"Militants" Life Magazine, 1913

On March 3rd, 1913, people from around the nation collected in Washington DC for the Woman Suffrage Parade. At least five thousand people joined together to "march in a spirit of protest against the present political organization of society, from which women are excluded" (LOC). Many participants concluded the march successfully; many were taken to hospital because of onlookers' violent behavior:

Women were jeered, tripped, grabbed, shoved, and many heard “indecent epithets” and “barnyard conversation.” Instead of protecting the parade, the police “seemed to enjoy all the ribald jokes and laughter and part participated in them.” One policeman explained that they should stay at home where they belonged. The men in the procession heard shouts of “Henpecko” and “Where are your skirts?” As one witness explained, “There was a sort of spirit of levity connected with the crowd. They did not regard the affair very seriously.” (LOC)

The cartoon below, from Life Magazine's issue of 3/27/1913, just weeks after parade, reflects the march's onlookers' perspective (click for larger view/to read captions):

Aside: as an undergrad, I found this cartoon in an oversize sourcebook of feminism's history. If I'd have known then that one day I'd share a Xerox of this document with the world...anyways, I've been packing this around for nearly 30 years. Enjoy.

Pre-SOTU '12

I hadn't really planned on tuning into the State of the Union tonight (it's not that I'm apathetic; I'm pretty disgusted with the current Congress for a number reasons--gridlock, smug finger-pointing, juvenile tribalism, etc. etc.), but Andrew Sullivan, having received a heads-up about the speech's details, posts that we "should get some caffeine ready." It's pretty ambiguous (the address's contents are embargoed), but that statement suggests that we'll be up late tonight. Of course, it could also mean that we'll require extra energy to keep us alert during the speech, but Sullivan says that hearing the argument from the White House's communications team "is not the same as listening to Obama deliver the case," so I'll go with my initial interpretation of the caffeine recommendation and get that coffee going.

The Paranoid Style--Redux

"the spokesman of the paranoid style finds [the hostile and conspiratorial world] directed against a nation, a culture, a way of life whose fate affects not himself alone but millions of others." -- Richard Hofstadter

In The National Journal, Paul Starobin explores the re-emergence of an arch-conservatism akin to The John Birch Society (famously, the leader of that group asserted that Dwight D. Eisenhower was "a dedicated, conscious agent of the communist conspiracy"). Conspiracy theories about an imminent Communist coup-from-within provided the bedrock of that nativist association. Similarly, The question of "who is an American" has run throughout our political discourse recently. Conservative luminaries, including Newt Gingrich, have roused suspicions against President Obama by identifying him as "Kenyan," and opportunists (both political and commercial) take full advantage of people's anxieties by reciting unconfirmed claims (beheadings in the Arizona desert), amplifying far-fetched "what if" scenarios (sharia law replacing our current legal system), and insinuations that Caucasians' rights are floundering under the presidency of a bi-racial man. Certainly, a national paranoia seemed to reach a boiling point over the summer with the accusations of varying degrees of anti-Americanism targeting supporters of the Park51 development, legal and non-legal immigrants (and their children), and so on.

Starobin's argument about the contemporary "nativist agenda" certainly rings true. Triggered by 9/11 and the financial meltdown, people have grown paranoid. People clamor that they "want their country back" without defining what that might be. Yet these groups, Starobin suggests, will be met by a re-emergent Radical Left, similarly energized by recent events . . . and then? Who knows. Of course passions will ease, suspicions will recede, but we will have changed. Anyway, I recommend highly Starobin's "The Radical Right Returns," for a solid, and dispassionate, historical overview and analysis of "the paranoid style" in contemporary political discourse.

A Petty Quibble

While reading arguments over who has experienced worse treatment at the hands of America's political partisans, George W. Bush or Barack Obama (a fairly childish argument in and of itself), I commonly see references to a "snuff film," a "liberal assassination fantasy" about President Bush, with the implication that American leftists were responsible for it. Not so.

That film, titled Death of a President (2006), was not, as is often believed, a product of the "professional left." It was not produced in the United States nor by an American citizen. It is a British film, with a British director, British writers, and British financing.

Like this post's title indicates, it's merely a petty quibble, and my wish here is to clarify.
Cheers

An Opportunity to Kvetch

That, apparently, is what Courage and Consequence is all about.

I'm not planning on reading Karl Rove's memoir (seriously, I'm just not interested), and, according to David Frum, there's a reason to avoid it: Rove either rewrites history or evades it. Frum tries to be generous to Rove but ultimately decides that he's still "Waiting for Rove's Memoir."

R.I.P. Jon Swift

The great Jon Swift, blogger and satirist, passed away on 27 February.

Thank you, "Jon." May angels sing thee to thy rest.

Black Shirts and Flared Skirts

The BBC has up a fascinating, but too brief, article on women and fascism in pre-World War II Britain.

The first fascist party in England--the British Fascisti--was founded in 1923 by a woman, Rotha Lintorn-Orman, and females flocked to Oswald Mosely's British Union of Fascists in the 1930s. Like Lady Diana Mitford, Mosely's wife, many of these female Blackshirts--along with the male fascists--were imprisoned during the war. The article reveals the guilt suffered by the children of these women, especially, poignantly, that of someone who, as a little girl, was instructed by her parents "to paint slogans on the walls with 'Britain Awake' and 'Perish the Jews.'"Since viewing Richard Dimbleby's reports on the liberation of Bergen-Belsen in 1945, she has felt complicit in the Holocaust.

The article gives a taste of an upcoming BBC Radio Four program, "Mother Was a Blackshirt," which, unfortunately, one can only access in the United Kingdom.

Fears of Neo-Fascism

What with two members of the British National Party, Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons, winning EU parliamentary seats, people are aflutter about a possible rise in British and, by extension, western Euopean, fascism. Granted, Griffin and Brons aren't the most charming of men, and they espouse some seriously abhorrent views. But how significant is their win? Probably, ultimately, not very.

The Guardian offers some reasonable debunking of fears about a rising tide of fascism. Noted historians, including Michael Burleigh and Eric Hobsbawn, chime in with their views. The consensus: don't get your knickers in a twist. The recent election has all the hallmarks of a protest vote: it's not a sign that "fascism is on the march again."

It is significant that these historians seem to agree that if neo-fascism is to gain strength, it might well be in Austria and the Baltic States because of severe "economic turbulence" in the region.

Anyways, it's a worthwhile discussion, so check it out.

What S/He Saw at CPAC

Over at NewMajority.Com, an anonymous "Washington Insider" offers "What Did I See at CPAC?" Short answer to a short report? It's not pretty.

Meanwhile, David Frum reconsiders "The Goldwater Myth." Good reading.

Flashback

A 9 June, 2004 article from The Washington Post, which focuses primarily on interest rates, reminds us that the current economic crisis did not come out of the blue:

In late 2002, Cheney had summoned the Bush administration's economic team to his office to discuss another round of tax cuts to stimulate the economy. Then-Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill pleaded that the government -- already running a $158 billion deficit -- was careering toward a fiscal crisis. But by O'Neill's account of the meeting, Cheney silenced him by invoking his take on Reagan's legacy [allegedly, "Reagan proved deficits don't matter"].

It wasn't that Reagan's policies proved that government borrowing had no impact on the economy. But his administration's record -- particularly with some years of hindsight -- did give reason to question traditional thinking and provided a new context for future arguments about deficit spending.

"The lesson we should have learned [from those years] is that deficits have little or no short-term economic impacts," said William A. Niskanen, a member of Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers. (WaPo)

Interesting reading, but it seems that "them in charge" didn't pay attention to the "short-term impact" qualifier; by the time of the article's publication, we'd racked up $1.7 trillion in debt. This amount, Niskanen said, "has made the country "terribly dependent" and "terribly vulnerable." Indeed. But who were "them in charge" approving the debt? And who was talking about "mortgaging our children's futures" then?

That's a Long 15 Minutes There

Seriously—can we just let this fella slip back into obscurity now?

Please?

Kristof : "The War on Brains"

This morning's New York Times offers up an op-ed column by Nicholas Kristof that discusses our contemporary tendency to dismiss intellectuals. The cultural disdain for "too" deep thought prompts intellectuals to disguise their abilities to avoid being identified as a curious and complex thinker, and for others to reject any inclination to thoughtful complexity altogether. Of our presidents, he writes:

Perhaps John Kennedy was the last president who was unapologetic about his intellect and about luring the best minds to his cabinet. More recently, we’ve had some smart and well-educated presidents who scrambled to hide it. Richard Nixon was a self-loathing intellectual, and Bill Clinton camouflaged a fulgent brain behind folksy Arkansas aphorisms about hogs.

As for President Bush, he adopted anti-intellectualism as administration policy, repeatedly rejecting expertise (from Middle East experts, climate scientists and reproductive health specialists). Mr. Bush is smart in the sense of remembering facts and faces, yet I can’t think of anybody I’ve ever interviewed who appeared so uninterested in ideas.

The view that gut feelings or instinct trumps critical thinking has been about for a while, but when has it become acceptable for a president to rely on such nebulous factors to make critical decisions? Why the large-scale suspicion against people who aim to examine varying sides of an issue before arriving at a conclusion? It's Puzzling. Are we, as a nation, so frightened of complexity that we hesitate to trust it?

Mark Lilla at the Wall Street Journal (found via Sullivan) suggests that anti-intellectualism took hold about 25 years ago, when Conservative thinkers adopted Lionel Trilling's statements on the "adversary culture of intellectuals," which Lilla presents as "the left-leaning press and university establishment" of the 1970s and early 1980s. Ironically, it was Conservative intellectuals, such as Irving Kristol, who employed Trilling's phrase as they embraced populism in the mid-80s, and it caught on. Folksy "common sense" was to be trusted. Now populism has overridden Conservative thought. Lilla argues that, following the 1980s,

there grew up a new generation of conservative writers who cultivated none of their elders' intellectual virtues -- indeed, who saw themselves as counter-intellectuals. Most are well-educated and many have attended Ivy League universities [. . . .] But their function within the conservative movement is no longer to educate and ennoble a populist political tendency, it is to defend that tendency against the supposedly monolithic and uniformly hostile educated classes. They mock the advice of Nobel Prize-winning economists and praise the financial acumen of plumbers and builders. They ridicule ambassadors and diplomats while promoting jingoistic journalists who have never lived abroad and speak no foreign languages. And with the rise of shock radio and television, they have found a large, popular audience that eagerly absorbs their contempt for intellectual elites. They hoped to shape that audience, but the truth is that their audience has now shaped them.

Food for thought.
With Obama, an intellectual president, we might begin to acquire a different view of intellectuals (this, of course, depends on how Obama performs as president). If so, we'll likely see a reaction within the Conservative movement to reinvigorate or reinvent its intellectual tradition and aim to "educate and ennoble" rather than jerk knees.

Things I Spotted Today

The day before General Election 2008"

In a coffee shop (not Starbucks), counter servers asked each and every customer “get your ballot in”?

Saw some possible illegality going on: someone posted numerous fliers endorsing a local candidate all over restrooms in a state-owned building (I’m positive “them in charge” were unaware—the institution's president has endorsed above candidate’s opposition).

Saw several university employees sporting campaign buttons while on-the-job.

People are wound up; they're invested in this election.

NPR: "'Socialist' Charge Draws on Old Fears"

A link to an audio piece by NPR's Geoff Nunberg on past and present uses of the term "socialism" in American politics--and why it's so powerful.

The McCain Camp's "Dewey Defeats Truman" Moment!

The McCain campaign is so absolutely, positively, 150% assured of Senator McCain's winning tonight's debate that this morning's Wall Street Journal featured this:

Mind you, this appeared before McCain even agreed to attend tonight's debate.

According to Reuters, "McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said the ad posting was a mistake by the Wall Street Journal." Hmmmm. It's a little surprising that they haven't accused the WSJ of being "in the tank for Obama" for this little embarrassment--yet.

On the McCain Campaign's Suspension

Various notes here.

No complaints here about Senator McCain politicizing the economic crisis--that's what politicians do: they use current events to propel their candidacy. However, there's a real concern that any grandstanding in DC can disrupt the current negotiations on the bailout, which, apparently, are nearly complete. Is it possible that the appearance of McCain and Obama on Capitol Hill can do anything other than inject presidential politics into the bailout negotiations? Of course not.

There's a possibility that many will view McCain's campaign suspension and call to postpone the first debate as a cynical ploy, especially considering the McCain capmaign has suggested that the Vice Presidential debate be postponed as well. From Politico:

A McCain aide told Politico Wednesday night that the campaign is proposing to the Presidential Debate Commission and the Obama camp that if there's no bailout deal by Friday, the first presidential debate should take the place of the vice presidential debate, currently scheduled for October 2 in St. Louis.

Under this scenario, the vice presidential debate would be rescheduled for a date yet to be determined, and take place in Oxford, Miss., where the first presidential debate is currently slated to be held.

Some wag on the telly last night wondered out loud if this was a way to push the VP debate off the schedule altogether. Sorry I don't have a name for you, but chances are that I'll revise this later with the anonymous pundit's name (after I take some time to search).

A bigger problem might be the perception that John McCain reacts badly in a crisis; that is, he's apt to make kneejerk decisions, and he's prone to acting "reckless[ly]" and "impetuous[ly]." These were George Will's points of contention the other day. To that end, here are Will's conclusions again, in which he contrasts Obama's calm stability with McCain's impulsiveness:

Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.

It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?

I wonder what Will thinks of the latest McCain action.

Aside: Part of McCain's suspension plan included pulling all of his campaign ads, but, at this point, the ads remain up and running.

McCain Camp Goes After the NYT & Politico.

Today John McCain’s campaign blew off the New York Times and Politico. Why? Because the Times exposed McCain advisor Rick Davis’s role as an "advocate" for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and because Politico questioned the veracity of some accusations hurled by another McCain advisor.

Maybe there’s something in the water at McCain Campaign Headquarters, but seriously—is attacking the media the best possible way to get your message to the independent voter? Not the base, but the undecided? The ones you need in order to win?

Granted, I can understand any antipathy the McCain camp might feel towards the NYT following that lamentable article on the Senator and lobbyist Vicki Iseman, but the items that provoked today’s blowup are, in fact, verifiable. It seems what made the McCain camp explode was the fact that they’ve been attacking Obama for the past week based on his camp’s associations between former Fannie and Freddie officials: from “Loan Titans Paid McCain Advisor Nearly $2 Million” by David D. Kirkpatrick and Charles Duhigg:

Senator John McCain’s campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say.

Mr. McCain, the Republican candidate for president, has recently begun campaigning as a critic of the two companies and the lobbying army that helped them evade greater regulation as they began buying riskier mortgages with implicit federal backing. He and his Democratic rival, Senator Barack Obama, have donors and advisers who are tied to the companies.

But last week the McCain campaign stepped up a running battle of guilt by association when it began broadcasting commercials trying to link Mr. Obama directly to the government bailout of the mortgage giants this month by charging that he takes advice from Fannie Mae’s former chief executive, Franklin Raines, an assertion both Mr. Raines and the Obama campaign dispute.

Incensed by the advertisements, several current and former executives of the companies came forward to discuss the role that Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager and longtime adviser, played in helping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac beat back regulatory challenges when he served as president of their advocacy group, the Homeownership Alliance, formed in the summer of 2000. Some who came forward were Democrats, but Republicans, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed their descriptions.

So why did they hire Davis? He helped run McCain’s primary campaign in 2000; Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were counting on Davis’s continued relationship with the Senator “and the possibility that Senator McCain was going to run for president again.”

To me, this seems slightly more egregious than "a couple of calls" between Franklin Raines and the Obama camp. Note that Raines denies ever advising the Obama campaign (see Factcheck).

Granted, Mr. Davis has left his lobbyist role behind, so at this point it shouldn’t matter. It’s a former job. What does matter is the fact that the McCain campaign, in its eagerness to back away from the Senator's history as a deregulator and to provide distance from his assertion that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong,” prefers to go on the attack and present itself as the victim of a biased media when the story about Mr. Davis's background could have been addressed in a rational manner (one that might appeal to voters).

One of Senator McCain’s top aids held a conference call today not to clarify the Times story, but to complain about the media coverage of the McCain campaign. According to the Washington Post,

In a conference call with reporters, chief strategist Steve Schmidt said: "Whatever the New York Times once was, it is today not by any standard a journalistic organization. It is a pro-Obama advocacy organization. This is an organization that is completely, totally, 150 percent in the tank for the Democratic candidate."

Unfortunately, during the conference call, Schmidt made numerous factual errors in listing Obama offenses. Politico’s Ben Smith participated in the conference call and then reported on Schmidt’s misstatements:

“Any time the Obama campaign is criticized at any level, the critics are immediately derided as liars,” Schmidt told reporters.

Well, no. Unless Schmidt is talking about when the McCain has been shown as lying or distorting facts about Obama’s record (just click on the FactCheck link to your left for examples). And Schmidt forgets that the media is just as likely to call the Obama camp out on its distortions of McCain’s record (cf. the Spanish language ads, Social Security claims). But complaining about “being derided as liars” doesn’t stop the McCain camp, no sir:

[Schmidt] went on to list a series of stories he thought reporters should be writing about Obama and Biden, in almost every instance he got the details wrong.

[. . . .]
“[Joe Biden’s] son is a lobbyist for the credit card and banking industry,” Schmidt said.

But Hunter Biden’s lobbying clients don’t include any banks or credit card companies. He did work, as a vice president and then as a consultant, for MBNA, a Delaware-based bank and credit card giant to which Biden had close ties. But he does not appear to have lobbied for the firm.

[. . . .]

"What we know for sure, and is beyond debate and argumentation is this: Senator Obama said that William Ayers is a guy that lives in his neighborhood. We know that that is a disingenuous and untruthful answer,” Schmidt said.

“Senator Obama began his political career in its early stages raising money at Ayers’ house,” he said.

Obama did hold a 1995 campaign event at Ayers’ house. It was not, however, a fundraiser, and Ayers did not contribute money to Obama’s first campaign, according to Illinois records.

Schmidt also complained of Obama backers’ attacks on McCain’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

“As soon as Gov. Palin was nominated, one of … Obama’s chief campaign surrogates, [Florida Rep.] Robert Wexler, went out and accused her of being a Nazi sympathizer,” Schmidt said. “Where is the outrage to that aspersion on the part of some of the biggest newspapers in the country?”

But Wexler didn’t call Palin a Nazi sympathizer. He called former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan a Nazi sympathizer, and attacked Palin for allegedly having endorsed him.

Smith notes that Palin never endorsed Buchanan, despite the latter’s claims to the contrary.

In a move that certainly helps clear the McCain campaign from allegations that they’re over-fond of stretching the truth, it turns out that “McCain aides could not provide evidence to back up Schmidt’s assertions.” Smith continues:

One McCain aide, Michael Goldfarb, said Politico was “quibbling with ridiculously small details when the basic things are completely right.”

Another, Brian Rogers, responded more directly:

“You are in the tank,” he e-mailed.

Wow. Just wow. You lie, you get caught in a lie, and then you go after the messenger as if you’ve been unjustly targeted. What a novel way to sway your audience and convince them that your administration would approach issues with calm and reason. This seems pretty telling: rather than approach an issue with diplomacy, simply strike back. Don’t think about it, just act.

Update: Newsweek's Michael Isikoff reports that Davis's company remained on the mortgage giants' payroll until last month:

neither the Times story—nor the McCain campaign—revealed that Davis's lobbying firm, Davis Manafort, based in Washington, D.C., continued to receive $15,000 a month from Freddie Mac until last month—long after the Homeownership Alliance had been terminated. The two sources, who requested anonymity discussing sensitive information, told NEWSWEEK that Davis himself approached Freddie Mac in 2006 and asked for a new consulting arrangement that would allow his firm to continue to be paid. The arrangement was approved by Hollis McLoughlin, Freddie Mac's senior vice president for external relations, because "he [Davis] was John McCain's campaign manager and it was felt you couldn't say no," said one of the sources. [McLoughlin did not return phone calls].

Apparently, all involved parties say that Mr. Davis's activities on behalf of Fannie and Freddie were "minimal," which prompts the question: why did his company remain on the lenders' payroll?

McCain and Obama: It's All in the Hug

Embracing the future


Hanging onto the past

Which do you choose?

AP photo of Obama & child from September 15 event in Michigan.

Obama Ignoring Palin

The McCain campaign's strategy is to keep the Arizona Senator "in front of the media," as spokesman Brian Rogers claims, and Obama is complying happily by zeroing in on McCain in his campaign appearances--and he's ignoring Sarah Palin. According to the L A Times, Obama won't be drawn into addressing Palin even when prompted to by audience questions. And why is this? Back to the Times:

Obama doesn't want to give her more publicity. Were he to target Palin, he might detract from the critique of McCain he is trying to drive home every day.

Chris Kofinis, communications director for John Edwards' 2008 presidential campaign, said: "Palin right now is the flavor of the week. And the reality is she's going to rise or fall based on how she performs in the public eye. The last thing you want to do as a campaign is to fuel more media attention toward her when you don't need to."

This seems like a sound tactic. It goes beyond saying that, as presidential nominee, Obama should be focusing on McCain and McCain alone. When the time comes, Joe Biden can engage with Palin.

As a plus: it avoids any of those "gotcha" moments like the "lipstick on a pig" nonsense.

Link: the Fey / Poehler SNL Skit

Does Tina Fey (and her glasses) nail Sarah Palin or what? Here's that Saturday Night Live opening sketch featuring Fey alongside Amy Poehler as Hillary.
Enjoy.