This week's Pop Culture and Politics column at Mommy Tracked is all about the health insurance reform debate on Capitol Hill and why it's an important issue for folks to follow. I provide several reasons, including the little anecdote about the Arizona senator who argued against a measure that would've made his insurance company include maternity care as part of a basic insurance package because HE doesn't need it. (This is a senator who is married, has children and whose adult daughter has a child. Yeah, I think the women in his life needed it.) Oh, and the fact that when women who've had C-sections seek to find new insurance policies, in some cases and in some places around the nation, they're told that they have a "pre-existing condition" and denied coverage.
I don't take a specific stance on what health insurance reform bill -- if any -- deserves support, however I do urge the Mommy Tracked readers to "citizen up" and pay closer attention to what's going on and, if they don't like something, tell 'em to speak the heck up about it to their congressman or woman, and senators.
As I detailed which bills are where in the legislative process -- there are several competing health insuracne reform bills in the House and Senate -- I recommended that, if folks were confused about how this whole bill-to-law process works, they should refresh themselves by watching that "I'm Just a Bill" School House Rock video we watched as kids. Couldn't hurt.
Showing posts with label Suburban Mom's Political Fix. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Suburban Mom's Political Fix. Show all posts
Monday, October 5, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Suburban Mom's Political Fix: Actors Take on Health Care Reform, Backed by MoveOn.Org
Will Farrell, Jon Hamm (Mad Men), Masi Oka (Heroes), Olivia Wilde (House), Jordana Spiro (My Boys) and other celebs have made a razor-sharp, satirical public service announcement spoof where they pretend to be shilling for insurance company executives, saying that they need to be protected from any potential federal public health insurance option that the president is pitching.
They're rather pointed in their commentary, particularly when they say that the insurance company execs need to hold onto their billions of dollars of profits so they can afford mini-zoos for exotic animals in their backyards, multiple homes and private planes. In one quip, an actor says, "If my kid falls off his bike and breaks his leg, he should have to pay that money out of pocket, out of his allowance." Another adds, "How else is he going to learn not to fall off that bike?"
In skewering insurance companies which reject a health care claim because of something like a typo, Farrell said, "If you spell something wrong, do you really deserve surgery? I don't think so."
The ad, which is on the Funny or Die web site, is funded by the liberal group MoveOn.org.
Think this video is an effective contribution to the health care insurance reform debate or not?
They're rather pointed in their commentary, particularly when they say that the insurance company execs need to hold onto their billions of dollars of profits so they can afford mini-zoos for exotic animals in their backyards, multiple homes and private planes. In one quip, an actor says, "If my kid falls off his bike and breaks his leg, he should have to pay that money out of pocket, out of his allowance." Another adds, "How else is he going to learn not to fall off that bike?"
In skewering insurance companies which reject a health care claim because of something like a typo, Farrell said, "If you spell something wrong, do you really deserve surgery? I don't think so."
The ad, which is on the Funny or Die web site, is funded by the liberal group MoveOn.org.
Think this video is an effective contribution to the health care insurance reform debate or not?
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Suburban Mom's Political Fix: Obama Health Care Speech to Congress
On the speech last night that President Obama gave to a joint session of Congress, I'm going to quote the Washington Post's Tom Shales:"Obama came across like Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington: a bright-eyed young idealist up against entrenched power, old ideas and obstructionism.
It was also a chance for Obama to go on national television and look presidential again, asserting himself in ways that helped make up for the past few months of perceived defensiveness, of appearing to kowtow to other powers, and of seeming to do more following than leading."
I think the comparison to Stewart is apt. As an event of pure political theater, Obama was blunt, eager, tough and idealistic and seemed to grab the debate by the lapels and provide overarching themes with which most reasonable people -- Republican or Democrat -- would agree. Who thinks you should be banned from obtaining health coverage because you have a pre-existing condition? Who thinks American families should be bankrupted by their health care bills? Who thinks it's morally right for folks to be unceremoniously dropped by their health insurance company -- even though they diligently paid their premiums and deductibles -- when someone covered by their health insurance policy gets sick, or whose medical bills exceed a cap the insurance company has placed upon the family? I doubt you're going to find folks willing to say that all of those things are okay with them. (And if you do, it'll likely be someone named Mr. Potter, who had a run-in with Jimmy Stewart in another film, It's a Wonderful Life.)
When the president spoke of not adding "a dime to the deficit" with this new health care reform proposal, that he'd ask for a provision to be included in a bill to implement cuts if the promised millions in savings didn't materialize as he believed they would, those are sentiments around which most folks can rally.
The problem is, that's what they are, notions. We have no idea if they're going to eventually be true, no matter how much the president may want them to be because, lest we forget, he's not the one who makes laws. That's Congress' messy, messy, horse-trading job. What if the not "a dime to the deficit" has to be sacrificed in some deal to secure a bill's passage? Then Obama will have made a promise that Democratic senators and congressmen and women couldn't keep.
I went to the US Senate and House web sites and found links to two seemingly prominent versions of health care reform bills -- HR 3200 at 1,017 pages, the Senate bill passed by the Senate Committee on Health at 839 pages -- and haven't yet plowed through them.
Simply put, I'm left wondering what health care reform would really look like beyond the sweeping statements; the outcome of such reform would be very personal because it involves my family's health care. While some people may have liked the sound of the things the president is saying in general about the overhaul of one-sixth of the U.S. economy, when it comes down to the nitty-gritty implementation people, those for and against reform, get wary.
When President Obama last night said "significant details need to be worked out," laughter could be heard, only the president wasn't laughing. What's that old adage, the devil is in the details?
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Suburban Mom's Political Fix: 'Buy American' Stimulus $ Controversy, Mass. Senate Seat Contest & Sawyer Gets ABC Anchor Desk
'Buy American' Stimulus Money Controversy
The Boston Globe ran a disturbing page one story about how some of the $787 billion in federal stimulus money, which was supposed to be used to put Americans back to work and help keep American companies stay afloat, is being spent on products made in other countries. The Globe reported:
"As local governments race to spend stimulus money, many are seeking exemptions from the law's 'Buy American' restrictions, which were intended to prevent taxpayer money from ending up on foreign pockets. The administration has granted waivers for goods as varied as steel for public housing projects, high-speed Internet equipment, and Auburn's (Maine) manhole covers, which have heavy-duty hinges to help withstand the town's heavy truck traffic.
The Obama administration could not provide a list or amount of waivers granted -- which potentially could total billions of dollars -- and Vice President Joe Biden's office, which has responsibility for overseeing the stimulus, did not respond to requests for comment."
However when I read this line, "the EPA issued a blanket exemption for foreign-made components last month as long as they do not amount to more than 5 percent of a stimulus project's cost," I had to wonder exactly how much money we're talking about being spent on foreign made goods. Granted, President Obama and Congress sold this stimulus package as a Put-America-Back-to-Work program, but have apparently, when it comes to the nitty-gritty of distributing the funds, administration officials have quietly decided to alter the program's dictates after the fact, making it a Put-America-Back-to-Work-Except-If-Some-Entities-Using-Federal-Money-Really-Want-Foreign-Products.
In order to figure out just how big of a deal this really is, we need to know exactly how much is being spent on non-American goods and whether there's any truth to what "critics" of the "Buy American" clause in the stimulus plan say, that "the waivers reflect the reality that the United States no longer makes many basic goods, and that in a global economy many products are assembled in several countries, rendering the rules unenforceable."
Mass. Senate Seat Contest Gains At Least One Contender
Now that the late Sen. Ted Kennedy has been laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery, candidates to serve out the remaining couple of years of his term are starting to come out of the woodwork. Kennedy's nephew, former U.S. Congressman Joe Kennedy is expected to announce within the next day or two whether he'll pick up the political baton on behalf of his family and run.
Meanwhile, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has said she's in, regardless of whether any Kennedy family member enters the race. (If she won, she'd be the first female senator from Massachusetts.) Others who are toying with running include former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling (who, if Politico is right might have trouble running on the GOP ticket), former Mass. Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey and former Bush White House Chief of Staff Andy Card.
This has the makings of an exciting Senate race, something Massachusetts hasn't had in some time.
Sawyer Gets ABC Anchor Desk
To learn that, come January, two out of three of the anchors for the Big Three network newscasts will be women was very heartening to me. I'm so looking forward to the day when seeing and regarding a woman as an authoritative network news anchor is no longer a question to be debated or discussed, but simply a given. Women anchor the cable network newscasts all the time, all day long, so why should a woman anchoring a network newscast be any different (other than the small fact that the network news audience skews older than for the cable news networks and may be more uncomfortable with a female anchor)?
When Katie Couric assumed the helm of the CBS Evening News, her initial reviews were mired in sexist language and were sometimes patronizing, as people mused and mocked her clothing, her body and her make-up. She was skewered and verbally flogged. Before Couric, Elizabeth Vargas had been chosen to be the co-anchor of the ABC World News along with Bob Woodruff. That lasted about six months or so before Woodruff was seriously injured while covering the Iraq War and Vargas decided to move over to ABC's weekly news magazine 20/20 after learning she was pregnant with her second child and that the World News schedule wouldn't work for her. Decades ago, Barbara Walters and Connie Chung struggled as co-anchors on network broadcasts, gigs that didn't last long. Will the anchoring experience be different for Sawyer?
Former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather joined the crew of Morning Joe to discuss women as network news anchors. See the first part of their chat here:
However my glee over Sawyer's ascension was tempered once I started to read some of the details and reactions to Sawyer's selection, details like the quote from ABC president David Westin who told the New York Times, "This was not a result I wanted." Details like the rumors that outgoing ABC anchor Charlie Gibson is "livid" that Sawyer was tapped as his replacement.
Then there are the photos people have been running of Sawyer when she was a young beauty queen, long before she was hired to work in the Nixon White House and before she became a household name. Where, I ask you, are the high school and teenaged photos of male news anchors so that we can see "how far" they've come? Did we see photos of a young, awkward Brian Williams when he became the anchor of the NBC Nightly News? Or of Gibson when he took over from Vargas and Woodruff? Or is this kind of hey-don't-take-her-so-seriously shtick just reserved for female anchors like Couric and Sawyer?
And what was with U.S. News & World Report's Bonnie Erbe who, instead of celebrating, derided the whole development, calling network newscasts a "pink collar ghetto" because now women are the majority of anchors? Erbe wrote:
"That Charlie Gibson is leaving his post as anchor of World News Tonight and Diane Sawyer is replacing him may be emblematic of the declining power of the network evening newscasts . . . First Katie, now Diane. It should be an historic moment for female newscasters, who now outnumber men by 2 to 1 on the three major commercial broadcast networks. Instead, it feels like an after-thought. Funny, I never thought I'd live to see the day when the network newscasts became a pink collar ghetto. But with Rachel Maddow now almost as prominent than Katie Couric and Bill O'Reilly much more frequently in the news than Charlie Gibson, it's fair to say that day has arrived."
Sometimes it seems like women just can't win.
The Boston Globe ran a disturbing page one story about how some of the $787 billion in federal stimulus money, which was supposed to be used to put Americans back to work and help keep American companies stay afloat, is being spent on products made in other countries. The Globe reported:
"As local governments race to spend stimulus money, many are seeking exemptions from the law's 'Buy American' restrictions, which were intended to prevent taxpayer money from ending up on foreign pockets. The administration has granted waivers for goods as varied as steel for public housing projects, high-speed Internet equipment, and Auburn's (Maine) manhole covers, which have heavy-duty hinges to help withstand the town's heavy truck traffic.
The Obama administration could not provide a list or amount of waivers granted -- which potentially could total billions of dollars -- and Vice President Joe Biden's office, which has responsibility for overseeing the stimulus, did not respond to requests for comment."
However when I read this line, "the EPA issued a blanket exemption for foreign-made components last month as long as they do not amount to more than 5 percent of a stimulus project's cost," I had to wonder exactly how much money we're talking about being spent on foreign made goods. Granted, President Obama and Congress sold this stimulus package as a Put-America-Back-to-Work program, but have apparently, when it comes to the nitty-gritty of distributing the funds, administration officials have quietly decided to alter the program's dictates after the fact, making it a Put-America-Back-to-Work-Except-If-Some-Entities-Using-Federal-Money-Really-Want-Foreign-Products.
In order to figure out just how big of a deal this really is, we need to know exactly how much is being spent on non-American goods and whether there's any truth to what "critics" of the "Buy American" clause in the stimulus plan say, that "the waivers reflect the reality that the United States no longer makes many basic goods, and that in a global economy many products are assembled in several countries, rendering the rules unenforceable."
Mass. Senate Seat Contest Gains At Least One Contender
Now that the late Sen. Ted Kennedy has been laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery, candidates to serve out the remaining couple of years of his term are starting to come out of the woodwork. Kennedy's nephew, former U.S. Congressman Joe Kennedy is expected to announce within the next day or two whether he'll pick up the political baton on behalf of his family and run.
Meanwhile, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has said she's in, regardless of whether any Kennedy family member enters the race. (If she won, she'd be the first female senator from Massachusetts.) Others who are toying with running include former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling (who, if Politico is right might have trouble running on the GOP ticket), former Mass. Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey and former Bush White House Chief of Staff Andy Card.
This has the makings of an exciting Senate race, something Massachusetts hasn't had in some time.
Sawyer Gets ABC Anchor Desk
To learn that, come January, two out of three of the anchors for the Big Three network newscasts will be women was very heartening to me. I'm so looking forward to the day when seeing and regarding a woman as an authoritative network news anchor is no longer a question to be debated or discussed, but simply a given. Women anchor the cable network newscasts all the time, all day long, so why should a woman anchoring a network newscast be any different (other than the small fact that the network news audience skews older than for the cable news networks and may be more uncomfortable with a female anchor)?
When Katie Couric assumed the helm of the CBS Evening News, her initial reviews were mired in sexist language and were sometimes patronizing, as people mused and mocked her clothing, her body and her make-up. She was skewered and verbally flogged. Before Couric, Elizabeth Vargas had been chosen to be the co-anchor of the ABC World News along with Bob Woodruff. That lasted about six months or so before Woodruff was seriously injured while covering the Iraq War and Vargas decided to move over to ABC's weekly news magazine 20/20 after learning she was pregnant with her second child and that the World News schedule wouldn't work for her. Decades ago, Barbara Walters and Connie Chung struggled as co-anchors on network broadcasts, gigs that didn't last long. Will the anchoring experience be different for Sawyer?
Former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather joined the crew of Morning Joe to discuss women as network news anchors. See the first part of their chat here:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
However my glee over Sawyer's ascension was tempered once I started to read some of the details and reactions to Sawyer's selection, details like the quote from ABC president David Westin who told the New York Times, "This was not a result I wanted." Details like the rumors that outgoing ABC anchor Charlie Gibson is "livid" that Sawyer was tapped as his replacement.
Then there are the photos people have been running of Sawyer when she was a young beauty queen, long before she was hired to work in the Nixon White House and before she became a household name. Where, I ask you, are the high school and teenaged photos of male news anchors so that we can see "how far" they've come? Did we see photos of a young, awkward Brian Williams when he became the anchor of the NBC Nightly News? Or of Gibson when he took over from Vargas and Woodruff? Or is this kind of hey-don't-take-her-so-seriously shtick just reserved for female anchors like Couric and Sawyer?
And what was with U.S. News & World Report's Bonnie Erbe who, instead of celebrating, derided the whole development, calling network newscasts a "pink collar ghetto" because now women are the majority of anchors? Erbe wrote:
"That Charlie Gibson is leaving his post as anchor of World News Tonight and Diane Sawyer is replacing him may be emblematic of the declining power of the network evening newscasts . . . First Katie, now Diane. It should be an historic moment for female newscasters, who now outnumber men by 2 to 1 on the three major commercial broadcast networks. Instead, it feels like an after-thought. Funny, I never thought I'd live to see the day when the network newscasts became a pink collar ghetto. But with Rachel Maddow now almost as prominent than Katie Couric and Bill O'Reilly much more frequently in the news than Charlie Gibson, it's fair to say that day has arrived."
Sometimes it seems like women just can't win.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Suburban Mom's Political Fix: Obama's Shorts, Health Care Battle & Jenny Sanford Sounds Off
Obama's ShortsI have a special request for the news media, plus every group or web site that now loosely qualifies as the "news" media: Please cease and desist with the Michelle Obama-wore-shorts-and-oh-boy-what-a-scandal stories. You aren't fooling anyone when you cover the "faux controversy" and try to convince us that you don't understand what all the uproar is all about, yet you're still reporting on it and then soliciting viewers'/readers' opinions on whether it's appropriate for a First Lady to wear shorts.
Michelle Obama is a healthy, active, youthful woman in her forties. It's summer time. She's got young kids. It's damned hot. Give her a break. Who cares that she wore shorts? This is so a non-issue.
Health Care Battle
On to REAL news stories . . . Now that White House sources have indicated that government-run health insurance option may hit the cutting room floor and (possibly) be replaced by subsidized, non-profit health care co-ops in an attempt to move a health care bill forward, President Obama (whose approval ratings have taken a precipitous fall amid the intense health care legislation debates) still has a fight on his hands . . . with fellow Democrats. Liberal Democrats want the government-run health insurance option to remain viable, while conservative "blue dog" Democrats, worried about costs and government "take over" of health care, seem to cotton to the co-op idea. If the Dems can't reach an agreement amongst themselves, there will be no health care reform at all and Obama will be handed a major defeat.
I'll be interested in reading the compromise legislation before it goes to a House-Senate conference committee, if it makes it that far. Then we'll get a better idea of what this'll really mean.
Jenny Sanford Sounds Off
It was serendipitous to discover this week that the new issue of Vogue includes an interview with Jenny Sanford, the wife of South Carolina's Governor Mark "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" Sanford, looking fabulous and sounding strong. My new pop culture and politics column is about political wives whose husbands have conducted illicit affairs that inevitably devolved into full-blown public scandals, while the spouses and their children proved to be collateral damage.
My essay points to CBS's new fall show, The Good Wife -- starring Julianna Margulies as a devoted political wife whose husband resigned from office and is in jail after he frequented prostitutes and was accused of abusing the power of his office -- which seeks to offer viewers a peek behind the curtains of the homes of these wives (Sanford, Edwards, Spitzer) and show what damage has truly been wrought. Seeing Jenny Sanford pictured in Vogue and spouting off lines that make it sound like she's so unbelievably together, was a step toward reclaiming her life, and the lives of other devastated wives of pols. More power to her.
Image credit: Jonathan Becker/Vogue.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Suburban Mom's Political Fix: Hillary Clinton Tells Off Questioner, Dances, Plus Testy Health Care Town Mtgs
Hillary Clinton Tells Off Congo Questioner
Me thinks that our secretary of state must've been on the receiving end of a whole mess o'sexist commentary thus far in her tenure, and constantly feel one-upped by her suck-all-the-oxygen-out-of-the-room spouse who got international accolades for helping to negotiate with the North Koreans for the freedom for two U.S. journalists last week. That's the only explanation I have (except maybe sleep deprivation) for Hillary Clinton ditching her normally professionally cool responses to difficult questions and telling a college student from Congo, in a matter of speaking, that she didn't like her question. One problem: The questioner didn't intend to insult Hillary Clinton. The translator screwed up. Whoops.
Hillary Dance Party
I always feel badly for U.S. officials when they venture abroad, play along with local customs and show courtesy to their hosts. How many presidents have donned un-western-like clothing and gotten mocked for wearing the duds by the folks back home?
So when an international host invites you to dance, what are you supposed to say, "No thank you. The late night comedians and folks on the internet will torture me about my dancing. Forever. I'll pass."
Of course not. You dance. And then be a good sport and suffer through the ridicule. Like Hillary Clinton has to at the hands of Conan O'Brien's staff about her dancing during her trip to Africa:
Testy Health Care Town Meetings
The recent spate of health care/health insurance town meetings between congressmen and senators and their constituents have gotten fairly heated haven't they? Some have devolved into circuses where no one gets heard and no one communicates and it all becomes white noise as tempers flare.
As I've watched this unfold, I've seen two sides getting fired up and becoming unable or unwilling to actually listen to the concerns of the other side, with the exception of Barack Obama himself, who seems game to field and handle pointed questions without shutting people down. (However people haven't been as nasty to him personally as they have been to U.S. congressmen and senators.)
The pro-Obama administration folks have tended to parrot the president's lines, like the ones spoken today at Obama's town meeting in New Hampshire: "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan." Obama said he doesn't want government bureaucrats OR insurance company bureaucrats "meddling" and getting involved in medical decisions made between you and your doctor. He said there won't be "death panels" run by the government to decide if a frail or sick senior should be provided health care. Obama has repeatedly told the story of his mother spending the last weeks of her life fighting with the health insurance company over her cancer treatments. He's also fond of saying, "No one in America should go broke because they got sick." The White House has created a web site which officials said seeks to clarify some of the misinformation voters have been given about the various health care reform bills. (Full disclosure: I haven't read the health care reform bills, though I think I might and then post what I find.)
All of those things seem to be common points of interest on which both conservatives and liberals could, essentially, agree. Keep all bureaucrats out of medical decisions. Pick your own health plan and your doctor. You shouldn't be driven into bankruptcy if someone in your family is sick. All good.
However there's a divergence from all of those common points when it comes down to actual legislation. People, many of them conservative-leaning, have been doing some research into the bills and have become nervous. They fear panels of government officials making decisions related to their health. (I imagine someone from my state's notoriously unfriendly Registry of Motor Vehicles handling my or my children's health claims and I shudder.) They don't want a single, government-run health care plan, which Sen. Arlen Specter today said he'll consider as senators discuss competing pieces of health insurance legislation. People are justifiably leery about how much this is going to cost, particularly during a recession.
Then, at town meetings across the country where there have been people posing well reasoned questions about the plans, there've also been screaming nutcases. The media give a lot of the coverage to the nutcases and eventually everyone who questions the plan is lumped under the category of an unruly mob. It's at this point when we realize that when it comes to health care and making life-and-death decisions, people take things very personally.
Democratic proponents of the health care overhaul haven't made things better by labeling the voters who are getting riled up at town meetings "un-American," like several of the people at Senator Specter's meeting with constituents today. There's a way to express your skepticism, disapproval and ask tough questions without being a jack ass.
Having partisans like Ann Coulter and James Carville chattering on Good Morning America about these emotional town halls certainly doesn't help bestow calm or promote rational discussion. But rational discussion can be quite boring, mind-numbing at times, and doesn't make for good TV which thrives on drama and conflict. I'd love to see leaders from both sides of the aisle, step up and seek the calm, boring middle ground here, tamp down the fury and the name calling and bore us all to death with reasonable and open discussions. For as long as it takes, without rushing. But I guess that's just too much to ask for.
Or we could just call Jon Stewart for his read on the situation. While he is a liberal, he's funny.
Me thinks that our secretary of state must've been on the receiving end of a whole mess o'sexist commentary thus far in her tenure, and constantly feel one-upped by her suck-all-the-oxygen-out-of-the-room spouse who got international accolades for helping to negotiate with the North Koreans for the freedom for two U.S. journalists last week. That's the only explanation I have (except maybe sleep deprivation) for Hillary Clinton ditching her normally professionally cool responses to difficult questions and telling a college student from Congo, in a matter of speaking, that she didn't like her question. One problem: The questioner didn't intend to insult Hillary Clinton. The translator screwed up. Whoops.
Hillary Dance Party
I always feel badly for U.S. officials when they venture abroad, play along with local customs and show courtesy to their hosts. How many presidents have donned un-western-like clothing and gotten mocked for wearing the duds by the folks back home?
So when an international host invites you to dance, what are you supposed to say, "No thank you. The late night comedians and folks on the internet will torture me about my dancing. Forever. I'll pass."
Of course not. You dance. And then be a good sport and suffer through the ridicule. Like Hillary Clinton has to at the hands of Conan O'Brien's staff about her dancing during her trip to Africa:
Testy Health Care Town Meetings
The recent spate of health care/health insurance town meetings between congressmen and senators and their constituents have gotten fairly heated haven't they? Some have devolved into circuses where no one gets heard and no one communicates and it all becomes white noise as tempers flare.
As I've watched this unfold, I've seen two sides getting fired up and becoming unable or unwilling to actually listen to the concerns of the other side, with the exception of Barack Obama himself, who seems game to field and handle pointed questions without shutting people down. (However people haven't been as nasty to him personally as they have been to U.S. congressmen and senators.)
The pro-Obama administration folks have tended to parrot the president's lines, like the ones spoken today at Obama's town meeting in New Hampshire: "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan." Obama said he doesn't want government bureaucrats OR insurance company bureaucrats "meddling" and getting involved in medical decisions made between you and your doctor. He said there won't be "death panels" run by the government to decide if a frail or sick senior should be provided health care. Obama has repeatedly told the story of his mother spending the last weeks of her life fighting with the health insurance company over her cancer treatments. He's also fond of saying, "No one in America should go broke because they got sick." The White House has created a web site which officials said seeks to clarify some of the misinformation voters have been given about the various health care reform bills. (Full disclosure: I haven't read the health care reform bills, though I think I might and then post what I find.)
All of those things seem to be common points of interest on which both conservatives and liberals could, essentially, agree. Keep all bureaucrats out of medical decisions. Pick your own health plan and your doctor. You shouldn't be driven into bankruptcy if someone in your family is sick. All good.
However there's a divergence from all of those common points when it comes down to actual legislation. People, many of them conservative-leaning, have been doing some research into the bills and have become nervous. They fear panels of government officials making decisions related to their health. (I imagine someone from my state's notoriously unfriendly Registry of Motor Vehicles handling my or my children's health claims and I shudder.) They don't want a single, government-run health care plan, which Sen. Arlen Specter today said he'll consider as senators discuss competing pieces of health insurance legislation. People are justifiably leery about how much this is going to cost, particularly during a recession.
Then, at town meetings across the country where there have been people posing well reasoned questions about the plans, there've also been screaming nutcases. The media give a lot of the coverage to the nutcases and eventually everyone who questions the plan is lumped under the category of an unruly mob. It's at this point when we realize that when it comes to health care and making life-and-death decisions, people take things very personally.
Democratic proponents of the health care overhaul haven't made things better by labeling the voters who are getting riled up at town meetings "un-American," like several of the people at Senator Specter's meeting with constituents today. There's a way to express your skepticism, disapproval and ask tough questions without being a jack ass.
Having partisans like Ann Coulter and James Carville chattering on Good Morning America about these emotional town halls certainly doesn't help bestow calm or promote rational discussion. But rational discussion can be quite boring, mind-numbing at times, and doesn't make for good TV which thrives on drama and conflict. I'd love to see leaders from both sides of the aisle, step up and seek the calm, boring middle ground here, tamp down the fury and the name calling and bore us all to death with reasonable and open discussions. For as long as it takes, without rushing. But I guess that's just too much to ask for.
Or we could just call Jon Stewart for his read on the situation. While he is a liberal, he's funny.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Healther Skelter | ||||
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Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Suburban Mom's Political Fix: Is It Sexist to Question Sotomayor's Judicial Temperament?
That was the question raised on MSNBC's Morning Joe this AM: Whether South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham would've asked a male Supreme Court nominee about his reputed tough demeanor in the courtroom and then inquire if the nominee had "a temperament problem."
Co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough asked author and former Clinton spokeswoman Dee Dee Myers -- she wrote Why Women Should Rule the World -- about whether a double-standard was at work with Sotomayor's questioning. After noting that of the 111 Supreme Court judges ever to hold office, only two have been female, Myers discussed the importance of getting more women to serve on the highest court in the land:
Below you'll find the video of Graham's confirmation hearing questioning so you can make your own call on the matter. Citing the comments of anonymous lawyers who called Sotomayor "a terror on the bench," "abuses lawyers" and is "a bit of a bully," Graham said, "I never liked appearing before a judge that I thought was a bully . . . Do you think you have a temperament problem?"
Is this a case of holding strong, tough women -- who insist that those around them exhibit the same level of excellence as they do -- to a different standard than we do to men? The classic "she's a b*&%$" while he's a striving, high-powered executive with smarts?
UPDATE: Salon's Broadsheet blog puts an interesting twist on the "temperament" question, pointing out two examples -- questions about John McCain and John Bolton's temperaments -- which say that simply raising the issue of a hot temper doesn't necessarily make the questioning sexist.
The web site Feministing quoted a former Yale Law School dean who looked into rumors about Sotomayor being "overly aggressive" on the Court of Appeals and said he didn't find any substantial difference between her questioning of attorneys and male judges' inquiries.
Co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough asked author and former Clinton spokeswoman Dee Dee Myers -- she wrote Why Women Should Rule the World -- about whether a double-standard was at work with Sotomayor's questioning. After noting that of the 111 Supreme Court judges ever to hold office, only two have been female, Myers discussed the importance of getting more women to serve on the highest court in the land:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Below you'll find the video of Graham's confirmation hearing questioning so you can make your own call on the matter. Citing the comments of anonymous lawyers who called Sotomayor "a terror on the bench," "abuses lawyers" and is "a bit of a bully," Graham said, "I never liked appearing before a judge that I thought was a bully . . . Do you think you have a temperament problem?"
Is this a case of holding strong, tough women -- who insist that those around them exhibit the same level of excellence as they do -- to a different standard than we do to men? The classic "she's a b*&%$" while he's a striving, high-powered executive with smarts?
UPDATE: Salon's Broadsheet blog puts an interesting twist on the "temperament" question, pointing out two examples -- questions about John McCain and John Bolton's temperaments -- which say that simply raising the issue of a hot temper doesn't necessarily make the questioning sexist.
The web site Feministing quoted a former Yale Law School dean who looked into rumors about Sotomayor being "overly aggressive" on the Court of Appeals and said he didn't find any substantial difference between her questioning of attorneys and male judges' inquiries.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Suburban Mom's Political Fix: Palin's Meta-Working Mom Tale & Women on the Supreme Court
Palin's Meta-Working Mom TaleAlaska Gov. Sarah Palin's shocking resignation continues to generate comment, analysis and interest. An image of Palin signing a toddler's dress takes up a third+ of the top half of the front page of the New York Times, 10 days after her ambiguous July 4 Eve press conference. The Times story paints a woman who's feeling so besieged and stressed out that her hair has thinned and her friends worry that she's become underweight.
I joined the fray of analysts and deconstructed Palin's resignation in my Pop Culture column this week by saying that what you think about her and her decision to quit mid-way through her term, depends largely upon your political perspective and your life's experiences. For me, I view her story through a working mom prism.
Women on the Supreme Court
The only female jurist currently sitting on the Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsberg gave a fascinating interview to the New York Times Sunday Magazine in which she talked at length about her experience on the Court and how being female has affected her experience. Among the questions she fielded was about how having only one or two women on the Supreme Court affects deliberation.
When asked why it matters to have women on the Court, Ginsberg invoked the Sotomayor confirmation hearings saying, "It matters for women to be there at the conference table to be doing everything that the court does. I hope that these hearings for Sonia [Sotomayor] will be as civil as mine were and [Justice] Steve Breyer's were. Ours were unusual in that respect."
The exchange below I found particularly intriguing:
New York Times: Did you think that all the attention to the criticism of Sotomayor as being "bullying" or not as smart is sex-inflected? Does that have to do with the rarity of a woman in her position, and the particular challenges?
Ginsberg: I can't say that it was just that she was a woman. There are some people in Congress who would criticize severely anyone President Obama nominated. They'll seize on any handle. One is that she's a woman, another is that she made the remark about Latina women. [In 2001 Sotomayor said: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."] And I thought it was ridiculous for them to make a big deal out of that. Think of how many times you've said something that you didn't get out quite right, and you would edit your statement if you could. I'm sure she meant no more than what I mean when I say: Yes, women bring a different life experience to the table. All our differences make the conference better. That I'm a woman, that's part of it, that I'm Jewish, that's part of it, that I grew up in Brooklyn, NY, and I went to summer camp in the Adirondacks, all these things are part of me.
Once Justice [Sandra Day] O'Connor was questioning counsel at oral argument. I thought she was done, so I asked a question, and Sandra said: Just a minute, I'm not finished. So I apologized to her and she said: It's okay, Ruth. The guys do it to each other all the time, they step on each other's questions. And then there appeared an item in USA Today, and the headline was something like "Rude Ruth Interrupts Sandra."
Ginsberg is likely to be joined soon by Sotomayor, who's going through the Senate confirmation process where she'll be asked to defend/explain some of her more controversial statements, particularly the Latina woman quip. One thing's for sure, the Court needs women. I cannot imagine what men would say or feel if the highest court in the land didn't have anyone representing the male half of the citizenry.
Image credit: Ruven Afanador/NYT.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Suburban Mom's Political Fix: Did He Or Didn't He Ogle That Gal's Behind?
Everyone's been talking about it.The photo.
Of Barack Obama, Nicholas Sarkozy and that shapely gal.
DID Barack Obama ogle that woman in the way it appears in the photo that's been the lead image on the Drudge Report all day?
Look at ABC's Good Morning America's video and judge for yourself:
Image credit: The Drudge Report.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Suburban Mom's Political Fix: Palin Stuns, Resigns
If any American governor were to announce a resignation the day before Independence Day, I would've bet you a bundle that it would've been South Carolina's head honcho who would've quit so he could spend more time in Argentina snogging with his gal pal.I certainly didn't expect, in the 3 o'clock hour on the Friday before a holiday weekend when many people were already on vacation, to learn that Sarah Palin was quitting her gubernatorial post.
After watching the nationally televised speech made in her backyard -- intermittently disrupted by the sounds of a baby and various birds chirping in the background -- here's what I gathered: Palin's angry that she's been the subject of 15+ ethics investigations in Alaska that she said have cost the state in excess of $2 million and have cost her and her husband Todd personally $500,000 in legal fees to fight. (She pointed out that the charges were all dropped.)
"It's pretty insane," Palin said. "My staff and I spend most of our day dealing with this stuff."
Saying that she wanted to spare Alaskans the money and the distractions caused by the multitude of negative attacks aimed at her, Palin said she was removing herself from the ring. "I chose not to tear down and waste precious time," she said. ". . . Life is too short to compromise time and resources."
Palin also mentioned the emotional cost borne by her family -- she specifically mentioned folks recently "mocked and ridiculed" her baby Trig -- as yet another reason to resign and not spend time on "superficial, wasteful political blood sport."
"It hurts to make this choice," Palin added. It did not appear as though there were any members of the media present during her speech to pose questions.
When her speech ended, cable talking heads and political pundits were slack-jawed. Many called her decision "erratic," stunningly short-sighted and "political suicide" to appear to knuckle under to the pressure. Others said it was the first chess move for the 2012 presidential race that would enable her to concentrate on building political support "in the lower 48 states." Over on MSNBC, they've been quoting NBC vet Andrea Mitchell as saying that Palin is "out of politics for good."
Palin's Twitter account said, "We'll soon attach info on decision to not seek re-election . . . this is in Alaska's best interest, my family's happy . . . it is good. Stay tuned." I heard Palin's brother and spokeswoman on various TV interviews and neither would say exactly what Palin's plans are once she leaves the governor's office.
Palin has been in the news as of late following her highly publicized feud with David Letterman where she defended her daughters against some of his crude jokes, as well as for being the subject of a harsh Vanity Fair piece snarkily entitled, "It Came From Wasilla."
I'm stunned and will be interested and intrigued to see what comes next.
Image credit: The Drudge Report.
Suburban Mom's Political Fix: Jon Stewart's Advice to SC Governor
When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
There's a reason that's a cliche Governor Sanford. And, as a married father of four boys, it's one you should've heeded some time ago before your name evoked tsking and dark humor from coast to coast.
First you disappeared and the cable news networks became like animated milk cartons, bearing your likeness, age and the location where you were last seen. There were reports from your office saying you were hiking on the Appalachian Trail. Then, lo and behold, when a reporter found you at an Atlanta airport and you lied about what you'd been doing. Eventually the world learned that you'd been in Argentina to visit your lover.
At this point, it would've been wise to be quiet.
But you didn't. You gave a teary press conference. E-mails exchanged between you and your lover emerged. Amid the chaos, you then agreed to give an AP interview this week where you talked about "almost" crossing the line with other women and how your lover is a "soul mate." News stories have been published saying that you visited your girlfriend more times than you initially admitted.
If Sanford, once considered a potential GOP presidential candidate, has any political advis0rs left, my best guess is that they're headed for Wasilla where their job would seem easy by comparison.
Jon Stewart, among other commentators, had an amusing take on Sanford's inability to keep his mouth shut.
There's a reason that's a cliche Governor Sanford. And, as a married father of four boys, it's one you should've heeded some time ago before your name evoked tsking and dark humor from coast to coast.
First you disappeared and the cable news networks became like animated milk cartons, bearing your likeness, age and the location where you were last seen. There were reports from your office saying you were hiking on the Appalachian Trail. Then, lo and behold, when a reporter found you at an Atlanta airport and you lied about what you'd been doing. Eventually the world learned that you'd been in Argentina to visit your lover.
At this point, it would've been wise to be quiet.
But you didn't. You gave a teary press conference. E-mails exchanged between you and your lover emerged. Amid the chaos, you then agreed to give an AP interview this week where you talked about "almost" crossing the line with other women and how your lover is a "soul mate." News stories have been published saying that you visited your girlfriend more times than you initially admitted.
If Sanford, once considered a potential GOP presidential candidate, has any political advis0rs left, my best guess is that they're headed for Wasilla where their job would seem easy by comparison.
Jon Stewart, among other commentators, had an amusing take on Sanford's inability to keep his mouth shut.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Shut Up, Mark Sanford | ||||
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Monday, June 22, 2009
Suburban Mom's Political Fix: Obama as Superhero (& Suave Fly Killer)
Okay, so it doesn't involve killing a fly with a single, vicious, ruthless slap, but the new JibJab satire which spoofs President Obama taking on everything that's wrong with the world with his superhero powers is sharp. And pretty cool. Like the superhero Obama, with an Obama campaign logo on his chest where the super "S" should be.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Suburban Mom's Political Fix: Iranians Protesting Election Results
The events which are unfolding in the wake of the disputed Iranian presidential election are being documented by a multitude of web sites, from streams of tweets from Twitter, videos from YouTube and stories from news organizations which are struggling to adhere to the recent Iranian crackdowns on the media's transmission of video from the streets. It is, in a word, stunning.I've been watching coverage of the five days' worth of election protests on cable news, on video feeds from news web sites and have read stories from newspapers, as well as tweets from Iran. Several things about this historic struggle to grab hold of democracy -- and a vote tally that actually bears a resemblance to an accurate count of the ballots -- struck me:
Silent Protest
Imagine people walking through the streets -- thousands and thousand of them -- there to protest an election they believe has been taken from them. And they walk in silence, holding their hands up in the peace sign, trying not to raise the ire of government riot police with whom some protesters have violently clashed over recent days. The video below captured the silent protest:
Years Ending in "9"
While reading a column in the Boston Globe by Jeff Jacoby today -- which compared the reaction of President Obama to the unrest in Iran, to President George H. W. Bush's muted response to the democratic protests in China 20 years ago ("In reacting to the recent Iranian election and to the protests that erupted after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the runaway victor, the Obama White House seems to be taking a page from the elder Bush's 1989 playbook.") -- I found it oddly intriguing that the Chinese uprising was in 1989 and the previous unrest in Iran occurred in 1979.
"The Revolution Had Begun."
The Boston Globe has on its web site a dispatch from Tehran from a participant of one of the large protests. It's riveting reading:
". . . [T]he crowd did not consist of young men, but housewives, seniors, businessmen wearing suits, even children. There was blood on many of them. They were walking downhill towards the Interior Ministry, determined and in force. The wave that had taken over Iran and partied in the streets into the morning for the last few weeks was now an army on the move. As I stood in place trying to figure out what I was seeing, I noticed shopkeepers shutting down and joining the flock. People were also chanting on the sidelines, 'down with the dictator,' referring to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, while the crowd chanted 'join us proud Iranians, join us, join us.' The crowd was growing by the moment."
The Daily Show Goes to Iran
Further blurring the lines between news, entertainment and journalism, Comedy Central's The Daily Show is sending the same guy who cut the New York Times to shreds last week, to Iran in a series of reports called, "Access of Evil."
Jon Stewart had a brutal take on how CNN has been covering the breaking news in Iran, given the restrictions placed on American journalists by the Iranian government. Mocking their reliance on "unverified material," Stewart also skewered the Iranian government's election tallying techniques.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Irandecision 2009 - CNN's Unverified Material | ||||
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Image credit: Getty images via the Huffington Post.
Suburban Mom's Political Fix: Obama vs The Fly
President Obama took on a pesky, interloping fly (insert a snarky, put-down of an annoying pol) during a taped interview with CNBC. And Obama won. It was a literal smack-down.
Then, as the CNBC camera folks trained the lens on the fly's carcass lying on the White House rug the President said, "I got the sucker."
'Twas an odd, albeit amusing bit of video. But not, apparently to PETA, if the gossipy celeb-centric web site TMZ is to be believed. The group reportedly issued a statement which took the presidential fly killer to task for summarily executing the insect. The statement said in part, "He isn't the Buddha. He's a human being and human beings have a long way to go before they think before they act."
Good grief.
Then, as the CNBC camera folks trained the lens on the fly's carcass lying on the White House rug the President said, "I got the sucker."
'Twas an odd, albeit amusing bit of video. But not, apparently to PETA, if the gossipy celeb-centric web site TMZ is to be believed. The group reportedly issued a statement which took the presidential fly killer to task for summarily executing the insect. The statement said in part, "He isn't the Buddha. He's a human being and human beings have a long way to go before they think before they act."
Good grief.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Suburban Mom's Political Fix: All Media Smackdown Edition, NYT/Daily Show, Stewart/Scarborough, Letterman/Palin
NYT Gets Slammed on Daily Show
Did the New York Times staffers who agreed to participate in a recent Daily Show segment about the future of the dying newspaper industry realize that the Daily Show is all about SATIRE? Did they not expect wacky questions? Sharp hey-dude-you're-so-toast darts to be thrown their way?
It doesn't appear as though those thoughts crossed their minds when they decided to partake in the piece. Judge for yourself by watching the segment below, a scathing portrait of out-of-touch editors, though Executive Editor Bill Keller's comment about how the Huffington Post can't and doesn't have bureaus in far-flung and dangerous locales because it doesn't have the money to do so was interesting, but only to a limited degree because you know what, the NYT shouldn't be bragging about having more money than anyone else right now, particularly when they're threatening to shutter the Boston Globe (which already eliminated a lot of its foreign bureaus because of costs) because of red ink. That last joke, about what's black and white and red all over: Killer. (Link to the video here):
Stewart and Scarborough Go Mano-a-Mano . . . Through Their TV Shows
I've been monitoring this (manufactured?) controversy between the Daily Show's Jon Stewart and Morning Joe's Joe Scarborough. (For the record, I'm a fan of both guys and their shows.) In a nutshell, Morning Joe recently decided to team up with Starbucks as a sponsor, seeing as though the anchors, Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski are conspicuous consumers of Starbucks products during their news casts. This made them big, fat, irresistible targets for spoofing. Cue: Stewart. This resulted in the anchors going back and forth was various and sundry sniping.
Yesterday, in discussing Stewart, Scarborough called him an angry man and suggested he had a Napoleon complex. Stewart responded last night by calling Scarborough "watered down and stupid" and then did a skit which I'd venture to say was funnier in the writers' room than in its execution. Stewart brought out all manner of faux-branded coffee products -- like a box of "Taster's Choice" tissues -- had mascara running down his face while he pretended to cry, fled the stage, asking for his Napoleon hat and coat as he climbed on top of a small horse. When he was "talked back" into returning to the stage, he did so shouting, "Rage on! Rage on!" (Link to the video here.)
Did Letterman Go Too Far?
That's the question du jour regarding Letterman's jokes about Sarah Palin's recent appearance at a New York Yankees game, where she brought her 14-year-old daughter along with her. Letterman made jokes about a Palin daughter, including about A-Rod knocking up a Palin daughter during the game, and about keeping a Palin daughter away from disgraced former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. Why do I keep saying, "a Palin daughter?" Because the 14-year-old daughter was the one in New York at the game with her mom but, apparently, Letterman thought it was the 18-year-old daughter who recently had a baby, the one who was on the cover of People Magazine with her infant. Last night, Letterman explicitly said that he wasn't talking about the 14-year-old. He said he was talking about the 18-year-old. But that's not exactly how it came across when he told the jokes.
Palin got ticked. Told him off indirectly by spouting off to journalists and issuing a statement, which resulted in Letterman issuing a caustic clarification last night which, I guess in a comedian's world, constitutes an apology of some sort. During Morning Joe this morning and later on The View, the question was raised by Brzezinski and by Elisabeth Hasselbeck as to whether Letterman would've gone after Palin's teenaged kids if she were a Democrat instead of a very conservative Republican. Barbara Walters added during The View's discussion that politicians' children should be off the table as far as lampooning goes, unlike panelist Joy Behar who said that because the Palins "traipsed" her pregnant daughter out in public, the family deserves what it gets. (See The View debate here.)
UPDATE: While listening to various folks discuss the Letterman/Palin situation this afternoon, I heard a local radio commentator make an interesting analogy: Invoking the suspension of MSNBC's David Shuster in 2008 after he suggested that twentysomething Chelsea Clinton was being "pimped out" by her mother as she went out on the campaign trail talking up Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy, the commentator asked why Shuster was suspended for making a comment about an adult and used the words "I apologize," while some folks are brushing off Letterman's comments about a 14-year-old daughter of a Republican vice presidential nominee.
Did the New York Times staffers who agreed to participate in a recent Daily Show segment about the future of the dying newspaper industry realize that the Daily Show is all about SATIRE? Did they not expect wacky questions? Sharp hey-dude-you're-so-toast darts to be thrown their way?
It doesn't appear as though those thoughts crossed their minds when they decided to partake in the piece. Judge for yourself by watching the segment below, a scathing portrait of out-of-touch editors, though Executive Editor Bill Keller's comment about how the Huffington Post can't and doesn't have bureaus in far-flung and dangerous locales because it doesn't have the money to do so was interesting, but only to a limited degree because you know what, the NYT shouldn't be bragging about having more money than anyone else right now, particularly when they're threatening to shutter the Boston Globe (which already eliminated a lot of its foreign bureaus because of costs) because of red ink. That last joke, about what's black and white and red all over: Killer. (Link to the video here):
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| End Times | ||||
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Stewart and Scarborough Go Mano-a-Mano . . . Through Their TV Shows
I've been monitoring this (manufactured?) controversy between the Daily Show's Jon Stewart and Morning Joe's Joe Scarborough. (For the record, I'm a fan of both guys and their shows.) In a nutshell, Morning Joe recently decided to team up with Starbucks as a sponsor, seeing as though the anchors, Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski are conspicuous consumers of Starbucks products during their news casts. This made them big, fat, irresistible targets for spoofing. Cue: Stewart. This resulted in the anchors going back and forth was various and sundry sniping.
Yesterday, in discussing Stewart, Scarborough called him an angry man and suggested he had a Napoleon complex. Stewart responded last night by calling Scarborough "watered down and stupid" and then did a skit which I'd venture to say was funnier in the writers' room than in its execution. Stewart brought out all manner of faux-branded coffee products -- like a box of "Taster's Choice" tissues -- had mascara running down his face while he pretended to cry, fled the stage, asking for his Napoleon hat and coat as he climbed on top of a small horse. When he was "talked back" into returning to the stage, he did so shouting, "Rage on! Rage on!" (Link to the video here.)
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Jon's Napoleonic Complex | ||||
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Did Letterman Go Too Far?
That's the question du jour regarding Letterman's jokes about Sarah Palin's recent appearance at a New York Yankees game, where she brought her 14-year-old daughter along with her. Letterman made jokes about a Palin daughter, including about A-Rod knocking up a Palin daughter during the game, and about keeping a Palin daughter away from disgraced former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. Why do I keep saying, "a Palin daughter?" Because the 14-year-old daughter was the one in New York at the game with her mom but, apparently, Letterman thought it was the 18-year-old daughter who recently had a baby, the one who was on the cover of People Magazine with her infant. Last night, Letterman explicitly said that he wasn't talking about the 14-year-old. He said he was talking about the 18-year-old. But that's not exactly how it came across when he told the jokes.
Palin got ticked. Told him off indirectly by spouting off to journalists and issuing a statement, which resulted in Letterman issuing a caustic clarification last night which, I guess in a comedian's world, constitutes an apology of some sort. During Morning Joe this morning and later on The View, the question was raised by Brzezinski and by Elisabeth Hasselbeck as to whether Letterman would've gone after Palin's teenaged kids if she were a Democrat instead of a very conservative Republican. Barbara Walters added during The View's discussion that politicians' children should be off the table as far as lampooning goes, unlike panelist Joy Behar who said that because the Palins "traipsed" her pregnant daughter out in public, the family deserves what it gets. (See The View debate here.)
UPDATE: While listening to various folks discuss the Letterman/Palin situation this afternoon, I heard a local radio commentator make an interesting analogy: Invoking the suspension of MSNBC's David Shuster in 2008 after he suggested that twentysomething Chelsea Clinton was being "pimped out" by her mother as she went out on the campaign trail talking up Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy, the commentator asked why Shuster was suspended for making a comment about an adult and used the words "I apologize," while some folks are brushing off Letterman's comments about a 14-year-old daughter of a Republican vice presidential nominee.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Suburban Mom's Political Fix: Brian Williams is Upset About Airport Security
While watching the NBC Nightly News last night, I learned that the airport "puffer" machines, the ones that attempt to detect explosives' residue on airline passengers, are being removed from U.S. airports because they cost too much money to maintain, after the federal government spent $36 million for them in 2004. Oh, and it's costing $1 million to take them out, NBC reported. Anchorman Brian Williams said that the machines are so pricey to keep in top operational condition, that some of the machines were never even taken out of their boxes! (Your taxpayer money at work!)
And Williams is ticked off. He commenced his segment on this issue by noting that when President John F. Kennedy set a goal of having an American land on the moon within 10 years, "We made it without breaking a sweat." Now, eight years after 9/11, he noted, airport security hasn't improved much at all.
"It's been eight years and the public's safety is at stake," Williams said, sounding more like an irritated columnist than a news guy. "And to borrow from an old expression, 'If they can put a man on the moon, why can't they come up with a better and safer solution [for airport security]'?"
Watch the segment below (link to segment here):
And Williams is ticked off. He commenced his segment on this issue by noting that when President John F. Kennedy set a goal of having an American land on the moon within 10 years, "We made it without breaking a sweat." Now, eight years after 9/11, he noted, airport security hasn't improved much at all.
"It's been eight years and the public's safety is at stake," Williams said, sounding more like an irritated columnist than a news guy. "And to borrow from an old expression, 'If they can put a man on the moon, why can't they come up with a better and safer solution [for airport security]'?"
Watch the segment below (link to segment here):
Monday, May 11, 2009
Suburban Mom's Political Fix: Deconstructing/Piling On the Betrayed Wives
It is with a grave amount of sadness that I've been watching the media coverage of three high-profile women whose husbands have been accused of/have admitted to being unfaithful. While the stories, blog posts and analyses about the betrayed wives generally start out as sympathetic, inevitably things take a turn and the women are blamed, mocked, or worse.
My Pop Culture & Politics column this week examined the mainstream news media's coverage of women/mothers in the week leading up to Mother's Day. While I analyzed Time Magazine's list of 100 influential people (only 29 were women, a third of the women's write-ups mentioned that they are moms, as compared to 5 percent for the dads), I pointed out how folks have been laying into well known women whose husband have (or reportedly have) cheated on them. Last week, the media was largely focused on sympathizing and vilifying Elizabeth Edwards and Kate Gosselin in particular.
Edwards, wife of two-time Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, is promoting her new book Resilience, in which she addresses many issues including her husband's infidelity with a woman who's rumored to have given birth to John Edwards' baby. And while folks feel badly that she's struggling with terminal cancer, that hasn't stopped people from slicing and dicing her recent decisions. To stay with him. To intentionally expose him and their three kids to further public scrutiny by writing her book.
In an interview with the Today Show this morning after listening to some harsh comments opinion writers had made about her, Edwards explained that she'd been asked to write a book about overcoming obstacles BEFORE she knew about her husband's dalliances. Not that that fact will matter to her critics.
Meanwhile Gosselin, who, with her husband Jon, stars in the TLC reality show, Jon & Kate Plus 8, has recently been subjected to humiliating reports that Jon has been stepping out on her. While she's out promoting her new book, Gosselin has faced questions about her husband's reported affair and she told Meredith Vieira on the Today Show that she's "hesitant to believe" that her husband strayed.
This deconstructing of the wives' motives and actions and whether they "made" their husbands stray, what good is it doing for anyone? The vitriol is being directed at the wrong people.
My Pop Culture & Politics column this week examined the mainstream news media's coverage of women/mothers in the week leading up to Mother's Day. While I analyzed Time Magazine's list of 100 influential people (only 29 were women, a third of the women's write-ups mentioned that they are moms, as compared to 5 percent for the dads), I pointed out how folks have been laying into well known women whose husband have (or reportedly have) cheated on them. Last week, the media was largely focused on sympathizing and vilifying Elizabeth Edwards and Kate Gosselin in particular.
Edwards, wife of two-time Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, is promoting her new book Resilience, in which she addresses many issues including her husband's infidelity with a woman who's rumored to have given birth to John Edwards' baby. And while folks feel badly that she's struggling with terminal cancer, that hasn't stopped people from slicing and dicing her recent decisions. To stay with him. To intentionally expose him and their three kids to further public scrutiny by writing her book.
In an interview with the Today Show this morning after listening to some harsh comments opinion writers had made about her, Edwards explained that she'd been asked to write a book about overcoming obstacles BEFORE she knew about her husband's dalliances. Not that that fact will matter to her critics.
Meanwhile Gosselin, who, with her husband Jon, stars in the TLC reality show, Jon & Kate Plus 8, has recently been subjected to humiliating reports that Jon has been stepping out on her. While she's out promoting her new book, Gosselin has faced questions about her husband's reported affair and she told Meredith Vieira on the Today Show that she's "hesitant to believe" that her husband strayed.
This deconstructing of the wives' motives and actions and whether they "made" their husbands stray, what good is it doing for anyone? The vitriol is being directed at the wrong people.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Suburban Mom's Political Fix: WH Spokesman Tells Reporters What Biden 'Meant to Say' on Swine Flu
Who didn't see this coming? The White House's awkward backing off from what Vice President Joe Biden said on the Today Show this morning, that he wouldn't go in any confined area like an airplane or a subway while the swine flu is spreading.
You had to feel badly for WH Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, having to stand there at the podium, on national TV and, with a straight face, BS his way through this quagmire, where the president tells everyone to remain calm, wash their hands and stay home if sick, while the vice president says he for one isn't gonna get trapped in some subway car potentially loaded with people carrying the swine flu.
ABC's Jake Tapper asked Gibbs about Biden's statements and Gibbs talked in nonsensical circles saying that what Biden was really saying was that if you feel sick you should take precautions. To which Tapper replied, "With all due respect . . . that's not even remotely close to what he said."
"I'm telling you what he meant to say," Gibbs said as the reporters guffawed. (Link to the question and answer here.)
Meanwhile, in another development on the swine flu front, the Associated Press reported that a White House aide and his family are being tested for the flu. "A member of the U.S. delegation that helped prepare Energy Secretary Steven Chu's trip to Mexico City has demonstrated flu-like symptoms and his family members have tested probable for swine flu."
You had to feel badly for WH Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, having to stand there at the podium, on national TV and, with a straight face, BS his way through this quagmire, where the president tells everyone to remain calm, wash their hands and stay home if sick, while the vice president says he for one isn't gonna get trapped in some subway car potentially loaded with people carrying the swine flu.
ABC's Jake Tapper asked Gibbs about Biden's statements and Gibbs talked in nonsensical circles saying that what Biden was really saying was that if you feel sick you should take precautions. To which Tapper replied, "With all due respect . . . that's not even remotely close to what he said."
"I'm telling you what he meant to say," Gibbs said as the reporters guffawed. (Link to the question and answer here.)
Meanwhile, in another development on the swine flu front, the Associated Press reported that a White House aide and his family are being tested for the flu. "A member of the U.S. delegation that helped prepare Energy Secretary Steven Chu's trip to Mexico City has demonstrated flu-like symptoms and his family members have tested probable for swine flu."
Suburban Mom's Political Fix: Was Biden Truth-Telling About the Swine Flu or What?
Last night President Barack Obama told America not to panic about the swine flu pandemic. Be reasonable, he suggested, wash your hands and cover your mouth when you cough. If you become sick, he said, stay home, contact a doctor if you suspect that you or a loved one has flu-like symptoms.
Then this morning Vice President Joe Biden told viewers of the Today Show, "I wouldn't go anywhere in a confined space right now." He even seemed to be suggesting that people should avoid places where there are lots of other people. Like the NBA and NHL playoffs being played in confined arenas? Baseball games being played in parks where the concession areas are confined? Indoor concerts? Movie theaters? Malls? Public bathrooms? Schools?
My questions are: Does Biden know more than he's letting on and just being honest, on a personal level? Or is he overreacting?
It's really hard to determine who's being truthful here, the federal officials who are talking "mitigation" and preaching "reasonableness," while I know full well that they're engaging in a cost-benefit analysis where they're weighing the number of deaths with the economic impact of a public, Biden-like shut-down on an already weakened economy. There'd be a steep economic cost in terms of dollars that'd happen in the wake of this kind of a recommendation, which, I can only imagine would be issued in only the severest of flu cases, so as not to hurt the economy further. That's understandable.
But when I hear the vice president -- a guy who took Amtrak back-and-forth from Delaware to D.C. during his Senate days, someone who earned the nicknamed "Amtrak Joe" -- say he wouldn't want to be in a confined space, that gives me reason to pause and wonder what the internal, White House projections are for the impact of this flu and what costs are being weighed against what benefits.
Then this morning Vice President Joe Biden told viewers of the Today Show, "I wouldn't go anywhere in a confined space right now." He even seemed to be suggesting that people should avoid places where there are lots of other people. Like the NBA and NHL playoffs being played in confined arenas? Baseball games being played in parks where the concession areas are confined? Indoor concerts? Movie theaters? Malls? Public bathrooms? Schools?
My questions are: Does Biden know more than he's letting on and just being honest, on a personal level? Or is he overreacting?
It's really hard to determine who's being truthful here, the federal officials who are talking "mitigation" and preaching "reasonableness," while I know full well that they're engaging in a cost-benefit analysis where they're weighing the number of deaths with the economic impact of a public, Biden-like shut-down on an already weakened economy. There'd be a steep economic cost in terms of dollars that'd happen in the wake of this kind of a recommendation, which, I can only imagine would be issued in only the severest of flu cases, so as not to hurt the economy further. That's understandable.
But when I hear the vice president -- a guy who took Amtrak back-and-forth from Delaware to D.C. during his Senate days, someone who earned the nicknamed "Amtrak Joe" -- say he wouldn't want to be in a confined space, that gives me reason to pause and wonder what the internal, White House projections are for the impact of this flu and what costs are being weighed against what benefits.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Suburban Mom's Political Fix: Covering the Obamas
There's nothing wrong with noticing that the Obama children are exceptionally cute. It's also reasonable to suggest that the prospect of seeing the girls playing on the White House lawn with their new puppy Bo or swinging on their new swingset outside Dad's office would be a welcome respite from the dour economic news to which we've been treated for the past several months. More than once I've heard and read political pundits likening the White House photos of 10-year-old Malia and 7-year-old Sasha to photos from the Camelot days a generation ago of Caroline and John Kennedy.
As long as media coverage is respectfully restrained and the Obama girls aren't hounded and don't have everything that's on or near their bodies catalogued (like tracking down the makers of their clothing, backpacks, toys, etc.). There was a degree of media restraint afforded Chelsea Clinton when the 12-year-old accompanied her parents to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in 1993, but that was still in the pre-blog days, so I remain skeptical that the media can or will exercise such decorum when it comes to the First Kids.
But what has already exceeded decorum and has veered into the arena of tiresome is the coverage given to Michelle Obama, an Ivy League educated lawyer and former hospital executive, a woman with something substantive to say on many subjects. Last month I examined the type of media coverage Michelle Obama was receiving -- including the odd, fetish-like obsession with her bare arms -- in a column which noted that during the span of two weeks, the First Lady was on the cover of four national magazines.
And that was before the G-20 summit in London and the Obamas' trip abroad. Before phrases such as "fashion faceoff" were uttered and the media pit Michelle Obama with the spouse of the French president, as if the women's clothing was competing against one another. Before so-called news media outlets started running slideshows on their web sites of Michelle Obama's outfits and discussing wearing stilettos versus flat shoes on national NEWS programs.
After a week's worth of fluffy, insipid news coverage, I was steamed. My irritation yielded this week's Pop Culture and Politics column over on Mommy Track'd in which I satirically imagine what it would be like if the male leaders' attire was subjected to the type of media scrutiny that their spouses' duds, where the media pay lavish attention to pumps, not the policies and causes the women try to spotlight. How I wish the media would treat these women as women of substance, not as walking mannequins that they want to dress up in designer duds.
Image credit: Huffington Post.
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