Health Reform--Out of Harry Reid's Office

A Health Reform bill finally got out of Harry Reid's office today. I still think it will be passed with a public option--probably a public option with an opt out clause.

But it looks like conservative Dems are going to take out every last pound of flesh they can.

Conservatives think that health reform is a kind of Rubicon and that America will be a different kind of society if Congress passes a public option.

Maybe that's the case.

But, really, the Rubicon was crossed when Barack Obama was elected president. The question is whether Obama is going to maintain his position on the new side of the river.

The Sexist Depth of the Sarah Palin Cover

This week's edition of Newsweek arrived a day after the controversy over the magazine's Sarah Palin cover emerged.

Is the cover sexist? You betcha!

And it's worse than Palin or other media critics think.

The main criticism of the Newsweek cover is that it shows Palin in short runner's shorts and reveals a lot of leg. Her top is also zipped down in a mildly suggestive manner. What's sexist about this is that the political magazine is focusing on Palin's sexual attractiveness as a woman rather than her significance as a cultural and political figure. Media Matters for America is also right to call attention to the demeaning girlishness of the Sound of Music reference in the title "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sarah."

But it's worse.

The Palin picture was originally taken for a running magazine, but Newsweek editors must have known that whole thing has a luridly pornographic effect when put into the context of political news. Take Palin's legs for example. There's a sense in which her legs aren't really "showing" because she's pictured as being so tanned that it looks like she's wearing panty hose. The extremely minimal "concealment" effect of the tan actually enhances the erotic effect of showing her legs in a stripper/porn manner.

The same thing is true of the flag and the Blackberries. On the cover of Newsweek, they look more like stripper props than anything else. Palin is involved in a lot of business and likes to portray herself as a flag-waving patriot. But the Newsweek cover makes her look like someone who uses the American flag and business items to enhance her "sexy" mystique.

Ditto her trademark glasses and hair and the whole pornographic effect is enhanced by the bright and crowded redness of the Palin's top, the flag, and the Newsweek banner.

I imagine that Newsweek could defend itself by arguing that the cover was trying to say something about the luridness of Sarah Palin's appeal. But achingly conventional articles by Evan Thomas and the execrable Christopher Hitchens don't justify any defense of the sort.

Newsweek would have done better if they hadn't covered Palin at all.

The Carrie Prejean Chronicles

I have to admit. I gave into temptation when I saw an item on "more Carrie Prejean sex tapes" and clicked onto a Joy Behar segment on Prejean.

What a mistake!

All the reasons for not watching television were on full view. Joining Joy Behar in the discussion were the kind of vapidly handsome figures typical of the "entertainment news" media--Spencer Pratt, Heidi Montague, and gossip-monger Perez Hilton. I have some suspicion that the whole setup was designed to make Joy Behar look weighty. Where her guests looked like they'd just been stamped out by a plastic factory, Behar looked like a real person. Likewise, Behar's may not be a news heavyweight, but she looked like a combination of Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow in comparison to her guests.

Not that the discussion was very interesting. The panel talked in vaguely "racy" ways about the possibility of seven Carrie Prejean sex tapes emerging into the public domain, Prejean making a sex tape all by herself, and whether or not Prejean is a "hypocrite" for identifying with the Christian right at the same time she was engaged in topless modeling, making sex tapes, and the like.

But I think that's the wrong way to think of Prejean.

What's interesting about Prejean is her audacious effort to leverage her Miss USA notoriety for rejecting gay marriage into an enduring status as a celebrity of the Christian right.

With the emergence of her sex tapes, it's clear that Prejean's gambit isn't going to work. But that doesn't mean that it's not interesting. Did Prejean view her post-pageant conservative proslytizing as simply pursuing a business opportunity? Or was it something she found appealing for other reasons? When I think about Prejean's manuevers, I wonder about just how desperate women in the netherworld of fairly low-level modeling, acting, and beauty pageants might be to make something out of their life-long commitment. As Prejean's breast implants, topless modeling, and sex-tape(s) indicate, it can all be extremely degrading. Maybe Prejean's eager grasp at Christian conservative celebrity was an attempt to remain in the celebrity world of vapid beauty while being somehow more substantial. As Prejean's case indicates, the celebrity media views opposition to gay marriage as "politically incorrect" or bigoted, but beauty pageants and modeling are still highly conservative cultural institutions that promote traditional images of female beauty and sexuality. And as the Southern fascination for beauty pageants indicates, cultural conservatives are especially drawn to the ideas of "innocent sexiness" that are embodied in beauty pageants.

One additional point. Critical commentary on flawed Christian conservatives like Carrie Prejean is usually totally lacking in any kind of human sympathy. But I'm beginning to think that it's an important point for progressive politics to wish people well, even our most determined opponents. Certainly, I'd like to see Carrie Prejean out something viable.

The O'Reilly Boycott Begins Now!

In the biggest media surprise of the week, Bill O'Reilly appears to have given up on the right-wing dream of killing every last one of the world's Muslims.

Barack Obama wants to win hearts and minds in the Middle East, in the Muslim world, which is a good thing and you know that. As a soldier, we can't kill all the Muslims. So we wanna win as many hearts and minds of good moderate Muslims
as we can.

I don't know why O'Reilly's going soft like this. Hasn't he heard of the "MuslimDetection" programs being developed by Blackwater or whatever they're called now. What's O'Reilly going to give up on next--missile defense, torture, the "Crucifix in the Classroom" program?

Pretty soon O' Reilly's going to start sending fruit baskets to bin Laden.

That's enough.

The O'Reilly boycott begins now.

Presidential Obama--Channeling the Nation's Grief and Outrage

It appears that President Obama is also very successful at leading the nation in grief and outrage over the shootings at Fort Hood. This is from Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic Online:

Today, at Ft. Hood. I guarantee: they'll be teaching this one in rhetoric classes. It was that good. My gloss won't do it justice. Yes, I'm having a Chris Matthews-chill-running-up-my-leg moment, but sometimes, the man, the moment and the words come together and meet the challenge. Obama had to lead a nation's grieving; he had to try and address the thorny issues of Islam and terrorism; to be firm; to express the spirit of America, using familiar, comforting tropes in a way that didn't sound trite.

An excerpt from the elegiac address, below, and the full text, after the jump.

It may be hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy. But this much we do know - no faith justifies these murderous and craven acts; no just and loving God looks upon them with favor. And for what he has done, we know that the killer will be met with justice - in this world, and the next.

These are trying times for our country. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, the same extremists who killed nearly 3,000 Americans continue to endanger America, our allies, and innocent Afghans and Pakistanis. In Iraq, we are working to bring a war to a successful end, as there are still those who would deny the Iraqi people the future that Americans and Iraqis have sacrificed so much for.

As we face these challenges, the stories of those at Fort Hood reaffirm the core values that we are fighting for, and the strength that we must draw upon. Theirs are tales of American men and women answering an extraordinary call - the call to serve their comrades, their communities, and their country. In an age of selfishness, they embody responsibility. In an era of division, they call upon us to come together. In a
time of cynicism, they remind us of who we are as Americans.

We are a nation that endures because of the courage of those who defend it. We saw that valor in those who braved bullets here at Fort Hood, just as surely as we see it in those who signed up knowing that they would serve in harm's way.

We are a nation of laws whose commitment to justice is so enduring that we would treat a gunman and give him due process, just as surely as we will see that he pays for his crimes. We are a nation that guarantees the freedom to worship as one chooses. And instead of claiming God for our side, we remember Lincoln's words, and always pray to be on the side of God.

That must be a big disappointment to a lot of people.

Why Does Anyone Need the Washington Times?

There seems to be a great deal of conflict among Sun Myung Moon's sons over the fate of the money losing Washington Times. I'm not sure why. Now that the Washington Post has become an outlet for neo-conservatism, it's hard to see what function the Washington Times serves at all.

TPM has Dems at 218

One monumental hurdle has been cleared. Health Care legislation has passed the House of Representatives. The Democrats now have 218 votes. The legislation still has a long way to go and many hurdles to be cleared before it's enacted.

But I think I'll have a beer to celebrate anyway.

It appears that the final vote is 220-215.

RSI's Epic Defeat at Root-A-Baker's

Yeah, today I broke down and bought a cake at Root-A-Baker's for an office celebration on Monday. Curse their cakes anyway! But there wasn't much choice. Right-wing wackos or not, Root-A-Baker's is the only first-rate bakery in town and the alternative was to ask Mrs. RSI to spend time baking when she needed to work on her classes.

I'll do better with my next boycott.

Health Care: The Debate is on in the House

The House is debating the health care bill. The Dems are confident of passage.

Sex with Neanderthals?

MSN has an article on the possibility of mating between modern human and Neanderthal populations.

"Would they have recognized each other as possible mates?" Harvati asked. "We know when closely related primate species meet, they sometimes interbreed in nature, not just in zoos, and this is something we see not just in primates, but with other closely related species among mammals."

That the least of it. Human beings have been known to have sex with just about anything animal, vegetable, and mineral. Some human beings like corpses while others prefer cows, goats, or dogs. The producers of one popular movie were so proud of the sex Jason Biggs had with an round-shaped apple dessert that they named the movie American Pie.

If homo sapiens lived at the same time as Neanderthals, there can't be much doubt that there was a fair amount of sex between members of the two groups. The only real question is whether the sex could have resulted in pregnancy.

At an October conference in Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, Pääbo — a
geneticist of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany — said the two species had sex, but it remained an open question as to
whether children resulted and left a legacy in our genomes.

A very open question.

Maybe That William Ayers Wrote Obama's Book!

The White House released a partial list of the people visiting the White House in the ten months of the Obama presidency. Some famous names made the list.

Given that up to 100,000 people visit the White House each month, the names published Friday included people with some very familiar names -- including William Ayers, Michael Jordan, Michael Moore, Jeremiah Wright and R. Kelly

But the guy named Michael Jordan was not THE Michael Jordan. None of these famous names were connected to famous people.

"The well-known individuals with those names never actually came to the White House . . ."

But maybe THAT William Ayers was the one who wrote Obama's book rather than the 60's radical.

The Joe Lieberman Conundrum

There are times when I think the progressive media is just as committed as the mainstream media to avoiding any kind of policy debate concerning health reform.

Talking Points Memo and HuffPost have little discussion of either Democratic proposals or health policy more generally. Progressive media sources actually do very little in the way of promoting any Democratic ideas on health reform. Likewise, they have little information on how the current financing of the health system works, why it costs so much, and why our results on life-span, infant mortality, and other measures of health are so poor compared to other countries. A number of stories about the inhumanity of health insurance companies to their policy-holders have been published by HuffPost. But I'm aware of no reporting on how the corporate strategies of the health insurance companies reinforce their drive to reject legitimate claims from sick individuals.

Instead of discussing health policy, the progressive media focuses on three themes--dissecting the political process, publicizing to right-wing "outrages," and vilifying Democratic "traitors." For most of this week, the focus has been on the Joe Lieberman's "treason." Just as McCain stole the thunder from Obama's convention speech by announcing his nomination of Sarah Palin, Lieberman undercut the progressive euphoria over Harry Reid's support for a public option by declaring the next day that he would filibuster any bill including a public option. Since then, the progressive media has been obsessing about Lieberman's desertion of the Democrats. Why, the progressive media asks, would Lieberman oppose a public option now when he embraced the public option during his 2004 presidential campaign? Why is Lieberman so eager to filibuster now when he's always been suspicious of filibustering in the past? In a way, this is all a self-fulfilling prophecy. Lieberman's "treason" toward the Democratic Party has been a major theme in the progressive media ever since the first emergence of the left blogosphere. But this is Lieberman's most important treason to date. Lieberman's sabotaging the legislative agenda of a Democratic president who's gone out of his way to to be nice to him. Why would he do that?

Glenn Greenwald, Rachel Maddow, and Joe Conason argue that Lieberman opposes health reform for corrupt reasons, either because his wife works for health lobbyists or because the health insurance companies have contributed huge money to his re-election campaigns. Here's Joe Conason:

The Lieberman family's financial ties to the health industry are no secret, yet their full extent remains unknown. During her husband's 2006 reelection campaign, Hadassah Lieberman's employment as a "senior counselor" to Hill & Knowlton, one of the world’s biggest lobbying firms, briefly erupted as an issue, especially because the clients she served were in the controversial pharmaceutical and insurance sectors. Exactly what she did for those clients has never been disclosed.

Also, here's Glenn Greenwald on the Rachel Maddow show discussing Lieberman's ties to the health industry.

But I don't think that Joe Lieberman's ties to the health industry are the issue. The main problem with Lieberman is his bitterness over the re-emergence of an energized Democratic left during the Bush years. I imagine that Lieberman initially thought he had a good shot at the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004. Lieberman had been the vice-presidential nominee in 2000, he was well-known as a result of his gazillion television appearances, and he had paid his dues. Maybe, Lieberman thought, his time had arrived and he would be able to mount a moderate to conservative challenge to George W.

But it wasn't close. The Iraq War which Lieberman supported was already a failure in early 2004 and the left blogosphere had become the focal point of opposition to the war within the Democratic Party and liberal/left constituencies. Lieberman may have been a long-time Senator from the nearby state of Connecticut, but he didn't even get 9% of the vote in the New Hampshire primary and he had become the butt of constant ridicule from people on the left (including me). Lieberman began turning away from the Democratic Party in his heart when Ned Lamont launched a successful primary challenge in 2006. Barack Obama and the rest of the establishment Democrats might have campaigned for Lieberman but that didn't make any difference. For Lieberman, the Democrats were now the party of Daily Kos, Ned Lamont, and Amy Goodman rather than the party of Al Frum, the DLC, and neo-liberalism. As he showed during the 2008 presidential campaign, Lieberman was quite willing to turn against the Democratic Party establishment that had sought to save him. But it was only because the establishment was heading up a popular political party that he now hated.

The progressive media needs to understand how satisfying the idea of filibustering the public option probably is to Joe Lieberman. Progressives humiliated Joe Lieberman in 2004 and humiliated him again in 2008. Joining with the Republicans to filibuster the progressive highlight of the health reform package is probably the most bitterly satisfying thing that Joe Lieberman has done in the last ten years. Because of the rise of the progressive movement, Joe Lieberman went from respected insider to punching bag overnight.

And now the punching bag is punching back--where it really hurts by the way.

But that's the way it goes. If Lieberman sinks the current legislation, we'll just have to find another way. Bitter guys like Lieberman almost always lose in the end.

White House Declares Victory Over Fox--Sends Troops Home

The Politico has a report of a "truce meeting" between Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs and a Fox executive.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Michael Clemente, Fox News' senior
vice president for news, met at the White House for about 20 minutes on Wednesday morning, sources said.

The contents of the meeting remain private. A Fox source said that the marching orders are to “continue doing what we’re doing – reporting the news, asking tough questions and providing analysis/opinion on shows like O’Reilly, Beck and Hannity.”

I image that the Obama administration refers to Clemente as the "senior vice-president for propoganda outreach" at Fox. The Obama/Fox war has been a complete victory for the Obama administration. Jake Tapper of ABC might have been sympathetic with Fox, but the fact is that the Obama people were able to take Fox out of the health care debate at the key moment when legislation was bubbling up toward the floor. Instead of spending September and October making up new lies about "death panels" and comparing health reform to the rape of the Sabine women, Fox executives and news personalities had to devote themselves to defending their claims to journalistic integrity and whining about "censorship."

Now that Fox, the Republicans, and conservatives in general are on the outside of the health care debate, it looks like Robert Gibbs has decided to declare victory and offer a temporary truce to his defeated opponents in the right-wing media.

That's certainly magnanimous of him.

But Fox has already promised to "continue doing what we're doing" and the Obama administration certainly won't hesitate to attack them again.

Peace between Obama and Fox? More like a pause.

Another Post Bites the Dust

I was going to write a hard-hitting post about Antonin Scalia's statement that he would have dissented against Brown v Board of Education. But it turns out that he didn't make that statement after all. So, Scalia's reputation lives another day.

If only Scalia could find better hunting partners.

The Clippers Curse

Ouch! The Clippers curse strikes again. Blake Griffin is out six weeks with a stress fracture in his kneecap. General Manager Mike Dunleavy made several good moves during the off-season, winning the draft lottery, picking Griffin, and bringing in a stronger set of reserves in Sebastian Telfair, Rasual Butler, and Craig Smith. Eric Gordon is excellent and hope remains for Baron Davis and Al Thornton. But a major injury to Griffin takes a lot of the air out of the Clippers balloon. And then there's the problem of Coach Dunleavy.

George Will Puffs and Puffs

George Will has a bad puff piece on Michelle Bachmann in the Washington Post. I imagine Will's trying to get back in the good graces of the right after "going soft" on Afghanistan. But Will can't do feature writing to save his life and the whole thing falls flat.

I especially like it when Will refers to Bachmann as a "burr in the side" of the left. Who's Will kidding. Bachmann's great for the left and everybody on the left knows it. A quick comparison with Ann Coulter wmakes the point. Like Ann Coulter, Bachmann says a lot of sensational and offensive things that make the Republicans look bad. But Bachmann's not smart enough or knowledgeable enough to make liberals uncomfortable in the way Coulter used to. That makes Bachmann the perfect foil for the progressive media and TPM and HuffPost cover Bachmann with the same manic obsessiveness as the tabs cover Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. The left can't imagine a world without Michelle Bachmann any more than the right can get along without Bill Ayers. After all, who can really be sure that Michelle Bachmann didn't write Palin's Going Rogue? I'm not.

George Will's pretty useless as a writer, but he would be less useless if he understood that the left has a big stake in Michelle Bachmann as well as the right.