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On Monday, I wrote about the legal policy advisers for the major presidential campaigns. The Edwards campaign sent me six names, one of which was Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren. After the piece posted, I got this e-mail from Warren:
I noted that your recent post listed me as a supporter of Sen.
Edwards. I long have admired the Senator and have had a continuing
dialogue with him and his staff on issues important to all of
us. I've had the same kind of dialogue with a number of the other
presidential candidates and their issue staffs. Contrary to the
suggestion in your piece, however, I have not endorsed any candidate
in the Democratic primary.
The Edwards campaign says they checked with all the advisers they named before giving me the list, and that the problem is that I characterized Warren as "standing with" John Edwards rather than advising him. I guess this is the political equivalent of nonexclusive dating: Warren is free to see other candidates.
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Does anyone remember that ubiquitous ad from the ‘70s: "If they would just stay little till their Carters wore out"? I'm humming that refrain today as my oldest gets ever closer to kindergarten and my fears about the state of public education increase. As if all that talk a while back about birth control for middle-schoolers wasn't enough, via Michelle Malkin I've discovered that in some places, elementary-school children aren't learning math in a recognizable form anymore.
"Everyday Math" was developed starting in the mid-1980s, and its authors "believe that it is crucial to begin laying the groundwork for mathematical literacy at an earlier age than offered in traditional programs. ... The authors also firmly believe that children are capable of learning a great deal more than previously expected."
Especially if they use a calculator. Or take a simple multiplication problem and turn it into a "cluster" of five other, simpler problems. Or make a pretty "lattice" box and input numbers. Apparently, like Barbie once said, "Math is hard!" and we have to dumb it down for everyone rather than figure out ways to let the smartest kids excel and provide help to those who need it. This video that Malkin posts is long but well worth watching. The woman in the video--who went back to school to facilitate a midlife career switch and was startled to see the youngsters in her class struggling--shows how bizarre and convoluted this "new new" math is.
As critics are pointing out, kids are not learning better with these techniques. Children aren't learning multiplication in third grade, since they are repeating the addition and subtraction they should have learned in first grade. And check out this sample question from a fifth-grade text:
A. If math were a color, it would be --, because --.
Seriously, that's a math question? It sounds like an Internet-dating questionnaire. (Math also likes walks on the beach and romantic dinners.)
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Courtesy of Feminist Law Professors, a grain-of-salt study that suggests something pretty interesting: Little girls may want to play with boy toys more than Bratz or Barbies. Yeah, yeah the focus group was funded by Bob the Builder and his bosses. But I’m not all that surprised to see little girls wanting to play with things that do stuff. I saw the same thing in action last week over Thanksgiving: My sons and nieces happily kicking it with the boy toys, while the Hello Kitty paraphernalia slid between the sofa cushions.
Unlike Ann Bartow, I myself was an inveterate hair-brusher. And if they ever build a Sandra Day O’Barbie, I will style her ‘til the cows come home. But this is something that bears watching, I think.
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The study Ann mentioned, which suggests that power erodes empathy, explains all those celebrity interviews that make you cringe for the person and think, "Doesn't he know how that sounds?'' No, he doesn't. Which might be an argument against political dynasties—and for term limits, as well as for the capital gains tax. Yet empathy is a complicated thing; it's innate, surely, to some degree, but also learned and in some cases unlearned, and variable over time. My sister, who lives in Los Angeles, is not a scientist but has done field work all the same, as the owner of a clothing shop she thinks of as "very relaxed''—meaning that you needn't be a size 2 to shop there. Anyway, she reports that while pretty much everyone seems to lose perspective right after becoming famous, many do regain their equilibrium. J's rule of thumb: Three years of crazy is about par, after which normal people go back to behaving normally.
Which is kind of a wonder, given that we as a culture—and certainly as voters—tend to value empathy most in those who show plenty of toughness as well. Sure, we liked Bill Clinton's natural ability to feel for others, but wasn't that only because we also knew him to be capable of a certain ruthlessness? He gained support, after all, after sending a brain-damaged man, Rickey Ray Rector, to his death in Arkansas in 1992. Clinton's decision against a stay of execution, even for a man so severely disabled he saved the cherry pie from his last meal "for later,'' showed he was not soft on crime. Our reaction suggests we found that reassuring.
So, while we like Oprah's "favorite guy" Obama and his whole multiculti capacity to feel where all of us are coming from, we worry, too—essentially, whether he is jerk enough for the job. And maybe that's the quality those underappreciated women elected to run villages in India lacked; today's "Dismal Science" piece reports that female leaders there were routinely judged more harshly than their male counterparts, even by other women, and even when by all objective measures, the female leaders did a better job.
I bridle at the notion that "we're hardest on our own," but that doesn't mean we haven't been trained to respond differently to men; just yesterday, I needed to see my doctor urgently, couldn't get an appointment, and so in desperation showed up in his office without one, but with my husband in tow—not so much for moral support as because I thought the sight of a man who had taken the day off work might get action. It did, and he was amazed at the way the whole attitude in the "matriarchy" of the all-woman office shifted to accommodate him. (And yes, I do know how this sounds: pushy, and not what you'd call good-girl behavior, even under the circumstances.)
So as voters, we do need to remind ourselves how a culture that loathes everything about us has shaped us, too. And as leaders, we need the chance to mature into politicians who can both feel your pain and inflict it, when necessary. Those women in India had no trouble doing the actual job. They were just voted out of office too soon, before they could learn to exercise power with both empathy and an edge.
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Via Think Progress, we learn that at a speech last night at the University of Colorado, former Attorney General John Ashcroft answered a question about his willingness to undergo waterboarding. He told his audience, “the things that I can survive, if it were necessary to do them to me, I would do.”
That answer is deranged in at least 20 ways, and I’ll think of 20 more as soon as I post this. But can someone please sit down and explain to the bright lights of the Bush administration, patiently, and like they are 7, that there is a difference between being willing to die for one’s country (and apparently Ashcroft is only willing only to all-but die for his) and the ways in which civilized humans treat their enemies? His effort to turn a serious question into a chance for sloppy braggadocio is astounding.
For one thing, Ashcroft didn’t do anything necessary to protect America. He sat out Vietnam (six student deferments and one occupational deferment). Moreover his DoJ colleague who apparently did allow himself to be waterboarded, acting head of the OLC, Daniel Levin, underwent the procedure in 2004. According to an ABC News report, Levin “found the experience terrifying and thought that it clearly simulated drowning,” then concluded that waterboarding was illegal torture “unless performed in a highly limited way.” He lost his job at Justice for that.
The most telling thing about Ashcroft’s non-answer is that it lays bare the central fallacy in Bush administration thinking about how to conduct their torture: The relevant question for these guys is never "what are the rules," but "how tough can I pretend to be while breaking them?"
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Thanks, Ann, for pointing out that great study on the inverse correlation between empathy and power. I agree the methodology sounds kooky, but it does seem to illuminate some fundamental human need to disassociate oneself from the powerless as one clambers up the ladder. I can’t help but wonder, on that score, whether Barack Obama’s decision to take uber-listener Oprah Winfrey out on the campaign trail with him in Iowa is a small piece of rental empathy--some strange way for him to say, “Look, I don’t know what it’s like to stay at home with two kids and a basket of ironing, but Oprah sure does.” Her ability to marry bottomless suffering to boundless influence is without parallel in America.
Now Oprah isn’t actually a stay-at-home mom, but at least she spends her day with them. And all this is certainly unearthing some hilarious claims about the stay-at-home set, whether it’s former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, a Clinton backer, insisting that Iowa women don’t even get to watch daytime television because they're all out working, or HuffPo’s Joanne Bamberger writing that Winfrey’s “recommendations should stay in the bra and jean intervention categories,” there’s just nothing to beat Hollywood forays into reality.
In any event, your empathy thesis certainly explains why the Hillary campaign is sending into Iowa the only closer alive who might manage to out-compassion Oprah. Bill Clinton versus Oprah Winfrey. An Olympics of hearing-your-pain.
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I'm a fan of Shankar Vedantam's "Department of Human Behavior" column in the Washington Post, which reported yesterday on some recent social psychology research that perhaps sheds new light on tough Hillary, and the spectacle of the candidates in general. The experience of being powerful erodes empathy, a study published in Psychological Science (which I haven't actually seen) seems to suggest. Volunteers who were made to feel like top dogs, in contrast to those who were primed to recall situations of powerlessness, very quickly lost the capacity to see things from other people's perspectives. The experiment (which involves drawing the letter E on foreheads) sounds rather ridiculous, but has a certain explanatory, well, power. Here may be another reason that the same candidates who are so exquisitely attuned to the views of others while they're desperately chasing votes become more blinkered once they're in office-and a reason that toughness can eclipse sensitivity in the front-runner in the race, regardless of gender. (So much for femaleness as a vaunted incubator of empathy; here's grist for the notion that the experience of subordinate status, not two X chromosomes, may be a key influence.) The result, as the researchers observe, is a paradox: The very quality that often draws us to support leaders-their ability to see beyond themselves-is all too likely to fade once we've anointed them.
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Three cheers for Stephanie Coontz's piece in the New York Times today in defense of taking marriage private. She asks:
Why do people—gay or straight—need the state’s permission to marry? For most of Western history, they didn’t, because marriage was a private contract between two families. The parents’ agreement to the match, not the approval of church or state, was what confirmed its validity.
She offers a persuasive case that in today's climate—with divorce rates still high—we need to rethink the state's involvement in marriage. And she points out the logical peculiarity of the fact that unmarried couples who've cohabited for 19 years might have no hospital visitation rights—while two kids who get married on a whim automatically do.
These are all questions I've had on my mind, because I got married this summer after a six-year relationship. I’m happy to be married—in fact, this week, I’m particularly glad, because I’m scheduled to have surgery, and if I weren't married, my partner might have met with far more resistance from Oxford Health Plans when he called on my behalf to investigate the fine points of the claims process. Being able to say the words my husband to doctors and nurses has made bureaucratic matters far easier to manage than the words my boyfriend ever did. One reason is obviously that in an era of constantly shifting relationships, the government and hospitals need some way of figuring out how to distinguish the loose bonds of a one-night stand from the deeper ties of a long-term relationship. But at this point in time marriage doesn't seem to perform that function as well as it might. For one thing, it's the policization of marriage that gives some young couples pause about wedlock. Not to get all Brad-and-Angelina about it, but for years I didn’t want to get married because I didn’t want to participate in an institution that was closed (or largely closed) to my gay friends and family members. Clearly my resolve weakened since then, but it still bothers me that I'm part of something that is not aavailable to all my peers.
So, I'm glad pieces like Coontz’s—which get fresh conversations started—are part of the debate about how modern matrimony might provide the greatest good to the most people, children and adults alike.
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I am feeling all Republican today, after receiving a surprise holiday note from the IRS. Now, theoretically, I am all for paying taxes; I like what that Martin O'Malley is up to here in Maryland, pushing through a tax hike that according to the Washington Post will "not only close the deficit, it will also help to clean up the Chesapeake Bay, extend health-care coverage to 100,000 lower-income Marylanders, build public schools, and add facilities for state colleges and universities.'' Which is more than Jake with me; until every kid in America has health insurance, how could I object to s-chipping in? Then again, to quote Junie B. Jones, this letter from the tax man has killed the glee. Paraphrasing here, what it says is, "Dear Sucker, You know that $1,021.02 refund check we sent you some months ago? Oopsie, our bad! On the off chance that you have cashed said check, pay us back immediately or we will start charging you interest on our mistake. Hahahahaha, Your IRS.'' Is this how fiscal conservatives are born?
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In Meghan's wonderful piece on Susan Faludi's new book, she argues that while all bias against women in our country has not been eradicated, "Faludi tells us that the sky is falling when the debris coming down, in some cases, is just another glass ceiling being cracked open.'' Exactly! You've perfectly summed up my knee-jerk skepticism about how much Hillary hatred goes back to Eve, when maybe some of it is only personal. And just as a thought experiment—one that might or might not show how far women have come—how do you think it would have played if Barack Obama had given a race-based version of Clinton's gender card answer in last week's debate? What if, in other words, Obama had given a speech somewhere about dealing with the all-white club, had been asked to explain himself and had answered with playful derision that, duh, black people do have just the tiniest bit of extra *!%# to put up with from time to time. My bet is that the room would not have exploded in laughter.
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But, Rachael, that's exactly how my blond hair evolved! OK, I was 37 at the time, but still ... Given the appalling lack of basic scientific knowledge in this country, I guess it's hardly surprising to see even science writers and researchers wandering off into the woods in search of ovulating lap dancers and speculation about whether the guys in the Geico commercials would prefer Marilyn Monroe to Jane Russell. Only 14 percent of Americans even believe the theory of evolution is "definitely true''—which could easily explain some pretty desperate adaptive measures to sex up the science, literally. I doubt if these stories are the hoped-for antidote to Mike Huckabee's apparently widely shared feeling that one can either believe in evolution or God; on the contrary, they could well have just the opposite effect, and make scientific inquiry in general seem frivolous, over-packaged and completely expendable.
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Our evolutionary psychology discussion has had me on the lookout for stories that seem particularly ridiculous. And on Fox News today, the morning hosts mentioned a study that purports to show that gentlemen preferred blondes as far back as the Ice Age. I started Googling, and the stories I found demonstrate a huge problem for this particular field of research: The media does a poor job reporting on the science.
For example, the Times of London writes that "north European women evolved blonde hair and blue eyes at the end of the Ice Age to make them stand out from their rivals at a time of fierce competition for scarce males." One thing I've learned from my casual reading on evolution is that adaptation doesn't work this way. Yes, if a trait is evolutionarily beneficial, it will get passed on and become more prevalent, while traits that are harmful or undesirable will be lost because the people who carry them don't breed successfully. But a brunette woman is not going to give birth to flaxen-haired tots just because her genes looked around, noticed how all the men were going for the blond hotties, and decided to mutate. (This piece from the Toronto Star explains it better.) Yet so many of the stories I see use this cause-and-effect structure to explain findings on evolution, and the ignorance is incredibly frustrating.
Some of the claims of evolutionary psychologists are shaky enough without such bad reporting, which leaves me with a lot of questions. Do evolutionary psychologists even care that the reporting is bad, or do they enjoy the attention that misleading stories bring to them? And is too much to expect journalists to have a little bit of knowledge about the subjects they cover?
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Melinda, I think your instinct about the deterrent effect of the death penalty is about the same as mine. The Liptak article is incredibly interesting but makes the same point I learned in law school: Deterrence works if there is a reasonable chance the punishment in question will actually happen. Even my kids know that if they only get in trouble one time out of every 10,000 times they crayon the walls, it's totally worthwhile to take a chance and crayon the walls. We currently execute only a few dozen people a year.
But even if it were proved that the death penalty served as a terrific deterrent, it wouldn’t solve for the other fundamental problem: We don’t kill the worst offenders—we mainly kill only the most unlucky ones (the guys lumped with sleepy counsel, mixed-up DNA, tough-on-crime judges). Here’s a great new piece by Stuart Taylor on the recent decline of the death penalty that ties some of that together. For something to be a true deterrent, it needs to be understood to work. Even a rationally acting drunk killer on a spree can hardly game the odds of a capital punishment system that seems to punish indiscriminately.
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I really don't know what to make of the study Morgan posted about on Friday. More maternal stress, fewer male babies—it's one of those findings that seems too funny to be true, and enormously entertaining.
Meanwhile, EMILY's List is off to Iowa, to stump for Hillary by luring more women to the caucuses. The group is posting online ads at day-care centers and yoga and health sites, Politico tells us. Good for them—creative-sounding tactics, and the more women who vote the better. But is that as in, the more PEOPLE who vote, or the more women who vote, specifically?
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I am totally riveted by today's Washington Post story about the Baltimore cop convicted of killing his young mistress a dozen years ago—based on a discredited method of bullet-matching and the testimony of an "expert'' who faked his credentials, misrepresented his findings, and after he was busted, committed suicide. Now a judge may overturn the conviction, which is getting a second look mostly because the cop's wife has never given up on him. (Her position is that he cheated on her, but didn't kill anybody. Dude, what did you do to deserve this woman?)
Though this is not a capital case—the cop, James Kulbicki, got life without parole—it seems yet another example of the most undeniable problem with the death penalty: We get stuff wrong. Often enough that we ought to be humbled. And I'm eager to hear what you legal experts think of the New York Times story about the new studies that purport to find that capital punishment might "save lives'' by preventing murders in the states that impose it most freely.
I find this hard to believe, for one thing because I doubt that violent criminals, most of whom are drunk or high at the time of an attack, are at all apt to stop and think, "Uh-oh, do I really want to wind up like old Joe, who ate his last meal and then rode the needle? No! And so, my intended victim, never mind!'' I also cannot see how capital punishment, even as administered in Texas or Virginia, could have a statistically significant deterrent effect. How is it possible to isolate that effect from the larger law-and-order picture in those states?
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If a woman's stressed during pregnancy will she not have a son? A piece in the new issue of the Economist suggests a connection between maternal stress and a baby's gender. Here's the theory: First World women are 5 percent more likely to have a male child than their counterparts in developing countries, but that gap's been closing lately. That could be because women under stress are more likely to give birth to girls. A few studies have shown that women are more likely to have girls when they conceive in war zones, right after natural disasters, or after the loss of a loved one. One tempting bit of association: Fewer baby boys were born to New York City mothers who got pregnant the week after the Sept. 11 attacks.
I wonder how this fits into our discussion on evo pysch. A Danish scientist who's researched the effects of chronic stress on reduced male birth rates (as opposed to stress brought on by a catastrophic event), suggests that the reasons for stressed mothers having fewer boys "might be adaptive" because
the chances are that a daughter who reaches adulthood will find a mate and thus produce grandchildren. A son is a different matter. Healthy, strapping sons are likely to produce lots of grandchildren, by several women-or would have done in the hunter-gatherer societies in which most human evolution took place. Weak ones would be marginalised and maybe even killed in the cut and thrust of male competition. If a mother's stress adversely affects the development of her fetus (as it is likely to do) then selectively aborting boys, rather than wasting time and resources on bringing them to term, would make evolutionary sense.
The "cut and thrust of male competition?" I hear echoes of Dana's monkey-men.
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Dahlia,
I might not be the best person to answer your question, since I can't picture myself supporting Hillary regardless of what she's calling herself, but I agree that it's hard to imagine how dropping "Rodham" can help her. Jill is right that feminists might overlook the switch as a concession to the greater good of getting a woman into the Oval Office, and that this latest flip flop DOES come across as another example of the calculating and triangulating for which she is so often criticized.
I agree—if I read it right; it was indeed an odd column—with Cary Tennis' assertion that women can choose whatever name they want. (For the record, I happily took my husband's name.) And in this post-feminist era, we shouldn't apologize for reserving the right to stereotypically change our minds, like Sarah Michelle Gellar Prinze. But Hillary's repeated flip-flopping reminds me of what Emily B. wrote about John McCain's "B-word" gaffe. It's a move that tells us a lot about her. Just like in this damning video John Edwards put out after the last debate, when Hillary was caught contradicting herself on Iraq and Social Security and those darn driver's licenses, she changes her very identity depending on which way the political winds are blowing.
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I can't imagine Clinton's name change really made a difference, Dahlia, though older opinion polls guessing whether it would seem to show otherwise. I suppose Clinton's thinking could be as follows: Feminists who find it backward for a woman to take her husband's name, with no retention of their maiden name, could likely still be Hillary supporters regardless, simply because they're in favor of a woman president. More traditional women who believe the woman should take her husband's name could be swayed by this statement of family unity. But it seems silly to me to think that anyone could be swayed by it as a statement of family unity, given how often Clinton has flip-flopped on her own name. Whether or not to take a husband's name is a question fraught with issues for women--I know very few who haven't spent some time grappling with how to handle this identity change. Speaking as a double-name non-hyphenated adopter like the former Hillary Rodham Clinton, that, to me, seemed like the best compromise for retaining my identity as Jill Hunter, but also allowed me to adopt a family name that my future children would share with my husband and me. Obviously it hasn't proven to be enough of a middle ground for Clinton. Does anyone know what her legal name is? Is it Hillary Rodham Clinton? She hasn't legally changed it each time she's publicly "changed" it, I'm assuming. That might more aptly reflect her true feelings on the subject.
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I think my husband would rather have a CD, Dahlia, though he would certainly appreciate the cost of a symbolic gift. (Think of the savings!) Rodham or Clinton, Hillary's been called worse, right? And that was just this week. Heckuvan answer she gave on the gender card question at last night's debate, I have to say. Though if it were my first trip to town, I'd wonder why Joe Biden knew the most and said the least; candidates with nothing to lose are always so appealing. And I had to laugh when John Edwards said it was no good replacing a bunch of corporate Republicans with a bunch of corporate Democrats - and CNN's Wolf Blitzer cut in to say, "Senator Clinton, I'm going to let you respond to that.''
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God, what did we do before there was Feministing?
Today they point the way to funny little item about Sarah Michelle Gellar taking the last name of her husband, Freddie Prinze Jr., as a five-year wedding gift. Yikes. Within minutes, I stumbled onto this odd column by Cary Tennis at Salon on the same subject—the feminist message behind taking your spouse's name. (And no, I was not cheating on you Emily ... ). All of which re-raised a question I haven’t heard answered to my satisfaction: When the Rodham fell out of Hillary Clinton’s name, did it help? Was it an anniversary gift to Bill? I doubt it.
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In answer to your question, Torie, I don't think the Democrats need to worry about the Jewish vote, because as far as I'm concerned there's no such thing as the Jewish vote. Saying "Jewish" these days is about as descriptive as saying "Christian." Sure, there are some rough similarities between Reform Jews, Orthodox Jews, and even Atheist Jews, just like there's a twice-removed family resemblance between Protestant Evangelicals and Roman Catholics. But as far as voting goes, it's crazy to think that Lubavitchers and say, Woody Allen, would root for the same team.
The fact that more Jewish Floridians are voting for Republicans than they used to is, I think, a simple reflection of Florida's swing state status. Poll Jews in New York and I think you'll find that they have blue blood, just as they always did.
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It seems like much longer than three years ago that Howard Dean was hailed as the great hope for Web political organizing. Now, Ron Paul has replaced him as the no-chance-in-hell candidate to best harness the misdirected money and idealism of the Internet masses.
But apparently Dean’s feeling nostalgic for the Internet, because he recently talked about one thing sure to stir up bloggers: who gets to go to heaven. During a speech Sunday to Jewish leaders, according to the Politico, Dean said that “there are no bars to heaven for anybody.” (The article headline—“Dean says Jews can go to heaven”—is a little odd: It seems to suggest that Dean granted Jews access to heaven.)
That assertion surely won’t sit well with conservative evangelical Christians who think that there actually is a bar to heaven, and a rather high one at that. But though the Democrats have apparently been trying to woo evangelical voters suspicious of potential GOP nominees Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, it’s not likely to happen. Could Dean instead be trying to stop the trend of Jewish Republicans? There have been periodic trend reports this year about Jews in ‘08, including some wondering if Jews might be more inclined to vote for Giuliani than they were to vote for Bush and how they might respond to Obama. Exit polling from the 2006 midterm elections found that young Jews (and Orthodox Jews) were more likely to vote for the GOP than their older counterparts. Is this actually something Dean and the Democrats need to worry about? Or was he just trying to please the audience in the crowd that day?
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We interrupt our regularly scheduled blogging to let you know that Emily Bazelon and Melinda Henneberger will be chatting live on washingtonpost.com Thursday at 11 a.m. Check out Emily's writings on Hillary Clinton, breast-feeding, Sandra Day O'Connor and more, and Melinda's take on Hillary, Rudy Giuliani, and abortion and birth control, then submit your questions for the chat.
UPDATE, Nov. 15: Read what Emily and Melinda had to say.
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I'm with Emily. Despite my irrational and - until now, at least -- enduring soft spot for John McCain, laughing one's senatorial socks off when a colleague is called the B word is no less objectionable than if he had indulged a (theoretical) Obama hater in using the N word. This was not so much a gaffe as a window into the candidate's character, just as Hillary Clinton's planted question was. Which is why these off-script (or on-, in her case) moments can be so instructive. Don't we all wish we had paid more attention to Bush's cocky asides in 2000, and less to his moderate stump speeches?
The fact that our current president's cowboy ways have been so thoroughly discredited is still another reason I can't see Clinton's biggest obstacle as her womanly lack of a little more snap in the old towel. Wouldn't the stereotypically female virtue of prudence, and maybe even a little well-placed aversion to risk, be a welcome relief right about now? Even in full riled-up feminist mode, I can't see that when she has her first bad week of the campaign, it's because some would-be supporters just woke up and smelled the Black Orchid. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush made plenty of people crazy with hatred, too. And I guess the bottom line for me is the many women I meet who genuinely seem to feel guilty about not liking Hillary better; does sisterhood require that we support the woman in the race? Or put another way, are those who say they'd like a woman - just not this woman -- necessarily bitchy phonies?
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Usually, Meghan, I'd agree with you entirely that gaffes get more attention than they deserve, at the expense of the substance that should matter more. But I hope this McCain embarassment gets it due in this news cycle, because of the link I drew earlier to his Chelsea Clinton joke. John Dickerson (Slate's political correspondent, if he needs an introduction) is always saying that the gaffes that matter are the ones that confirm our preexisting suspicions about a candidate's weakness. We thought George Allen was a boob; then we knew he was a boob. Laughing at someone else calling Hillary a bitch is evidence of McCain's coarseness, which we've already seen, and which in my mind doesn't bode well for the kind of people he'd want to run the EEOC, say. So maybe I shouldn't care much, but I do.
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I agree with Dahlia and Emily that gender is a big part of it for many of the Hillary hatas out there. A while back I mentioned a study that suggests we see "manly women" as "pretenders," which does seem to suggest that lots of us murkily associate not toeing-the-gender script with phoniness. Meanwhile, I don't think the media's new focus on "gender" is working out that well for Hillary; it seems like she polled better when we weren't contantly being reminded that she is a... woman and her competitors are.... men. A new CBS/New York Times poll of "likely Iowa voters" shows Obama and Edwards closing on her, with 25 percent saying they'd vote for Hillary, 23 percent going to Edwards, and 22 percent for Obama. (Statistically insignificant margin, but it's intriguing that Edwards is equal with Obama.) Even so, I'm not sure this poll tells us anything substantial.
As for John McCain, Dahlia: Sure, he should have said, "Let's not use that word" before he went on to answer the woman's question. But I can't get too worked up about his response; what's really at stake in this campaign has nothing to do with whether McCain tolerated the word "bitch." I'm increasingly finding it tedious to watch politicians being taken to task for small gaffes while weighty issues go largely unexamined.
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Thank you, Madam; the potty-mouth McCain supporter (or was she another plant?) who called Hillary the B word just handed Clinton five points minimum -- and the kind of gender-based martyrdom she so benefited from when Rick Lazio looked like he was zooming in to throttle her during their 2000 senatorial race. Brava! Even I don't like it, and I think the Senator can more than take care of herself.
I'm still not convinced, though, Dahlia and Emily, that the complaint that she's a phony has much to do with her gender; have we forgotten the Slick Willy years? Bill Clinton is just a more talented politician than his wife - and every other living practitioner.
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Dahlia, here's why I think you're right that Hillary hatred is tied up with gender: People who froth at the mouth about her are often neutral to postive about Bill. Even when the substantive reasons they give for hating Hillary are easily and equally reason to hate both of them. In my family, Hillary gets bashed for the role she played in the health care debacle. Because she screwed it up, but more because they think it was nepotistic of her to have assumed a leading role in the first place. Who gave her that role? Bill. Similarly, the charge that Hillary is a phony triangulator applies as much or more to Bill. And yet the phony part seems to stick to her, and not to him. For sure, this is a matter of personality, and they certainly have different ones. But it's also about how Hillary's personality, and persona, meshes with being a woman.
So will John McCain's lapse hurt him? It reminds me of that incredibly awful joke he told about Chelsea.
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Courtesy of Talking Points Memo, a clip of John McCain warmly responding to the apparently self-evident campaign question, "How do we beat the bitch?" with laughter, hearty affirmation ("excellent question") and the polling numbers about his lead over Hillary. All rather sick-making but it's worth pointing out—as several bloggers have not—that his questioner here was a woman.
This raises a good point that Melinda flicked at last week: MAN do people hate Hillary Clinton. You mentioned in your post her "high, deep and not-going-anywhere negatives," and I agree. Folks who think this way are not gonna wake up come election day and say "Hey, I was wrong, I have been out-of-my-mind-demented-crazy-ass-insane with loathing for this woman for 15 years but today I changed my mind!" I think I part company with you, though, over the notion that all this loathing has "zero" to do with her gender. You can't separate the claim that she's a "phony" from the contention that she's a "bitch." That's she's somehow an unnatural woman has always been at the core of Hillary Dementia, hasn't it? It was at the core of Eleanor Roosevelt Psychopathy as well.
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I just had to join in with a "hear, hear" for stamping out evolutionary psychology (at least in its pop-sci