the magic number 60 at last?

After drawn out speculation on a variety of right-wing blogs, Arlen Specter has official announced his switch to the democratic party (apparently, the Republican Party has moved to the right in the last 30 years, who knew?). In reality, Specter's decision is probably due primarily to political considerations (the conservative wing of the Republican party has been hounding him for voting with the Democrats for months and now are supporting a more conservative challenger for the 2010 Senate primary). Of course, this development would provide the Democrats with the magic filibuster-proof number 60 in the senate, assuming that anyone ever bothers to end the litigation in Minnesota and actually seat Al Franken. Naturally, Specter insists that his switch in affiliation does not mean he "will be a party-line voter for the Democrats."

Regardless of what practical difference Specter's change in affiliation will make, the symbolic impact is significant: yet another moderate Republican jumping a quickly sinking ship, leaving the party even more geographically and socially isolated from the American mainstream. Meanwhile, the Republicans still have to compete with being overshadowed by a Democratic president who continues to enjoy high levels of support.

NY post cartoonist likens Obama to a raging chimp, claims that accusations of racism are "absolutely friggin ridiculous"

To anyone who has even a passing familiarity with America's long and troubled history of racism, this cartoon appears to liken Obama (who just happens to be our first black president) to a raging chimp who should be shot. Apparently, however, this was not the intention. The best part is that cartoonist, Sean Delonas, claims that there is no racist attempt; he responded as follows: "Do you really think I'm saying Obama should be shot? I didn't see that in the cartoon It's about the economic stimulus bill. If you're going to make that about anybody, it would be [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi, which it's not." Um, naturally Nancy Pelosi would be the first person to come to mind, because white women have traditionally been depicted as violent, savage apes in the Untied States... The NY Post's editor-in-chief, Col Allan shares this view, describing the cartoon as "broadly mock[ing] Washington's efforts to revive the economy." How exactly white police officers (who clearly are not intended to represent politicians, but rather average citizens) shooting an ape for writing the stimulus bill qualifies as a caricature of Washington's efforts to help the economy is unclear. Not only is this cartoon clearly invoking racist hate speech (and the denials of such accusations are blatantly absurd), it is also inciting violence against the President (something that is not covered by First Amendment rights). The question of what to be done is more difficult; boycotting the Post is a clear first step for the non-racists who previously patronized the paper, but should Washington get involved? It almost certainly won't, in part because of the Democratic Party's historic dedication to First Amendment rights and also because it may well incite further racism. In this case, public outcry against racism is probably a more effective reaction than government intervention.

The New York Senate Seat

When Carline Kennedy withdrew from consideration for the soon-to-be-vacated New York Senate seat, I was somewhat skeptical of her alleged personal reason for withdrawal (initially reported to be concern for the health of her uncle, Ted Kennedy). Her nose-diving popularity and general mishandling of a political situation where she began as the far-and-away front-runner seemed a more likely cause. Furthermore, the whole gendered concept of her withdrawing because of her uncle's health generally irked my feminist sensibilities (can anyone imagine, say, Bill Clinton abandoning political aspirations under such circumstances?). So, you can imagine my delight in discovering that, apparently (according to such laudable and reliable sources as gawker and rightpundits.com), her "personal" reasons for withdrawing concerned her affair with New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger. Hopefully, she wasn't relying on this affair to receive decent press coverage). While the fact that our female politicians are now engaging in at least some level of morally ambiguous extra-marital sexual relations in an attempt to match their male counterparts may gave some hope to feminism, it is important to keep in mind the fact that this would never (unless it was publicly revealed by an outside source) be the cause for any man to step down from consideration of political office (it didn't seem to bother John Edwards during his latest failed presidential bid).

just how big is this tent?

Obama has done a lot to disappoint the liberal/progressive/pinko (or progressives? well, whatever those crazy lefties are calling themselves these days), especially in his appointment of traditional, center-right Democrats to the cabinet, but up until this point nothing has come close to the (righteous) indignation felt by many Obama supporters when the president-elected selected Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration. While this is a clear sign that Obama intends to make good on his promise made during his acceptance speech to be the president of those who did not vote for him as well. But what about the (majority) of Americans who did? Are our votes, once cast, suddenly meaningless in Obama's attempts to end partisanship in Washington?

Much has been said about tolerance, but there is a difference between tolerance and approval. The best example that springs to mind is Sarah Palin describing her personal attitudes towards homosexuals at the vice-presidential debate. She said that although she strongly disagreed with anything approving of same-sex marriage, she was "tolerant of adults in America choosing their partners." Those words (and perhaps, more importantly, the way they were delivered) probably did not suggest to anyone that she in any way approved of such choices, merely that she was able to tolerate their existance (as long as it wasn't in front of the altar at least). However, by selecting Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration (making him one of only two religious figures involved in the ceremony), Obama is more than tolerating the intolerance against homosexuality on the Christian right, he is giving it his stamp of approval. This is not a case of having a discussion with Warren about his views or listening to his opinions, but rather of elevating the Reverand to a position of high authority and legitimacy within his inauguration ceremony (and, by symbolic extension, his presidency).

Obama claims to want to invite everyone to the table, but how is that possible when the intolerance of certain invitees will surely make some groups feel aggressively excluded? How accepting should we be of intolerance? His desire to unify all Americans is well placed (and part of what won him the election). On election night, when Obama said that he wanted to be president of all Americans, regardless of how they voted, he was right. But all Americans does include those of us who did support the president-elect. By extending this invitation to Warren, Obama essentially indicating that he values the approval of the Christian right more than the comfort of the gay community (perhaps because he can, virtually no matter what his actions are, remain fairly confident in the support of the latter).

bush administration's transition strategy

So, there's been a lot of discussion of the coordination between the Bush and Obama administrations of late, primarily focused on how to enact a smooth transition of power in what will be the first presidential transfer of authority since 9/11. Much has been made of the contingency plans for emergency situations (wait? they had those??) that the Bush White House is providing President-elect Obama. However, at the same time that the current administration is putting on its best front in its efforts to keep America safe by providing the incoming president with important information, Bush et al. also seem downright determined to pass as many absurd regulations as possible, which the Obama administration would inevitably undo, but only after wasting a lot of time and energy. The most recent, of course, is the "right of conscience" rule, the latest way conservatives have come up with of trying to transform the woman's right to choose to the woman's right to battle a seemingly infinite number of governmental barriers and then maybe, just maybe, if she has the determination, time and resources be able to exercise that right. The regulation prohibits federal money recipients (read: all hospitals) from discriminating against health practitioners (including doctors, nurses and hygenists) who refuse to perform certain procedures because of their personal beliefs and bans hospitals from forcing employees to participate in those procedures (a caveat expansive enough that it would allow people to refuse to clean the instruments if they were being prepared for an abortion procedure). In addition to making the lives of women who do make the difficult personal decision to have an abortion even harder, it also achieve the secondary (or maybe even primary) goal of forcing the Obama administration to waste that precious time and energy that could be used to, oh, I don't know, prevent another terrorist attack on America.

... because women just can't speak to reporters

There was a bit too much of a sense of déjà vu today when Caroline Kennedy was shepherded away from reporters by her aides when asked a question about her qualifications for being senator. When asked the question, Kennedy apparently began to answer the question (I know, I know, what audacity) before being immediately hurried away by her aides. The poor woman actually said, "Hopefully I can come back and answer all those questions," while she climbing into her car. Not quite as bad as Palin telling Katie Couric that she needed to call and ask someone about the answer to question, but same general concept.

This continuing perception that female politicians are essentially unable to roll with the punches the way their male counterparts do is disturbing in and of itself. But it speaks to a larger problem of women being pushed to the forefront of the political scene for what they are (women) rather than what they've done. In some bizarre attempt to replace Hillary Clinton in the heart of the feminist movement, first the Republican and now the Democratic Party (well, to be fair, she has yet to actually be appointed) have rushed into filling the void with some woman, any woman, who hopefully could manage to provide some other vote catching mechanism as well. In Palin's case, she had the added benefit of shoring up the base. And in Kennedy's case, well, I think we all know what she brings to the table. The fact of the matter is, there are qualified women in both parties (Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Kathleen Sebelius, Olympia Snow and Barbara Boxer, to name a few, along with recent Obama Cabinet pick Janet Napolitano). So why keep supporting unqualified candidates with some amount of star power? Well, in part, perhaps, because that seems to be a working formula for many male politicians (care to recollect our current president?), but also because there seems to be some sort of consensus that voters will only stand behind a woman if they associate her either with powerful male leaders or "strong family values" (which apparently means instilling the value of teenage pregnancy). However, why everyone keeps harping on this formula that didn't work for Palin (more voters, in the end, had a negative view of her than a postive one) is beyond me.

what's in a senate seat?

Well, according to Governor Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois, somewhere between $200,000 and $300,000. But I'll leave Blagojevich's questionable political dealings vis-a-vis Obama's vacant Senate seat, which may not even have been strictly illegal under America's delightfully vague definitions of political corruption, for others to analyze. Instead, I'm going to discuss that other Senate seat soon to be left open by a former Democratic candidate for president. Caroline Kennedy seems to be the likely front-runner, now that she's officially declared her interest in the office. Her bid has been met with some (deserved) degree of skepticism. In fact, the best thing I've actually heard in her favor is that she'll help maintain the half-century long tradition of having a Kennedy in the Senate. As an added bonus, she'll bring some star power and name recognition to the office, à la Hillary Clinton. The most innocent benefit of this idea being, of course, that it would keep someone in New York's junior Senate seat who would command a great deal of power and respect. Oh, and the fact that being able to vote Kennedy-Patterson may help Patterson win his re-election bid. The New York Times ran an article today originally titled "Resume Long on Politics, but Short on Public Office" The name of the article was changed at some point this morning to "Kennedy's Credentials are Debated in Senate Bid," perhaps because the article failed to name a single way that Kennedy's resume was long on anything save charity board membership. First among the grievances against Kennedy is the fact that she has never been elected to public office and, until the Obama campaign, was not particularly drawn to that perennial political call of the Kennedy clan.

What I find most disturbing is the continuing trend in politics that power female figures must derive their clout from name association and familial ties. Hillary, let us remember, despite some level of disapproving noise from her camp in reference to the prospect of a Kennedy pick, had never been elected to political office before running for the New York Senate seat in 2000. While Clinton was clearly far more qualified than Kennedy is (given the fact that, you know, she'd be highly involved in politics since her early days at Wellesley (where she was president of, wait for it, the Young Republicans her freshman year). However, there is something distressing about the fact that when the Democrats turn to find a powerful female leader, the first place they look is at the wives and daughters of established (male) politicians.