Good for Michelle, but I hope ogged realizes there's a middle ground between wearing no makeup and playing around with eyelash glue.
She's married, he's probably bigger than you, and if he isn't he still has a Secret Service detail to send your ass to Gitmo.
Cala, you blog the political wives you have...
Ah, people who have real family values don't wear make-up. It's just as I've always suspected.
Sorry, the page you requested could not be found.
It proves she's down with the gente.
And she's totally wearing makeup in that picture.
Don't know what to tell ya, apomama; link works here.
Calamonster, I know she's wearing makeup; note the sly "(much)" in the post. You people don't want to work with me on this.
Does this work for you IE using people?
Also: damn but they are an impressive couple. There aren't too many things right now that bring on an intense "I want" reaction, but Obama does.
But it's eyeliner!!!!1!! Surely she would not be up for the rigors of a campaign.
It's not IE, the original link didn't work for me either, on Firefox/OS X. But then! When I click on the link to the full article on the printer version, it works.
Firefox/OS X
Same here, but now it's working.
So, are you willing to go the distance on this, ogged? We can tell something about Ms. Obama b/c of the relative lack of make-up, and we can tell something about Mr. Obama b/c of Ms. Obama? I can't go that far. I'm favoring Obama at the moment, but my heart belongs to Elizabeth Edwards.
I made no claims, advanced no thesis, presented no arguments. I merely shared, because I like to share.
It always is. People think they know about the candidate based on his wife's appearance.
It's not about the appearance, it's about the deftness.
Michelle Obama's deftness indicates that Barack will nuke Pakistan. You heard it here first.
Nah, he had a Pakistani roommate for a while. He's down with the brown folks.
There's also the issue that as women get into our forties, eye makeup becomes more and more of a pain to wear because our eyelids start to get a wee bit wrinkly and saggy. I'm 46 and have given up on eye shadow, wearing a little liner under the eye and some mascara. I bet she does the same.
23: Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.
Michelle Obama's deftness indicates that Barack is right to nuke Pakistan.
25: Right. So if he's going to start invading people, it'll be you folks or maybe Mexico. Pakistan is too damn far.
Jesus christ, that story is obnoxious.
"I love girly makeup and stuff"
"Time is indeed a commodity."
"How did she manage to snag Barack?"
"What I talk about with my girlfriends"
Jesus christ, that story is obnoxious.
It is the Sun-Times.
Query: Would naked partisanship be preferable to this sort of casuistical dog-paddling toward the periodic presidential choice? I'd much prefer not to have to hear or read any more "she/he seems like a nice person; I like his/her values as exemplified by his/her choice of spouse and the behavior of his/her children" nonsense, although I guess "I don't know about his/her kids, but I'm voting for X because [George W. Bush pissed me off/George W. Bush fucking rocks! USA!]."
missing words: "could get boring."
Why this line?
"Every woman I know -- and this crosses race, political affiliation and religion -- is that we, as women in this day and age, are trying to do it all. Many of us work because we have to. Many of us don't have the flexible hours. Many of us don't have a job that pays a living wage or health care for our kids. When your family is not right and your children aren't right, you aren't right," she said.
So, flexible hours and work/family balance isn't important for those women (and men!) who work because they like to?
32: Maybe because "My husband sold so many books that I wouldn't really have to work any more, but I still care about what you're dealing with! Really!" wouldn't be as politic?
I guess I'm reading more the undertone of, "Hey, it's important for women who have to work. Those women who choose to hold down jobs rather than let their husband's support them have no business complaining."
30: We could always try voting for people based on the merits of the policies they support. I know, I know, it'll never work - liberal democracy can only be maintained by electing our nigh-unstoppable overlords on the basis of well-styled hair, shiny teeth, name recognition, and pleasantly non-threatening family members.
34: Does every comment about working women have to address the concerns of the upper middle class? To experience the absence of direct validation as an attack is overly touchy, I'd say.
God, all these first lady stories. I don't give a flying fuck about political spouses but I can't decide if I should feel superior or guilty about it.
34: Possibly -- I inadvertently quit smoking, so my touchiness meters are a bit off.
But my point wasn't intended as a "why didn't she address the upper middle class" but as "what, women can only work if they 'need' to?" When I see that phrasing, I read "need to" as meaning, the family will fall into poverty if she doesn't. Some women "need" to work for the psychological/intellectual fulfillment. Some women "need" to work so that they aren't totally dependent for the rest of their lives on some schmuck who might ditch her for a 19 year old when he hits his mid-life crisis. Or he might up and die unexpectedly. When I hear people talk about women who "have to" work, I read it as a suggestion that they really ought not unless it's absolutely necessary. And I read it that way because I have never, ever, not even once seen anyone say, "Some men have to work."
(Okay, definitely irritable -- but I still think it's a valid point.)
38 to 36. I'm irritable and lacking in focus...
We could always try voting for people based on the merits of the policies they support. I know, I know, it'll never work - liberal democracy can only be maintained by electing our nigh-unstoppable overlords on the basis of well-styled hair, shiny teeth, name recognition, and pleasantly non-threatening family members.
I should resist, but.... Merits of the policies are great and all that, but focusing exclusively on position statements and not worrying about personal qualities can also lead to error. Sometimes it turns out that they don't actually care much about what was in the position statements, or they turn out to be lousy at getting the policies enacted, etc. I'm all for ignoring the hair stuff, but "who is this person?" is a legitimate and important question in a campaign, and it's no less worthwhile to try to sort through the crap on that than it is on policy stuff.
38: Couldn't have said it better myself.
That is, no need to address the concerns of UMC women in every sentence, but even when you're talking about working class women (as candidates should, frequently, more than they talk about the concerns of UMC women) that's no excuse for characterizing work as a bad thing women do that hurts their families but is excusable if they're under economic duress, and the 'need to work' language fits into that.
42 disproves 41. Turns out you actually did say it better yourself...
She's short-circuiting the "can't stand the heat" argument by pointing out that most women, just like most men, work because they have to. What's wrong with that?
There are a lot of single mothers without many options out there, and if she's pointing out that holding down the jobs available to them is hard on their families, she's right. Required overtime and arbitrary scheduling can play hell with the lives of factory- and other blue-collar workers, male and female, and they're often not making enough to pay for daycare. If they're making minimum wage, they might be holding down two jobs and still not making enough to pay for daycare. MO's not suggesting these women ought to stay home, she's talking about things like flextime and maternity leave and adequate insurance.
Part of the reason "mother's hours" jobs typically pay less is that employers still pretend to believe that women who work part-time do so to buy clothes, or a nicer vacation, rather than to support their families. So the "need" rather than "want" argument serves a purpose and is not anti-feminist.
She's short-circuiting the "can't stand the heat" argument by pointing out that most women, just like most men, work because they have to. What's wrong with that?
What's wrong with it is that I disagree 100% that she's pointing out that women need to work "just like men" do. Honestly, in a 2 income family, have you ever heard anyone say, "Well, he doesn't need to work"? The assumption is that all men (w/out ample trust funds) "have to" work. Women only have to work if they can't find a man or their man can't earn enough.
It's understood that single mothers "have to" work. The problem is, when you are a married mother and work, it's automatically a "choice" you, and not your husband, make. And your work is therefore both frivolous, because unnecessary, and self-indulgent, because it's a choice you make to the (wrongfully!) presumed detriment of your family.
And now I shall shower and commute to the job I have to hold but, for the record, would probably also choose to hold even if I didn't really "have to."
Yeah. I don't think she means anything anti-feminist, but deliberately 'short-circuiting' the argument by talking only about women who 'need' to work concedes that women working without the excuse of economic duress are doing something questionable and difficult to defend. Now, any workable type of political rhetoric is going to sell someone out, but while this sort of language is very conventional, I don't like it and I'm not certain it's politically necessary.
I only comment on Unfogged because I have to.
What's wrong with it is that I disagree 100% that she's pointing out that women need to work "just like men" do.
Because she doesn't explicitly say so? She doesn't explicitly say that well-off women should stay at home, either.
Where I come from it's well understood that if a middle class couple wants to send their kids to college and retire before they turn 70, the wife has to work at least for part of her life, and it's not considered frivolous. The only people I know who espouse the notions you claim are "understood" are my eighty-year-old parents.
Yeah. I don't think she means anything anti-feminist, but deliberately 'short-circuiting' the argument by talking only about women who 'need' to work concedes that women working without the excuse of economic duress are doing something questionable and difficult to defend.
I don't see that. It only suggests that they are not as urgently in need of legislation to protect them from unreasonable demands from their employers, or help in affording daycare and decent insurance for themselves and their children. The middle class mothers with whom I work get maternity leave and flextime, and excellent insurance. Because they can afford to walk away if they don't.
It's a tone thing, and Di and I may be misinterpreting it. But it still comes off to me as if working to support their families is something women are expected to be pitied for, if it's necessary, and maybe indulged in, if it's not necessary but they for some reason want to do it anyway, but certainly not the normal state of affairs or a matter of pride.
But I'll agree that this wasn't said explicitly, and I may be being overly touchy on the subject.
40: And the best way to judge a candidate's character is by how nice their family looks and how stirring their rhetoric is? I'm sorry, but that's bullshit. The fact is that as voters we're in a terrible position to evaluate the character of politicians. The cues we're given to evaluate the character of a potential president are invariably the same cues we use to evaluate the characters our neighbors, friends, and acquaintances (is he nice to his kids? how does he treat his spouse? etc.), but have nothing at all to do with the kinds of character issues that are actually going to be handled by the next president (is he going to have people tortured? how many of my rights is he going to violate? how many innocent foreigners is he willing to indiscriminately kill for a bump in the polls? etc.) There's nothing in Hillary Clinton's or Barack Obama's personal lives that can tell me whether they're going to keep sending prisoners overseas to be tortured, or whether they're going to scrap the warrantless wiretapping program.
The kinds of bad-character decisions exercised by an office like the presidency are done at a level that's far too easy to compartmentalize from ordinary everyday "nice guyness." George Bush is probably a perfectly decent husband and father, a fun guy to hang around with, etc., but as president of the United States he's been one of the most reprehensible people on the planet.
I know we've had this discussion before, and I'm just repeating myself, but it is possible to get some sense of these people if you read enough about them (again, particularly from their hometown press), and especially now with unscripted moments popping up on YouTube. I wonder if part of the problem is that we just don't have a sophisticated vocabularly/framework for dealing with issues of presidential character, or if it's just that any trait can be good in some situations, disastrous in others.
Although you, stras, are clearly a hothead who would be prone to the indiscriminate bombing of rich white people. Do you deny it?
I wonder if part of the problem is that we just don't have a sophisticated vocabularly/framework for dealing with issues of presidential character
I think this is it. I think we're very bad at generalizing from personal to professional character, and trying is inevitably going to mislead us.
I'd never deny it, ogged. We need to redistribute America's supply of indiscriminate bombing; too much of it is in the hands of those greedy, poor brown people.
Where I come from it's well understood that if a middle class couple wants to send their kids to college and retire before they turn 70, the wife has to work at least for part of her life, and it's not considered frivolous. The only people I know who espouse the notions you claim are "understood" are my eighty-year-old parents. (Emphasis added.)
What's "understood" is often understood on a different level of consciousness. You say no one on earth has this weird understanding that I refer to, but your own word choice betrays you. It's well understood that "the wife" "has to" work. If there were a broadly assumed equivalence, the sentence would have been "it takes to incomes to send the kiddos to college" or something like that. But the way you chose to phrase it suggests that men work because it's the natural order of thing and women work only because they "have to" or "choose to."
The middle class mothers with whom I work get maternity leave and flextime, and excellent insurance. Because they can afford to walk away if they don't.
Well, the middle class mothers with whom I work aren't half as fortunate -- though I'll concede that the legal profession is perhaps a bit more archaic than broader cultural norms. When you say "walk away," it sounds to me that you are talking about not working rather than find a different job. That won't fly for me. My firm knows that I'm not just going to "walk away" from my career -- even if I had a nice sugar daddy out there to support me -- because I give a shit about what I do. And they would giggle if I suggested I'd go elsewhere if they didn't offer the maternity leave, etc. I wanted because, you know, good luck finding that law firm. The idea that certain women "can afford" to walk away doesn't properly respect the full value work has for women. (Of course, credit where credit's due, my firm has actually been quite good on these things for me.)
Note: 48 is also, I'm pretty sure, mcmc, just with a screwup in the Name field. Just in case anyone else was confused.
Thesis: the fact that the leading male candidate's wives are so much cooler than the candidates themselves is evidence of sexism.
And the best way to judge a candidate's character is by how nice their family looks and how stirring their rhetoric is?
This is why it's not worth engaging. I kind of said exactly the opposite.
59: Okay, this is what you said back in 40:
Merits of the policies are great and all that, but focusing exclusively on position statements and not worrying about personal qualities can also lead to error. Sometimes it turns out that they don't actually care much about what was in the position statements, or they turn out to be lousy at getting the policies enacted, etc. I'm all for ignoring the hair stuff, but "who is this person?" is a legitimate and important question in a campaign, and it's no less worthwhile to try to sort through the crap on that than it is on policy stuff.
I don't see how you're "kind of saying the opposite" here, especially after 11's quasi-endorsement of Obama on the basis that Barack and Michelle make a "very impressive couple."
The point I took away from your 40 was that personal stuff (spouses, family stuff, personal backstory, etc.) was just as valuable in determining the worth and character of a candidate as studying policy positions, which is bullshit. We have no way of determining how someone will behave in office based on how they behave in their personal life. Nothing in Hillary Clinton's personal history leads me to believe she has especially strong feelings one way or another on extraordinary rendition, but the fact that her husband started the practice of outsourcing torture to other countries, the fact that she's chosen to explicitly align her views as closely as possible with those of her husband's administration, and the fact that she's shown a determined antipathy towards civil liberties in a host of other areas, leads me to conclude that she's a bad candidate on this issue. That has nothing to do with how warm she is in person, or how inspiring her personal story is, or how "impressive" her and her husband are as a couple. That has to do with - shock! - looking at her views on policy.
You're reading "personal stuff" a lot more narrowly than I intended it or than I think the context will bear. By the standard you seem to be applying in 60, we have enough information to decide that HRC is a bad candidate, but I don't see how we'd even form a position on Obama or Edwards, since neither has had enough time in office to give us an adequate measure of their views on policy.
And really, lose the sarcasm. It doesn't make your stuff any more convincing.
Stras, it seems pretty clear what DaveL is saying. He won't make judgments about Rodham Clinton based on her haircut or her husband's winning smile. But he is willing to look at the way she's managed the personal issues in her life and extrapolate as to how that reflects deeper values likely to impact her policy positions. For example, one might have argued that Bill's womanizing ways, with female subordinates, suggested a willingness to abuse power for personal gains and say that kind of character, while it might not automatically guarantee support for rendition, is certainly compatible with it. One might look at the character displayed by GWB's past (?) drinking problem, draft dodging, etc. and conclude that this is a guy who thinks himself above the law. And voila -- he has indeed conducted himself in office as a man who thinks himself above the law. If a candidate is married to someone who appear to clearly be a person of substance, it speaks well for the candidate as a person who isn't just image but also has some real value to offer.
62: Yes, it is pretty clear what DaveL is saying, and it's absurd. I also think the examples you're using are a bit of a stretch. How does someone's drinking problem indicate that they think they're above the law? For that matter, how does draft-dodging? I'm perfectly sympathetic with Bush's draft-dodging, just as I am with Clinton's - if I had connections I could use to get myself out of a pointless war where there was a good chance I'd get maimed or killed, I'd certainly do so. And how the hell does Bill Clinton's womanizing make him more likely to support torture? Does this mean that Ted Kennedy and Gary Hart harbor, deep within their womanizing hearts, a secret desire to torture people? This makes absolutely no sense.
If we leave the obsessive focus on these people's personal lives, however, and again look to the actual, boring old policies they've supported over the years, we find that Bill Clinton was a persistent advocate of expanded executive power and indifferent at best to civil liberties (see the Echelon program, the line-item veto, DOMA, mandatory minimums, etc.). And so when it turns out he had started the program of outsourcing torture to friendly dictatorships, we really shouldn't have been surprised - not because this was compatible with his womanizing, but because it was compatible with a number of other policies he'd advocated. Similarly, George Bush's administration was billed from the start as a "CEO presidency" in which the inexperienced Bush would be advised by a clutch of Wise Old Men, chief of whom was Dick Cheney, who under Gerald Ford fought to preserve Nixonian levels of secrecy and control within the Oval Office (opposing FOIA, the Presidential Records Act, the Church Committee, etc.). That Bush would operate above the law was foreseeable not because the man's an alcoholic, but because the people surrounding him had a long record of advocating policies that obscured the actions of the executive branch and put it above the law.
I'd like it very much if personal character lead to being a good president, because it would certainly be a better test than guessing what someone will do given a certain situation based on their policies, especially for a relatively new candidate.
But I don't think it works that way. People can be good businessmen and make lousy decisions about their personal finances. LBJ by all accounts was a classic good ol' boy asshole and hardly the most progressive person on race. That doesn't line up with his record.
Personal character != political character. But stras is on his high horse and I'm going to let it go for now before it pisses me off.
By the standard you seem to be applying in 60, we have enough information to decide that HRC is a bad candidate, but I don't see how we'd even form a position on Obama or Edwards, since neither has had enough time in office to give us an adequate measure of their views on policy
We have plenty of information on Edwards and Obama. Edwards has always made poverty reduction his biggest priority, in both the '04 and '08 campaigns, and at times when it's hard to see where the political advantage would be. What's more, he's put forward a number of fairly well-thought-out, interesting plans on health care, tax reform, poverty reduction, etc. that show that he really does care about this enough to spend a lot of time trying to get it right, and that tells me a lot about his priorities.
Obama is more of a cipher on domestic policy, but we know something about his judgment on foreign policy: he was opposed to the Iraq War from the start, which says more about his judgment and his priorities than anything you'll take from the minutiae of his personal life. Also, with the exception of his monumentally stupid "I'll invade Pakistan, dammit" moment last week, he really hasn't gone out of his way to emphasize hawkish policies and rhetoric to the same extent most of his rivals have.
I really don't understand the reluctance to focus on what politicians do (and say they're going to do) instead of trying to read the ink blots of their personal lives. No, it's not as much fun to read a paper on health care policy as it is to read about Giuliani's various divorces, but really, one of these is going to tell you something about how a future president is going to govern, and the other is going to be, at best, some entertaining gossip. And gossip is fine, but let's not mistake it for anything that actually matters here.
But stras is on his high horse and I'm going to let it go for now before it pisses me off.
Yeah, that's me, always the unreasonable one.
67: Not saying that, just saying that there's not a lot of point in engaging when you're in Moses down from the mountain mode.
Apparently "Moses down from the mountain mode" means "me saying things you don't agree with."
Not his womanizing, Stras. His womanizing with female subordinates in situations that could be construed as an abuse of power. I'll concede that extrapolating the to any particular abuse of power in his administration is a stretch -- but knowing a candidate is capable of abusing power seems a perfectly valid thing to consider.
Re: GWB, the drunk driving and draft dodging aren't the issues in and of themselves but the means through which he used political connections to avoid the consequences thereof. He didn't go to Canada liek a self respecting draft dodger; he got himself a comfy gig in the reserves, then went AWOL when it suited him.
No, personal character /= political character. But anyone who thinks that personal character has no relation to political character at all is being willfully naive.
All right, the two of you, go get some coffee or something and chill. This is a disagreement, but there's no need for it to turn into getting genuinely pissed off.
the fact that the leading male candidate's wives are so much cooler than the candidates themselves is evidence of sexism
And yet, the coolness gap between Bill and Hillary Clinton is more pronounced than any of the other 20 candidates.
I don't want to hear it unless someone's bleeding. And if someone's bleeding, I'm taking away both your GameBoys for a week. Want to go back to playing Pokemon with cards?
70: Once again, these examples seem like a huge stretch. Young George Bush getting out of a DWI doesn't indicate that he always thought he was above the law, it just meant that he was a spoiled rich kid. Barack Obama used cocaine, and Al Gore smoked pot. Does this mean they both thought they were "above the law"? These types of arguments become especially silly when there was plenty of evidence ca. 2000 for predicting a Bush administration that would abuse the power of the presidency just by the presence of Dick Cheney. Weird arguments about Bush's drunken past just confuse the issue; Bush's closest advisor was a man who felt the key tragedy of Watergate was that its fallout had severely reduced the power of the executive branch, and had been open about this for decades.
The Clinton argument seems even more bizarre. Even if we assume that Clinton's relationship with Lewinski was a straightforward abuse of power, how is that similar in kind or in scale to having the CIA secretly send prisoners overseas to be tortured? That strikes me as utterly bizarre. It does seem to me, however, that extraordinary rendition arises from the same set of policy priorities that expanded executive power during the Clinton era. There's no need to attempt to connect it to Clinton's consensual relationship with a White House intern.
75: I never had GameBoys OR Pokemon cards as a kid. I'd happily take either one.
I really don't understand the reluctance to focus on what politicians do (and say they're going to do) instead of trying to read the ink blots of their personal lives.
Not instead of. But maybe evaluating the trustworthiness of what they say about their policies based on the trustworthiness they display in other areas of their lives. No one is saying vote for X because he seems like a fun guy to have at a BBQ. But I don't think it's quite as ridiculous as you are making it sound to suggest that one might believe that the fact that X beats his kids and tortures small animals might reflect on whether s/he'd handle political office responsibly.
On the facts, I'm with stras on this. Think about Teddy Kennedy, who's really been a very good Senator generally, but like the rest of his family has the personal morality and character of a cane toad. I can't imagine anything you could say about his personal life that wouldn't lead you to want him far far away from any of the levers of power, but he's done a pretty decent job by the standards of what we've got.
Think about Teddy Kennedy, who's really been a very good Senator generally, but like the rest of his family has the personal morality and character of a cane toad.
Hey now, hey now - let's not go bashing cane toads here.
The idea that certain women "can afford" to walk away doesn't properly respect the full value work has for women.
That's ridiculous. I'm talking about the economic ability to negotiate. The threat of walking away is a time-honored tool of negotiation, employed by many people with important and necessary jobs--nurses, for one example.
As for my use of the phrase "the wife has to work", I was talking about married women in the workforce and whether they were perceived as frivolous. I believe such persons are often referred to as "wives". Thus the use of "wife" is not an indicator of my culturally conditioned sexist assumptions. Although I thank you for your concern.
And when I say women of means can walk away from poor working conditions, I mean that they can afford to be choosy about the jobs they take, not that they should leave the workforce. I made no such suggestion, and you are leaping to unwarranted conclusions.
This is my day for trying to calm down arguments, but I really don't think the two of you are in serious disagreement other than as to some fairly subtle interpretation of tone.
Hey now, hey now - let's not go bashing cane toads here.
Or licking Senators.
I understand Teddy enjoys that sort of thing.
85: I'll have to round up a box in the yard tonight and send them to him. Do you think he'd want some economy-size cockroaches with his toads?
83: Of course you are right. I blame my family for my contentious mood. Hi everyone. I'm just back from a wedding in lawyer-land. The bride was a lawyer, the groom was a lawyer, the mother of the groom was a lawyer, 3 out of 4 groomsmen were lawyers, 2 of the bridesmaids were lawyers, the brother and sister-in-law of the bride were lawyers. There was a big argument about the pronunciation of "litigious". I really feel bad about not being a lawyer.
Most people would come out of a social gathering like that thanking their lucky stars to have been preserved.
There was a big argument about the pronunciation of "litigious"
What on earth were the candidate pronunciations?
What on earth were the candidate pronunciations?
I'm guessing mostly "i m a douchebag" and "u r a douchebag."
83, 87: Oh dear heavens, a wedding in lawyer-land. My condolences. I will continue to blame the nicotine withdrawal for my unquestionably contentious tone. I swear I have sensible, reasoned, and amicable thoughts about the point I wanted to make. It just keeps getting trapped in the shrill screeching of my nicotine liberated nervous system. Sorry!
You probably just need a nice cup of coffee.
91: I'm dying to make a joke about how No, that was the vows, but my niece is actually very nice, and I have the impression that her husband may not be a complete douchebag. There, I've ruined it.
87 sounds exactly like my 10 year college reunion.
I'll be skipping the 15 year reunion this fall.
You probably just need a nice cup of coffee.
Yeah, funny about that. Turns out large amounts of caffeine actually aren't as soothing as you'd think. I'm learning!