Camille Paglia on Obama and Palin

Refreshing thoughts from an Obama liberal and a feminist who is not into group thinking.

On Obama's birth certificate:

In the closing weeks of the election, however, I became increasingly disturbed by the mainstream media's avoidance of forthright dealing with several controversies that had been dogging Obama -- even as every flimsy rumor about Sarah Palin was being trumpeted as if it were engraved in stone on Mount Sinai. For example, I had thought for many months that the flap over Obama's birth certificate was a tempest in a teapot. But simple questions about the certificate were never resolved to my satisfaction. Thanks to their own blathering, fanatical overkill, of course, the right-wing challenges to the birth certificate never gained traction.

But Obama could have ended the entire matter months ago by publicly requesting Hawaii to issue a fresh, long-form, stamped certificate and inviting a few high-profile reporters in to examine the document and photograph it. (The campaign did make the "short-form" certificate available to Factcheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.) And why has Obama not made his university records or thesis work widely available? The passivity of the press toward Bush administration propaganda about weapons of mass destruction led the nation into the costly blunder of the Iraq war. We don't need another presidency that finds it all too easy to rely on evasion or stonewalling. I deeply admire Obama, but as a voter I don't like feeling gamed or played.

On Obama's connection with Bill Ayers:

Another issue that I initially dismissed was the flap over William Ayers, the Chicago-based former member of the violent Weather Underground. Conservative radio host Sean Hannity began the drumbeat about Ayers' association with Obama a year ago -- a theme that most of the mainstream media refused to investigate or even report until this summer. I had never heard of Ayers and couldn't have cared less. I was irritated by Hillary Clinton's aggressive flagging of Ayers in a debate, and I accepted Obama's curt dismissal of the issue.

Hence my concern about Ayers has been very slow in developing. The mainstream media should have fully explored the subject early this year and not allowed it to simmer and boil until it flared up ferociously in the last month of the campaign. Obama may not in recent years have been "pallin' around" with Ayers, in Sarah Palin's memorable line, but his past connections with Ayers do seem to have been more frequent and substantive than he has claimed. Blame for the failure of this issue to take hold must also accrue to the conservative talk shows, which use the scare term "radical" with simplistic sensationalism, blanketing everyone under the sun from scraggly ex-hippies to lipstick-chic Nancy Pelosi.

Pursuing the truth about Ayers, I recently rented the 2002 documentary "The Weather Underground," from Netflix. It was riveting. Although the film seems to waver between ominous exposé and blatant whitewash, the full extent of the group's bombing campaign is dramatically demonstrated. It's not for everyone: The film uses gratuitous cutaways of horrifying carnage, from the Vietnam War to the Manson murders (such as Sharon Tate's smiling corpse, bathed in blood). But the news footage of the Greenwich Village townhouse destroyed in 1970 by bomb-making gone wrong in the basement still has enormous impact. Standing in the chaotic street, actor Dustin Hoffman, who lived next door, seems like Everyman at the apocalypse.

Ayers comes off in the film as a vapid, slightly dopey, chronic juvenile with stunted powers of ethical reasoning. The real revelation is his wife, Bernardine Dohrn (who evidently worked at the same large Chicago law firm as Michelle Obama in the mid-1990s). Of course I had heard of Dohrn -- hers was one of the most notorious names of our baby-boom generation -- and I knew her black-and-white police mug shot. But I had never seen footage of her speaking or interacting with others. Well, it's pretty obvious who wears the pants in that family!

The mystery of Bernardine Dohrn: How could such a personable, attractive, well-educated young woman end up saying such things at a 1969 political rally as this (omitted in the film) about the Manson murders: "Dig it. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them. They even shoved a fork into a victim's stomach. Wild!" And how could Dohrn have so ruthlessly pursued a decade-long crusade of hatred and terrorism against innocent American citizens and both private and public property?

"The Weather Underground" never searches for answers, but it does show Dohrn, then and now, as a poised, articulate woman of extremely high intelligence and surprising inwardness. The audio extra of her reading the collective's first public communiqué ("Revolutionary violence is the only way") is chilling. But the tumultuous footage of her 1980 surrender to federal authorities is a knockout. Mesmerized, I ran the clip six or seven times of her seated at a lawyer's table while reading her still defiant statement. The sober scene -- with Dohrn hyper-alert in a handsome turtleneck and tweedy jacket -- was tailor-made for Jane Fonda in her "Klute" period, androgynous shag. Only illegalities by federal investigators prevented Dohrn from being put away on ice for a long, long time.

Given that Obama had served on a Chicago board with Ayers and approved funding of a leftist educational project sponsored by Ayers, one might think that the unrepentant Ayers-Dohrn couple might be of some interest to the national media. But no, reporters have been too busy playing mini-badminton with every random spitball about Sarah Palin, who has been subjected to an atrocious and at times delusional level of defamation merely because she has the temerity to hold pro-life views.

On Sarah Palin:

How dare Palin not embrace abortion as the ultimate civilized ideal of modern culture? How tacky that she speaks in a vivacious regional accent indistinguishable from that of Western Canada! How risible that she graduated from the University of Idaho and not one of those plush, pampered commodes of received opinion whose graduates, in their rush to believe the worst about her, have demonstrated that, when it comes to sifting evidence, they don't know their asses from their elbows.

Liberal Democrats are going to wake up from their sadomasochistic, anti-Palin orgy with a very big hangover. The evil genie released during this sorry episode will not so easily go back into its bottle. A shocking level of irrational emotionalism and at times infantile rage was exposed at the heart of current Democratic ideology -- contradicting Democratic core principles of compassion, tolerance and independent thought. One would have to look back to the Eisenhower 1950s for parallels to this grotesque lock-step parade of bourgeois provincialism, shallow groupthink and blind prejudice.

I like Sarah Palin, and I've heartily enjoyed her arrival on the national stage. As a career classroom teacher, I can see how smart she is -- and quite frankly, I think the people who don't see it are the stupid ones, wrapped in the fuzzy mummy-gauze of their own worn-out partisan dogma. So she doesn't speak the King's English -- big whoop! There is a powerful clarity of consciousness in her eyes. She uses language with the jumps, breaks and rippling momentum of a be-bop saxophonist. I stand on what I said (as a staunch pro-choice advocate) in my last two columns -- that Palin as a pro-life wife, mother and ambitious professional represents the next big shift in feminism. Pro-life women will save feminism by expanding it, particularly into the more traditional Third World.

As for the Democrats who sneered and howled that Palin was unprepared to be a vice-presidential nominee -- what navel-gazing hypocrisy! What protests were raised in the party or mainstream media when John Edwards, with vastly less political experience than Palin, got John Kerry's nod for veep four years ago? And Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, for whom I lobbied to be Obama's pick and who was on everyone's short list for months, has a record indistinguishable from Palin's. Whatever knowledge deficit Palin has about the federal bureaucracy or international affairs (outside the normal purview of governors) will hopefully be remedied during the next eight years of the Obama presidencies.

The U.S. Senate as a career option? What a claustrophobic, nitpicking comedown for an energetic Alaskan -- nothing but droning committees and incestuous back-scratching. No, Sarah Palin should stick to her governorship and just hit the rubber-chicken circuit, as Richard Nixon did in his long haul back from political limbo following his California gubernatorial defeat in 1962. Step by step, the mainstream media will come around, wipe its own mud out of its eyes, and see Palin for the populist phenomenon that she is.

More on Paglia, here and here.

In what respect, Charlie?

From the new blog Hollywood Trenches, a director shares his expertise on Charlie Gibson´s dreadful glasses-on-the-middle-of-the-nose snobbish interview to Palin. I wonder if Gibson knows about the existence of bifocals or progressive glasses. Looks like a very promising and interesting blog to follow too, btw.

Charlie Gibson and ABC News Camera Trickery

I'm a Director in Hollywood. I've also created visual effects for movies and commercials for 23 years. I'm not disclosing my name at this point, because frankly I've already suffered enough job loss because I was "outted" as a conservative. But enough about me. I caught a commercial teaser for the Charlie Gibson interview of Sarah Palin and something caught my attention as a Director immediately: The use of the position and choice of lenses to minimalize Governor Palin.

To be objective to see if I was jumping to conclusions, I immediately reviewed Mr. Gibson's interview with Senator Obama. Take a look below at how wide and then how even the heights are between the two. Yes, in real life Senator Obama is taller than Mr. Gibson. The shot was never tighter than the framing on the right.



Now take a look at Sarah Palin's interview below. Funny how all the shots are no wider than the one on the left. There's a reason for this. While it's true that Governor Palin is of less stature than Mr. Gibson, the deliberate choice of the camera's height, framing and the use of telephoto lenses all serve to make Mr. Gibson look overpowering and Governor Palin the weak prey. This is common shooting technique we use to make a villain appear more ominous. How intuitive of ABC News to correctly portray themselves.



To illustrate this further, I utilized some storyboarding software I normally use to figure out what shots need to be set up when I shoot a movie. Notice that by merely adjusting the height of the camera and using a telephoto lens we can manipulate the shot to make either subject we want larger or smaller. The characters themselves were not scaled up or moved at all. Obviously ABC, along with Mr. Gibson and his producers chose to make her look as tiny as possible.



So, it's just one more bit of evidence on the pile of news media's bias against conservatives and women. Oh wait...what about Senator Clinton's interview....



Huh. Guess it's just conservatives. Mr. Gibson is in good company with Oprah.

Since this the first blog, let me give you a glimpse of what's in store for future articles. I'll be giving you a first hand account of such stories as puppeteers chanting to Satan behind-the-scene of a kids film and self professed co-workers of tolerance and diversity launching in to fist-pounding-on-desk, veins-bulging-in-forehead tyraids over soft spoken questions asked of them.

This is your inside look at the real Hollywood and those you give your billions to in ticket sales.

Camillle Paglia on Palin

This article is worth it to be read it all.

One of the few atheist liberals I kinda like to read, all along with Christopher Hitchens and some other bloggers -they know who they are, is Camille Paglia. Paglia, feminist and pro choice herself, makes a lot of great points criticizing Obama, but I really enjoyed her critique about the intolerant and dogmatic thought of the other band of the feminazi group (Steinem and co) and the absurdity of the women groups and the liberals in general when they want to make an ethical case for abortion.

(...) But what of Palin's pro-life stand? Creationism taught in schools? Book banning? Gay conversions? The Iraq war as God's plan? Zionism as a prelude to the apocalypse? We'll see how these big issues shake out. Right now, I don't believe much of what I read or hear about Palin in the media. To automatically assume that she is a religious fanatic who has embraced the most extreme ideas of her local church is exactly the kind of careless reasoning that has been unjustly applied to Barack Obama, whom the right wing is still trying to tar with the fulminating anti-American sermons of his longtime preacher, Jeremiah Wright.

The witch-trial hysteria of the past two incendiary weeks unfortunately reveals a disturbing trend in the Democratic Party, which has worsened over the past decade. Democrats are quick to attack the religiosity of Republicans, but Democratic ideology itself seems to have become a secular substitute religion. Since when did Democrats become so judgmental and intolerant? Conservatives are demonized, with the universe polarized into a Manichaean battle of us versus them, good versus evil. Democrats are clinging to pat group opinions as if they were inflexible moral absolutes. The party is in peril if it cannot observe and listen and adapt to changing social circumstances.

Let's take the issue of abortion rights, of which I am a firm supporter. As an atheist and libertarian, I believe that government must stay completely out of the sphere of personal choice. Every individual has an absolute right to control his or her body. (Hence I favor the legalization of drugs, though I do not take them.) Nevertheless, I have criticized the way that abortion became the obsessive idée fixe of the post-1960s women's movement -- leading to feminists' McCarthyite tactics in pitting Anita Hill with her flimsy charges against conservative Clarence Thomas (admittedly not the most qualified candidate possible) during his nomination hearings for the Supreme Court. Similarly, Bill Clinton's support for abortion rights gave him a free pass among leading feminists for his serial exploitation of women -- an abusive pattern that would scream misogyny to any neutral observer.

But the pro-life position, whether or not it is based on religious orthodoxy, is more ethically highly evolved than my own tenet of unconstrained access to abortion on demand. My argument (as in my first book, "Sexual Personae,") has always been that nature has a master plan pushing every species toward procreation and that it is our right and even obligation as rational human beings to defy nature's fascism. Nature herself is a mass murderer, making casual, cruel experiments and condemning 10,000 to die so that one more fit will live and thrive.

Hence I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful. Liberals for the most part have shrunk from facing the ethical consequences of their embrace of abortion, which results in the annihilation of concrete individuals and not just clumps of insensate tissue. The state in my view has no authority whatever to intervene in the biological processes of any woman's body, which nature has implanted there before birth and hence before that woman's entrance into society and citizenship.

On the other hand, I support the death penalty for atrocious crimes (such as rape-murder or the murder of children). I have never understood the standard Democratic combo of support for abortion and yet opposition to the death penalty. Surely it is the guilty rather than the innocent who deserve execution?

What I am getting at here is that not until the Democratic Party stringently reexamines its own implicit assumptions and rhetorical formulas will it be able to deal effectively with the enduring and now escalating challenge from the pro-life right wing. Because pro-choice Democrats have been arguing from cold expedience, they have thus far been unable to make an effective ethical case for the right to abortion.

(...)

It is nonsensical and counterproductive for Democrats to imagine that pro-life values can be defeated by maliciously destroying their proponents. And it is equally foolish to expect that feminism must for all time be inextricably wed to the pro-choice agenda. There is plenty of room in modern thought for a pro-life feminism -- one in fact that would have far more appeal to third-world cultures where motherhood is still honored and where the Western model of the hard-driving, self-absorbed career woman is less admired.

But the one fundamental precept that Democrats must stand for is independent thought and speech. When they become baying bloodhounds of rigid dogma, Democrats have committed political suicide.

Matt Damon for President

Some terrifying Matt Damon humor from The Spoof, enjoy

"Matt Damon is voting for Matt Damon because Matt Damon knows who Matt Damon is." With those words, actor Matt Damon launched his presidential campaign.

Damon, considered by many to be not only the world's finest actor, but also its greatest political thinker, is sure to gain support among his Hollywood friends who have already contributed 25 million dollars to his campaign fund.

Damon said he took the decision to run because he had not heard of any of the other candidates.

"Sarah Palin? Who's she?" He said. "Matt Damon doesn't know who she is. I think I saw her in a bad Disney movie once. No wait, that was me.

"And if McCain dies, then what happens? Matt Damon doesn't know.

"Why would anyone vote for anyone apart from Matt Damon? Matt Damon thinks that's absurd."

Sheeez, what was that? As soon as I saw Matt Damon talking about Palin, all I could think about was the interpretation of Matt Damon on Team America, in which everything he managed to say for the whole freaking movie was his name.

Sally Quinn on Palin.

Just listen to this.

And it get´s better, read Rush´s reply to her rant. This is too good not to read it.

QUINN: I've been a working mother for 26 years and practically every friend I have is a working mother and works full time. So, uh, I think we are so far beyond that issue of whether women should work or not, in -- uh, certainly in your world and my world. But in the world of evangelicals, that's not the case. Women are supposed to be subservient to their husbands and they are meant to be stay-at-home moms. And women, in fact, are not allowed to be pastors in the Southern Baptist church.

RUSH: So now we have this. This is Sally Quinn, who is an extreme liberal feminist, now defining for us who evangelicals are and how they live, and getting it entirely wrong. Women are supposed to be subservient to men. By the way, now, you can sit and get mad at all this stuff. It's not going to do any good to get mad. You've gotta do something. You've gotta understand this, understand where this comes from. They're totally frightened. They live a lie. They do not understand half of what they believe, or more, and they act on it; they create policies based on it; and they exist in hate. They exist in hate. So it's a double standard. If you're Sally Quinn or Soledad O'Brien -- who has a bunch of kids, by the way.

Soledad O'Brien's got at least three, I believe. Two of them are twins, I think. I'm not quite sure. I confuse these Drive-By info babes. But if you're Sally Quinn or Soledad O'Brien, well, it's all fine and dandy to have kids and go to work and have the husband do whatever he does. Hire the nanny, get day care, because you are sophisticated and you understand the realities of the world. But these evangelicals? They don't buy this! Women are supposed to have babies; be barefoot, pregnant, in the kitchen; never to be heard from, subservient to men. And thus Sarah Palin is disqualified because she has violated the rules of evangelical religious beliefs. It's absurd! It is insane! And yet it is not challenged. Here's more if you want to hear more. She added this to the comment.

QUINN: It's one thing to have one or two or three children, especially if they're healthy children, and everyone knows that women and men are different and that moms and dads are different and that women -- the burden of child care almost always falls on the woman. But I think when you have five children -- one a four-month-old Down syndrome baby, and a daughter who's 17 who's also a child and who is going to need her mother very much in the next few months and years with her own baby coming -- that I don't see how you can not make your family your first priority.

RUSH: When did you start caring about that, Sally Quinn? When did these people start caring about the family? When did they start caring about putting family first? When did these liberal feminists, Sally Quinn of Georgetown, start being concerned about that? So now Sarah Palin, she's not going to have time. She's not going to have time to govern. She's not going to be able to do it right because she had too many kids -- and here again, Snerdley, you lose the bet. She should not have had one that had Down syndrome. Well, no. You could have two or three. We haven't got to the Chinese one baby policy yet.

You could have two or three if you're Sally Quinn or Soledad O'Brien. But you can't have any if you're Sarah Palin and go to work, and you can't have any if you're Sarah Palin and are not subservient to your husband, and you can't have any if you're Sarah Palin and you're going to run for governor. Of course I know how infuriating it is! I've been boiling all night. I've been boiling all morning here. The point here is that the anger, you know, after awhile, then what do you do? All we can do is expose this stuff, add the appropriate commentary to it, and let people take it and digest it for what it is, because it speaks for itself. Of course it's outrageous, but I maintain to you that what's driving all of this is something very simple.

They know Sarah Palin exposes the frauds they are. She exposes them by virtue of her American life. She exposes them by virtue of her essence. She exposes them by virtue of her existence. She exposes them as the 100% lying frauds that they are: the Sally Quinns, most of the women in the media, all of the so-called feminist leaders. I told you yesterday, this is nothing more (well, it actually is more) but it's the same approach that they took to destroy Clarence Thomas, the same approach that they took to destroy Robert Bork and all the others I mentioned in that list. They destroy people who are threats. They destroy people who are threats to their template, to their narrative, to their power. They take no prisoners. They have the Drive-By Media with them, the Washington governing class, as well as the Democrat Party. It's a troika. It's a three-headed beast. That's what we're all up against.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I'll tell you, the e-mail account is smoking as I'm sure the phone calls are smoking with reaction to the ditz Sally Quinn. Let's not forget Sally Quinn is of Georgetown. Sally Quinn is known mostly thanks to her husband. Sally Quinn has never subjected herself to public approval, therefore can make claims without measuring them against what the public actually thinks. She would be outraged if anyone began any kind of an investigation of her, to find out what her childhood was like, other than what she's written, to find out what she's done in her life that we don't know about. To have media demand that she prove her kids are her kids, by doing paternity tests. She would be outraged, she's too sophisticated; she would be insulted. If I'm not mistaken, wasn't Bill Clinton a Southern Baptist? I know Jimmy Carter was a Southern Baptist. I think they both were. And, by the way, the Democrats loved 'em. The Democrats still love 'em, two Southern Baptists, the Democrats and Sally Quinn fawning all over themselves for both. Was Hillary not subservient enough? I mean, here you've got a Southern Baptist president, Bill Clinton, and I don't think he's married to anybody subservient.

I'll tell you something else, Sally, old babe, you talk about Sarah Palin not having enough time with all those kids to run around. Last I checked Bill Clinton had more relationships on the side while he was in the White House, plus a daughter in the White House, plus a wife running around. Bill Clinton was as busy as he could possibly be. Were you going to be demanding the paternity tests for John Edwards? Where's the investigation into his affair? Where's the investigation into whose kid it really is? This was a guy with no experience, nothing to recommend him to be president, and you didn't do one thing to do anything about exposing who John Edwards really is, because you didn't care to because he's a fraud just like all the rest of you are. And let's not forget Nancy Pelosi. Nancy Pelosi has five children, and she has grandchildren, and do you remember when she was sworn in as the speaker of the House? She brought all that family in there, she brought her kids, she brought grandkids, she had grandkids on the knee, she said it's time for a woman to clean the House, she said she could do it all with her kids, her grandkids, her husband, Paul Pelosi, running around.

The double standard here is striking. It's not new. It's nothing surprising. It is just glaring how overt it has become. And, by the way, none of what Clinton did interfered with his job. Bill Clinton's out there admitting to lying under oath. Bill Clinton is out there having all these different affairs, and you said it didn't affect his job performance, why, it's sex, everybody has sex. But it didn't affect how he led the country. They're just scared, folks, they are frightened as they can be. If your blood's boiling, let me turn up the temperature. Soledad O'Brien to Sally Quinn: "Why wouldn't she make the choice that many working mothers with more than one or two or even three kids make and hand that sick child off to their dad and go answer the phone? Why would that not be sort of in the realm of possibility?"

QUINN: We're supposed to say, at least in the old feminist world, that women and men are the same and they should be equal and that, you know, we have double standards. It's extremely time-consuming. We are talking about John McCain, who has chosen a woman with five children, one with special needs and a daughter, 17-year-old child who's pregnant. That is a distraction, and when you are in a position like that, suppose she became president in the next several months, she would have an enormous number of distractions on her hand. And I can't believe that she would be the dad and her husband would be the mom.

RUSH: Uh, have you heard of nannies? I go back and I recall the Bill Clinton experience. How did Bill Clinton not get distracted, Sally? Sally Quinn of Georgetown. It's a distraction to have five kids? You can have two or three. Let's go through the list, let's find out how many kids all these Drive-By Media babes have and find out how it is they still do their jobs and not be distracted by their families, because they think they're just as important as the vice president. They think they're just as big a part of government as the vice president is, maybe even more powerful than the vice president. So let's go look, let's do a little list of every female Drive-By, find out how many kids they've got, how old they are, who takes care of them and what kind of wonk husbands these people have. Of course it wasn't a distraction for Bill Clinton to have all of his affairs. It wasn't a distraction for Bill Clinton to have all these investigations into his affairs. It wasn't a distraction for Bill Clinton to be impeached because he lied under oath. See what we're up against here?

Read the rest of Rush Limbaugh´s comment here.

Nancy Pelosi talks about the importance to have young women in politics...

Of course, that interview was before the wrong woman, moose hunter from the Republican party came to the spot light.

I wonder if she had said the same if this interview was held today, or something more on the line of Sally Quinn's comments?

Women in Government

LHJ: You wrote the foreword for the upcoming book about the Sanchez sisters, Dream in Color. Aside from them, who do you see as the rising female stars in Congress; who do you think may be suited to follow in your footsteps?

NP: I think that we have a wealth of young women, and this is really part of my responsibility as I see it -- to attract many more women to Congress, and especially young women, because it's important for women to come into Congress when they are young . That way -- and this applies in every field -- they can build their seniority and be in a place to spring into great power at the same age that men are able to. There shouldn't be a power gap just because, say, women are home raising their children, as it was in my case. I stayed home with my children until they were grown, and that was fine for me, but it's a different era now. In this new era it's important for me to be a voice for their generation, to be a voice for working young women, in the Congress of the United States. That's very important. So I've made it a special mission to encourage that, and to that end -- well, if I start naming names and I don't name everyone that will be a problem. [Laughs] I'm very proud of the number of young women who are here, raising their families, raising those issues on the House floor, and building their seniority. Anything is possible for them -- leadership in this Congress, leadership in their states, leadership even regarding who could be the next president. Well, not next, but a future president.

(...)

Work-Life Balance

LHJ: You are a mother of five and were a homemaker for many years before entering politics. You say in your book that the skills you honed doing those things were the same ones you needed when you got to Congress. How so?

NP: Absolutely, and this is what I want women to know, so they recognize the value of their own path, their unique experience. I've been in politics a while, over 20 years in the Congress of the United States, and this is a very rough-and-tumble.... I shouldn't say 'rough,' let me say a very challenging arena to be in. But as challenging as it is, nothing is as challenging as raising a family -- nothing. That experience forced me to be disciplined, diplomatic, focused, and successful, and I brought that discipline and focus to the Congress. Also, having a family keeps you focused on the future, which is the biggest inspiration in politics. In order to do what it takes to succeed in politics, you have to be inspired by your constituents, the power of your ideas, and the fact that you speak on behalf of children and their future, whether you have children of your own or not. It makes all the difference in the world.

(...)

2006 Elections

LHJ: One of my favorite anecdotes about the 2006 midterms was, you were expecting a grandchild at that time, and the President called with his congratulations, and when you were notified there was a phone call for you, you said "Oh, does this mean the baby's born?"

NP: The phone rang very early in the morning, before 7:00 -- well, that's not that early, but maybe a bit early to get a phone call -- so I picked it up and said 'Oh my, do we have a new baby?' And they said, "No, this is the President calling."

(...)

Work and Family

LHJ: Women since the dawn of time have struggled to balance their careers with their families. What advice would you give to women who are trying to achieve that very elusive balance? Do you think it's possible?

NP: Yes, I think it is, and what I tell women is, you are doing the best you can, even if it's not the best you know how. You can't control every aspect, so don't worry about not measuring up. Just know that it's the best you can do, and know that if you succeed in being a mother, you can succeed in any arena. There's nothing to compare it to. And I always say know your power. That's how I got the title for my book. Mothers have so much power. They have the power to make a difference in the lives of these little people they're raising, and the power to make a difference in the world in which they will grow up and then live. That's a key message of my book. I want women to recognize the value of their unique experience. And in Congress, I've made it my special mission to be a voice for young working women.

(...)

The New Feminism

LHJ: What are your thoughts about the fact that the term "feminism" is falling out of favor with many young women? They feel that they personally have not been discriminated against in their personal lives or at the workplace, so they feel it's no longer relevant.

NP: Well, you know, this is the normal evolution of society, and good for them that they have not felt that. I don't think anyone would say, well, I don't want them to enjoy the benefits of feminism unless they accept the term. I don't think anybody's advocating that. But I do think that we have some obstacles to overcome yet. We just don't have enough women in positions of power, whether it's political power, corporate power, academic power....

(...)

The Elusive Presidency

LHJ: Do you think there's something in particular about American society that somehow we have a "block" when it comes to having a female president? More seemingly "sexist" cultures -- for instance, Pakistan, India, Liberia, Chile -- have all had female heads of state, and we still have not managed to get one here.

NP: I think that we will, and Hillary Clinton's campaign bodes well for our country. She was accepted as a contender -- not merely accepted, she established herself as a contender -- right up until the end with her eloquence, with her knowledge, with her stamina. She showed that any woman can make that fight. It turned out that she did not prevail, but she could have, and so I think the path has really been paved, the opportunity has been established. And anyone who cares about women in power and a woman in the White House owes a great deal of gratitude to Hillary Clinton for her courage in going forward in the manner in which she did, for the strength with which she proceeded and success that she had. I think she showed that a woman can win the White House. It was a close call in the end. And I don't think there was anybody who thought that she couldn't win and that she wouldn't be a great president. I'm very excited about her candidacy. There are those who will do the postmortems on why she -- sorry, not the postmortems; here we call it an "after-action review" -- about what could have been done differently, but there were some things on which we can all agree: It had nothing to do with whether the American people were ready to accept a woman.

(...)

Encouragement for All Women

LHJ: And you don't think those criticisms were particularly because she was a woman?

NP: Well, I mean, you call attention to someone and people pay attention, they notice. Now, is there sexism in the media? Well, yes -- I experience it all the time, but I don't think it makes the difference as to whether you're going to win or not. To take a different tack, I think the people who acted in a sexist way were the losers in all of this. I don't think they looked good at all; it looked like yesterday and just ... silly. I mean, my children have said to me, "Mother, if you had any idea what people say about you." And you know what? I don't care! I've done what I've set out to do. I know that the right-wing media sets out to caricature me, but if you decide to worry about that, then you might as well just pick up another line of work. They have their say and you have yours, and at the end of the day, we won. But in terms of the presidential race, women have to view this as very positive. The respect and admiration for Hillary Clinton in this country has, I believe, increased, and been enhanced by this race. And that's important not only for her but for any woman who sets out on a path to do something new. And it should be a source of encouragement to all women.

Originally published on LHJ.com, August 2008. Link, here.

The party who hates women

Taken from Murphy's blog (PUMA PAC). He/ she is a pro Hillary activist who is very angry with the Democrat party for the way they took Hillary out of the race and was taken over by the Obama people.

The party who hates women and the people who belong to that party, non other than the democrat, Jim Crow law, Bull Conner, George Wallace's party, is making a point to make it very clear.

No much have changed since the goo'ol boy days uh? What was all this shit about late 60s women's rights and NOW (Nat Org of Women who should be called NOL or Nat Org of Lesbians, who is blatantly against Palin for his Pro Life stand, btw) when they rip to pieces a woman who resembles any any day woman like Palin, and who have treated Hillary Clinton the way they had trowing her under the bus?

If they had something to celebrate bringing a black to the presidency, they are really fucking up with the media and the Obama moveon.org lunatic types base who is in a misogynist frenzy attack towards all American girl, anti-establishment , strong, eloquent woman who is Gov. Palin.

Just watch this two pictures and tell me about it.



Do you have to be atheist, ugly and lesbian to be considered a woman and be treated with respect from the liberal media?

You know, first it was the rumor who appeared in Daily Kos (brought up to you by Juan Cole) about Palin's little kid was not her son but her grandson... rumor that was shattered when we find out that in fact the 17 year-old is actually pregnant and couldn't have delivered a baby in March because she was already pregnant.

Now, the attack comes from US Weekly, owned by Obama campaign contributor Jann Wenner:

"The magazine, founded by New York Times Company and owned by Obama campaign contributor Jann Wenner, rips Palin with cover teasers that publicize her teen daughter's pregnancy, an alleged firing of Palin's sister's ex-husband and promises "new embarrassing surprises." The website URL for the Palin story reads, "sarah-palin-very-difficult-to-work-with."

The September feature states:

Mom-of-five Palin is antiabortion (even in cases of rape) and opposed to sex-education classes (she believes in abstinence instruction for teens).

In the wake of the announcement about Bristol, questions have begun to arise about the governor's candor and McCain's judgment (The New York Times reported that McCain's camp vetted Palin only the day before her selection was announced.

"It's conceivable a 17-year-old girl just screwed the GOP," Democratic strategist George Lakoff tells Us Weekly.

A June issue of the same celebrity magazine featured Barack and Michelle Obama embracing on the cover with the headline, "Michelle Obama: Why Barack Loves Her." The teaser reads, "She shops at Target, loved 'Sex in the City' and never misses the girls' recitals. The untold romance between a down-to-earth mom and the man who calls her 'my rock.'" The website URL states, "exclusive-barack-obama-michelle-is-an-extraordinary-mother."

The Obama issue focused on Michelle Obama's "strong sense of family" and genuine personality.

According to a Daily Standard report, Wenner has contributed $5,300 to the Obama campaign since 2007. In a March Rolling Stone article, he praised the senator: "[A]long comes Barack Obama, with the kinds of gifts that appear in politics but once every few generations. There is a sense of dignity, even majesty, about him, and underneath that ease lies a resolute discipline. It's not just that he is eloquent – with that ability to speak both to you and to speak for you – it's that he has a quality of thinking and intellectual and emotional honesty that is extraordinary."

Taken from World Net Daily.

Super Obama comes to the rescue and says that Gov. Palin personal life is out of the question and he will fire anybody who spread rumors etc, but the reality is that all those dirty attacks have come from the Democratic Party, the same ones who took Hillary and Bill to the trash can, and the voters are noticing.

No wonder why the Hillary base is so pissed off. They are showing off what a pile of heinous shit has taken over the leadership of the Democratic Party.

OMG, It's Sarah Palin!

This is the news that had awaken feathers from her limbo an need to make a post about it. This is the speech that moved me, not Obama's last night one, but this one. So refreshing, no need for a big stadium and all the rock star shit and personality cult that revolves about the Black Messiah.



Let's shatter that glass ceiling once and for all! Who hoooo...

Now this was a speech I like. Full of the things she accomplished and with little melodrama.

Why Obama hasn't been so clear with the things he had accomplished as a Washington bureaucrat?

This is so freaking exciting! Mc Cain proved he is a real maverick having the guts to pick the governor of Alaska, a woman, mother of 5 Sarah Palin in his ticket. The reason on why I am so excited about this woman, it's because she is a great example to all women out there, not that Hilly wasn't an example on her own as a career woman but Palin is a better example in my opinion, because she also is a mother of 5 and a governor. In addition, she deserves a special consideration of her character when you know that she was pregnant with a baby with down syndrome and had the balls to keep it. You know, she doesn't even preach that she is pro life, but she has proven by a hard example.

And she doesn't have that disgusting populist personality cult that Obama and his Evita wife seem to have everywhere they go. Let's talk about blue collar, put Harvard educated Obama and Michelle against Palin and family. C'mon, we all have a friend, a boss, a sister, a cousin, a women in our life that we admire, and probably you think of Palin, not Hillary, not Michelle Obama.

And she is so charming and graceful, just like Reagan. Just listen to her speech, so candid too. Didn't have the scripted look of Obama.

But who is Sarah Palin? Some things about her:

• She was the first woman and youngest person to be elected governor in the state of Alaska.

• 80% of Alaskans have a favorable opinion of Palin.

• She is the first Alaskan politician to to run on a national ticket for president or vice president.

• Went to University of Idaho, not Yale, not Harvard. And have a degree in Journalism with a minor in Political Science. Definitely not your average east-coast Ivy League politician.

• She was a hockey mom who got involved into the school PTA and later was elected or appointed to the city council and then elected as mayor of her little town. Then for governorship of the state. Now VP, and hopefully one day President. As a woman, cannot be more proud of a woman like her to become first president of the leading nation of the world in the near future.

• She has experience dealing with special interest groups. (Oil).

"In response to high oil and gas prices, and in response to the resulting state government budget surplus, Palin proposed giving Alaskans $100-a-month energy debit cards. She also proposed providing grants to electrical utilities so that they would reduce customers' rates.[34] She subsequently dropped the debit card proposal, and in its place she proposed to send Alaskans $1,200 directly and eliminate the gas tax"

• Husband is a commercial fishermen and member of unions. That will also play very well grabbing the independent blue collar union members. (Curiously, they married on a day like today Aug 29, 88, 20 years ago). Congratulations for getting a VP nomination and celebrate 20 years of marriage the same day. Definitely a good omen. Today is McCain birthday too, btw.

• Palin's nineteen-year-old son Track, serves in an infantry brigade and will be deployed to Iraq on September 11, 2008.

• Outdoor enthusiastic family, her family moved to Alaska when she was an infant from Idaho. She likes to wake up early in the morning to go hunting. Yes, she proudly have a membership with the NRA.

• She finished second in Miss Alaska Pageant, which won her a scholarship to help pay her way through college.

• She was born on a February, 11, the same day that my grandmother. :D (Needless to say my grandmother was one of a kind woman, strong and didn't take bullshit from anybody.)

Now, having said all this great things about Palin, and, even though I think McCain did pick a great partner with a strong chance to win, we have to question the fact that she was picked because she was a woman. I think is great, I think she can do a great work, and more than anything, she can bring CHANGE to Washington. And she can help Republicans to win, which this is all about. It's the she same reason on why the empty suit of Obama was picked for his party nomination, because he was black.

The American society have to questions that because at the same time we are favoring people by race and gender we are neglecting the opportunity to other more qualified (probably white man) to do their job. And, I have to say, I am totally against favoring anybody because their race or gender.

All of this reminds me to that fantastic letter to Sister Doris Gormley written by T. J. Rodgers, President & CEO of Cypress Semiconductor, that we all capitalist should read once in a while and ponder about it.

Do we want the most experienced people to run Washington or not?

In any case, this elections will be fascinating to watch.

Congrats and good luck Gov. Palin!