Goodbye ... and good riddance to all that

A couple of weeks ago, I was brunching with my ''high school girls,'' eight graduates of Montreal's now-shuttered Wagar High who live in Toronto. We're an eclectic bunch, with liberal, progressive views -- although some of us clash wildly on Israel, and not in ways you might expect.

Anyway.

The conversation turned from kids and grandkids, weddings and bar mitzvahs, to the U.S. election and how we felt about Hillary (sometimes Rodham) Clinton. Eventually we got to talking about porn (as I was writing something about that) and then to what had happened to feminism and then back to Clinton.

As my friend Claire said, and I paraphrase here, the entire future of women's rights rests upon her election. Love her or hate her, she had to win -- or all women lose because the resulting nyah-nyah-nyah from the misogynists of America would become a deafening and dangerous roar.

We solemnly agreed, even though some of us were really Barack Obama fans or John Edwards supporters.

We recognized that the stakes are high, very high, for women.

That brings me to this, forwarded to me on Saturday by Michele Landsberg, journalist, activist, author, feminist and former Star columnist, whose space I occupy but shoes cannot fill. It's written by Robin Morgan, who has been making her own feminist waves for years.

I am reprinting it here in full, with permission.

It says it all and you should read it all.

(It's unedited below but I have changed up some links.)

GOODBYE TO ALL THAT #2

“Goodbye To All That” was my (in)famous 1970 essay breaking free from a politics of accommodation especially affecting women.

During my decades in civil-rights, anti-war, and contemporary women’s movements, I’ve avoided writing another specific “Goodbye . . .”. But not since the suffrage struggle have two communities--the joint conscience-keepers of this country--been so set in competition, as the contest between Hillary Rodham Clinton (HRC) and Barack Obama (BO) unfurls. So.

Goodbye to the double standard . . .

--Hillary is too ballsy but too womanly, a Snow Maiden who’s emotional, and so much a politician as to be unfit for politics.

--She’s “ambitious” but he shows “fire in the belly.” (Ever had labor pains? )

--When a sexist idiot screamed “Iron my shirt!” at HRC, it was considered amusing; if a racist idiot shouted “Shine my shoes!” at BO, it would’ve inspired hours of airtime and pages of newsprint analyzing our national dishonor.

--Young political Kennedys--Kathleen, Kerry, and Bobby Jr.--all endorsed Hillary. Sen. Ted, age 76, endorsed Obama. If the situation were reversed, pundits would snort “See? Ted and establishment types back her, but the forward-looking generation backs him.” (Personally, I’m unimpressed with Caroline’s longing for the Return of the Fathers. Unlike the rest of the world, Americans have short memories. Me, I still recall Marilyn Monroe’s suicide, and a dead girl named Mary Jo Kopechne in Chappaquiddick.)

Goodbye to the toxic viciousness  . . .

Carl Bernstein's disgust at Hillary’s “thick ankles.” Nixon-trickster Roger Stone’s new Hillary-hating 527 group, “Citizens United Not Timid” (check the capital letters). John McCain answering “How do we beat the bitch?" with “Excellent question!” Would he have dared reply similarly to “How do we beat the black bastard?” For shame.

Goodbye to the HRC nutcracker with metal spikes between splayed thighs. If it was a tap-dancing blackface doll, we would be righteously outraged—and they would not be selling it in airports. Shame.

Goodbye to the most intimately violent T-shirts in election history, including one with the murderous slogan “If Only Hillary had married O.J. Instead!” Shame.

Goodbye to Comedy Central’s South Park featuring a storyline in which terrorists secrete a bomb in HRC’s vagina. I refuse to wrench my brain down into the gutter far enough to find a race-based comparison. For shame.

Goodbye to the sick, malicious idea that this is funny. This is not “Clinton hating,” not “Hillary hating.” This is sociopathic woman-hating. If it were about Jews, we would recognize it instantly as anti-Semitic propaganda; if about race, as KKK poison.  Hell, PETA would go ballistic if such vomitous spew were directed at animals. Where is our sense of outrage—as citizens, voters, Americans?

Goodbye to the news-coverage target-practice . . .

The women’s movement and Media Matters wrung an apology from MSNBC’s Chris Matthews for relentless misogynistic comments. But what about NBC’s Tim Russert’s continual sexist asides and his all-white-male panels pontificating on race and gender? Or CNN’s Tony Harris chuckling at “the chromosome thing” while interviewing a woman from The White House Project? And that’s not even mentioning Fox News.

Goodbye to pretending the black community is entirely male and all women are white . . .

Surprise! Women exist in all opinions, pigmentations, ethnicities, abilities, sexual preferences, and ages--not only African American and European American but Latina and Native American, Asian American and Pacific Islanders, Arab American and—hey, every group, because a group wouldn’t be alive if we hadn’t given birth to it. A few non-racist countries may exist--but sexism is everywhere. No matter how many ways a woman breaks free from other oppressions, she remains a female human being in a world still so patriarchal that it’s the “norm.”

So why should all women not be as justly proud of our womanhood and the centuries, even millennia, of struggle that got us this far, as black Americans, women and men, are justly proud of their struggles?

Goodbye to a campaign where he has to pass as white (which whites—especially wealthy ones--adore), while she has to pass as male (which both men and women demanded of her, and then found unforgivable). If she were black or he were female we wouldn’t be having such problems, and I for one would be in heaven. But at present such a candidate wouldn’t stand a chance—even if she shared Condi Rice’s Bush-defending politics.

I was celebrating the pivotal power at last focused on African American women deciding on which of two candidates to bestow their vote--until a number of Hillary-supporting black feminists told me they’re being called “race traitors.”

So goodbye to conversations about this nation’s deepest scar—slavery—which fail to acknowledge that labor- and sexual-slavery exist today in the US and elsewhere on this planet, and the majority of those enslaved are women.

Women have endured sex/race/ethnic/religious hatred, rape and battery, invasion of spirit and flesh,  forced pregnancy;  being the majority of the poor, the illiterate, the disabled, of refugees, caregivers, the HIV/AIDS afflicted, the powerless. We have survived invisibility, ridicule, religious fundamentalisms, polygamy, teargas, forced feedings, jails, asylums, sati, purdah, female genital mutilation, witch burnings, stonings, and attempted gynocides. We have tried reason, persuasion, reassurances, and being extra-qualified, only to learn it never was about qualifications after all. We know that at this historical moment women experience the world differently from men--though not all the same as one another--and can govern differently, from Elizabeth Tudor to Michele Bachelet and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

We remember when Shirley Chisholm and Patricia Schroeder ran for this high office and barely got past the gate—they showed too much passion, raised too little cash, were joke fodder. Goodbye to all that. (And goodbye to some feminists so famished for a female president they were even willing to abandon women’s rights  in backing Elizabeth Dole.)

Goodbye, goodbye to . . .

--blaming anything Bill Clinton does on Hillary (even including his womanizing like the Kennedy guys--though unlike them, he got reported on). Let’s get real. If he hadn’t campaigned strongly for her everyone would cluck over what that meant. Enough of Bill and Teddy Kennedy locking their alpha male horns while Hillary pays for it.

--an era when parts of the populace feel so disaffected by politics that a comparative lack of knowledge, experience, and skill is actually seen as attractive, when celebrity-culture mania now infects our elections so that it’s “cooler” to glow with marquee charisma than to understand the vast global complexities of power on a nuclear, wounded planet.

--the notion that it’s fun to elect a handsome, cocky president who feels he can learn on the job, goodbye to George W. Bush and the destruction brought by his inexperience, ignorance, and arrogance.

Goodbye to the accusation that HRC acts “entitled” when she’s worked intensely at everything she’s done—including being a nose-to-the-grindstone, first-rate senator from my state.

Goodbye to her being exploited as a Rorschach test by women who reduce her to a blank screen on which they project their own fears, failures, fantasies.

Goodbye to the phrase “polarizing figure”  to describe someone who embodies the transitions women have made in the last century and are poised to make in this one. It was the women’s movement that quipped, “We are becoming  the men we wanted to marry.” She heard us, and she has.

Goodbye to some women letting history pass by while wringing their hands, because Hillary isn’t as “likeable” as they’ve been warned they must be, or because she didn’t leave him, couldn’t “control” him, kept her family together and raised a smart, sane daughter. (Think of the blame if Chelsea had ever acted in the alcoholic, neurotic manner of the Bush twins!) Goodbye to some women pouting because she didn’t bake cookies or she did, sniping because she learned the rules and then bent or broke them. Grow the hell up. She is not running for Ms.-perfect-pure-queen-icon of the feminist movement.  She is running to be President of the United States.

Goodbye to the shocking American ignorance of our own and other countries’ history. Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir rose through party ranks and war, positioning themselves as proto-male leaders. Almost all other female heads of government so far have been related to men of power—granddaughters, daughters, sisters, wives, widows: Gandhi, Bandaranike, Bhutto, Aquino, Chamorro, Wazed, Macapagal-Arroyo, Johnson Sirleaf, Bachelet, Kirchner, and more. Even in our “land of opportunity,” it’s mostly the first pathway “in” permitted to women: Reps. Doris Matsui and Mary Bono and Sala Burton; Sen. Jean Carnahan . . . far too many to list here.

Goodbye to a misrepresented generational divide . . .

Goodbye to the so-called spontaneous “Obama Girl” flaunting her bikini-clad ass online—then confessing Oh yeah it wasn’t her idea after all, some guys got her to do it and dictated the clothes, which she said “made me feel like a dork.”

Goodbye to some young women eager to win male approval by showing they’re not feminists (at least not the kind who actually threaten the status quo), who can’t identify with a woman candidate because she is unafraid of eeueweeeu yucky power, who fear their boyfriends might look at them funny if they say something good about her. Goodbye to women of any age again feeling unworthy, sulking “what if she’s not electable?” or “maybe it’s post-feminism and whoooosh we’re already free.” Let a statement by the magnificent Harriet Tubman stand as reply. When asked how she managed to save hundreds of enslaved African Americans via the Underground Railroad during the Civil War, she replied bitterly, “I could have saved thousands—if only I’d been able to convince them they were slaves.”

I’d rather say a joyful Hello to all the glorious young women who do identify with Hillary, and all the brave, smart men—of all ethnicities and any age--who get that it’s in their self-interest, too. She’s better qualified. (D’uh.) She’s a high-profile candidate with an enormous grasp of foreign- and domestic-policy nuance, dedication to detail, ability to absorb staggering insult and personal pain while retaining dignity, resolve, even humor, and keep on keeping on. (Also, yes, dammit, let’s hear it for her connections and funding and party-building background, too. Obama was awfully glad about those when she raised dough and campaigned for him to get to the Senate in the first place.)

I’d rather look forward to what a good president he might make in eight years, when his vision and spirit are seasoned by practical know-how--and he’ll be all of 54. Meanwhile, goodbye to turning him into a shining knight when actually he’s an astute, smooth pol with speechwriters who’ve worked with the Kennedys’ own speechwriter-courtier Ted Sorenson. If it’s only about ringing rhetoric, let speechwriters run. But isn’t it about getting the policies we want enacted?

And goodbye to the ageism . . .

How dare anyone unilaterally decide when to turn the page on history, papering over real inequities and suffering constituencies in the promise of a feel-good campaign? How dare anyone claim to unify while dividing, or think that to rouse US youth from torpor it’s useful to triage the single largest demographic in this country’s history: the boomer generation--the majority of which is female?

Older women are the one group that doesn’t grow more conservative with age—and we are the generation of radicals who said “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” Goodbye to going gently into any goodnight any man prescribes for us. We are the women who changed the reality of the United States. And though we never went away, brace yourselves: we’re back!

We are the women who brought this country equal credit, better pay, affirmative action, the concept of a family-focused workplace; the women who established rape-crisis centers and battery shelters, marital-rape and date-rape laws; the women who defended lesbian custody rights, who fought for prison reform, founded the peace and environmental movements; who insisted that medical research include female anatomy, who inspired men to become more nurturing parents, who created women’s studies and Title IX so we all could cheer the WNBA stars and Mia Hamm. We are the women who reclaimed sexuality from violent pornography, who put child care on the national agenda, who transformed demographics, artistic expression, language itself. We are the women who forged a worldwide movement. We are the proud successors of women who, though it took more than 50 years, won us the vote.

We are the women who now comprise the majority of US voters.

Hillary said she found her own voice in New Hampshire. There’s not a woman alive who, if she’s honest, doesn’t recognize what she means. Then HRC got drowned out by campaign experts, Bill, and media’s obsession with All Things Bill.

So listen to her voice:

“For too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Even today, there are those who are trying to silence our words.

“It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls. It is a violation of human rights when woman and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution. It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small. It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war. It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide along women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes. It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.

“Women’s rights are human rights. Among those rights are the right to speak freely--and the right to be heard.”

That was Hillary Rodham Clinton defying the US State Department and the Chinese Government at the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing (the full, stunning speech: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/hillaryclintonbeijingspeech.htm).

And this voice, age 22, in “Commencement Remarks of Hillary D. Rodham, President of Wellesley College Government Association, Class of 1969” (full speech: http://www.wellesley.edu/PublicAffairs/Commencement/1969/053169hillary.html)

“We are, all of us, exploring a world none of us understands. . . . searching for a more immediate, ecstatic, and penetrating mode of living. . . . [for the] integrity, the courage to be whole, living in relation to one another in the full poetry of existence. The struggle for an integrated life existing in an atmosphere of communal trust and respect is one with desperately important political and social consequences. . . . Fear is always with us, but we just don't have time for it.”

She ended with the commitment “to practice, with all the skill of our being: the art of making possible.”

And for decades, she’s been learning how.

So goodbye to Hillary’s second-guessing herself. The real question is deeper than her re-finding her voice. Can we women find ours? Can we do this for ourselves?  “Our President, Ourselves!”

Time is short and the contest tightening. We need to rise in furious energy--as we did when courageous Anita Hill was so vilely treated in the US Senate, as we did when desperate Rosie Jiminez was butchered by an illegal abortion, as we did and do for women globally who are condemned for trying to break through. We need to win, this time. Goodbye to supporting HRC tepidly, with ambivalent caveats and apologetic smiles. Time to  volunteer, make phone calls, send emails, donate money, argue, rally, march, shout, vote.

Me? I support Hillary Rodham because she’s the best qualified of all candidates running in both parties. I support her because her progressive politics are as strong as her proven ability to withstand what will be a massive right-wing assault in the general election. I support her because she’s refreshingly thoughtful, and I’m bloodied from eight years of a jolly “uniter” with ejaculatory politics. I needn’t agree with her on every point. I agree with the 97 percent of her positions that are identical with Obama’s—and the few where hers are both more practical and to the left of his (like health care). I support her because she’s already smashed the first-lady stereotype and made history as a fine senator, and because I believe she will continue to make history not only as the first US woman president, but as a great US president.

As for the “woman thing”?

Me, I’m voting for Hillary not because she’s a woman--but because I am.

And I say, Amen to all that.

Comments

[Francesca]

Hello - to hope
Hello - to motivation
Hello - to a new world

Thank you

[Flashman]

In the kind of cheap-ass identity politics you embrace, Race trumps Gender.

Every time;), baby.

[Marky Mark]

Very interesting post. Putting it another way, if a woman in the middle of her first term in the Senate were running for President, would she be taken seriously at all? Not a chance.

Watching the debate the other night it seemed beyond clear that Senator Clinton is dramatically more prepared to be President than her opponent. She displayed a complete mastery of all the issues unlike I've seen any other candidate display in any campaign.

[arthurdecco]

Hilary Clinton is a self-proclaimed war-monger, but gurlz should vote for her because she's a she and understands the issues that concern gurlz?

Fer crissakes, she's to the right of Attila the Hun when it comes to marauding and pillaging!

Did I miss something? ...Or doesn't that stuff matter any more, Antonia?

Have we really slipped so far over the edge into Wonderland - into that claustrophobic tunnel stuffed full to bursting with Alice’s and Rabbits and Madness and the Mad that grow out of getting away with Mass Murder, out of purposefully stripping society of their civil rights and laying the groundwork for a police state? All with the purring acquiescence of your darling - the progressive, feminist Hillary, who only casually resembles the worst of her opponents except in the most fundamental of ways?

Is it a manglish and womanese kinda thing? You know - two phonetically similar dialects with different meanings for same-sounding words and I have it all disastrously wrong?

IMO, the world needs a Hilary Presidency like it needs a quick bout of Black Death. Cripes! She's McCain, only smarter and scarier!

And I haven't even mentioned Bill…

Grandiloquent Bill…

[Marsha RayDragan]

THANK YOU ANTONIA FOR SHARING THIS ARTICLE!!!!

I printed it and I'm gonna mail it to my mother who lives in Maryland. I think my mom will read it reluctantly (she wants Obama to get the nomination), but then will be nodding her head in agreement in many, many places.

It will really add to the way we discuss this election.

I'm also sending it to all the women I know.

IT'S PERFECT AND SAYS IT ALL, IN MY OPINION.

[Marky Mark]

The abandonment of Senator Clinton by a good chunk of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party is absolutely stunning. I agree that Senator Obama is impressive, especially as a gifted speaker. But he is only half way through his first term in the US Senate. Only three Presidents have come directly from the Senate, the disastrous Warren Harding and JFK. But JFK was not in his first term, and had previously served in the House. He also was a war hero and award winning author. For Senator Obama to be viewed as the heir to JFK, RFK and the lost potential of the 60's is not based in reality. For Senator Clinton to be tarred with the status quo label and equated with Bush is not only ridiculous, but cruel.

Erica Jong had a piece in the Washington Post yesterday which she called "Hillary vs. The Patriarchy"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/03/AR2008020303194.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Perhaps her theory explains how so many people are so enthralled with her opponent who, as of now, when people are voting, is completed and utterly unproven and unprepared. He'd be a great candidate in 2016, perhaps 2012.

Senator Clinton is dramatically more qualified and better prepared for the job. In terms of the substance of the issues, they aren't that far apart except when it comes to universal health care. On that issue, she favours such a system. Obama does not. Yet Ted Kennedy not only endorses him over her, he passes the torch of his slain brothers-for the first time since their assassinations-to him.

It makes no sense.

[annemarie]

Hey Arthur Decco!
I agree with what you've written. It's sexist, illogical and irrational to favour Hillary Clinton because she's a woman or as in another's words, "because I am".

Furthermore, I don't favour any of the candidates. I also regard the entire political process as being rigged/corrupted. And for that reason alone (were I American) I would not vote. I don't participate in corrupted elections anymore as it would be merely settling for the lesser of all the evils, which still amounts to evil. Non merci!

Not a dime's worth of real, valuable or worthwhile difference between any of the candidates, if you ask me.

[arthurdecco]

"Not a dime's worth of real, valuable or worthwhile difference between any of the candidates, if you ask me." Posted by annemarie

There certainly isn't any meaningful difference between the candidates still standing, annemarie, although I think there were some credible, alternative candidates in the early days of the scripted circus known as "the American Primary Season". They're all gone now.

Unfortunately, the good guys got left behind by the Myopic Media Juggernaut. No surprise, doanchathink?

[Diana Marie]

Would never vote for a candidate just because of their sex. In this case I see Sen. Clinton as business as usual in Washington, the establishment candidate with dynastic ambitions - had enough of that with the Bush lot.
The US needs inspiration, to look beyond the chaos of today. I think that's what Sen. Kennedy saw in Sen. Obama and I agree with him 100%. Experience is not everything by a long shot (that's what well-chosen advisors are for), and I definitely believe Obama has the capacity to unite, to seek consensus, and to stay above the fray. There is no question he has lit a fuse under the Democratic-minded youth of America and that has to be good.
However, Clinton may have the edge in the end because of her (and Bill's) vast network, plus the likelihood that Americans may not have the confidence to take a leap of faith and embrace REAL change and vigour.
Having said all that I'm not American and have no vote and am miffed I have to get some sleep before the California vote comes in!
Obama for President....... :)

[Chris Moorehead]

While I'm salivating at the thought of finally being rid of the Republicans, I remain unconvinced that Hillary Clinton is anything more than a new version of Margaret Thatcher dressed up in slightly more stylish clothing. I keep hearing about her "experience" compared to that of Obama, but what's really the difference? Obama is in the middle of his first Senate term, while Hillary is...close to the end of her first Senate term. Her performance as a Senator has been lacklustre to say the least - she appears to have spent her entire term running for President, and has no significant legislation to her credit.

In addition, we should all be concerned about her apparent attitude towards Canada. She has continued to spout the canard that some of the 9/11 hijackers entered the US from Canada long after it had been discredited, and, when called on it, her response has been "everyone knows that". Even John Ashcroft admitted that this was incorrect within 24 hours of the attack.

What her "experience" really boils down to is...her husband was once President. By this standard, I think I'm going to start practising labour law, since that's what my wife does for a living.

Ironically, the most progressive Democratic candidate originally in the race was the white guy from North Carolina. Unfortunately, John Edwards was overwhelmed by voters who couldn't see beyond race or gender. As a result, the Democratic electorate is polarizing and fracturing, which may allow John McCain to slither up the middle to victory in November.

[Marky Mark]

Chris,

Senator Clinton was first elected in 2000. She is now in her second term. She has been in the Senate for twice as long as Senator Obama.

In assessing what legislation she has sponsored, to be fair you have to keep in mind that the Republicans have had control of the Senate for most of her tenure and at no point have the Democrats had a working majority. But if you look at her webpage on the US Senate's site, you can look up the bills that she has sponsored and compare and contrast her work in the Senate with that of her opponent.

In any event, nobody is arguing that Senator Obama's record as a Senator is a better record than hers. It's more of a nebulous argument that he represents "change" and she does not. Most people accept that their substantive positions on the issues are very much aligned, with the exception of health care where she favours universal coverage and he does not.

Her record as First Lady (as well as First Lady of Arkansas) is part of her public service as is her other public advocacy work that she has done for a period of over 35 years. (Examples, as First Lady of Arkansas, she chaired the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee, co-founded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, and served on the boards of the Arkansas Children's Hospital, Legal Services, and the Children's Defense Fund. She also led the failed health care reform initiative in Bill Clinton's first term, and wrote a best selling book, "It Takes a Village.")

Of course nobody is required to support her because she is a woman. The question is whether she is judged by the same or by different standards as would be used in judging a man. I think to a certain extent where the rubber hits the road is whether one values her own work and accomplishments or views them as solely derivative of the work done by her husband over the same period. To say that her argument for the Presidency is that her husband was once President (I'd call this argument the "Evita Argument") is not justifiable on the facts. Unlike Eva Peron, Senator Clinton has a real record of public service. In fact, I think that when you compare her record on the merits to that of her opponent, her record is the better record. I accept that if her opponent were different, or if she and her opponent offered stark alternatives on the issues, it is possible that her claim to the nomination would be the lesser claim. But those aren't are our facts. She's running against a freshman Senator who generally shares her views, not against FDR.

[Chris Moorehead]

Sorry about the error - I had remembered her as being elected to the Senate in 2002. I did live in the US at the time, but my memory of that period is growing mercifully dim. Let's just say it got pretty frightening, particularly in the days following 9/11.

Personally, I'm not particularly enamoured of either candidate. My impression of Hillary is that she's been running for President since she entered the Senate, though to be fair that's all Obama has been doing as well. In my opinion, the only viable candidate that's offered much more than platitudes was John Edwards, and he's out of the running.

Unfortunately, the Democrats have a talent for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and this Clinton/Obama slugfest has the potential to keep voters away from the polls in droves. This, combined with John McCain's alleged reputation as a "moderate" (absurd, since he's probably the most right wing of the entire bunch of Republican candidates) may siphon off swing voters (independents and the infamous "Reagan Democrats"), and result in a Republican victory.

From a purely Machiavellian point of view, the loser of the Democratic race has everything to gain by torpedoing the candidacy of the victor. It will totally discredit that candidate, and undoubtedly assure that the primary "loser" becomes President in 2012. Both Clinton and Obama are young enough that they can afford to wait if necessary. And four more years of Republican mismanagement will just make the endgame even more inevitable.

Six months ago, I would have said that the Democrats could run Charles Manson as their candidate and still be assured of victory. However, I neglected to factor in the Democratic gift for self-destruction. We'll see what happens, but I'm not hopeful.

[stephen.reeves]

I thought you did not like Hilary because she supported the overthrow of a fascist dictator, who did not like the U.S.

[Diana Marie]

Nice resume Marky Mark, I'm sure Mrs. Clinton would appreciate it. But you missed one of her board experiences .......

Hillary Clinton & Walmart: A love story
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0207-34.htm

"...And the board Hillary Clinton sat on was rabidly anti-union, was exploiting sweatshop labor around the world, discriminating against women workers, forcing workers to labor off the clock and destroying communities that did not want them. This should not be a shock: Clinton was a partner in the Rose law firm, one of the most active anti-union law firms in the country.
So, the question still remains: what did Hillary Clinton do—or, not do—when she served on the board of Wal-Mart? Maybe, if her memory was refreshed, she could tell us how she protested the company’s relentless union-busting, expressed feminist outrage at the widespread discrimination against women and was horrified that the mushrooming wealth of the Wal-Mart family was made possible on the backs of slave labor around the world....."

[marshall_burson]

Stanford law prof Lawrence Lessig has issued a compelling assessment of the stakes in this race. He agrees that the distinction is not one of policy but of moral courage and integrity, not inconsequential elements of political character. You can find it here:

http://lessig.org/blog/4obama.mov

[P A]

Love this ironic line:
"Goodbye to her being exploited as a Rorschach test by women who reduce her to a blank screen on which they project their own fears, failures, fantasies."

I'll be damned if that's not the reason this article exists in the first place!

[J Deinhart]

Antonia: You hit the nail on the head - racist remarks are taboo, but gender bashing seems to be fine. The double standard thrives. Thanks for a real eye-opener.

[a.j.]

I am not surprised to see this opinion coming out of Canada. Hillary Clinton is a privileged white woman, and let's face it middle class white women enjoy far more privilege than visible minority males and especially over visible minority women. The notion of a coloured person being Canada's head of government is not even a remote possibility for anytime in the near future. Simply look at Canada's cabinet, how many middle or upper class white women are in cabinet and how many visible minorities (ZERO!). When it comes to progress and race, especially in politics, Canada is light years behind the United States. The brutal truth is that in Canada, and in politics in particular, white middle class women enjoy far more privilege than any visible minority and the numbers completely back that up as fact.

[Antonia]

Thanks AJ. It's true that white men enjoy many more privileges than visibility minority men, and that visible minority women are at the bottom of the heap. They constitute the greatest number of minimum wage workers in Canada.

But it's a Conservative government, isn't it? Not many ethnics in that caucus or cabinet.

http://pm.gc.ca/eng/cabinet.asp

What's more, the Conservative caucus has a pathetic percentage of women -- period. (And by the way, Bev Oda is the first Canadian of japanese heritage to make it to the House of commons, and the cabinet. You forgot her.)

http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Parlinfo/lists/Members.aspx?Language=E&Parliament=0d5d5236-70f0-4a7e-8c96-68f985128af9&Riding=&Name=&Party=&Province=&Gender=F&New=False&Current=True&Picture=False

http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Parlinfo/Files/Parliamentarian.aspx?Item=39a65c4b-9038-463b-a6ba-a22d94707191&Language=E&MenuID=Lists.Members.aspx&MenuQuery=http%3A%2F%2Fwww2.parl.gc.ca%2FParlinfo%2Flists%2FMembers.aspx%3FLanguage%3DE%26Parliament%3D0d5d5236-70f0-4a7e-8c96-68f985128af9%26Riding%3D%26Name%3D%26Party%3D%26Province%3D%26Gender%3DF%26New%3DFalse%26Current%3DTrue%26Picture%3DFalse