Some Form Of Legalization. Or Whatever.

Greg Sargent is all excited about what he views as moderating opinions of Republican presidential aspirants on immigration. Or maybe not excited, but at least intrigued, as he writes

Bush’s suggestion today that he supports legalization — combined with his reflexive nodding along as Hannity demanded the border be secured first — puts him in this same vague space. Marco Rubio, who previously supported the Senate bill, has also reverted to this same place. Obviously CPAC was not the place to roll out detailed policy proposals, and it’s way too early in the process to expect specifics. But one surprise about the 2016 GOP field has been that, unlike many House Republicans, most of the contenders actually do appear open to supporting some form of legalization or other. 

"Some form of legalization or other,"  Chris Christie has avoided answering questions about immigration and John Kasich seems confused. But when you cut through the confusing statements of Repub hopefuls, this is what those contenders say about immigration, as culled from the National Journal and other sources:

- Rand Paul:  "assimilation" and normalization after ensuring border security;
- Ted Cruz: no citizenship but perhaps "a path to legal status"
- John Ellis Bush: "Let’s do it. Let’s do it, man. Let’s control the border. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s what a great nation has to do.”)
-Marco Rubio: securing the border first is "the only way forward"
-Bobby Jindal: President Obama "just needs to man up and secure our border.”
-Ben Carson: "Whoever wins in 2016....should make it their goal to seal that border within a year" (great surgeon, awful grammarian)
-Scott Walker: "First and foremost, you've got to secure that border or none of these plans make any sense."
- Rick Perry: according to a spokesperson, "believes we must secure the border first before addressing immigration reform. After the border is secure, we can have a conversation.."
-Mike Huckabee: "....immigration reform should start with repealing Obama’s unconstitutional executive orders and securing our border
-Rick Santorum: is "a strident opponent of a general pathway to citizenship"
-Carly Fiorina: legalization but not "full citizenship" (as National Journal put it)
-Lindsay Graham: "a pathway to citizenship after we secure our borders"

"Secure the borders first" is their lifeline and none will endorse citizenship. Walker, as close as there is to a Repub frontrunner at present, was asked Sunday about a path to citizenship and replied "I believe there’s a way you can do that. First and foremost, you have to secure that border, or none of these plans make any sense." (Videos below are from a month ago.) Pleased, Sargent tweeted "key to Walker's immigration comments: He said 'there's a way' to get to legalization, if border secured first."


"Nearly all of the Republicans talk like that," Steve M. recognizes,

because Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush weren't immigration hardliners, because many of their big donors aren't immigration hardliners, and because a lot of them tried to win a bit of Hispanic support in past elections. But if we elect a Republican president next year, that president will be dealing with anti-immigration zealots in his own party just as Bush did during his presidency, and just as John Boehner is doing now.

"If border secured first," Walker cautions, because as he and his fellow Repubs realize the border simply will not be secured- ever.  If it is- and that's highly unlikely- it would be in some far off future, with many circumstances intervening. By that time, no one would hold any Repub to his/her vague promise to do something or other about what no politician seriously believes ever will happen.  And Laura Ingraham aside, most Republicans have no interest in cutting off the supply of cheap labor, while Democrats will not block blocking immigration from south of the Texas border.

Greg Sargent is thrilled a likely viable presidential candidate has suggested a way to get to legalization. Even he is not focused on citizenship because, well... he must have some reason.





 

Trying To Hit That Sweet Spot

John Ellis Bush has been all over the map on illegal immigration.

As Politifact has noted, in 1994 he opposed a border fence, but was for deportation.   In 2006, he supported a broad guest worker program and citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants.  In 2009, he was in favor of legalization and citizenship, but in a separate statement, supported only legalization.  In 2012, it was a path to citizenship "or a path to legalization." The following year, he advocated "a path to permanent legal resident status" because "A grant of citizenship is an undeserving reward for conduct that we cannot afford to encourage."

Now an all-but-declared candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, John Ellis Bush may have settled on the latter position. On Friday in a question-and-answer format (Bush, below) at the Conservative Political Action Conference, he remarked

The plan also includes a path to legal status. I have not seen anybody- and I know there's disagreement here. Some of these people are angry about this and look, I kind of feel your pain. I was in Miami this morning- it was 70 degrees, so.   The simple fact is there is no plan to deport 11 million people. We should give them a path to legal status where they work, they don't receive government benefits, where they don't break the law, where they learn English and where they make a contribution to our society. That's what we need to be focused on.









Legal status, legalization, residency: all terms used at one time or another by John Ellis Bush, and each a (slightly) different way to say: "you can come here and work but you're not going to be able to vote or get any benefits of American citizenship because you're just not up to our standards."

That's John Ellis Bush trying- thus far unsuccessfully- to thread the needle. The popular base doesn't want any concessions whatsoever to illegal immigrants (Laura Ingraham, below) and Bush thinks they will be mollified if he wants to deny them under all circumstances the right to vote (Democratic). Meanwhile, he knows that his numerous big money donors like the idea of letting immigrants (legal and illegal) in and having them compete with American citizens for jobs.








It's hardly surprising that the former Florida governor, the preferred candidate of the 1%, is sympathetic to increasing immigration as long as the entrants don't gain the dignity or the bargaining power of citizenship. In an article in Salon, Philip Cafaro explains the task for progressives to chip away at growing income inequality:

Harvard’s George Borjas, a leading authority on the economic impacts of immigration, contends that during the 1970s and 1980s, each immigration-driven 10 percent increase in the number of workers in a particular economic field in the United States decreased wages in that field by an average of 3.5 percent. More recently, studying the impact of immigration on African-Americans, Borjas and colleagues found that a 10 percent immigrant-induced increase in the supply of a particular skill group reduced the wages of black workers in that group by 4 percent, lowered the employment rate of black men by 3.5 percentage points, and increased the incarceration rate of blacks by almost a percentage point....

In recent decades, mass immigration arguably has harmed poorer workers and increased economic inequality in the United States. But this should not surprise us. By importing millions of poor people into the United States and setting them in competition with other poor people for scarce jobs, we drive down wages and increase unemployment among those who can least afford it. Our current era of gross economic inequality, low wages and persistently high unemployment seems like precisely the wrong time to expand immigration.

Arguably, today, progressives concerned about American workers should advocate reductions in legal immigration. After all, immigration can go up as well as down. Just as Congress increased immigration levels in the 1960s, 1980s and 1990s, it could decrease immigration levels today, at a time when tens of millions of Americans are unemployed and the majority suffers from stagnating wages. Perhaps a moratorium on non-essential immigration is in order, until the official unemployment rate declines below 5 percent and stays there for several years in a row, or until real wages for the bottom half of American workers increase by 25 percent or more. Tightening up labor markets worked post-World War II, during the golden age of the American labor movement. It can work again today (just ask the American Medical Association, which lobbies vigorously against accrediting foreign doctors).

There is good reason the AMA lobbies against bringing in foreign doctors, and a good reason John Ellis Bush is in favor of bringing in people to perform work for low-wage work in farming, building maintenance, food preparation, and other fields. They have good reason- for themselves and for the people they represent. For the rest of us- especially if immigrants don't get a clear, streamlined path to citizenship- it's a bad deal.

And in St. Louis today, it was 37 degrees. So.

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Walker Leading The Red Meat Primary

Perception is reality, some people say. Actually, perception isn't reality. If it were reality, it would be spelled "reality.".

So Scott Walker recently claimed

I have two sons. … I know all of you as parents feel the same way. I want a commander-in-chief who will do everything in their power to ensure the threat from radical Islamic terrorists will not wash up on American soil. We will have someone who leads and ultimately will send the message that will protect American soil but “Do not take this upon freedom-loving people here or anywhere around the world.” We need a leader with that kind of confidence. If I can take on 100,000 protesters, I can do the same across the world.

Some conservatives, astonishingly and boldly, criticized Walker's remarks. Once and possible future GOP candidate Rick Perry noticed "These are Americans (and) to try to make the relationship between them and the unions is inappropriate.” The National Review's Jim Geraghty found Walker's comment "insulting to the protesters, a group I take no pleasure in defending," one which "earned plenty of criticism but is "not ISIS." "The protesters in Wisconsin, asserted Geraghty, "so furiously angry over Walker’s reforms and disruptive to the procedures of passing laws, earned plenty of legitimate criticism. But they’re not ISIS."

The Republican critics, though bold given their audience of elites which believes pro-union protesters may be worse than ISIS, at least did not argue they would harm the Wisconsin governor's presidential prospects. Meanwhile, Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall stated "Walker managed to come off as offensive, callow and silly, all at the same time" while Firedoglake's GS Wright maintained "Walker either genuinely thinks unions are truly as wicked as ISIS or is incapable of articulating himself without saying something dumb and offensive."

Skepticism of Walker's comment as strategy extends even to those who ostensibly defend the governor.  John Dickerson of Slate argues the Walker argument

"is reductionist foreign policy aimed at protecting every free country across the globe is a little trickier than that- and it's a logical fallacy, but it's not a comparison.The logical fallacy is that strength in one category can be transferred to another. (You may know its cousin: If we can put a man on the moon … ) It’s also a familiar candidate gambit.

He adds, nevertheless, "At the start of his CPAC remarks, Walker said that President Obama 'thinks we grow the economy by growing Washington.' That’s not exactly a complete and fair rendering of the president’s views. Walker has just now gotten a taste of what it’s like being president."

And if he keeps doing this sort of thing, he may get halfway to president (in a sense, more than halfway) by winning his party's nomination. Steve M. quotes Laura Ingraham at CPAC (in video below, beginning at approximately 4:20) stating

But we have to realize, my friends, you go into battle with the political system you have. And we already know that the media and much of the donor class is hostile to conservatism. And guess what? That's been true for a very long time. They were joking on MSNBC this morning about Scott Walker's comment yesterday....

My friend Craig Shirley reminded me of this. In 1980, Ronald Reagan was campaigning—I think it was before the New Hampshire primary -- and he said, I know how to deal with the Soviets. I can bring them to the negotiating table. After all, I had to deal with the old studio chiefs in Hollywood. And the media, just like they did with Scott Walker, went after him. Oh, how could he compare dealing with the studio heads? And Ronald Reagan basically said, 'I have a sense of humor, and you don't.









Recognizing what the GOP has become, SM comments

Even if Ingraham is trying to help Walker to do a climbdown, she's saying his remark is being pounced on by the same sorts of evil media liberals who hated and underestimated Reagan, the greatest human being who ever walked the earth. 

How the hell does that comparison leave Walker with any lasting damage as far as rank-and-file Republicans are concerned? If you say Walker joked the way Reagan joked, how does he lose face with the voters he seeks?

SM believes Walker is hitting the sweet spot with the GOP voter base. And if he is doing so, it appears, he is accomplishing it without alienating members of the donor class with no talk of "legitimate rape," without saying their gay daughter should not be able to marry her friend, and without even suggesting any specific military response to ISIS (or any terrorist group). SM continues

By the way, I can't find Shirley's anecdote online. I searched a number of ways, including within the texts of Shirley's voluminous history of the 1980 campaign. My search skills may be failing me, but if I'm right, this never actually happened.

Then again, Reagan liked to make up stories that "proved" his point, didn't he? Reagan was criticized in the media for this, but it never seemed to do him serious harm.

Ronald(6) Wilson(6) Reagan(6) was the master of anecdote, some truthful and some made up, the latter no obstacle.   As of now, the only Republican contemplating a presidential run who has been at all courageous or "tough" (as Donald Trump would put it) is Rick Perry.  But his party's voters aren't looking for a candidate who will call out another politician for blasting middle-class and working-class people.  They're looking for someone who is certain who the villains are, and that they're all the same.






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Same Old Record, Different Recording Artist

Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Martin recently revealed that when Senator Elizabeth Warren met, at Hillary Clinton's request, in December at the Clinton home in Washington, D.C.

Mrs. Clinton solicited policy ideas and suggestions from Ms. Warren, according to a Democrat briefed on the meeting, who called it “cordial and productive.” Mrs. Clinton, who has been seeking advice from a range of scholars, advocates and officials, did not ask Ms. Warren to consider endorsing her likely presidential candidacy.

Good thinking, Hillary.  Tuesday, Reverend Al Sharpton asked Warren  "you had a meeting with Hillary Clinton, and I`m not even going to ask you about your private meeting, you didn`t invite me, but a lot of progressives have question about whether she`ll be a progressive warrior. What would you say to them?"

The Massachusetts senator responded "You know, I think they`re told what we`ve got to see. I want to hear what she wants to run on and what she says she wants to do. That`s what campaigns are supposed to be about."

Coincidentally, on that same day, Mrs. Clinton had appeared at the first annual Waterrmark Silicon Valley Conference for Women in Santa Clara, California, for which she was paid $300,000. In a question-and-answer session, Clinton, the New York Times reports, "called for a variety of policies like equal pay for women, paid leave, a higher minimum wage, and incentives for corporations to provide better wages and benefits to workers."

If you think that's fairly tepid stuff, you probably heard also

She spoke at length about bipartisanship and promoted her record of working with Republicans in Arkansas and as a senator from New York. Her objective, should she run for president, would be to end partisan gridlock, she told Ms. Swisher.

“I’d like to bring people from right, left, red, blue, get them into a nice warm purple space where everybody is talking and where we’re actually trying to solve problems,” Mrs. Clinton said.

This should sound familiar.  Campaigning with vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden in August, 2008, Senator Obama asserted "After decades -- after decades of steady work across the aisle, I know he'll be able to help me turn the page on the ugly partisanship in Washington so we can bring Democrats and Republicans together to pass an agenda that works for the American people."

We all know how that turned out.  That probably is among the reasons Senator Warren (unrelated video, below) has chosen to be non-committal about an HRC run for the presidency, now that even President Obama is getting the message.  At his town hall meeting, co-sponsored by MSNBC and Telemundo Wednesday

Obama rejected accusations that he failed to act to get immigration done early in his administration while Democrats controlled Congress. He got a little piqued when a member of the public accused Democrats and Republicans of playing "political ping pong" with immigration.

"That's just not true … Democrats have consistently stood on the side of comprehensive immigration reform. Democrats have provided strong majorities across the board of comprehensive immigration reform," Obama said. Suggesting no one was focused on the issue, said Obama, was a "disservice" because "then you don't know who is fighting for you and who is fighting against you."

President Obama, uncharacteristically, stood up for Democrats and called Republicans out. It might be the new Obama, who after after six years which included two devastating mid-term elections, no longer needs to be clubbed over the head with a baseball bat to realize that Repubs believe the way to electoral success is to throw a temper tantrum against anything Democrats propose.

And now, we have the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee maintaining- with a straight face and without fingers crossed (as far as we now)- “I’d like to bring people from right, left, red, blue, get them into a nice warm purple space where everybody is talking and where we’re actually trying to solve problems."

While far less eloquent, that sounds a lot like someone who declared "Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America." Four and a half years later, he became President of the United States of America. He now realizes- however the rest of his second term may play out-  that was a pipe dream.    Either Hillary Clinton is merely blowing smoke, is naive enough to believe what she said, or is signaling another center-right Administration. Unless it's the first, we're in trouble.











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It's For The Children. Don't Argue.

Wrong again, Keith.  It's hard to believe that ESPN host Keith Olbermann (photo way below from Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images) was dead wrong in getting into a Twitter scuffle with a few Penn State students- and wrong in his apology. Quite a trick.

It started when one Penn State alumnus (with two Nittany Lion alumni) sent to Olbermann a link to a charity event held annually at the college. She accompanied it with a tweet reading "We are!"  (as in We are... Penn State). Olberman responded ".... Pitiful."

Short and to the point, albeit overly general and with a capital "P" where a small "P" would have been more appropriate, the tweet should have been the last one from the Cornell University graduate.

But oh, no.   What followed was a series of tweets between Olbermann and one or another Penn State apologists- uh, er, students, including Olbermann's "Dont make shit up, Sonny. You'll wind up running Penn State."

Both funny and well off point, it suggests the problem with Penn State University is not its students but the current Administration. However, you may recall in November, 2011That was both funny and well off point because- as Olbermann well understands- the problem with Penn State University is not its current Administration but many of its current (or very recent) students.   You may remember in November, 2011


After top Penn State officials announced that they had fired Joe Paterno on Wednesday night, thousands of students stormed the downtown area to display their anger and frustration, chanting the former coach’s name, tearing down light poles and overturning a television news van parked along College Avenue.

The demonstrators congregated outside Penn State’s administration building before stampeding into the tight grid of downtown streets. They turned their ire on a news van, a symbolic gesture that expressed a view held by many: that the news media had exaggerated Mr. Paterno’s role in the scandal surrounding accusations that a former assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, sexually assaulted young boys.

“I think the point people are trying to make is the media is responsible for JoePa going down,” said a freshman, Mike Clark, 18, adding that he believed that Mr. Paterno had met his legal and moral responsibilities by telling university authorities about an accusation that Mr. Sandusky assaulted a boy in a university shower in 2002.

Demonstrators tore down two lampposts, one falling into a crowd. They also threw rocks and fireworks at the police, who responded with pepper spray. The crowd undulated like an accordion, with the students crowding the police and the officers pushing them back.

An orderly crowd first filled the lawn in front of Old Main when news of Mr. Paterno’s firing came via students’ cellphones. When the crowd took to the downtown streets, its anger and intensity swelled. Students shouted, “We are Penn State.”

But of course, they are- or, in most cases, were- not Penn State, only symbolic of the reaction of the student body.  The view in "Happy Valley" (that's what they call it, I swear) seems to have changed little in the intervening 3+ years. Nonetheless, Olbermann still was painting with an overly broad brush.

While real, the apology he delivered was way off-mark. "I apologize," the big guy tweeted, "for the PSU tweets. I was stupid and childish and way less mature than the students there who did such a great fundraising job."

How about this instead: "I was stupid and childish and way less mature than most of the students at Penn State and the vast majority of young people."   He does not know about the students who did the fundraising. Nor is it likely he knows much about where the money goes and to what use it's applied. That is the way it generally is about charity- very few people ask questions. If you say "charity," you've blocked most questions. If you say "for children," you've completely eliminated them and can await a "thank you for your service."

Don't take it from me, but by someone much younger and closer to the college who positively nailed the controversy  (the article with the tweets she includes, here; the full twitter conversation, here):


What kind of jerk criticizes students who raise money for kids with cancer?

Keith Olbermann makes no secret of the disgust he harbors for Penn State in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child abuse scandal; in January, he declared the NCAA and PSU “the worst in sports.” His well-documented disdain for the institution is probably what inspired a Penn Stater to mention him Sunday in a proud tweet about the 2015 Penn State Dance Marathon, an annual fundraiser (known on campus as THON) that raises money for children with cancer.

“We Are!” refers to the Nittany Lion chant “We are … Penn State.” And Four Diamonds—an organization that helps families pay for cancer treatment, funds research, and more—is the recipient of the THON money.

Olbermann responded to the “We are” tweet with one word: “…Pitiful.”

Soon Penn State students and others were attacking him, and he was hitting right back.

The pompous, elitist tirade earned him a suspension from ESPN. (Olbermann, if you’re wondering, went to Cornell—ever heard of it?) As a Penn State alumna who knows the difference between your and you’re, I’m pleased to see him get spanked on this one. But I also think that he wasn’t entirely wrong to roll his eyes at attempts to use THON to deflect criticism about the university.

THON is billed as “the largest student-run philanthropy in the world.” Groups and organizers spend the fall semester and first month of the spring semester preparing for it. On designated “canning” weekends, clubs, Greek organizations, and other clusters of students fan out from State College, Pa., to stand at street corners and collect money. At the main event, held this past weekend, more than 700 students serve as “dancers” who go 46 hours without sitting or sleeping. The idea, as I understand it, is to give the dancers a taste of the pain that kids with cancer endure.

It’s a noble goal. But when I was on campus, as THON got closer each year, the scent of self-congratulations grew stronger. The THON slogan is FTK—“for the kids.” In my more cynical moments, I sometimes thought that it should be “FTT”—“for the T-shirt.”

In the Deadspin comments, another alum put it nicely:

THON had great results, but to me it always seemed to serve as a vessel for fraternities, sororities, and those that crave attention to pat themselves on the back. There are a lot of people who participate selflessly, but the most vocal element are those that want the attention for “doing a great thing.” To boot, most of the fundraising doubles as a social/ pledge event for a lot of the greeks. TL; DR - great results, questionable means.

The results are great, and many of the participants are entirely sincere. But still, some students, especially Greeks, use it to excuse a lot of things: You can’t criticize fraternities—we raise money for kids with cancer!

It’s unfair for Olbermann to condemn the entire university because of the child sex abuse scandal (or because a few students on Twitter made grammatical mistakes that are widely accepted on the platform). Though the campus culture went too far in worshipping football, the ones to blame for the abuse are Jerry Sandusky and the handful of men who shielded him—including, yes, Joe Paterno. I railed about my alma mater’s moral hypocrisy after the scandal broke, and I remain furious about it. But it’s also illogical and disingenuous for Penn Staters to use THON as a shield against criticism. What did the original tweeter expect from Olbermann? I can’t imagine that she genuinely thought he would say, “You’re right. I’ve been unjust all along.”

Despite his presumably ESPN-mandated apologetic tweet, I doubt that Olbermann will emerge from his suspension with a greater respect for the school. And he’s right not to change his mind based on a fundraiser.


The net benefits, usually overstated, of charity events need to considered on their own. They are not valid excuses for the behavior of Jerry Sandusky, and the wink and a nod given it by the late, but then all-powerful, coach Joe Paterno.  Most people- probably even most PSU students- understand that. There still are many students there who do not, and despite his hostility to the university, Keith Olbermann may not, either.

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Rice Bows Out. California Wins.

At first, Condoleezza Rice appears humble.  Amid considerable criticism of Rutgers University's decision to give a platform to one of the architects of Gulf War II, Ms. Condoleezza graciously decided not to give the commencement speech in spring 2014 at New Jersey's state university. Now according to Politico 

It is a testament to the dormant state of California’s once mighty Republican dynasty that the only GOP candidate either party gives a shot at capturing Barbara Boxer’s Senate seat upon her retirement next year is the one who is resolutely refusing to run: former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Last week, Rice topped a statewide Field Poll of 18 potential candidates, drawing the support of 49 percent of likely voters, compared with 46 percent for state Attorney General Kamala Harris, the only declared Democratic candidate so far. That sparked a fresh flurry of speculation about a Rice candidacy — and the latest emphatic denial from her chief of staff that she has any interest in the race.

Evidently, unless her arm is twisted, the woman affectionately called "Condi" (isn't that sweet!) will not be running for a US Senate seat from California.

Wise decision, that, not to relinquish what little credibility is still attached to the former National Security Adviser and Secretary of State.  On January 10, 2003 Secretary Rice gravely warned "there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." She played a leading role in trying, largely successfully, to convince voters of the likelihood that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program. But it's not only that Rice was grotesquely wrong about Saddam Hussein's intentions. In March, 2013 the newspaper of the University of Texas-Austin reported

Two days before the 10th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, a conflict that resulted in the deaths of 4,488 U.S. soldiers and thousands of civilians, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reaffirmed her support for the war and the ouster of former President Saddam Hussein.

“I would have overthrown Saddam Hussein again,” Rice said to a packed house at the Lady Bird Johnson Auditorium on Monday.

No, Ms. Rice, you did not overthrow Saddam Hussein- the American military overthrew him, Then you and the other propagandists, and architects, of an arguably unprecedented American foreign policy fiasco thoroughly botched the aftermath (Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson with Lawrence O'Donnell in 2013, video below),

The adventure itself was based on false pretenses, and the reconstruction of Iraq suffered because of the rush to war and the blithering incompetence of the Administration, Condoleezza Rice included.

ISIL probably never would have arisen without the Bush's Administration invasion of Iraq. But even before we were alerted to this newest threat in the Middle East, at the time of the Rutgers commencement controversy, Juan Cole summarized 

As for Iraq, she left it a broken country, with hundreds of thousands dead, 2 million displaced abroad, 4 million displaced internally, likely 400,000 badly wounded, where car bombings and sniping still take some 800 lives a month and where radical Sunni al-Qaeda affiliates have established themselves and Iran-linked radical Shiite militias have free play. She hinted around at an al-Qaeda link to Iraq before she invaded it, but there was none. She brought al-Qaeda to Iraq and it has killed far more Iraqis than the 3000 Americans whose lives it took on September 11. Iraq never had anything at all to do with al-Qaeda, but she made it a scapegoat so as to get at its petroleum resources.

Yet, Ms. Rice still claims the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was strategically beneficial to the United States,  She is either delusional, lying, or less aware of foreign policy than your typical dogcatcher, who fulfills one of a many jobs- including US Senator- Condoleezza Rice shouldn't be trusted to perform.

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It's A Start

Everybody is buzzing about Patricia Argquette's response to being named last night best supporting actress at Sunday night's Academy Awards extravaganza. Well, maybe not everyone, but it's an excuse for a post.  Upon accepting (video below) her award, Arquette stated 

Okay, Jesus. Thank you to the Academy, to my beautiful, powerful nominees. To IFC, Jonathan Sehring, John Sloss, Cathleen Sutherland, Molly Madden, David DeCamillo, our whole cast and our crew. My Boyhood family, who I love and admire. Our brilliant director Richard Linklater. The impeccable Ethan Hawke. My lovelies, Ellar Coltrane, Lorelei Linklater. Thomas and Paul, thank you for giving me my beautiful children. Enzo and Harlow, you’re the deepest people that I know.

My friends who all work so hard to make this world a better place. To my parents, Rosanna, Richmond, Alexis and David. To my favorite painter in the world, Eric White, for the inspiration of living with a genius. To my heroes, volunteers and experts who have helped me bring ecological sanitation to the developing world with GiveLove.org.

To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights. It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America. 


Backstage, she clarified her earlier remarks, explaining

It’s time for women. Equal means equal. The truth is the older women get, the less money they make. The highest percentage of children living in poverty are in female-headed households. It’s inexcusable that we go around the world and we talk about equal rights for women in other countries and we don’t. One of those superior court justices said two years ago in a law speech at a university that we don’t have equal rights for women in America and we don’t because when they wrote Constitution, they didn’t intend it for women. So the truth is even though we sort of feel like we have equal rights in America right under the surface there are huge issues at play that really do affect women. It’s time for all the women in America, and all the men that love women and all the gay people and all the people of color that we’ve all fought for to fight for us now.

Salon's Katie McDonough argues

White women need to stand in solidarity with the women of color who are already organizing for fair pay, reliable scheduling and living wages — not the other way around. (White women also need to stop voting against those interests.) It’s essential that this kind of an intersectional analysis shape how we talk about equal pay, particularly when white women talk about equal pay.

Even less generously, Amanda Marcotte contends

Where to begin? Perhaps with pointing out that “gay people” and “people of color” are both categories that include women. Indeed, when it comes to wage inequality, race is as much a factor as gender....

Arquette's comments also erased the major contributions made by women of color and lesbians to the feminist movement, as if they haven't been fighting all this time. That's a troubling message to send at any point, but it's particularly disturbing right now, when some of the ugliest attacks on women's rights, particularly when it comes to reproductive health care access, are aimed at low-income women who are disproportionately women of color. 

Where, indeed, do we begin? Perhaps by pointing out that the breathless Arquette, who spent most of her time thanking personal and professional colleagues, also didn't mention the minimum wage. Or attacks by the right on unions. Or tax breaks for the  wealthy. Or terrorist attacks by Boko Haram.  As an actress bringing attention to a problem, she needn't have mentioned those things, nor lesbians or "women of color." (And why do some media leftists persist in referring to "women of color," A/K/A colored women?)

But McDonough may be on to something when she refers to reproductive health care access. Today, schools and businesses were closed in Dallas, Texas due to ice and sleet and people there could be forgiven for thinking the end of the world was near,  On this date, Rush Limbaugh made a good point. Amidst his usual nonsense, he remarked

All right, stop the tape.  To every woman (panting) to every woman (panting) who gave birth.  Did she just diss women who've had abortions?  You don't hear this. That's a mistake, it's a faux pas.  I'm sure she didn't intend it, but you don't hear this kind of reference in Hollywood, particularly at the Oscars, honoring women who've given birth. 

A reasonable person might ask: what the heck was Arquette (or her ghostwriter) thinking? No, really- what was she thinking when saying "To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation?" Arquette was reading a script as she made a plea for pay equity and equal rights, which one would think would have been unnecessary given that the statement was vague and fairly unobjectionable- and given by an actress, who should be able deliver a brief commentary on the fly.

Still, it was a beginning, and not without criticism. Most of it was unjustified. McDonough, Marcotte, and Think Progress' Tara Culp-Ressler are exorcised that Arquette failed to exhibit a special concern for "women of color." (Presumably, that is black women, though that would leave out Hispanics and Asians. Someone should ask the linguistically deprived.) The right was also not pleased, with  actress Stacey Dash admitting "I miss the glamour, the elegance, the class, the majesty of the Oscars." If Arquette had mentioned the dirty little secret- that restricting women's reproductive rights renders attainment of pay equity impossible- there is no telling how upset conservatives may have gotten.

Dash's reaction demonstrates that even Arquette's message- short, clumsily written and delivered- is likely to have a beneficial effect. The Academy Awards is an orgy of elitist self-congratulation, bad taste, and superficiality, not unlike Hollywood generally. If an injection of realism into the event, a reminder of the real world, reminds a few people in the motion picture industry that the planet does not revolve around them, Patricia Arquette has performed a major public service.














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