Completely Unnecessary

In  September, the Bush Administration proposed new rules for Health and Human Services. These were an update from the previous rules they tried to push through in July. I wrote about it earlier, so I’m not going to rehash the whole thing.

The upshot is that it would radically change the list of procedures that health care providers are allowed to opt out from due to ‘conscious objections’.

Or rather, it obscures the definitions so as to make them both meaningless and so broad as to include everything from birth control to sterilization to IUDs.

In September, Planned Parenthood - among others - collected protest signatures and the Admin stopped moving forward. As they’re not supposed to make any new rule changes after Nov 1, it seemed as though they had given up on the rule changes.

Not so much!

Officials at the Health and Human Services Department said they intended to issue a final version of the rule within days. Aides and advisers to Mr. Obama said he would try to rescind it, a process that could take three to six months.

To avoid the usual rush of last-minute rules, the White House said in May that new regulations should be proposed by June 1 and issued by Nov. 1. The “provider conscience” rule missed both deadlines.

Under the White House directive, the deadlines can be waived “in extraordinary circumstances.” Administration officials were unable to say immediately why an exception might be justified in this case.

Unable to say ‘immediately’ or just unable to come up with a reason that might legitimately excuse this craven, 11th-hour move?

These 63 days until inauguration are seeming longer and longer.

How I miss the days when transition pranks consisted of Amy Carter leaving a two week old, half-baked cake in a White House oven for the Reagans to find.

Rather than, you know, fucking over women in all 50 states.

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Yeah, it didn’t go so well.

According to CNN’s little worm thingie, women didn’t like McCain so much generally, but he really failed in two key areas:

The first was vouchers. It’s a pretty standard conservative talking point, but he might have played it differently.

The vast majority of public school teachers are women (74.5% in 1999-2000 and likely higher since), and they don’t tend to like vouchers much.

Whilst probably striving to draw points of difference between himself and Obama, McCain still might have played up his support of charter schools instead. They’re a bit more palatable from a teacher standpoint.

McCain started out well. In my liveblog, I thought he’d hop right into vouchers, but hit charter schools first. That was a good approach, supporting both and leading with charters.

And then he got wrapped up in Obama’s opposition to vouchers and banged on about how well DC charter schools are working.

But maybe a lot of Clinton supporters aren’t teachers; maybe they weren’t affected by the voucher stuff.

Well, I’m sure the uterus stuff got them on the Straight Talk Express:

I would consider [any judge] in their qualifications. I do not believe that someone who has supported Roe v. Wade that would be part of those qualifications. But I certainly would not impose any litmus test.
…
Let me talk to you about an important aspect of this issue. We have to change the culture of America. Those of us who are proudly pro-life understand that. And it’s got to be courage and compassion that we show to a young woman who’s facing this terribly difficult decision.

Okay. McCain used to hold a sensible anti-choice position (sorry to be all rhetoricy, but he doesn’t get to wear the pro-life moniker anymore as far as I’m concerned). He even tried to get the Republican Party to amend its platform to include exceptions for rape, incest, and the health of the mother in 2000.

I just love the double-speak in the first part of that quote above.  It’s a little unclear what he’s saying, but I don’t think one could argue that he’s saying he would simply ignore a judge’s support of the Roe ruling. As I wrote yesterday, it seems like he’s saying, “I impose no litmus test, but [support of] Roe v. Wade means they are a bad judge.”

Still relatively reasonable. I don’t agree, but at least they were having a fairly rational discussion (about something that almost no one actually changes their vote on).

And then this happened:

I don’t know how you [Obama] align yourself with the extreme aspect of the pro- abortion movement in America. And that’s his record, and that’s a matter of his record.

And then this, complete with ironic finger ‘quotes’ (video here):

Just again, the example of the eloquence of Senator Obama. He’s health for the mother. You know, that’s been stretched by the pro-abortion movement in America to mean almost anything. That’s the extreme pro-abortion position, quote, “health.”

Before I fly off the handle - as I promise you I will do in just a moment - there was a better way to say this.

Some argue that stipulations for the health of the mother go too far in including things like mental health. They argue that this could be used to get around laws preventing abortion by claiming ‘mental health’ for a wide variety of reasons.

Quietly and reasonably arguing that point might not have totally lost him the rest of the (Clinton) women.

Palin is there to pick up (ostensibly) women and the base. Women appear not to have responded to Palin, but the base has. McCain didn’t have to come out swinging on this issue. The reponse, instead, seems to have come from frustration with Obama and the election.

And so, Vagina-Americans* got caught up in McCain’s downward spiral of poor polling numbers and increasingly bitter rhetoric.

John McCain might not have noticed, but those two things are connected.

My own brand of alarmist, hateful screed after the jump.

* - For the record, I might prefer Uterized-Americans.

(more…)

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Palin’s widely anticipated stuff up on Supreme Court cases aired tonight.

The governor believes Roe v Wade should be left to the states because she’s ‘a Federalist’, but also believes there’s an inherent right to privacy in the Constitution.

I’ll leave that contradiction aside because I don’t care about Palin’s stance on abortion (and her verbal roulette in that clip probably doesn’t explain it that well anyway).

The anticipation had to do with Couric’s follow up. Palin notably couldn’t think of any other Supreme Court cases with which she disagreed - other than nameless ones that should be left to the states.

But as Jezebel commenter, lacey in ak, points out, at least one decision should have occurred to the governor. Perhaps Palin might have remembered that she filed an amicus brief in Exxon v Baker and then released a statement complaining about the decision.

That last part happened in June.

In other news, in the Senate today the bailout was strangely attached to the Paul Wellstone Mental Health Bill. Ezra Klein explains:

Tax bills have to originate in the House of Representatives. But the current thinking is that the Senate should pass a bailout bill to increase pressure on the House. So they needed to find some piece of legislation that had already passed the House but had not yet passed the Senate.

The 25 Nay votes are a strange mishmash of Senators from both sides of the aisle. It’s probably not often that Russ Feingold finds himself voting with Brownback, Sessions and Inhofe. (Also means that Feingold voted against the Wellstone bill, which must have killed him.) Dole made a bid to hang onto her Senate seat with her ‘no’ vote - who knows if it’ll work.

And, finally, the corruption trial of Senator Ted Sevens (R-AK) continues apace. Today, friend and renovator, Bill Allen, testified that while Stevens asked for an invoice, it was clear that Allen should never bill the senator for work done to ‘the chalet’.

Apparently Allen and Stevens were such close friends that they:

used to go to “boot camp” in the desert Southwest - where they would walk around, eating little and drinking only wine, “trying to get some pounds off.” [ADN via Mudflats]

I have no idea.

(Sounds pretty awesome though…)

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Just finished watching the latest in the series of Palin/Couric interviews. You’d think at this point that Palin would just coldcock Couric anytime she saw her coming. But no.

Anyway, there was nonsense about gays (it’s a choice!), vague nonsense about feminism (everything’s equal!) and a fairly good explanation of her position on evolution in schools (she believes in creationism, but science is for science class - literally the best answer I’ve ever heard her give).

Things broke down a little bit during Couric’s question about Palin’s stance on emergency contraception (transcript from CBS):

Couric: Some people have credited the morning-after pill for decreasing the number of abortions. How do you feel about the morning-after pill?

Palin: Well, I am all for contraception. And I am all for preventative measures that are legal and save [sic - safe], and should be taken, but Katie, again, I am one to believe that life starts at the moment of conception. And I would like to see …

Couric: And so you don’t believe in the morning-after pill?

Palin: … I would like to see fewer and fewer abortions in this world. And again, I haven’t spoken with anyone who disagrees with my position on that.

Couric: I’m sorry, I just want to ask you again. Do you not support or do you condone or condemn the morning-after pill.

Palin: Personally, and this isn’t McCain-Palin policy …

Couric: No, that’s OK, I’m just asking you.

Palin: But personally, I would not choose to participate in that kind of contraception.

Okay, so what we have here is Palin not understanding how the morning-after pill (and contraception, more generally) works.

Like many forms of birth control, EC can either block ovulation or prevent fertilization - but it can also prevent implantation. If you believe life begins at conception, odds are that most forms of birth control - including EC - aren’t for you.

Not to mention that she’s ‘all for [contraception]‘, but ‘would not choose to participate’ in EC.

For the last time - EC is just a megahit of birth control.

If you’re pro-contraception, it makes no sense to be anti-EC. If you’re anti-EC, it doesn’t really cotton that you’re pro-contraception.

And finally, contraception is, of course, just about the easiest way to lower abortion rates.

Jezebel has the video embedded and more quotes from the interview.

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In yet another act of shameless self-promotion, that Victorian suffragists piece I’ve been crapping on about for a year and a half has been published by the Public Records Office Victoria.

You can click here for the full issue of the journal or link directly to the article in html or pdf. (I recommend the pdf - they made the pictures look all fancy!)

Here’s the abstract:

In 1891, women’s suffrage advocates collected the signatures of some 30 000 Victorians, all supporting the vote for women. Quickly dubbed the ‘Monster Petition’, it remains one of the largest documents ever presented to Parliament. Some of the most famous names in the suffrage movement grace the ‘Monster’, but the majority of women who signed it were not well-known names. This paper explores the lives of seven women who were left out of the history books. Working-class and living in Davis Street, North Carlton, Agnes, Eliza, Helen, Ellen, Sarah, Ada and Jessie were not ‘history makers’, yet they still made history. Their stories paint a fuller, more accurate picture of women’s history and the history of the suffrage movement in Victoria. This paper argues for the significance of all historical figures, and suggests that the smallest of us can play a role in major historical events.

The other articles look really interesting. And the whole journal’s online and free to read!

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I’ve read a couple people over the last couple days talking about how Sarah Palin’s tragicomic interview with CBS’ Katie Couric last week might have been some sort of West Wing expectations-lowering stunt.

Having finally gotten around to watching the complete second half (foreign policy), it just can’t be the case. Sara has a couple of great YouTube videos of the interview/debacle. The one in which she discusses Israel (number two in LMS Brightside’s clips) is really the most frightening (and getting less play than the Russia nonsense).

While watching Palin stutter through her mishmash of talking points is grimace-inducing, reading the words is actually horrific. There’s no way that this was intentional; it is nonsensical:

PALIN: That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the—it’s got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.

As noted by Fareed Zakaria, ‘This is nonsense—a vapid emptying out of every catchphrase about economics that came into her head.’

The transcript reads like a slot machine - a question is asked and you get two oranges and a lemon.

Leo’s fumbling on the West Wing was a) fictional and b) behind the scenes and leaked. There is no way that the McCain campaign sent her out there to deliver that nearly unmitigated disaster.

Given her performance in the controlled environment of the interview and against Couric’s not terribly abrasive interviewing style, I don’t know that setting expectations too low is something the Democrats or Republicans can achieve.

Perhaps she’ll come flying out of the gate, but my anticipation for the veep debate is turning into creeping terror for Palin. I guess schadenfreude overdose is one way to change the tone of the campaign.

By the way, if you want to Interview Palin yourself, it’s not much different.

Oh, and boo to the LA Times Style Section.

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The Bush Administration is proposing changes to the way Health and Human Services deals with definitions, abortion and access.

Specifically, the new rules would require anyone receiving federal funding for health care to allow employees to refuse services to which they object.

The obvious target here is abortion. Or is it?

Senator Clinton and Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, point out in a NYT op-ed last week that the ‘obvious’ target masks the real concern.

Rules allowing medical professionals to opt out of abortions have been in place for 30 years.

The new rule would go further, ensuring that all employees and volunteers for health care entities can refuse to aid in providing any treatment they object to, which could include not only abortion and sterilization but also contraception.

This document is the update from the July version, which defined birth control IUDs as abortificants, but the wording is no so vague as to be the same thing.

Health care professionals are allowed to decide what is meant by ‘abortion’ - and would be allowed to refuse care on the basis of their own definitions.

The rules would also allow federal funding for so-called ‘pregnancy crisis centers’, which are established for the specific purpose of keeping women from having abortions.

(You know how they functioned in Minnesota when I was working up there? At least one ‘clinic’ was showing women fake ultrasounds and telling them they were too pregnant to an abortion.)

Public comment on the new rules are open until 25 September at midnight. Please click this link and add your name to the petition.

Links:
Blocking Care for Women [NYT Opinion]
HHS Attack on Women’s Health Care [Planned Parenthood Action Center]

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I try to be relatively moderate in what I choose to lambaste as sexism in the media.

Before you snort (or after you finish cleaning the coffee from the screen), it’s true.

There are ugly, glaring examples, but most sexism (as well as racism, etc - general status quoism) is so commonsense as to be unnoticeable. I, along with everyone else, miss the vast majority of it.

I think it’s important to point out the commonsense understandings when we find them, however, because they’re the most concrete ways in which ideologies are reinforced.

For instance, this Bob Herbert’s opinion piece in the NYT today on Sarah Palin has this quote:

Ms. Palin may be a perfectly competent and reasonably intelligent woman (however troubling her views on evolution and global warming may be), but she is not ready to be vice president.

A completely valid assessment - I can imagine few people less qualified - but the formulation is intriguing. This formulation, with only two words removed, has the exact same meaning:

Ms. Palin may be perfectly competent and reasonably intelligent (however troubling her views on evolution and global warming may be), but she is not ready to be vice president.

The words I removed are, of course, ‘a‘ and ‘woman‘.

Given the fact that the sentence gives her title as Ms. and refers to her as ‘her’ and ’she’ - it’s completely unnecessary to include those two words.

Imagine the same sentence written about a man politician:

Mr. Smith may be a perfectly competent and reasonably intelligent man (however troubling his views on evolution and global warming may be), but he is not ready to be vice president.

It’s not wrong, but it feels overwritten. We already know Mr Smith is a man, and there’s a certain… condescension (perhaps the wrong word) to over-modifying him. It’s the same way we say, “He’s a really nice guy, but…”

Horrifically, I know what this is called: overlexification. It’s the use of unnecessary groupings of synonyms and points to preoccupations, often societal and ideological.

I’m not suggesting that Bob Herbert is a raging misogynist; I don’t think he is. The original sentence as written doesn’t feel awkward.

But that’s precisely because women politicians are still considered to be outside the norm. The language we use to describe them more or less subconsciously screams, ‘THAT IS A WOMAN!’

It’s expressed in other ways as well. Because ‘female’ and ‘male’ are social constructs rather than inherent traits, I make an effort to use the term ‘women politicians’ when writing about them.

But ‘man politician’, as I’ve written above, just sounds utterly weird, doesn’t it? The standard is man, so we have to modify the term to apply it to a woman.

Anyway, hope you didn’t damage the computer with your spit-take; you should really be more careful.

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I’m starting to get a flood of emails and Facebook invites for groups/blogs that want me - as a woman - to proclaim why I - as a woman - am against Sarah Palin for veep.

While I appreciate the well-meaning intention behind these emails/invites - and some actual organization against the McCain/Palin ticket - I’m not joining or contributing to these sites/groups.

Here’s why:

As I woman, I am against the kind of cynical, craven politics that the selection of Sarah Palin represents. I acknowledge that she was chosen, at least partly, on the assumption that there are women out there for whom allegiance to sex trumps common sense and self-interest. (Insanely, it appears that some of these women exist).

But my own allegiance to my gender (or what’s good for my gender) is not why I am against Sarah Palin for vice president.

Yes, she disagrees with my views on abortion and sex education and health care. But I also disagree with her on a vast range of issues outside the traditional concept of ‘women’s issues’.

Asking me to disagree with Sarah Palin ‘as a woman’ boxes me in. It makes gender the defining characteristic for me and all women - be they voters or politicians.

It’s this commonsense reasoning that explains why women politicians are always asked about abortion, education and health care, but rarely about foreign policy or the economy. It’s why the media never interview men about women candidates. It’s the reason why the New York Times saw fit to say that women ‘deserted’ Hillary Clinton in Iowa (9 Jan: 1), but ‘rallied around’ her in New Hampshire (9 Jan: 17).

I don’t vote with my vagina.

And while it annoys me that the McCain campaign thinks I would, being against Palin ‘as a woman’ only compounds the ideology that drove McCain’s decision.

I’m not against her because I’m a woman. I’m against her because I’m an American citizen and she doesn’t represent my interests.

Anyone who would like me to join ‘Americans Against Sarah Palin’, send me a link.

While we’re at it, however, these women-focused Palin groups always seem to come with a great deal of sexist baggage. Here are three of the five comments currently on the Women Not Falling for Sarah Palin as Vice President group I was asked to join:

I heard she stuffs her bra. just sayin..

What a hooker!

…Pass this website onto to anyone who has questions about Professor Palin-Umbridge (for those who “get that”, chuckle chuckle!)

One of the emails I’ve gotten came laden with similar baggage.

So here’s something I feel comfortable saying: as a woman, I call bullshit on supposed feminist rhetoric that uses empty sexist garbage to to cut a woman down.

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Is there really an article in the NYT today about the hugging ‘protocol’ between John McCain and Sarah Palin?

And could it possibly yield one of the most awkward paragraphs I’ve ever read?:

Already, there has been one noticeable shift in protocol: Mr. McCain now introduces his wife first, not Ms. Palin, when both are on stage. But it was not always that way: at his first postconvention rally with Ms. Palin, in Cedarburg, Wis., last Friday, Mr. McCain began by lavishly praising Ms. Palin, who had just rocked the Republican convention. “Isn’t this the most marvelous running mate in the history of this nation?” Mr. McCain asked the roaring crowd, as Mrs. McCain stood quietly by.
…
Mr. McCain’s closest adviser, Mark Salter, insisted that there had been no behind-the-scenes stage direction — “Nobody said, ‘Cindy first’ ” — and that no one in the campaign had discussed hugging etiquette or protocol between Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin. “They’re going to behave like normal human beings,” he said. “Nobody ever told him, ‘Just shake hands.’ ”

Some commentators have criticized the NYT’s article about Obama ‘dispatching’ Clinton and female surrogates, but this type of story is harder to stomach.

The use of verbs like ‘dispatch’ and ‘deploy’, I’d argue, have more to do with the media’s tendency to use sports and war metaphors in their election reporting than sexism. Clinton is now one of the troops in the Obama campaign machine.

In addition, Obama, as the head of the Democratic party, has the authority to direct supporters to where they are most useful. As such, it is also not surprising to see him as the subject of the sentence (though I could say a few words about the NYT’s seeming obsession with what will women do?! in this election).

The story quoted above smacks more of gender-based trivialization in its light, isn’t-this-so-weird-gurlfriend? tone. It quotes a male McCain representative, followed by two women etiquette experts and then Christopher Buckley for the funny.

Right in the middle is a comment from whatever woman they could find (and create more awkward sentences about):

Christine Todd Whitman, the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Bush who 15 years ago was the first woman elected as New Jersey’s governor, said that she, for one, had embraced many of her male counterparts, as long as she knew them well. “I gave them lots of hugs and kisses, depending on the governor,” she said. (Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania was one, John Engler of Michigan was another.)

Look, other girls do it, too! (And here’s who they do it with!)

I’m much less concerned with a (perceived) linguistic affront to Clinton (imagine her being sent somewhere, like every other surrogate!) than with articles that emphasize a (perceived) need to treat women candidates differently from their male counterparts.

The article doesn’t explore how Obama and Biden (the McCain/Palin equivalents) interact - it details interactions between Obama and Clinton.

The message is that political body language (at least hugging) is only important between the sexes.

This view posits women as outsiders to the political process - their presence in the arena is awkward and makes us scrutinize what is considered appropriate behavior.

In this article Palin, Clinton, Whitman and Ferraro are women first, politicians second.

It reaffirms and makes commonsense the notion that women in politics (and, perhaps most troubling, their bodies) are something unusual enough to garner special coverage. The constant repetition of this logic in the media prevents the naturalization of women as equal political figures.

One might say, it keeps them at arm’s length…

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