Saturday: Cerebral Is as Cerebral Does
Posted: April 9, 2011 Filed under: morning reads 54 Comments
Hillary at Blair House, April 4, 2011 (during a bilateral with Shimon Peres).
Morning, news junkies.
First up… a personal note of congratulations to my blogger friend, Lake Lady, who on Wednesday was elected mayor of her small town in MO. Mayor Lake Lady, you are a true inspiration! Throughout your campaign, I’ve been reminded of this quote from Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Now, onto my Saturday reads…
- So, a deal was reached at the 11th hour to avert a government shutdown, at least for now. As D-Day over at FDL said last night:
Once the politics are over, we can assess the policy with clear eyes. And I think you’ll find that the failure to put the 2011 budget to bed in the last Congress cost the economy $60 billion.
- ABC News asks the $64,000 question: Where were the women in the budget debate? Here’s the other $64,000 question, the one that the MSM–as well as most of the prog blogs for that matter–won’t ask: What happened when Nancy Pelosi and “This is what a feminist looks like” Obama were at the Stupakistan table? (The war on women didn’t start with the Republican midterm gains…it just got an upgrade from easily ignored tropical storm to Cat 5 hurricane.)
- The Atlantic’s James Fallows has a couple of posts up on the “uncertainty tax” that the possibility alone of a government shutdown has imposed on government operations, particularly at Hillary Clinton’s State Department… the first post is called Third World on the Potomac, followed up by Government-Shutdown Watch: An Inside View. The good news: Whether or not there was a shutdown, Hillary’s meeting with the highest-ranking woman in the Chinese government, State Councilor Liu Yandong, got the okay to proceed as planned next week. The not-so-good news: According to a reader whose wife works at the State department and wrote in to Fallows (see the “Inside View” link above), “it seems as though the government has been doing nothing this week other than preparing for the shutdown.” Another interesting tidbit from Fallows’ reader:
A semi-hard news tidbit: the disagreement over Planned Parenthood is a smokescreen to hide the fact that they can’t agree on the numbers. What I find so troubling about this is that the WH has met the Republicans about 70% of the way, yet Boehner keep moving the goal posts. Why the WH can’t this storyline into the media is beyond me. But then again, as Dan Balz observes today, we are seeing perhaps yet another example of a cerebral leadership style that is still not working.
- ‘Cerebral’ sure has come to mean something else in these truthy times. (Now, Stephen Colbert…that’s someone I’d peg as having a cerebral style. See the 49-second mark on the clip at the link.)
- I’d also like to say that when it comes to the kind of intelligence that matters, cerebral is as cerebral does. It’s not mere lack of ideas that is plaguing our politics, nor is it as benign as the sanitized “cerebral style” meme would like you to believe. What is plaguing our politics is lack of action and political will. Simple and reasonable ideas like ones on closing the corporate tax loopholes only get floated by the Bernie Sanders in our political class, precisely to be designated as outside the realm of what’s achievable in our current political system.
- Speaking of political bankruptcy, and to link to James Fallows again… he has written an excellent takedown of the “brave and serious” Mr. Ryan, in which he elaborates on his contention that Ryan’s budget proposal is neither brave nor serious but rather “partisan and gimmicky,” which — as Fallows notes — would be par for the course as far as these sorts of plans go, if it weren’t for the laudatory way it has been received.
- Meanwhile, here are the two descriptors Krugman uses for Ryan’s plan: Ludicrous and Cruel. From the link:
In the past, Mr. Ryan has talked a good game about taking care of those in need. But as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out, of the $4 trillion in spending cuts he proposes over the next decade, two-thirds involve cutting programs that mainly serve low-income Americans. And by repealing last year’s health reform, without any replacement, the plan would also deprive an estimated 34 million nonelderly Americans of health insurance.
So the pundits who praised this proposal when it was released were punked. The G.O.P. budget plan isn’t a good-faith effort to put America’s fiscal house in order; it’s voodoo economics, with an extra dose of fantasy, and a large helping of mean-spiritedness.
- Predictable as ever, David Brooks says Ryan’s proposal is the stuff of his political wet dreams: “Liberals are on the warpath. Republicans are aroused. This is great. It’s democracy — how change begins.” Ick. If what is meant by ‘change’ is the American public losing their lunch while listening to the chattering classes hail the destruction of what’s left of the FDR/LBJ social policy legacy, then I’m sure Republicans and DINOs alike will continue to get off on such
changeshort-changing of the American people.
- Where was the beltway punditry last month? Why didn’t they breathlessly praise Bernie Sanders for his Emergency Deficit Reduction Act? Did he not boldly provoke a debate we need to have in this country? Moreover, Sanders’ ideas were actually sound and in line with what the public wants. Paul Ryan’s ideas are neither. Again, we don’t just have a Where’s Waldo president. We have a Where’s Waldo fourth estate.
- Over at FP.com, Rothkopf’s got the perfect piece to read after that nauseating pablum from Brooks: Dear freedom fighters, pay no attention to American democracy. Teaser:
Are you fighting for freedom of speech and assembly and representative government, those supporters must be asking, or is it inadvertently a fight that will ultimately bring you your own versions of Tea-Partiers and gridlock and the complete sacrifice of national interests on the altar of cheap political showmanship?
- Switching gears back to Hillaryland… John McCain at the Christian Science Monitor breakfast earlier this week, upon being asked to rate Obama’s national security team: “I think the international star is Secretary Clinton. She has done a really tremendous job.” Can’t argue with that.
- Here’s some of that tremendous job our Energizer Secretary is doing… via NPR, Clinton Has Tough Words For China On Human Rights. The headline is in reference to yesterday when Hillary unveiled the 35th annual report to Congress on human rights. Click on the link for a transcript of Hillary’s remarks. (Hillary also announced a new website: humanrights.gov. In Hillary’s words, “This site will offer one-stop shopping for information about global human rights from across the United States Government. It will pull together reports, statements, and current updates from around the world.“)
- In other human rights developments right here at home… a Good As You (G-A-Y) Exclusive: Anti-gay marriage strategist, Louis Marinelli, comes out for marriage equality. Here’s a link to Marinelli’s announcement. Also, via Igor Volsky at Think Progress:
As Hooper put it in a Tweet this morning, “Today, my friends, we have more proof that exposure to our lives = @freedomtomarry.”
- In 2012 sideshow news… Bill Cosby says Donald Trump is “Full of It,” Tells Trump to “Run or Shut Up.” Amen.
- Trump, not content to shit or get off the presidential pot just yet, has sent a crack investigative team into Hawaii looking for god only knows what. The only ‘shocking’ discovery Trump could dig up as far as I’m concerned is the whereabouts of Obama’s long lost core convictions. This is the only mystery worth considering when it comes to any ESOTUS (Empty Suit of the United States.) The rest is static…or, to paraphrase Eleanor Roosevelt… Great minds look for core convictions, average minds seek to be part of ‘cool’ events, and small minds continue to ask for Obama’s or Trig’s birth certificate.
- Salon’s Alex Pareene: South Carolina GOP confirms five clowns for first 2012 debate. A depressing slate of bozos — Pawlenty, Ron Paul, Gingrich, Buddy Roemer, and Rick Santorum — but as Pareene says, “This is the preliminary list of losers, so there is still time for more clowns to RSVP.” I think that pretty much sums up the outlook for 2012, both the primaries and the general.
- Keeping up with the one chance we have at something other than a bozo, even though it’s a long shot… CNN: Huntsman heading to South Carolina in May — to deliver a commencement address on the the 7th. “But a source close to Huntsman’s potential presidential campaign told CNN that it’s unlikely he will participate in the debate. The source said, though, that no final decision will be made until he returns from China.” Huntsman is also scheduled to give a commencement address in New Hampshire on the 21st.
- Public Policy Polling says at this point, only Romney would make NH competitive. Blech. No mention of Huntsman in any of the other matchups either. I have a hunch he’d make it more competitive than Romney would.
- Bruce A. Dixon/BAR asks an excellent rhetorical question about Obama’s firewall of support in 2012… The Black Wall Around Barack Obama: Who Does It Protect Him Against?:
The presumption that Barack Obama, no matter what he does or doesn’t do, enjoys nearly unanimous black support is a veritable wall around the president. But who does it protect him against? Republicans? Banksters? Tea partyers, warmongers, torturers? Or black people and the left, his supposed base?
- Last Saturday I highlighted the plight of black migrant workers in Libya. BAR’s Glen Ford has an update. The NYT Sunday magazine and the UK Globe and Mail have finally devoted some ink to this story. Like Ford says, “As usual, it is only after the U.S. government has embarked irrevocably on the warpath that corporate media reveal the flaws in the rationale.”
- And on that note… check out this special roundtable on Libya by Beck Bennett and his youth panel. It’s likely the most honest talking head discussion on Muammar Gaddafi you will ever come across:
- I’ve been watching The Kennedys on the Reelz channel, and I have to say, despite all the critical pans of the series and even with its glaring weaknesses (chief among them, the omission of a whole lot of Kennedys), I am enjoying it. Perhaps it’s just the RFK fan in me, but I love watching Bobby and the relationship between Bobby and Jack through the lens of fine acting and a humanizing script. Anyhow, for anyone who’s missed out… there’s a Saturday marathon to catch up on episodes 1-6 today (April 9th), starting at 2 pm eastern. There will be another replay of episodes 1-6 tomorrow before the miniseries concludes in a 2-hour finale (episodes 7 and 8.)
- As a companion piece to anyone’s viewing of The Kennedys, I highly recommend historian Carl Sferrazza Anthony’s riveting series at his blog… Playing Presidents: Good History vs. Good Drama and The Actor JFK (and Jackie) Wanted To Play Him. That’s Part 1. There’s also a Part 2 and Part 3. If you click over, be sure to read all three posts. Everything I’ve ever read from Anthony seems like the antidote to the corporate media’s infotainment coverage of politics and political figures.
- I also just finished up a tv marathon of my own the other day trying to get through all of the second season of Top Chef Masters before all the episodes disappeared from my cable provider’s On Demand rotation. I don’t want to ruin it for anyone else, just in case you’re like me and end up catching up on most tv shows after they’ve already aired–so don’t click on either of the following links if you don’t want to be spoiled. I’ll just put it this way, without giving too much away: I was really thrilled to see that the charity the winner picked for the money he/she won is working toward a cause that our Madame Secretary has been working to draw attention and awareness to.
- Two quick geek reads before I wrap up… first, via CNN’s Elizabeth Landau, Is it a new particle, or just a fluke? There’s a congressional budget angle to this story, too:
Suddenly, this week, physics enthusiasts’ eyes turned to Tevatron, a much smaller and less powerful particle accelerator in Batavia, Illinois, that is scheduled to be shut down for good after September. And, depending on what happens with the budget crisis on Capitol Hill, it could be even sooner. At Tevatron, part of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), scientists said they may have found evidence of a particle never observed before.
- Via Ron Cowen at Wired Science, Mysterious Cosmic Blast Keeps on Going. Cowen reports that “Astronomers have witnessed a cosmic explosion so strange they don’t even know what to call it.” Sounds like a metaphor for our times.
This Day in History (April 9th)
- 1865: Robert E. Lee surrenders.
- 1939: Marian Anderson sings on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Here’s audio of the introduction Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes gave Marian–noting that “genius draws no color line”–followed by Anderson signing “My country ’tis of thee“…via youtube:
What’s on your blogging list this Saturday?
[originally posted at Let Them Listen; crossposted at Taylor Marsh and Liberal Rapture]
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
grayslady
mablue2
NW Luna
peggysue22
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Despite Proclamations, White House Remains Silent About Rape in the Military:
http://tinyurl.com/3mel33w
The “gay caveman” mystery:
http://tinyurl.com/3fqkcmw
One more…
BP vs. the Dwarf Seahorse:
http://tinyurl.com/3bw4a7v
Center for Biological Diversity press release:
http://tinyurl.com/3vg3fs2
Endangered Species Act Protection Sought for Nation’s Smallest Seahorse
Oil Disaster in Gulf of Mexico Pushes Already Imperiled Species Closer to Extinction
The damage continues and no one cares.
@ dak/8:36… I care (but then I’m just a nobody who could have predicted…)
Believe me, we down here on the Gulf Coast feel like an entirely huge community that no one cares about. They’re all just fine when they can ship their grain barges through our Delta, piss on our historical buildings during Mardi Gras, and tromp around the city during their conventions. Otherwise, we could all be bloody dead as far as every one else is concerned. I just sometimes wish that New Orleans would secede from the Union into a city state and that we could start reaping the benefits of the traffic from the Mississippi and the Gulf and get the Benefits and not just the costs of all those oil rigs in our back yards. We’d be the riches city on the planet if the FEDs didn’t rape our resources and sell bits and pieces of us to their corporate masters. We get stuck with all the costs and none of the benefits. The only thing they want us to be is their vacation slaves.
The media gave the law suit little to no coverage and I learned about it vi France 24.
Thanks for an awakening round up Wonk… 🙂
Thanks WV, the pleasure is mine.
Tres pathetique.
If VP is out speaking but not about the crisis of assault in the military, now is the TIME for those women & their families to get out and speak, and tell their stories, and reveal their legal cases.
We need to break the silence, and do it now.
Now is the time.
great post
April 9, 2011 at 6:20 am Despite Proclamations, White House Remains Silent About Rape in the Military:
I believe Obama’s WH crowd think it’s a warrior perk….and I can’t see them protesting any treatment given to a woman
as wrong…any treament
One word, Stupak.
Three more words: May 31st, 2008.
Them’s the words: May 31st, 2008.
The day Voter’s Rights died. I still get upset when people don’t get that. ;-(
“I believe Obama’s WH crowd think it’s a warrior perk….and I can’t see them protesting any treatment given to a woman
as wrong…any treament”
paper doll, hard to contemplate such a crowd, but the inaction speaks for itself. I guess it makes sense that Obama has a rug with the “arc of the moral universe…” quote for them to walk all over.
“Hillary Clinton wouldn’t have been any different/better,” my derriere.
“Hillary Clinton wouldn’t have been any different/better,” my derriere
I was just barking that very line to my husband last night …Of course it was singing to the choir…but I’m good at that.
The WH crowd is the type that like to watch imo.
“The WH crowd is the type that like to watch imo.”
Oh gawd… you’re right.
I feel like the person in “The Scream” painting right about now.
Hillary Clinton was always a policy wonk. She loves the issues. Barrack Obama isn’t even into the process, let alone the issues. I have no idea where people get that “HC would be no differen thing” at all. People that have passion for policy are never like people that like to preceded over meetings which appears to be what the Presidential MO.
A must read article by Amanda Marcotte in the Guardian UK this morning (http://tinyurl.com/5rqygpu)ties in nicely with Krugman’s comments about cuts to programs that help low income Americans (increasingly, that’s a lot of us–even the highly educated!). Amanda’s article is on the real reasons behind the Repubs fight to gut Planned Parenthood, but her final two sentences sum up the Repubs completely (and, yes, even the Eisenhower Repubs I knew from my youth):
That’s really the crux of the Repubs, the Christian Taliban, and the rest of the “I have mine, why can’t you get yours?” crowd. Contraception, abortions, unemployment insurance, LIHEAP, whatever–they’re all okay if you’re a white, Christian straight male. Everyone else is undeserving of a helping hand.
I’ll go read it, but it’s hard for me to pay much attention to Marcotte after she accused me of being a racist because I didn’t want Obama as POTUS.
Normally, I never read Marcotte, but even a stopped clock is correct twice a day, and this is one of her two times.
My rule of thumb with reading Marcotte is to follow her info and facts and let her editorializing go in one ear and out the other as necessary.
I agree with some of what she wrote, but I still find her tone annoying. Somehow I just can’t see her as a serious feminist analyst after all the crap I’ve read at her blog. Maybe it’s just because I’m old and I remember the rebirth of the women’s movement in the ’60s. I think Marcotte is very dismissive of women my age.
BB, I think Marcotte grates and *is* dismissive of women your age…and of women my age too. It takes work for me to read Marcotte, Traister, etc. after what happened in 2008. I only do it because the issues/message are what matter. Or else, I’d find it altogether impossible.
Take this from grayslady’s excerpt of Marcotte’s latest:
That’s true, that it’s about “wrong people”…and it’s an important point, so I’m glad she’s highlighting it and emphasizing it…and that grayslady linked to it.
From the link:
Well, to gloat, most of us here predicted back on May 31st, 2008, that Obama would sell women and other “wrong people” out.
That said… Marcotte’s got a platform with an audience, so again it’s good she’s saying it.
But, she’s not really connecting the dots fully yet if you ask me. It IS about denying the “wrong people” money/services, but it’s also deeper and about double-injury, double-insult… i.e. scapegoating and using the “wrong people” to obscure draconian cuts that *Democrats* couldn’t otherwise get away with agreeing to unless there was some mitigating issue that they fought for. Enter women’s rights and other core Democratic social values as bargaining chips.
It’s not just the “Republican base” that won’t mind the “wrong people” being denied money/services either, unless you consider Obama’s base and Republican base to either be synonymous or have considerable overlap. Omitting that part of the criticism will only help us fight one side of the hydra while the other side gets stronger.
So while I’m willing to listen to her and Traister et al, I’m still left wondering why they’re willing to fight so hard for an Obama party that is using them. JMHO.
It seems like the generational warfare thing will never go out of fashion. There are diaries at kos about how Ryan’s proposal might finally trump racism for old people, then 5 lines later there’s all this boilerplate about how we want to protect x y z a b c, the elderly included. We demean, dismiss, and disparage them, but there’s no reason why they shouldn’t trust us with their interests. Gen Obama, free from hate, free from delusion, we can’t live without stereotyping other demos to buttress our undeserved sense of superiority. I swear, some of these people were grown in test tubes and never had the dubious pleasure of meeting many of their delightful cohort. Nice roundup!
@ Seriously/6:42: That’s a great point. It’s why the 2008 identity politics (basically “only Archie and Edith Bunker would vote for anyone other than Obama”) was so toxic. Old people suck, working people suck, women especially suck. Out with the Bubbas and Bubba-ettes, up with Creatives, declared the amazing Chris clueless class Bowers. Oh, and btw… why are we supposed to vote for Democrats over Republicans? Because Republicans hate seniors, workers, and women! Yeah… Republicans are the only ones who hate us “wrong people.”
Like I said, I still keep an open mind and listen to the information these progs have to say. But, it’s really hard to keep up with whether they’re wanting to disdain the “wrong people” or fight for them. One minute they’re posturing like they’re fighting for them, but then the next, there’s a recent poll out like the one now showing Obama tanking with the white working class…and we’re back to blanket, context-free, and juvenile assertions of racism or some other convenient conjecture.
Most of that crowd really live in a house of cards. They see that a card disappears every one in awhile and it scares them. Unfortunately, since they live in a realm of daily denial of reality, they create imaginary enemies of people not like them rather than finding whose really doing the dirty dealing and card sharking. When every things is “faith based” on dogma, it’s saying I’ve bought into a story line and no amount of water in the face is going to wake me up. It’s like watching a drug addict. They think they’re protected from things until that ‘right card’ gets yanked. It might come from an illness or a change in the financial markets, but the hands they’ve been dealt are being recalled also. Usually, they’re only safe so long. I pulled all my money out of US equity markets because I’m sure there’s another correction coming. Let’s see how well the stand as their house values continue to decline (now at a Nine Year Low) and the equities go wobbly on them again. Oh, and their buddies are busy destabilizing the Treasury Market. Bonds don’t look so hot right now either. Once the interest rates start going up again, and they will. It’ll be cards all over the floor again and some will go missing.
That’s it, isn’t it. They seem desperate to believe it will never happen to them. Fear and self-centeredness (is there such a word?) overcome all sense of compassion and decency. It reminds me of people who drop their friendships with those who lose a job or suffer from cancer.
It’s part of the sell job that just because you’re doing everything right, nothing will go wrong. SO therefore, if something goes wrong, some one must be doing something wrong. I’m not sure why most conservatives seem to think in such extremes of black and white, but there it is. Much of what goes wrong or right has to do with randomness or nonrepeatable special causes like being born into a rich family. Eventually, randomness and special causes catch up with a lot of people.
I sat in the hospital with a women who was thinking just because her liver functionality was stabilizing, God was blessing her and all she had to do was go to church more and she’d be fine. Her doctor kept telling her that she didn’t need a liver transplant now, but would within the year. I spent several days listening to her sit in denial. When I heard her praying for wisdom, right before I left, I told her that her doctor was being as honest as he could with her and that the wisdom was in front of her if she were willing to just take it. She needed to wake up to the reality of needing that liver transplant sooner and not later. Defense mechanisms are powerful. We do or say anything to ourselves sometimes to avoid harsh realities. The first few times he talked to her, all she grasped at was she had been stabilized. The rest just shot over her head.
“It’s part of the sell job that just because you’re doing everything right, nothing will go wrong. SO therefore, if something goes wrong, some one must be doing something wrong. I’m not sure why most conservatives seem to think in such extremes of black and white, but there it is.”
I think part of this has to do with control… a tendency in conservatives and fauxgressives to go after robinhoods and Bubbas because it just makes them feel better, superior, in control…the boss of someone else. It’s a false security, but they don’t feel it that way. Going after the robber barons…well that’s much harder, that’s not such a secure feeling to them.
Republican richie rich wants to be the boss of lazy workers and irresponsible women and old poor people. The clueless/creative class wants to be the boss of Bubba. The quick fizzle coffee party wanted to be the boss of the unwashed tea party. Tea party wants to be the boss of the scary socialists. So the desire for control–to be the boss of someone else, helps facilitate the divide-and-conquer fault lines that the oligarchy needs to keep pillaging what’s left of a semblance of any sort of social safety net.
Happy Saturday, Wonk! This is a wonderfully *cerebral* post. Thank you very much for the valuable links on the budget mess and the rest. I very much enjoyed reading this and I’ve got a bunch of links open to read next.
“This is a wonderfully *cerebral* post.”
Wow, coming from you BB, that makes me blush! Thanks.
Matthew Cooper/National Journal:
The Budget Skirmish Ends. The War Begins
http://tinyurl.com/3s8o42t
….who would cut some $6 trillion from the federal government over the next decade and voucherize Medicare. What’s past really is prologue.
and I don’t see anyone who will even try and stop the utter dismantlement of the social safety net… Anyone else would not had lasted a 10th of the time as she did, but power of this movement to steal the trillions was/is such that in the end, it swept Hillary Clinton off the domestic stage
It’s going to have to be we the people at some point. The system is insisting on it…which I should have realized in 08 when the winner was in no way allowed to gain her victory
We-the-people–it’s the “place” we have to go to. Sad that we only go there when there’s no place else left.
First up… a personal note of congratulations to my blogger friend, Lake Lady, who on Wednesday was elected mayor of her small town in MO.
Congrats to her ! Okay now we know where we should be moving.Please keep us informed of her adventures in actual governance !
Hey paper doll… so glad you congratulated Lake Lady!
I’ll try to remind her to check in with her old friends at Sky Dancing sometime–when she can spare a moment from being mayor! She used to read/comment here. I think she just got too busy with her campaigning.
The WSJ says the Tea Party Hearts John Boehner.
Activists Give Boehner a Nod of Approval
Tea-Party Groups Had Sought More Cuts, but Grant House Speaker High Marks for His Leadership During the Showdown
Also, the Democrats abandoned poor women in Washington DC:
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/52850.html#ixzz1J2jfxDMq
What we’ve just seen is a phony war in Washington, a quibble over a few billion that presages the fight over trillions
Indeed, if we’d end the actualy wars we’d have much of what we need here at home.
Great post Wonk – lots of good info!
New national poll on First lady rankings:
http://tinyurl.com/3rt358n
Not a fan of ranking first ladies, but since the DC media always pushes the “Hillary was a horrible first lady” narrative as if it’s incontrovertible, I find the results of this poll kinda interesting…
1. Nancy
2. Hillary
3. Michelle
4. Laura
5. Barbara
6. Rosalyn
sheesh, I still admire Dolly Madison. Wonder what’s wrong with me?
It doesn’t sound like they even ranked further back than Rosalyn. Not sure on that though… if I find the actual poll, I’ll link it.
They even left out Eleanor? Sheesh. Why would any one like Nancy Reagan, I wonder. From the sounds of stories from Don Regan, the entire white house had to manage her so Reagan would have time to govern.
Yeah, what about Eleanor? And Abigail Adams?
Great round-up, Wonk.
Actually, Abigail didn’t like being first lady and avoided doing anything that remotely looked like first lady or public duties. Dolly Madison was the first ‘modern’ first lady that actually engaged in political bridge building for her husband and took up charity work. Abigail Adams was a great letter writer and thinker, but she really shunned the first lady thing. She also made certain that that famous picture of Washington wasn’t captured by the British. She had a real sense of what needed to be done to forge a new country. There’s a PBS special about her around. You should watch it. She was pretty amazing albeit very controversial at times. The only real complaint I have about her was her real buy in to the slave owner mentality. Both of the Madisons really had no problem with slavery. That rarely gets mentioned when people talk about the two of them.
I think this post from FDL says a lot.
Lessons in Negotiations from Marian Anderson and Eleanor Roosevelt | Firedoglake
Eleanor is up at the top of my list, she could teach Obama a lot. Wish he would be reading about her or FDR instead of Reagan, and at least try to emulate what a democrat really is.
I think Eleanor would be top of my list too, followed closely by Hillary, Jackie, Laura, Barbara, maybe Dolly but I don’t know anything about her.
@ Dak/12:41: I don’t know what’s with the Nancy love, other than she’s the oldest. It reminds me of watching the Price is Right when I was very young…I always wanted the elderly contestants to win and would get sad if they lost. Who knows, maybe there’s some similar effect with political figures and their rankings? Lol. I really don’t get the ghost of Ronald Reagan love, though. I was in diapers during his presidency, but he never seemed all that popular while he was alive, compared to the way he’s been lionized in death.
My picks would be Eleanor, Hillary, Abigail Adams, and Abigail Fillmore (for founding the WH library).
Republicans thrive on myth and not reality.
“thrive on myth and not reality.”
Hmm. That explains the “Obamacans.”
I still most of think most of the people supporting Obama from the get-go were basically non-registered Republicans who were blue dawgs at best. The other Democrats weren’t paying much attention and went along with the fancy speeches. There’s a whole bunch of people that are Democrats now because they don’t go along with the Republican’s radical social agenda. I started out that way when I re-registered Democrat. The older I get, the more appreciative I get of safety net programs because I live surrounded by hard working people that wouldn’t survive without them. Living wages and benefits have been ripped out from under most people and the assault continues. If there aren’t any union jobs left to set minimum standards, we might as well sign up to go the Marianas Islands. We’ll be prisoners to our jobs and to whatever debt we have. I’ve even gotten to the point that my meager house loan worries me. I keep thinking they’ll lunge for my assets at the drop of a hat.
Did you all catch this on Maddow last night. The Maddow Blog – Fluffing the flag
The camera’s set up for Boehner and the other PLUBs got the staff fluffing flags, with wire hangers. Oh the irony…
For a second there I thought Rachel was introducing the footage as some horrible, intentional display planned by the GOP staffers as a giant eff you to all of us. I’m sort of relieved it’s just the unwitting bizareness of GOP flag fluffers using coat hangers.