury College, located in Vermont, the state that brought you Howard Dean, Ben & Jerry and the Brattleboro "clothing optional" policy. It was quite a trial for us Midds, watching those endless post 9/11 press conferences with Ari during his tenure as White House Press Secretary. I thought he'd gotten married, resigned his White House post, and opted for a quieter life of contemplation somewhere, and my hopes were still high for my fellow alum. But Ari's back on the delusional conservative bandwagon, and I'm back to womdering where the heck he was spawned from, and whether we *really* went to the same college. I'm all for diversity of views, people - and believe me, there were plenty of old guard conservatives at Middlebury to even out us liberal tree hugger types - it's the utter denial of reality that spooks me deeply.

"Ari Fleischer, reporting for duty!
Just in case you thought the Iraq war was lost, here comes the cavalry! Former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, tanned, rested and ready, is returning to public life with a new political action group, Freedom's Watch, that's promising to spend $15 million in a five-week advertising campaign designed to convince Americans that the so-called surge is working.
"For people who believe in peace through strength, the cavalry is coming," Fleischer proclaimed. Oh, Ari, still playing soldier with his friends. Think Progress has a list of Ari-isms on Iraq that ought to make anyone considering getting involved with Freedom's Watch a little wary. My favorite is this one from June 2003: "When you take a look at the level of violence inside of Iraq, it is impossible to argue anything other than violence has, indeed, come down as a result of America's military operations."
What I find interesting is that another prominent war-supporting Republican is equating flackery with military service. Just like Mitt Romney did two weeks ago, suggesting that his five sons' work on his presidential campaign might somehow substitute for military service -- none of the able-bodied "Flying Romney" brothers deigned to enlist -- Fleischer's cavalry remark is just macho self-importance from a guy who isn't, like, actually going to go fight in the war.
Heckuva job, Ari."
-- Joan Walsh

Thoughts on an execution

I really thought I had misread the New York Times article headline last week when it read "China Executes Food & Drug Offical." I thought it was a typo. But no, they actually executed the man for taking bribes to approve substandard medicines. I find it chilling that they won't say how the guy was executed. China sees this as showing the rest of the world that they are serious about being tough on the substandard (and downright lethal) products that have made their way into the trade stream with the US. (By the way, anyone else think this "tainted products from China" bit is an interesting quick fix for the trade deficit? Conspiracy theory, anyone?) China seems not to realize that this just makes them seem, well, completely barbaric. On the other hand, if this is the fate due a government official who's taking bribes, then the same standard perhaps should apply to Jeffrey Skilling, Ken Lay, Scooter Libby and Dick Cheney. This is admittedly appealing.

Haircut special

For some reason it's the "walk-ins welcome" part of this sign that I love.

Berke Breathed on George Bush becoming a satire of himself

I've always loved Berke Breathed's brilliant satirical comic strips, from Bloom County to Outland to Opus, and I mourned the deaths of the first two. Below is an excerpt from a Salon magazine interview with the penguin creator himself. You can read the whole thing here.

SALON: Years ago, you declared that George W. Bush had "cut off our satirist balls" by being unwilling to take himself seriously, but "Opus" features some of the most vehement political satire you've ever written. What do you think is the job of a satirist at a political moment like this one?

BREATHED: Cartoonists -- any satirists -- are mere blowhards at the fringes of the mob, screaming at the crowd to throw the gasoline bombs at the storm troopers. Nobody pays attention to us, really, but we look amusing with our veins popping out. I think it builds confidence for the stragglers in the back.

Bush has given us a gift: far from not taking himself seriously, he's become the only human being on the planet that thinks he's not just uniquely competent ... but brilliant in his strategic, heavenly inspired prescience as to how the world works. This hilarious -- also arguably homicidal -- self-deception is what makes him a comical figure. Literally, it's as if -- I mean this with the utmost respect for both the office and the man -- my 5-year-old boy Milo was running the free world. Milo believes himself equally as shrewd in spotting who the bad guys are in any movie and declaring the complex strategy to deal with them: "Blast 'em all!"

But there's bad news for satirists. Bush has come full circle: His ridiculousness is approaching the sort of existential absurdity that is untouchable. Watch him try to string a sensible sentence together now. Anywhere. He's become one of those guys with the Marx Brothers in "A Night at the Opera" who tumble through the door in the stateroom scene. I can't make him funnier than when he's trying to explain himself in a town hall meeting. Any day now he will go with "I'm the decisioner" and we satirists will know that our balls have been cut off entirely by a very shrewd adversary. Reagan did this too by becoming senile.

Dick Cheney is a different matter. I'd kiss him if I could.

Bill Clinton Watch

What Ronald Reagan is to the US, Bill Clinton apparently is to ...Kosovo? They're erecting a giant statute of him....on Bill Clinton Boulevard, of course.

Beyond Apoplectic - Get Out of My Uterus

[Fair warning - major rant coming here.]

That's how I feel when I read articles like the one in today's New York Times: "Abortion Foes See Validation For New Tactic." You've probably seen these ads from the Feminists For Life with the tagline "Women deserve better than abortion." They're on every city bus in DC, and I have to sit on my hands every time I see them to keep from ripping them down in a screaming fit (though this would be mild behavior on some DC bus lines...). I was sickened and horrified by the recent 5-4 Supreme Court decision upholding the inaccurately, misleadingly termed "partial birth abortion" ban (which is absolutely, positively not a medical term in any way, and not supported by the medical profession [just don't ask Bill Frist!]). That name in itself is part of the pro-life rhetoric.

Anyhow, the tactic now being used by the pro-life movement is to say that by allowing abortion, society has done something horrible to women, and society needs to reverse that injustice. Outlaw abortion, and you'll protect women. Of course! Why didn't we think of this before? Oh wait, we did....better bust out your coat hangers and your back alleys.

Here are some choice quotes from the NYT article:

“We think of ourselves as very pro-woman,” said Wanda Franz, president of the National Right to Life Committee. “We believe that when you help the woman, you help the baby.”

"Allan E. Parker Jr., president of the Justice Foundation, a conservative group based in Texas, compares the campaign intended for women to the long struggle to inform Americans about the risks of smoking. “We’re kind of in the early stages of tobacco litigation,” Mr. Parker said."

[Let me go back to APOPLECTIC.]

"A friend-of-the court brief filed by the Justice Foundation [was approvingly cited by Justice Kennedy in the recent Supreme Court decision]. The foundation, a nonprofit public interest litigation firm that has handled an array of conservative causes, has increasingly focused on abortion through its project called Operation Outcry. Mr. Parker said the group began hearing from women in the late 1990s who considered themselves victims of legalized abortion — physically and emotionally — and wanted to tell their stories. Operation Outcry, which grew to include a Web site, a national hot line and chapters around the country, eventually collected statements from more than 2,000 women, officials said. In its friend-of-the-court brief, the group submitted statements from 180 of those women who said that abortion had left them depressed, distraught, in emotional turmoil. “Thirty-three years of real life experiences,” the foundation said, “attests that abortion hurts women and endangers their physical, emotional and psychological health.”"

So, the bottom line from all these pro-life groups is that we women have no idea what we really want. When we decide we want an abortion, we're making a grave mistake, and we need to be counseled! We can't possibly decide for ourselves or know the true consequences! We just don't know better and they are here to help us! This smacks awfully of Victoriana, and women being childlike, and incapable of rational thought, and that women ought not to think too much, or they might fall into hysteria!

"That state’s law [South Dakota], currently being challenged in federal court, requires women seeking an abortion to be told that the procedure will terminate a “whole, separate, unique, living human being,” and that it carries a variety of psychological and physical risks to the woman."

Where are all the signatures from all the women who had abortions and feel just fine about it because they know it was the right choice for them? Where is testimony from the women who had an unwanted child because they could not obtain access to any type of birth control or an abortion? What about the psychological and physical risks of (1) having a child that you don't want or can't afford to have, (2) attempting to force a miscarriage or having an unsafe, illegal abortion, and (3) having a child at risk to your own health? They're out there - check out some of the stories here.


It fascinates me that certain political parties hold forth the position that they are against big government, that they are for deregulation, let the free market control, etc. etc. Yet, for some reason, when it comes to a woman's uterus, they will go to every shameless effort to micro-regulate every egg, sperm, tissue and cell related to it.

Why is it that these factions exist that think women can't be trusted to make their own choices?? What kind of sadistic society is it that would not make exceptions for the health of the woman or rape? (Don't think this is far-fetched - see, e.g., the recent Supreme Court decision and the proposed laws in various states here.)

Keep CHOICE alive! Get out of my uterus!