... No, not Johnny Knoxville (although his show was the most appropriately titled program ever to appear on television).
(Incidentally, Knoxville is another good example of a person who made me reconsider, then withdraw, my support for the idea of mandatory voting. But I digress.)
You’ve heard the old saying that truth is stranger than fiction?
It’s true.
Apparently, since they don’t seem to be able to deal with the drug cartels taking over whole sections of the country and brazenly telling police, “Join us or die,“ Mexican officials have taken to jailing animals who misbehave.
Hillary Clinton made no bones about her history-making campaign as the first serious female presidential contender. She raised more money, won more states, won more delegates and got farther along in the process than any other woman in the history of the United States of America.
Now that her presidential campaign seems to (finally) be near the end of its 37th life, Clinton is speaking out—and she’s not happy.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Clinton said this about the “sexist” treatment she has endured during the campaign:
“It’s been deeply offensive to millions of women,“ Clinton said. “I believe this campaign has been a groundbreaker in a lot of ways. But it certainly has been challenging given some of the attitudes in the press, and I regret that, because I think it’s been really not worthy of the seriousness of the campaign and the historical nature of the two candidacies we have here.“
Later, when asked if she thinks this campaign has been racist, she says she does not. And she circles back to the sexism. “The manifestation of some of the sexism that has gone on in this campaign is somehow more respectable, or at least more accepted, and . . . there should be equal rejection of the sexism and the racism when it raises its ugly head,“ she said. “It does seem as though the press at least is not as bothered by the incredible vitriol that has been engendered by the comments by people who are nothing but misogynists.“
Clinton’s feminist friends are standing by their sister.
Geraldine Ferraro, the first female vice presidential candidate, called Barack Obama “terribly sexist” and said she may not support him in the general election.
An prominent—but anonymous—Clinton supporter decried “the pervasive and insidious sexism that runs rampant through our country.“ The unknown author encourged women not to vote for Obama, but to write in Hillary Clinton’s name and cast a protest vote in November. This is necessary, the author said, because “the DNC thinks we will vote for Obama because like abused women we have no where else to go.“
The Washington Post’s Marie Cocco said Clinton faced “unrelenting, sex-based hate” during the campaign and concludes, “But for all Clinton’s political blemishes, the darker stain that has been exposed is the hatred of women that is accepted as a part of our culture.“
Conservative pundit Rich Galen opines on the state of the ladies’ discontent and what it means for the Democrats in the general election in his most recent column, not accidentally titled “Girls, Girls, Girls.“
(Get it?)
Galen wonders whether there may be “a growing sentiment that being Black in America is better (at least if you are running for President) than being a Woman in America.“
What do you think? Does Obama’s near-imminent nomination mean that America is closer to stamping out racism than sexism? Is it better to be black in America than female in America?
On Tuesday, I told you about a Marine in Afghanistan who had a close call in a gunbattle with a Taliban fighter. The exchange was caught in a series of dramatic photographs that illustrate the “clear and present” of the phrase “clear and present danger.“
Somewhere in Pennsylvania, Marine wife Bobbie Bee was surfing the Internet and saw the pictures on a blog she reads.
She knew immediately, she said, that the Marine who had escaped death was her Marine: Sgt. William O. Bee.
Bobbie Bee is seven months’ pregnant with the couple’s first child, a boy. She said she feared going into early labor when she saw what had happened.
The entire follow-up story is worthwhile, but these lines at the end crystalize this experience and the way members of the Armed Forces, and their families, must live every day:
Much was made of the photographs, which showed Sgt. Bee defending a mud wall without a helmet. Bobbie said her husband told her he was changing into fresh clothes when the company came under gunfire.
“He said he turned around and did what he had to do.“
They do what they have to do so that we can do what we want to do.
RealClearPolitics.com brings us this interesting news: A new poll in Georgia shows that by running as a Libertarian candidate, former four-term Republican congressman Bob Barr could put the Peach State in play for Barack Obama.
President Bush carried Georgia in 2000 and 2004, and never with less than 55 percent of the vote. In addition, RCP says, “the state has voted Republican in five of the last six (presidential elections).“
GOP nominee-to-be John McCain leads with 45 percent and is closely pursued by Obama, who notches 35 percent support. Barr registers 8 percent, and twelve percent are undecided, according to RCP.
It’s unclear whether Barr will be able to parlay Ron Paul support into votes for himself. But you can bet that conservatives will be grumbling about this—either because they simply don’t appreciate Barr’s involvement, or because having McCain as the GOP nominee seems to have made it inevitable that he face a challenge from the right.
So much for having a moral platform to advance responsible government spending.
I hope Hillary at least has an outline of her next book in process.
(And no, “responsible government spending” isn’t an oxymoron, although with the way Congress has been spreading earmarks like grass seed over the past several years, it’s easy to understand why people think so.)
