Posts by Melissa McEwan

Melissa McEwan writes and edits the blog Shakespeare's Sister.

Disgraced Dipshit George "Macaca" Allen Tries to Launch a Comeback
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on July 7, 2009 at 4:00 PM.

Disgraced Republican Dipshit and Professional Racist George "Macaca" Allen is trying to launch a political comeback with a book due out next year called The Triumph of Character: What Washington Can Learn from the World of Sports:

In The Triumph of Character, Allen brings together two all-American passions -- politics and sports -- and reveals what Washington could learn from the enduring principles found in athletic competition and team sports. Having spent the better part of his life with one foot in both the world of sports and the world of politics, Allen will draw parallels and contrasts between the two arenas. Using his own engaging and entertaining personal stories, Allen will illustrate how "characters with character" in the meritocracy of sports can provide principled, competitive examples of the ways to surmount challenges facing America.

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Sarah Palin Is Not Crazy, She's Calculating (And Still More Dangerous Than People Think)
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Comment Is Free on July 7, 2009 at 5:00 AM.

You might have heard: Alaska governor Sarah Palin has quit her job.

In the sort of eye-rollingly silly spin that we've come to expect from the good governor, she attributed her first-term resignation to her unwavering dedication to the people of Alaska and her inability to accept political convention: "I'm not gonna put Alaskans through [a lame-duck second-term]. I promised efficiencies and effectiveness. That's not how I'm wired. I'm not wired to operate under the same old politics as usual."

She announced she was transferring the governorship to her lieutenant governor so that her administration "with its positive agenda and its accomplishments and its successful road to an incredible future for Alaska" can continue "without interruption and with great administrative and legislative success." And with a final promise to "effect positive change … for Alaskans and for Americans," she was done.

Despite Palin's best attempt to frame her decision as a noble sacrifice to her home state, that this departure is a self-serving move is manifestly obvious. She wants national office – or national influence, at least – and languishing immersed in the day-to-day of running Alaska leaves her too far from the spotlight she came to enjoy as a vice presidential candidate in the 2008 election. (Not to mention far from the political operatives, bankrolling GOP moneymen, and political infrastructure required by any national candidate.) Palin needs to make herself easily available to give crappy speeches to anti-choicers in the heartland, and taking her leave from Alaska is a necessary step to do so.

The conventional wisdom is that this is a terrible idea and she is crazy.

Palin, however, is not crazy. She's calculating. (Which, in politics, is generally not cited as a bad thing, unless the person doing the calculating happens to be a woman.) It's just that her calculations contain a bad factor: That the whole of the U.S. is like Alaska. She said on the campaign trail that "Alaska is like a microcosm of America", which couldn't be less true. It's an understandable misperception, given the GOP's penchant for supporters-only political events, but it is a misperception all the same.

If she were right, her move would be genius. But she's wrong. Which makes her ... wrong. And foolish. And quite possibly doomed. But not crazy.

At some point -- if all goes as planned and Palin finds herself a hot commodity on the rightwing small-time talk circuit, but nowhere else -- she will discover that she is wrong. And, at that time, she will once again be faced with a steep learning curve, like and unlike the one she has diligently avoided, the one referenced last week by conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer on Fox News: "She is not a serious candidate for the presidency. She had to go home and study and spend a lot of time on issues in which she was not adept last year, and she hasn't."

Learning how to navigate the politics of the Lower 48, understanding how they are different from the quirky politics of Alaska, is like the take-home test of policy details she has cast aside in its magnitude, but unlike it in its potential appeal to Palin. She's not a wonk, has no interest in being one, and has quite possibly no talent for it -- but she loves playing politics. Studying textbooks isn't her gig, but studying a new playbook is right up her alley.

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Cheney Orchestrated Public Response to Plame Leak
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on July 3, 2009 at 10:11 AM.

Cheney orchestrated public response to Plame leak:

A document filed in federal court this week by the Justice Department offers new evidence that former vice president Richard B. Cheney helped steer the Bush administration's public response to the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson's employment by the CIA and that he was at the center of many related administration deliberations.

 ...A list of at least seven related conversations involving Cheney appears in a new court filing approved by Obama appointees at the Justice Department.

And here's more SHOCKING news: Former Bush administration officials assert that the contents must remain secret, and—surprise!—the Obama administration agrees! Hopey changey!

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It's Time to Drop "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" -- End of Story
Posted by Melissa McEwan on July 1, 2009 at 12:15 PM.

Shaker Phira just emailed me this story about Defense Secretary Robert Gates saying he's looking at ways to make the US military's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy "more humane," including possibly changing the rule to allow "letting people serve who may have been outed due to vengeance or a jilted lover."

Phira writes (which I'm posting with her permission):

 

There's just so much wrong with this. DADT is based in hatred, cruelty, fear, and discrimination; to make it "more humane" would require it to become humane. And to become humane would mean, at least to me, that DADT would be thrown out. And I doubt that's Gates' goal right now. Or Obama's.

 

And being selective about which LGBT people are allowed to stay in the army is just further discrimination. "Oh, you're gay? You're out of the army. Oh, but we know about it because your ex-girlfriend got angry and told us? Then I GUESS you can stay," vs. "Oh, you're gay? You're out of the army. Oh, but we know about it because you had the courage to stand up for yourself and be up-front about your sexuality? Then get out. I don't care if you're our last Arabic translator."

I don't have much to add, aside from this: The stated rationale for forcing soldiers into the closet is troop cohesion (or some wacky variation thereof) -- which has long been debunked, anyway -- but I can't imagine how the military expects to continue trying to justify the policy on that basis if they let some openly gay soldiers serve, with, inevitably, no discernible effect on morale.

 

 

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The Madoff Sentence: Swindle the Rich? Get 150 Years. Swindle the Poor? Who Cares?
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on June 29, 2009 at 12:55 PM.

Let me be perfectly clear: I have no sympathy for Bernie Madoff, not a single, solitary, infinitesimal iota.

But surely I am not the only person who reads that he's been sentenced to 150 years in prison and sees the sort of ridiculously excessive sentence that's typically reserved for scapegoats.

Ah, the evil Madoff has been given 150 years -- finally someone is being held responsible for the horrendous economic clusterfucktastrophe which has befallen us all! Now we can go back to not paying attention! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!

It's just a little fucked up that the asshole who swindled rich people gets 150 years, but most of the assholes who swindled poor people haven't even lost their jobs. And that's to say nothing of the assholes staffed by the regulatory bodies whose enormous incompetence enabled Madoff's crimes, no less members of the administration under whose watch the economy collapsed.

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Kentucky Pastor Tells Followers to Bring Guns to Church
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on June 26, 2009 at 4:00 PM.

If there's one question to which I've always longed for an answer, it's: Who Would Jesus Shoot?

Ken Pagano, the pastor of the New Bethel Church [in Louisville, KY], is passionate about gun rights. He shoots regularly at the local firing range, and his sermon two weeks ago was on "God, Guns, Gospel and Geometry." And on Saturday night, he is inviting his congregation of 150 and others to wear or carry their firearms into the sanctuary to "celebrate our rights as Americans!" as a promotional flier for the "open carry celebration" puts it.

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Dear Anti-Choicers: Please Shut Up About the Non-Existent Link Between Abortion and Breast Cancer
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on June 25, 2009 at 9:45 AM.

I can't believe the anti-choicers are still on the "abortion causes breast cancer" kick.

"Susan G. Komen for the Cure is no friend of women," said Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer. "Komen perpetuates the breast cancer epidemic by withholding the truth that abortion increases breast cancer risk. We have three challenges for Komen.

"First, we challenge Komen to debate the abortion-breast cancer (ABC) link with us at the next Catholic Health Association (CHA) meeting or another venue. Since science is on our side, we expect Komen will duck the debate, as others have.

Leaving aside that there are legitimate criticisms to be made of SGK4Cure (and let's genuinely leave that aside in this thread, please), among them is not that SGK4Cure "perpetuates the breast cancer epidemic." And possibly the reason SGK4Cure will "duck the debate" is because

there is no debate

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Burger King: Burgers, Blow Jobs -- What's the Difference?
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on June 24, 2009 at 2:47 PM.

Burger King, whose adverts have previously featured in this series not once, not twice, not thrice, but four times, has done it again with a new ad that Copyranter describes as "the new leading 'most overtly blow-jobby ad' I've ever seen."

[Click to embiggen.]

 

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Dear Cruise Lines: Your Response to Rapes Aboard Your Ships is Crass and Clueless
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on June 22, 2009 at 2:20 PM.

[Trigger warning.]

So, I'm reading this article about the FBI reporting that "sexual and physical assaults were the leading crimes committed onboard cruise ships in recent years," and it's the usual depressing litany of failures to properly protect people from sexual assault and subsequent failures to properly serve resulting victims. And then there's the Blame Game, in which everyone who has a finger to point points it, in a wild attempt to identify who's really at fault for all these failures:

The number of attacks on ships is probably higher than reported, sexual assault experts say, because rape victims are afraid to come forward on an isolated ship with perpetrators in close quarters.

They also say cruise travelers are at a higher risk for attack because of readily available alcohol and a partying mentality on the vessels, which haul an average of 2,000 passengers each from across the globe. Of the attacks investigated by the FBI, a majority involved the use of alcohol.

Note the vague "involved the use of alcohol," which could mean a victim was drinking or that a rapist was drinking (or both), but because, of course, we can't actually ever have a real discussion about how alcohol might lower the inhibitions of rapists, most readers will naturally go immediately to the well-worn trope of drunken sluts deserving to get raped.

Cruise lines disagree, saying people are safer on the ships than they are in their own communities. The companies provide 24-hour security and screen passengers' belongings.

"The cruise ship is a closed community," said Michael Crye, executive vice president of the Cruise Lines International Association. Security officers "have absolute access to everyone onboard," he said, because each person has been documented before boarding the ship.

Note the complete ignorance of what actually causes rape -- not a lack of security, not people being allowed willy-nilly to carry unexamined junk around with them, not a sense of community, not being known to authorities, but the presence of a rapist who's determined to rape someone, a rapist who knows that the illusions of safety thought to insulate "good people" from rapists, coupled with massive canons loaded with victim-blaming and set on a hair-trigger, will make raping someone and getting away with it incredibly easy.

Who's responsible for sexual assault on cruise ships? The same people who are responsible everywhere else -- rapists and rape enablers, the people who see a borderline-incapacitated person being plied with more alcohol, who see someone already incapable of giving enthusiastic consent being dragged off to private quarters, who see someone being hounded by a stranger whose attentions they don't want, who see someone being bullied into dancing, sitting near, kissing, spending time with a person with whom they clearly don't feel comfortable, who listen to someone telling rape jokes, who hear someone making inappropriate comments about what they'd like to do to someone younger, drunker, more vulnerable, who see someone slipping something into another person's drink, who see any one of a million different clues that Something Bad Is Going to Happen, and do nothing, say nothing, just let it go. Or worse: Egg it on.

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Michael Savage Feels Oppressed
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on June 18, 2009 at 3:32 PM.

"The white Christian heterosexual married male is the epitome of everything right with America, and yet it is the white Christian heterosexual married male who has been made the beast of America."

—Michael Savage, who, like most conservatives, doesn't understand that it's not being white that's bad, but privileging whiteness, and it's not being Christian that's bad, but privileging Christianity, and it's not being straight that's bad, but privileging straightness, and it's not being married that's bad, but privileging marriage, and it's not being male that's bad, but privileging men and maleness.

What's bad is not being these things, but benefiting from the undeserved privilege conferred upon them. The beast is not the white Christian heterosexual married male, but the white person, or the Christian person, or the heterosexual person, or the married person, or the man who sits on hir laurels not challenging the institutions that grant them a birthright of unearned privilege, access, and opportunity.

When Is Obama Going to Stop B.S.ing About Gay Rights?
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on June 18, 2009 at 5:17 AM.

Not good enough:

President Barack Obama signaled to gay rights activists Wednesday that he's listening to their priorities by extending some benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees. But he didn't give them even close to everything they want, bringing growing anger against the president to the surface.

We all have to acknowledge this is only one step," Obama said in the Oval Office, where he signed a memorandum that made incremental changes to benefits offered to the same-sex partners of gay federal employees. ...Obama has refused to take any concrete steps toward a repeal of a policy that bans gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, even though as a candidate he pledged to scrap the Clinton-era rules. He similarly has refused to step in and block the dismissal of gays and lesbians who face courts martial for disclosing their sexual orientation. Obama said he wants to see the Defense of Marriage Act repealed and in its place a law that would give the partners of gay and lesbian federal employees health insurance and survivor benefits, among other things.

 

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Too Cute: Obama Helps Ten-Year-Old Play Hooky
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on June 12, 2009 at 11:31 AM.

This story is giving me a serious case of the awwwwwwwws:

Ten-year-old Kennedy Corpus has a rock-solid excuse for missing the last day of school: a personal note to her teacher from President Barack Obama.

Her father, John Corpus of Green Bay, stood to ask Obama about health care during the president's town hall-style meeting at Southwest High School on Thursday. He told Obama that his daughter was missing school to attend the event and that he hoped she didn't get in trouble.

"Do you need me to write a note?" Obama asked. The crowd laughed, but the president was serious.

On a piece of paper, he wrote: "To Kennedy's teacher: Please excuse Kennedy's absence. She's with me. Barack Obama." He stepped off the stage to hand-deliver the note — to Kennedy's surprise.

"I thought he was joking until he started walking down," Kennedy said after the event, showing off the note in front of a bank of television cameras. "It was like the best thing ever."

There hasn't been another president in my lifetime who's as good with kids as Barack Obama. He's just absolutely lovely to (and with) them. 

[H/T to Iain.]

An Open Letter to President Obama Regarding Dr. Tiller's Murder
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on June 1, 2009 at 10:33 AM.

Dear President Obama,

As you have no doubt heard, Dr. George Tiller was murdered yesterday. Mr. President, I can't yet say that sentence without crying. Partly, I am crying because I am sad—because of the hurt I feel for Dr. Tiller's family and friends; because Dr. Tiller was someone who I admired; because I have long feared the threats and murder attempts Dr. Tiller would inevitable yield this result.

Partly, I am crying because I am scared. This was a terrorist act, one in an ongoing campaign against Dr. Tiller, who was one target among many in a bigger campaign against women and the people who provide abortion services and safe havens for them—but no one in our government will call it terrorism. There are, in fact, a lot of things that don't get called terrorism in this country, but few of them approach the breadth of the long-term, flagrant campaign of intimidation, harassment, exhorted violence, attempted violence, actual violence, and murder of abortion providers and abortion-seeking women.

Still, our government is unwilling to call this orchestrated, overt, unapologetic campaign against women and their healthcare providers terrorism, even as increasing numbers of doctors say offering the legal service to their patients is not worth the risk—the very definition of effective terrorism. Even as physician champions of women's right to choose are murdered in cold blood. Even as "pro-life" groups openly celebrate his death and take the position that he deserved it. Mr. President, in the history of my blog, I've gotten death threats right in my comments threads by people who know that the government will not take them seriously, people who have left links to pictures of dead fetuses and pictures of Dr. George Tiller pictured in a sniper's crosshairs. I am scared for whoever will be next, if the government continues to fail to take this terrorist campaign seriously.

And partly, I am crying because I'm angry. Your statement, upon hearing of Dr. Tiller's death, was that you are "shocked" and "outraged," that you believe: "However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence." Mr. President, if you had been paying the slightest bit of attention to the realities of the front line of the fight to protect women's bodily autonomy, you would not be shocked. This wasn't even the first attempt on Dr. Tiller's life; it was the merely the first successful one.

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Michael Steele's Ongoing Quest to Get Fired
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on May 29, 2009 at 11:49 AM.

…RNC Chair Michael Steele says that Republicans need to stop "slammin' and rammin'" on Sotomayor, acknowledge the "historic aspect" of her nomination, and make a "cogent, articulate argument" against her.

Good luck with all that.

Lest you think that Steele was actually motivated by principle, he justified his admonishment by noting that the "liberal media" isn't on Republicans' side, so they'll "get painted as a party that's against the first Hispanic woman" nominated to the Supreme Court. See, it's not problematic that they are against her on the basis that she's a Latina woman, but it is problematic when the media actually frames it that way.

Clinton to Extend Benefits to Gay Diplomats' Partners
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on May 26, 2009 at 5:02 PM.

Clinton to Extend Benefits to Gay Partners:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will soon announce that the partners of gay U.S. diplomats are eligible for many benefits currently denied them and allowed to spouses of heterosexual diplomats, according to lawmakers and others advocating the change.

…Those benefits will be extended to all unmarried domestic partners -- both same-sex and heterosexual -- under the policy shift to be announced by Clinton in the coming days, according to a draft memo prepared for Clinton's signature. The draft was provided to The Washington Post by an official with the organization Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies.

J. Michelle Schohn, president of the organization, said she had read media reports on the draft memo and was hopeful the changes would be implemented soon. "It would make great changes in the lives" of gay Foreign Service officers and be "a giant step for equality," she said.

In what will now be known as the Bad Old Days, same-sex partners of US diplomats were not only denied the usual array of benefits (healthcare, pension, etc.), but also, when their partners were relocated overseas, had to pay out-of-pocket to ship their household effects and to travel themselves to the new post. (Yes, that's right—the US government would not even pay for the airfare of an unmarried partner, even if the government itself prevented them from being married.) Even worse, unmarried partners—which, of course, typically includes women in straight couples—were not evacuated by the US government in case of a security or medical emergency.

Now, all that will change. And that's change I can believe in!