The fundies made him do it

According to this report on the ABC's website, Sarah Palin was a last-minute second choice after McCain's first pick as running mate, Senator Joe Lieberman, was rejected by the fundie lobby. The evangelical Christians threatened a revolt at this week's Republican Convention, saying they would overturn the decision on the floor, as the saying goes. Picture the scene. Oh never mind.

Without the support of 'the conservative Christian base of the party', McCain was told, he would certainly lose the election.

Lieberman is an Independent Senator and a former Democrat. He is Jewish. And he is pro-choice.

I particularly like the punch line of the ABC's report:

[Palin's] selection by Senator McCain immediately excited the evangelical base and his campaign received around $US10 million in donations over the weekend.

Yes, she's gorgeous; now can we talk about something else?

Predictably, depressingly, talk in certain sections of the blogosphere has already turned to the looks of mooseburger-eatin' VPILF Sarah Palin, John McCain's surprise choice of running mate.

Other possible talking points (always with the caveat that what you read online, and certainly on Wikipedia, might not be accurate):

-- Of all womankind, only Geraldine Ferraro has ever got this officially close to the presidency until now.

-- Palin is a pro-life, pro-death-penalty gun nut who loves to kill animals. (Are we confused yet?)

-- The various nicknames and titles earned in the course of Palin's interesting past include Mayor, Sarah Barracuda, Governor, and Miss Congeniality.

-- Palin is a member of that strange organisation Feminists for Life, and props to her for not shying away from the word 'feminist', which indicates to me that unlike many of the right-wing men, um, dribbling over her image as we speak, she actually knows what the word means and understands that there's more than one way of being a feminist.

-- She has visited precisely three countries outside the US: Ireland, Germany and Kuwait.

But never mind what she knows or thinks about the world, life, death, gender, family or any of that stuff -- because lo, she is fuckable. And as we all know, that's all that matters.

The Tibetan flag and the best possible answer

The mayor of Unley (an inner (sub)urban Adelaide local council) was on ABC radio this afternoon being interviewed about the protest calls and emails he has had from, among other bodies, the Australia-China Friendship Society about the Council flying the Tibetan flag.

Since this story was published on May 5, the Mayor must have come on board, because he was vigorously defending his Council's actions. Asked what he thought about the Australia-China Friendship Society's protests, he gave the best answer there was: he pointed out how wonderful it was to live in a country where (a) a local council was free to fly a flag, and (b) anyone was free to protest.

Don't believe what you see on the teeve

Back in my academic days I would have the same conversation over and over again with successive waves of (mostly female) students. You know, the one that goes like this:

THEM: I'm not a feminist, but ...

ME: How would you define a feminist? What would you say a feminist is?

THEM: Feminists are hairy-legged lesbians in overalls who go to demonstrations and are shrill and scream a lot and hate men. If I was a feminist I would never get a boyfriend and nobody would ever want to marry me.

[Mass gestures of curl-patting, nose-powdering and swishing of short silken skirts.]

ME: And you know this how?

THEM: We see it on TV!

ME: Okay; what sex would you say the person holding the camera was? The director? The writer? The producer? The station company CEO? The owner of the station?

THEM: Oh. Um.

With that in mind, read the post I've linked to down there. It's not so much 'about' Hillary Clinton as it is about the way she has been represented in the US meeja.

I don't even know if I'm barracking for Clinton. Most people are telling me not to. Yes I know what she said about Iraq and alas yes I also know what she's now said about Iran. Yes I know she tells lies (just like every other politician on the planet, but still). Yes yes yes I know.

But.

Anyway. Read this. And do watch the clip.

Finally, he tells us how he really feels

As reported in today's online Age, John Howard has hit the conservative American speaking circuit in run-to-Mummy-howling mode, viciously trashing his successor. In case you ever entertained a sneaking suspicion that Howard couldn't possibly be as bad as we thought, here's how the Age reports his speech:

Among conservative Americans, Howard has found a new and sympathetic audience for culture wars.

Take this for a bit of uncompromising rhetoric: "Those who hold to conservative values continue to face a major ideological battle. The left liberal grip on educational institutions and large, though not all, sections of the media remains intense." And he's back to his old suspicions of global warming, which has "become a new battleground. The same intellectual bullying and moralising, used in other debates, now dominates what passes for serious dialogue on this issue".

There was praise of Ronald Reagan and "that other great warrior in our cause, Margaret Thatcher" who taught the importance of remaining "culturally assertive"; and a warning that "if the butter of common national values is spread too thinly it will disappear altogether".

He's even adopted the American idiom, with a reference to his government giving "faith-based groups direct involvement in policy making and execution".

Got that? That's the "great" Margaret Thatcher. That's "faith-based groups" given free rein to trample on the time-honoured doctrine of the separation of powers, something that is or ought to be one of the pillars of the modern state.

I can only echo what David Marr said about last November's election in his Meet the Author session at Adelaide Writers' Week on Wednesday: "I'm glad Howard didn't resign. I'm glad we were able to do it to him.'

And another thing: what's with the butter? If Howard plans to skim the cream of the speaking circuit he had better polish up his rhetorical skills; his butter metaphor makes no sense at all. What is the toast in this metaphor? What is the knife, and who is wielding it? For whose breakfast are we buttering this toast, and is there any Vegemite?

Guy Rundle on the US primaries trail

I'm proud to say I've been a fan of Guy Rundle's work for many years -- everything from the high-end intellectual analysis of political theory to the hysterical comedy routines for Max Gillies -- and I am really, really enjoying the excellent work he's doing for crikey.com.au as he follows the Obamas and the Clintons round the country.

Here he is this morning, in full flight, on the subject of Clinton's utterly disgraceful bottom-of-the-barrel 'plagiarism' accusations. You can see the logic of her behaviour -- attack Obama's biggest weapon: his eloquence -- but the failure of emotional intelligence here is palpable. It's hard to believe she doesn't know what this looks like; it's like being frozen with embarrassment in a restaurant as you watch a fellow-diner sashay back to her table from the ladies' loo, blissfully unaware that she's got the back of her skirt tucked up into the waist of her pantyhose. Most observers are speechless at such times, but not, I'm glad to say, Guy:

'The Obama plagiarism charges were leaked by the Clinton camp, and Hillary then came round the front to argue that it was the media who was raising the issue so how could she not comment? Etc. ...

The strategy could well rebound because, while it would be unfair to suggest that camp Obama would never do this sort of thing if on the backfoot, the mixture of cheap shots, deniability and logic chopping feels so damn Clintonesque that it can't help but suggest the worst of times, when Bill was caught with his pants down – Hah! You see what I did there! Suck on that Henderson! - arguing about what the definition of ”is” is. It's a measure of how utterly desperate, or kool-aided up, they are that they've taken what is not so much the low road as the subway. Why now on badger-ukelele primary eve (a term I just invented using Wisconsin's state mascot) rather than droppin da bomb before the Cowboy-Buckeye-Maplesyrup-Red (let's just hope that "Firewall" name sticks) primary? Presumably because there's so few delegates up for grabs, and Bama owns Hawaii's ass, bottom, no say it goddamit, owns its ass! Camp Clinton is using this one as a trial run to see how dirty they can get before there's blowback.

Still, what really scares me is how inept Obama was in batting it back. Goddamit from brushing it off – "I prefer to think of it as homage" – to dead-bat – "the words expressed the thought perfectly so I used them, you can't footnote everything in a speech" – to a straight reversal – "well it's a good thing Hillary wants to debate the issues" – to the Manchester approach "you want stabbing, you" - I'd thought of half a dozen cute replies as soon as I heard it, and I bet you had too.'

The adversarial system strikes again

Image courtesy of Tigtog at Hoyden About Town, where she has some terrific commentary on it and on recent disquieting campaign developments here.

How to keep 'em barefoot and pregnant down on the farm (if not in jail)

Amanda at Pandagon (tx to Kim at LP for this link) observes the predictable sexist US media reaction to a bit of a crack in Hillary Clinton's voice during an emotional speech:

It’s bad enough that the media plays the game with Clinton where if she shows any emotion, she’s too feminine or too scary, but if she’s more stoic, she’s a scary ballbuster.

Remind you of anyone?

Hardly worth the bother

"Registering your telephone number on the Do Not Call Register will not stop all telemarketing calls to your number. There are some exemptions which enable certain public interest organisations to make telemarketing calls. Exempt organisations include charities, religious organisations and registered political parties. You can also still receive calls from market researchers."

Que ...?

Lose on the roundabouts, lose on the swings

In the immediate wake of Steve Bracks's shock resignation as Premier of Victoria, a decision in which the very public problems of his children played a major part, and after eight years as Premier that began when the oldest child was still only twelve, Bracks's replacement John Brumby has shown his Heffernan-hued true colours and demonstrated that he has learned less than nothing from his predecessor's life experience.

From today's Age:

'New Premier John Brumby has suggested one of the reasons he overlooked Tim Holding for the Treasury portfolio is that the young Finance Minister is unmarried and has no children.

Asked on ABC TV why he had chosen former education minister John Lenders over Mr Holding for the key job, Mr Brumby replied: "He's a bit older and has had a few more of life's experiences. He's a parent, father, husband. All of those things."'

Got political ambitions? You'd better get breeding, then, if you haven't already. And while you're at it, setting up a trust fund for the sprogs' counselling and rehab in fifteen or twenty years might be a prudent move as well.

What I (apparently) Believe

Further to the Crikey Bias-O-Meter thing, where I found this blog plotted on a left-right graph between Karl Marx and Maggie Thatcher and scoring five Marxes out of a possible ten, I went to this site as directed by some kind fellow blogger and took their really excellent, quite detailed test developed to counter the inadequacy of a one-dimensional left-right model for plotting political positions.

The Political Compass sets you a test and uses your answers to plot your position on a two-dimensional graph with a vertical authoritarian-libertarian axis as well as a horizontal left-right one. It's a detailed and quite long list of statements with four options for response from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree, without the usual Neutral or Couldn't Give a Rat's option. I guess someone sufficiently interested in quantifying individual ideology with that much finesse of calibration doesn't believe in anything as wussy as a Couldn't Give a Rat's option in the first place.

They don't (yet) make the results available in easily bloggable form, but I can report that my answers put me smack bang in the exact middle of the Libertarian Left quadrant, midway along the short diagonal line that joins Nelson Mandela to the Dalai Lama. Very chuffed-making, considering that some of the other plotted positions on their illustrative diagrams include those of Hitler, Stalin, Thatcher, Dubya and Robert Mugabe as well as, on their special (and very interesting) graph for composers, Wagner. I was pleased to note that Mozart and Beethoven are down there in the libertarian left corner with me.

I wonder how hard it would be to develop some comparably detailed (or even more detailed) position-plotting test for feminism. I also took the personality-identifying 'What's your ideal scent?' test provided as light weekend entertainment by Lauredhel over at Hoyden About Town, thus revealing a certain penchant for Third Wave fluffy feminist pinkitude that had hitherto not been apparent. Not to me, anyway. (NB the colour of this blog is merely camouflage.)

I am, it seems, a Vixen (who knew) and should be wearing something called Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb at $120 -- and for all I know, that is American dollars -- per 50 mils. Look up there in the sky! See the dear little flying piggies?

Eeek

I am at once deeply honoured and completely freaked to have scored a mention in today's crikey.com.au 'Bias-O-Meter IV: The Blogosphere'.

On the pretty red and blue fan with Marx at one end and Maggie T up the other, they've put me halfway round the red side, scoring five Marxes out of a possible ten, along with The Road to Surfdom. (Perhaps it's an Adelaide thing, though Surfdom is no longer as Adelaide-identified as it was of yore.)

It's hard to know quite what to think about this. Is it true, I wonder. I would never, for example, have scored myself leftier than the redoubtable Tigtog, though in some things I suppose it's possible. But I do have certain shameful, nay, freaky beliefs in things that would get me hung, drawn and quartered by some of the more hard-line elements of the left. I think, for instance, it's a terrible shame that Noel Pearson has just cornered the Australian market in the term 'personal responsibility'; I *whispers* have quite a lot of time for this concept, but I regard Aboriginal people as a special case (what with the whole hopelessly-disadvantaged-for-generations thing), and for the moment, at least, the phrase has become publicly associated with them in ways I wouldn't use myself.

There is a great deal of pressure in the blogosphere to define one's beliefs, but as a lifelong sceptic about prescriptive (and proscriptive) belief systems as such I have always resisted it, so it's quite disconcerting to see oneself quantified so schematically.

Very entertaining, though.

On listening to Matt'n'Dave's interview this morning with the Minister for Water Security

Memo to Matthew Abraham and David Bevan at Adelaide's local ABC radio 891: it's not good interviewing technique, whatever you blokes may think, to ask a question and then interrupt the interviewee halfway through her/his second sentence.

It's an even less good idea to do this in a hectoring and bullying manner. (NB M. Abraham.)

And it's an even less good idea again to do it in a hectoring, bullying manner with a state politician just because s/he is a state politican, or with someone you do not like/agree with/think in your secret heart of hearts that you can outsmart, like Dr Philip Nitschke. (NB M. Abraham in spades.)

I get the feeling these blokes think that hectoring and interrupting makes one look like a good journalist, not giving people a free ride and asking the so-called hard questions. (See that adjective? That's a bit of a clue.) Sorry, boys, that doesn't make one a good journalist. That just makes one a bad interviewer.

Showing my hand here: a National she may be, but I have always liked Karlene Maywald, the SA Minister (due to a unique deal with State Labor govt) for Water Security. She is articulate, realistic, intelligent, pragmatic, reasonable and civilised. She is also all over her portfolio and her constituency.

Matt'n'Dave, on the other hand, might do well to remember that just because they're biggish frogs in a littlish puddle, it doesn't make them kings of the world.

Nor does it make them invulnerable. Rooster, feather duster, etc.

Jill Filipovic and the Googlebomb

Once upon a time there was a woman called Jill Filipovic, a young American law student and feminist blogger.

Jill Filipovic was beginning to make her name as a writer and blogger at Feministe when she came to the notice of a Neanderthal gaggle of male fellow-students.

The sad story of what then happened to Jill Filipovic is told here at Larvatus Prodeo by Tigtog, along with the much happier story of how the name Jill Filipovic, when Googled, began to turn up accurate and respectable results instead of the swampoid sleaze that said Neanderthals had been posting and linking about Jill Filipovic and others.

And for those not yet acquainted with the concept of the Googlebomb, Tigtog's post will explain why I have repeated Jill Filipovic's name umpty squillion times in the last four paragraphs.

Feel free to join in.

North?

A great deal of blogospheric space gets taken up by people laboriously defining their own and others' political positions, with much huffing and puffing about what is right and what is left, but I'd like to see even the most indefatigable ideological labeller have a go at pigeonholing this bloke (as described by the New York Times senior film critic Manohla Dargis, reviewing Amazing Grace):


'Wilberforce, born in 1759, was an abolitionist for much of his adult life and helped bring about the end of the slave trade in the British Empire and then slavery itself. He was an evangelical Christian and social conservative who rallied for animal rights and against trade unions, which makes him a tough nut to crack.'

(Note also the ridiculous number of dishy men in this movie: Ioan Gruffud, Youssou N'Dour, Rufus Sewell and Ciarán Hinds. Oh, my my.)