Smashing Stereotypes: Michelle Obama 'Bests' Jimmy Fallon After 'Beating' Ellen

First she took on Ellen DeGeneres in a push-up contest.

Then she challenged Jimmy Fallon to a multi-"sport" competition where she emerged the "victor" as Bo, the first canine, looked on.

Say what you will about Michelle Obama, but she's on the money when she says that she's willing to make a fool of herself in order to promote the notion that Americans, specifically children, should put down their iPods and smart phones, get off their butts and start moving.

Her Let's Move initiative is noble and she's willing to go to bat for it. Literally. In the process of promoting a universally respected ideal -- that kids should exercise -- Obama is also attempting to smash the stodgy, stuffy, tea-and-crumpets stereotype of what an American first lady should be. And that is a very good thing.

Notes on Politics: Are You a Knowledgeable Citizen?

As we have watched horrific and violent news play out across the globe – armed conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and now in Libya where U.S. soldiers are risking their lives – as well as observe the multi-pronged disaster unfolding in Japan (earthquake, tsunami, potential meltdown of damaged nuclear plants), government officials have been called upon to make a number of important decisions. Here in the United States, our officials must decide whether we should continue to put our troops in harm’s way to hold Gadhafi’s army at bay (or send a barrage of missiles in his general direction). They need to determine when to completely remove our troops from Iraq – meaning everyone outta there – and what to do in Afghanistan, where soldiers have been engaged for going on a decade. Never mind the whole national debt issue . . .

And we, the citizens, are the ones who put those officials there. We do so by listing to presidential, congressional and senate candidates’ promises, examine their backgrounds, policy stands and decide whose judgment we’d prefer to rely upon in moments of crisis like we're facing now.

But what if the people who are doing the voting have no idea what the heck is going on in the world? Only 61.6 percent of eligible voters voted in the 2008 presidential election, but are they among the people who know at least a little something about current events? Newsweek/The Daily Beast has come out with some statistics that really make me shudder and wonder about our citizens' grasp of American history and the workings of our government.

Newsweek got 1,000 U.S. citizens to take the U.S. citizenship test. The results sure are dispiriting:

“[Twenty-nine] percent couldn’t name the vice president. Seventy-three percent couldn’t correctly say why we fought the Cold War. Forty-four percent were unable to define the Bill of Rights. And 6 percent couldn’t even circle Independence Day on a calendar.”



Among the citizenship test’s other questions: What was the Constitutional Convention? Who was the president during World War I? With which countries did we fight during World War II? How many House seats are in Congress? What did Susan B. Anthony do?

Good grief. I’d be willing to wager that the 29 percent of the people who didn’t know that Joe Biden is our vice president are more likely to know who Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber are, and probably spend oodles of time on Facebook.

Wait. It gets worse.

“In March 2009, the European Journal of Communication asked citizens of Britain, Denmark, Finland, and the U.S. to answer questions on international affairs,” Newsweek reported. “The Europeans clobbered us. Sixty-eight percent of Danes, 75 percent of Brits, and 76 percent of Finns could, for example, identify the Taliban, but only 58 percent of Americans managed to do the same—even though we’ve led the charge in Afghanistan. It was only the latest in a series of polls that have shown us lagging behind our First World peers.”



What’s the answer? Mandatory civics classes in schools? Maybe trying to persuade people to turn off mindless reality show programming and save some brain cells for the news rather than The Situation and Snookie? If we started expecting, as a rite of passage, that entering adulthood means that people are expected to be engaged citizens, not people who exist only in their own bubble, disconnected and uninformed about the activities of their local, state and federal government officials at all levels, would that make any difference? Perhaps we should make Schoolhouse Rock videos regular viewing for our school children, and gently suggest that their parents watch along them too? Or does Charlie Sheen have to run for vice president for folks to start paying attention?

If you took the test, how do you think you’d do?

Notes on Politics: 'The View' Walkout, Oprah Hearts Jon Stewart & Campaigning While Female

The View Walkout

Today I've found myself thinking about a famous quote from comedian Phyllis Diller: “Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight.”

I feel the same way about political discourse which, on far too many occasions, devolves into mean-spirited name calling, especially in the internet era. What would improve matters? If someone doesn’t agree with what someone else is saying, responds by making a rational, strong counter-arguments bolstered by evidence. If there’s common ground onto which both sides can stand side-by-side, great, if not, the two people could agree to disagree. (Of course you need two rational people to do this, folks who aren’t calling one another names and who are willing to engage intellectually.)

So when I heard about the dust-up between Bill O’Reilly and some panelists from The View over the controversial proposed mosque near Ground Zero in Manhattan, I was greatly disappointed to learn that Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar stormed off the stage after becoming enraged by what O’Reilly had to say. It was heartening to see Barbara Walters respond by making the sage declaration, “We should be able to have discussions without washing our hands and screaming and walking off stage.”

People are taking sides on this, about whether Goldberg and Behar were right to leave the stage or whether their behavior was ridiculous. What say you?



Oprah Hearts Jon Stewart

Certainly you’ve all heard about the satirical rallies The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are planning in Washington to mock the extremism that’s been permeating both ends of the political spectrum these days. Stewart’s “Rally to Restore Sanity” will face off against Colbert’s “March to Keep Fear Alive” and both were in the news this week after Oprah bestowed upon them her golden touch by offering Stewart’s studio audience transportation to the rally.

Colbert’s response to Oprah favoring Stewart? Not storming off the stage in a huff:



Campaigning While Female

Female candidates running for office this season continue to fend off attacks which appear to be directed at them because of their gender, not because of their stances on public policies.



Over in California, the candidates for governor debated the comments made by an associate of Jerry Brown’s in which said associate called opponent Meg Whitman a “whore.” Twice.

After moderator Tom Brokaw asked Brown about this, Brown gave a half-hearted apology to Whitman, the kind which goes like this: I’m sorry someone got caught calling you, specifically, a whore, but someone from your campaign said members of Congress are whores too, so there. Whenever one's apology is followed by the word “but,” that oftentimes negates the sincerity of the apology. Plus there’s a big difference between singling out one person and lobbing an insult at her -- like “liar,” “crook” or “whore” -- and making a general criticism of a large group of people, like members of Congress. That being said, it would’ve been prudent for Whitman to have at least said that no one should be tossing around words like “whore” in the context of a political campaign.

UPDATE: It was with disgust that I read that the president of the California chapter of NOW told the political blog Talking Points Memo: "Meg Whitman could be described as 'a political whore.' Yes, that's an accurate statement." And people wonder why many folks dismiss the likes of NOW as a liberal/Democratic organization that only supports fellow liberal/Democrats while feeding conservative and/or Republican women to the wolves. So much for the sisterhood.



Meanwhile, a female congressional candidate in Virginia is being haunted by racy photos taken of her at a costume party six years ago when she was 22 and a recent college graduate, which were posted online in an attempt to embarrass and discredit her.

The candidate, Krystal Ball, who cited Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton as political inspirations, told Fox News:

“The tactic of painting successful women, successful politicians as a whore, it’s nothing new. Ask Sarah Palin, ask Meg Whitman, ask Nikki Haley, Christine O’Donnell. Lots of women face this same thing. And so I decided, although I wanted to just sort of hide in a corner and cry, that I couldn’t let these tactics succeed.”

Notes on Pop Culture/Politics: 'Big C' Going it Alone, 'Desperate' Season 7 and Status of Women Now Vs Then

The Big C Going It Alone

After watching the third episode of Showtime’s The Big C, I’m having a tough time figuring out Laura Linney’s character Cathy Jamison. She won’t tell her husband or her teenage son that she has stage four melanoma. She kicked her husband out of the house without explaining to him, or their son, why, other than the fact that she seems to have grown tired of being the responsible, do-gooder, vanilla wife and mother who martyrs herself, taking care of their every need while they take her for granted.

As Cathy continues to act in ways that are uncharacteristic for her, I wonder if she’s secretly waiting for her husband and son to figure out what’s wrong or whether she just wants to act in whatever manner suits her and not be questioned about it. My episode review is over on CliqueClack TV.

Desperate Season 7

ABC has released a promo video for the seventh season of Desperate Housewives and my question is this: Do people care anymore? Adding Vanessa Williams is certainly a good move, but is there any magic left in this once sharp show that deftly satirized the faux perfect life in the ‘burbs? I'm not so sure.



Status of Women Now Vs Then

My Pop Culture and Politics column this week took the occasion of the 90th anniversary of U.S. women’s suffrage to compare what my newly-minted 12-year-old daughter sees when she looks at the world – four female U.S. Supreme Court justices, women as a vast minority of elected office holders and CEOs, women’s sports still treated like the forgotten step-sister to men’s sports, Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” rocking the iTunes singles list – with what I saw when I was 12, way back in the Stone Ages of 1981, when the first female U.S. Supreme Court justice was nominated to the court, when everyone was obsessed with Diana marrying Charles, Olivia Newton-John topped the pop charts with “Physical” and there had been no female candidates on a major national ticket.

Despite some dismal numbers with regard to the number of women in politics, running major businesses and the paucity of media coverage of women's sports, things, as a whole, have markedly improved.

Notes on Politics: Election Night as 'Ladies' Night,' Obstructing Oil Spill News Coverage, Goodbye 'Chevy' & Is Feminism Label for Liberals Only?

Election Night as ‘Ladies’ Night’

Several female pols prevailed in primary elections on Tuesday night, causing many pundits to grope around for some kind of clever, all-encompassing storyline around which they could wrap the election results, given that the anti-incumbency line didn't seem to work out too well. Invoking the term “Ladies Night” appeared to be the media favorite. Check out Jon Stewart’s take on the media’s gal power declaration on The Daily Show:



Obstructing Oil Spill News Coverage

Whenever I hear reports from BP execs and federal officials about the status of the Gulf coast oil spill, I’m pretty skeptical and assume that I’m not being told the whole story for whatever reason, figuring that the money and political capital at stake, prohibiting the real story from coming out. So I give a jaundiced eye to their reports about how much oil is really being released into the Gulf of Mexico and the true impact of it -- and the chemical dispersants -- on the environment and the economy. I prefer, instead, to sample a variety of news reports from organizations which lean left, right and somewhere in the middle to try to get a real sense of what’s going on.

Then I read this story on the front page of the New York Times today, about BP and government officials obstructing the media’s access to affected areas, including threatening a New York Daily News reporter and a CBS News crew with arrest for trying to gain access to a public beaches where oil was washing ashore. The Times reported:

“Journalists struggling to document the impact of the oil rig explosion have repeatedly found themselves turned away from public areas affected by the spill, and not only by BP and its contractors, but by local law enforcement, the Coast Guard and government officials.”

Yeah, this is comforting.

Goodbye ‘Chevy’

Also on page one of today’s New York Times, is a piece about how G.M. execs want to stop using the nickname “Chevy” for their vehicles, preferring, instead, to use the full, formal name, “Chevrolet.”

“On Tuesday, G.M. sent a memo to Chevrolet employees at its Detroit headquarters, promoting the importance of ‘consistency’ for the brand, which was the nation’s best-selling line of cars and trucks for more than half a century after World War II,” the Times reported. "And one way to present a consistent brand message, the memo suggested, is to stop saying 'Chevy,' though the word is one of the world's best-known, longest-lived product nicknames."

Bet that’ll go over about as well as when federal government officials tried to re-label the swine flu by the more clinical, “H1N1 disease.”

Is ‘Feminism’ Label for Liberals Only?

There’s been a spirited debate over the past few weeks spawned by the fact that Sarah Palin has started embracing the word “feminist.”

Several bloggers for feminist/liberal-leaning writers took great umbrage to Palin claiming this word as her own, pointing, in particular, to their belief that if a woman does not favor abortion rights, she can’t be considered a feminist. Writing in the Washington Post, Jessica Valenti wrote, “Palin's ‘feminism’ isn't just co-opting the language of the feminist movement, it's deliberately misrepresenting real feminism to distract from the fact that she supports policies that limit women's rights.”

On Salon Rebecca Traister wrote:

“There has to be a move toward ownership from other Democrats, from those women and men who have perhaps not yet named themselves feminists . . . but who also do not want to see ‘women's rights’ come to mean the exaltation of fetal life over female life and religion over science, who don't want to see ‘women's liberation’ divorced from notions of equal opportunity and instead reframed as Ayn Rand-ian survival of the richest or most privileged.”

Meanwhile others have pushed back against the outcry over the notion that conservatives are calling themselves feminists including writer Cathy Young who tossed out the most recent volley on this subject in the Boston Globe:

"Who owns feminism today? Many feminists are incensed when the label is appropriated by women who question the Violence Against Women Act, or who argue that the pay differential between women and men is due largely to women’s more family-focused personal choices, not discrimination. Yet critiques of the conventional feminist paradigms of such problems as domestic violence and the gender gap in pay have been made both by many dissident feminists and by many scholars and researchers. To reject them out of hand as incompatible with feminism is not only ideologically intolerant, it also suggests an unwillingness to even consider factual claims that are at odds with dogma.

. . . Yet the audience for a different kind of feminism — one that seeks individualistic and market-oriented solutions, rather than big-government-driven ones, and focuses on women’s empowerment rather than oppression — is clearly there. The women who embrace it are likely to transform both feminism and conservatism. The feminist movement ignores them at its peril."

Notes on Politics: Jon Stewart Sharply Critical of Senate Goldman Sachs Hearing

Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. Goldman Sachs execs at a Senate hearing. Expletives and questionable nicknames.

Watch.

Discuss.



Oh, and be sure to check out the in-your-face front page of the New York Post today. Few people seem to be mincing words on this story.

Notes on Politics: Sebelius Stands Up for Cancer Patients and a Supreme Court Mom

Sebelius Stands Up for Breast Cancer Patients

It was with supreme outrage that I read a Reuters report last week claiming that a health insurance company was targeting women who were freshly diagnosed with breast cancer for audits of their insurance policies in order to find a reason to cancel said policies.

Reuters highlighted two women who’d faithfully paid their insurance premiums, but soon after they were diagnosed with breast cancer were flagged for audits had their policies canceled. “They had no idea that WellPoint was using a computer algorithm that automatically targeted them and every other policyholder recently diagnosed with breast cancer,” Reuters reported. “The software triggered an immediate fraud investigation, as the company searched for some pretext to drop their policies, according to government regulators and investigators.”

Reuters continued, “Once the women were singled out, they say, the insurer then canceled their policies based on either erroneous or flimsy information. WellPoint declined to comment on the women's specific cases without a signed waiver from them, citing privacy laws.”

In response, an irritated Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius not only said that this practice – called “rescission” – will soon be illegal “thanks to the recently-passed Affordable Care Act,” but rapped the company, WellPoint, on the knuckles. Hard.

“WellPoint should not wait to end the unconscionable practice of deliberately working to deny health insurance coverage to women diagnosed with breast cancer,” wrote Sebelius. “I urge you to immediately cease these practices and abandon your efforts to rescind health insurance coverage from patients who need it most.”

A Supreme Court Mom?

Peter Beinart, writing on The Daily Beast, makes a case for President Obama to appoint a woman with young children to the Supreme Court. Pointing to the paucity of women with children in high profile positions in government and politics, Beinart wrote that in addition to having a woman justice who’s “more sensitive to the problems women face,” adding a mother to the court is important:

“. . . [B]ecause otherwise, the message you’re sending young women is that they can achieve professionally, or they can have a family, but they can’t do both. And without quite realizing it, that is the message our government has been sending. According to the Census Bureau, 80 percent of American women over the age of 40 have children. But look at the women who have held Cabinet posts in the last three presidential administrations. Only two of the Clinton administration’s five female Cabinet secretaries had kids.”

He also contrasted this issue to the fact that, “Men with children don’t have a role-model problem. After all, every one of the male Supremes has kids. (Antonin Scalia alone has nine.)”

Beinart continued:

“Soon after John Roberts was confirmed as chief justice, USA Today ran a syrupy feature entitled ‘Roberts Plays Dual Roles: Chief Justice and Father’ filled with sentences like ‘He takes the children to swimming lessons. He tries to keep 5-year-old Jack from using 6-year-old Josie’s violin as a pretend weapon. At the end of the day, he helps put them to bed.’ Message to little Johnnies everywhere: You can have a great job and a great life all at the same time. Compare that to Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell’s comment after Barack Obama nominated Janet Napolitano to head the Homeland Security Department. ‘Janet’s perfect for that job,’ Rendell quipped. ‘Because for that job, you have to have no life. Janet has no family. Perfect. She can devote, literally, 19 to 20 hours a day to it.’ Message to little Janets: Go ahead, shoot for the stars. Just be prepared for a life devoid of anything but work.”

Image credit: U.S. Department of Health & Human Services via More Magazine.

Notes on Politics & Pop Culture: Bye-Bye Bauer, Ethics on 'House'/'Grey's,' and Are Kids Getting Screwed on Health Care?

Bye-Bye Bauer

This current eighth day will be Jack Bauer’s last very bad day. Fox announced over the weekend that it is ending the 8-year-old series, though there’s talk of a 24 movie, which’d be approximately 22 hours shorter than one of Jack’s bad days.

The New York Times ran an interesting story examining the impact of the terrorism-centric series on TV, on the actions of actual U.S. interrogators in the field and on U.S. policy:

“24 first captured America’s attention in late 2001. The first season, which involved the explosion of a passenger plane and an assassination attempt on a presidential candidate, entered production well before the 9/11 attacks, but had its premiere eight weeks afterward. At the time, a review in the New York Times noted the ‘deadly convergence between real life and Hollywood fantasy.’ . . . The series enlivened the country’s political discourse in a way few others have, partly because it brought to life the ticking time-bomb threat that haunted the Cheney faction of the American government in the years after 9/11.”

While I’m on the subject of 24 . . . a few weeks ago I wrote that I’d become irritated by some wildly inane plot lines – particularly the Dana Walsh/Jenny one – on this final season of 24. In the past few weeks, however, things have markedly improved. I think it had to do with the fact that Dana/Jenny’s idiot ex-boyfriend is finally out of the picture, though I haven't warmed to Dana any and I'm still waiting for Brian Hastings to stop walking with a hunch. But I do I like the bomb-at-CTU line.

Ethics on House & Grey’s Anatomy

If you’ve ever watched House or Grey’s Anatomy, I have a question for you: Do you think that the medical professionals portrayed on those dramas behave ethically?

Dr. Greg House routinely dispatches his associates to patients’ homes to search the homes for clues to help him figure out medical mysteries. He employs duplicitous means to administer the treatments he thinks the patients should have, sometimes without their consent or against his boss’ orders. Grey’s Anatomy is rife with intramural bed hopping, bosses regularly sleeping with subordinates, and interns who do things do unsanctioned surgery on one another and cut the L-VAD wire of a heart patients to make him look sicker than he was in order to move him to the top of the transplant list.

So who out there actually expects these characters to be pillars of medical ethics?

Apparently some folks at Johns Hopkins were, at least enough to engage in a year-long study assessing the level of medical professionalism and bioethical issues addressed in one year of each show: “The results indicate that these programs are rife with powerful portrayals of bioethical issues and egregious deviations from the norms of professionalism and contain exemplary depictions of professionalism to a much lesser degree.”

One of the areas which had the most infractions? Sex. “The next most commonly observed departure from professionalism was sexual misconduct, with 58 incidents notched by the second season of Grey’s Anatomy and 11 in House," noted a Baltimore Sun’s TV blogger.

Kids Getting Screwed on Health Care?

I was among those who spent last weekend riveted to, of all things, C-SPAN, watching the “debate” on the health care reform bill (the NCAA tournament was in the picture-in-picture function). I had the TV on all afternoon, during dinner and through the evening, but fell asleep before President Obama’s speech just shy of midnight after the House passed the Senate’s version of the legislation. I watched the televised signing ceremony on Tuesday which, you might have heard, was considered a “big f*&%in’ deal” by the vice president.

An avid follower of the issue, I was frequently disgusted by the dialog and slimy tactics which accompanied the debate/negotiations, and was disheartened when people seem uninterested in engaging in authentic conversations about their genuine concerns without reflexively retreating back into their ideological corners, not even attempting to find a middle ground nor trying to reflect where the American people are on some health care reform issues.

After the health care reform bill became law, all kinds of things were promised. Some things were supposed to change immediately, like the fact that kids with pre-existing conditions were supposed to be able to get health insurance. The New York Times quoted the president saying earlier this month, “Starting this year, insurance companies will be banned forever from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions.” That’s an issue on which I think people of most stripes can agree, making sure sick kids obtain the medical treatment they need.

But that aspect of the new health care reform law is being contested – as is the health care bill itself by several state attorneys general -- by insurance companies, according to the New York Times. “Insurers agree that if they provide insurance for a child, they must cover pre-existing conditions,” the paper reported. “But, they say, the law does not require them to write insurance for the child and it does not guarantee the ‘availability of coverage’ for all until 2014.”

Why am I not surprised that we likely have no idea what’s that law will actually mean to you and me or how it’ll actually going to be implemented? I’ll bet we’re going to find out that a lot of this won’t be what it seems.

Image credit: Fox.

Notes on Politics: 'Game Change' Caricatures the Women in the 2008 Presidential Election

While the nation's political chattering classes are busy buzzing about Republican Scott Brown's "epic upset" (I've seen this phrase in many news stories) over Democrat Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts U.S. Senate race to fill the remaining term of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, it's worth taking a step back from the day's news (and the woefully inept Coakley campaign which blew a substantial lead and had once been considered a lock) and looking at how women in and around national politics are treated by the media.

I spent the bulk of last week plowing through the lengthy and riveting expose of the 2008 presidential election, the best selling Game Change, written by two journalists who declined to reveal who they interviewed for their book and who gave them what pieces of information. (That, to me, is problematic from a journalism ethics point of view, but that's grist for another rant on another day.) When I was done reading the book, I was so steamed about how the women were treated that I dedicated my Pop Culture and Politics column to it. With the exception of Michelle Obama, the female spouses of the candidates and the two female candidates -- Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin -- were described in an abysmal, sexist fashion. One had her reactions to bad news stories about her family labeled "hysterical" and another was dismissed as being a "beauty queen" who "flounced" back home after a disagreement with her husband, that's when she wasn't said to be weeping. One woman was depicted as having "hissy fits" and "conniptions," while another was maligned (guess which woman) as "Napoleon in a navy pantsuit and gumball-sized fake pearls."

Adding to my irritation were the cartoonish illustrations which accompanied a Game Change excerpt published in New York Magazine which portrayed Elizabeth Edwards as a monster (in one image, one of her hands was curled up so that her fingers looked like claws as spit came out her mouth), John Edwards' mistress was a smitten flirt and John Edwards himself was shown shouting and then sweating as news of his affair broke. Elizabeth Edwards, by far, came out looking the worst.

After taking this all in, I had to wonder: Were the authors simply relating the viewpoints of the blabber-mouth, disloyal former campaign aides who dished about these women, or were these words selected independently by the reporters and reflect their own opinions? Or, frighteningly, both?

Image credit: Nathan Fox/New York Magazine.

Notes on Politics: 'Lost' State of Union, Political Book Takes on Rage, Egos, Race and Infidelity

Lost State of the Union Address

There was quite a bit of consternation in them there internets last week about the possibility that White House officials would schedule the State of the Union address on February 2, the date of the Lost season premiere. Appalled Lost fans started tweeting and including the hashtag #NoStateofUnionFeb2.

Once it was announced by White House press secretary Robert Gibbs that while they didn’t yet have a date picked for the annual address he could assure folks that it won’t be on February 2, one of the Lost co-creators, Damon Lindelof posted a tweet, “OBAMA BACKED DOWN!!! Groundhog Day is OURS!!!!!! (God Bless America).”

Lindelof’s colleague Carlton Cuse, joked about the hullaballoo by posting this tweet, “In exchange for moving his speech Damon [Lindelof] and I promise to answer ANY questions the President has about LOST.”

On a more serious note, the campaign finance think tank Center for Responsive Politics suggested that the contributions of “people and political action committees associated with Walt Disney” totaling in $430,000 helped Disney make their case to secure February 2 for Lost.

Political Book Portrays Elizabeth Edwards’ Temper, Hubby’s Ego

Political reporters John Heilemann and Mark Halperin have dug into the political mud fairly deeply to unearth some damning, behind-the-scenes portraits of the major 2008 presidential candidates and those folks with whom they surrounded themselves with. The results are in Heilemann and Halperin’s new book, Game Change.

Among the revelations that’ve garnered mucho publicity in the past few days is the derogatory depiction of the Edwardses excerpted in this week’s New York Magazine entitled, “Saint Elizabeth and the Ego Monster.” (John Edwards’ mistress Rielle Hunter must be raising a champagne glass.) Characterized in the most extremely negative light possible, Elizabeth Edwards was portrayed as an exceptionally difficult person with whom to get along, with campaign aides referring to themselves as “battered spouses” for having to deal with her:

“With her husband, she could be intensely affectionate or brutally dismissive. At times subtly, at times blatantly, she was forever letting John know that she regarded him as her intellectual inferior. She called her spouse a ‘hick’ in front of other people and derided his parents as rednecks. One time, when a friend asked if John had read a certain book, Elizabeth burst out laughing. ‘Oh, he doesn’t read books,’ she said. ‘I’m the one who reads books.’”

John Edwards didn’t come off well either, as he was described as a deluded ego-maniac who thought he could just breeze through the campaign while screwing around and lying about it. The book excerpt said:

“Yet it was [John] Edwards who stepped so far across the line that his career and life were reduced to rubble . . . Edwards’s story is equally, lastingly resonant: an archetypal political tragedy in which the very same qualities that fuel any presidential bid—ego, hubris, vanity, neediness, a kind of delusion—became all-consuming and self-destructive. And in which the gap between public façade and private reality simply grew too vast to bridge.”

Notes on Politics/News: More AIG Nuttiness, Health Care Bill Payoffs, Heenes Going to the Slammer

More AIG Nuttiness

Just when you thought that the news about federal bailout recipient AIG couldn’t get any more pathetic – you remember AIG, the company of which the federal government/American taxpayers own nearly 80 percent – the Washington Post comes along and likens them to Mr. Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life. (Okay, so the Post didn’t exactly make that comparison. That’s all me and my own editorializing.) Here’s what the Post said today about the latest AIG antics:

“When word spread earlier this year that American International Group had paid more than $165 million in retention bonuses at the division that had precipitated the company's downfall, outrage erupted, with employees getting death threats and President Obama urging that every legal avenue be pursued to block the payments.

New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo threatened to publicize the recipients' names, prompting executives at AIG Financial Products to hastily agree to return about $45 million in bonuses by the end of the year.

But as the final days of 2009 tick away, a majority of that money remains unpaid. Only about $19 million has been given back, according to a report by the special inspector general for the government's bailout program.

. . . Dozens of employees have hired lawyers, bracing for a fight if AIG or government officials try to block the payments.”

Now, if it hadn’t been for the infusion of $180 billion in the form of a federally funded capital and loan rescue package, there would be no money for bonuses because the company would've gone bust and those employees now demanding the money would be out looking for work. And these AIG folks are supposedly "bracing for a fight" with lawyers to argue that that’s their money? Sure the funds might’ve been contractually agreed upon BEFORE the economy collapsed and AIG was left teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, but the moment the company accepted a federal bailout, all the rules changed.

In the face of double-digit unemployment, the fact that these folks have the temerity to argue that they’re right to take this action is akin to saying that Mr. Potter was right to keep the Bailey Building & Loan money because, well, you know what they say about possession and the law.

Notes on Politics: Women & the Health Insurance Reform Debate

While Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid attempts to muster enough votes to back a public option in a Senate health insurance reform bill (as White House officials cast doubt on the likelihood of a bill including a public health insurance option passing), one group of constituents is amping up its public relations efforts to make sure their needs are represented in whatever health insurance reform bill becomes a law: Women.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a column on Mommy Tracked urging women to pay close attention to this debate because issues that go to the heart of health care for women are at stake. Women who've had C-sections or can still get pregnant or plan to utilize maternity care services in the future, I wrote, are denied health insurance in some states or are forced to pay higher premiums than men, unless they get sterilized.

But the discrimination against women goes further than that. According to CNN and the National Women's Law Center, women who have been victims of rape or domestic abuse can and are denied health insurance in some parts of the country.

One woman told her story this week to CNN. She was raped by two men, took anti-HIV meds as her doctor recommended, then her health insurance company dropped her. The woman, ironically, works in the health insurance industry.



The advocacy group National Women's Law Center is currently running a pro-health insurance reform ad entitled, "A Woman is Not a Pre-Existing Condition." It's pretty powerful stuff.



Remember in September when Arizona Senator Jon Kyl said during a debate about the Senate Finance Committee's insurance reform package that he didn't want to mandate that health insurance policies include maternity care because he didn't need it and it would make health insurance policies too expensive? (Maternity care, by the way, was utilized by his mother, his wife and his daughter.) That, that attitude right there, is treating women like a "pre-existing condition." It's no wonder women are peeved.