This is also Mahablog’s 8th birthday.
From the “none are so blind as those who will not see” department — Kathleen Parker wrote one of her usually inane Washington Post columns the other day in which she called Barack Obama “the first female president.” Apparently in Parker’s World a “real man” must be a swaggering, angry, shoot ’em all and let God sort ’em out type, not cool and cerebral. By Parker’s reasoning probably Thomas Jefferson was the first female president, and Abraham Lincoln would have been right up there also, but let’s go on.
Some of Parker’s comments offended African-American readers, who wrote to tell her that
One, a black man cannot show anger in public lest he be considered an Angry Black Man.
Two, to suggest that a black man has any feminine characteristics, even when framed as an “evolutionary achievement,” is to emasculate and reduce him to a figure from Jim Crow days.
That first one, about not showing anger, is a point I’m sure I’ve written about before. I wrote in July 2008 —
If there is one thing Obama has been very cautious about, it’s bringing race into the campaign. As I’ve written before, he goes out of his way not to be the “black candidate.†He and his surrogates have brought up race occasionally, when they had to, but they drop it quickly.
Obama has also worked very hard not to display anger throughout his campaign; the cool demeanor may or may not be the “real†Obama, but he is incredibly disciplined about keeping his cool. And that’s because he understands that there are whites who can like a nice black man, but who will run screaming from an angry black man, even if the black man has plenty to be angry about.
I think anyone with his eyes open, watching race relations in America, ought to have noticed this. But then there’s Kathleen Parker, who wrote in a column today —
Do I think people are too sensitive? Yes. Do I think I may have overstepped the line? No. It’s a column, not a dissertation. And my thesis, bouncing off the notion that Bill Clinton was the first black president, is serious only insofar as you really think Clinton is black.
But I also recognize that my life experience is different from that of most African Americans. And that experience allows me both the luxury of seeing people without the lens of race, but also (sometimes) to fail to imagine how people of other backgrounds might interpret my words.
“Without the lens of race” my ass. Being utterly oblivious to the realities of racism is not being “without the lens of race.” It means she’s left the lens cap on.
Apparently someone actually had to explain to her that black men are held to a different standard in the anger department than white men. But then Parker says she can’t be prejudiced to Barack Obama, because she and the president are 8th cousins once removed. Seriously.
But then she goes back to saying that “many people” want their president to be an “action figure in the hyper-masculine mode.” Again, no Jeffersons or Lincolns. Really, the idea that presidents are supposed to channel the nation’s emotions seems to be relatively new. Calvin Coolidge (still beloved by wingnuts) was famously unemotional. I don’t remember Eisenhower or Kennedy appearing enraged in public, although I was very young then and maybe I missed it. Reagan, on the other hand, was the Great Emoter.
I blame television; government is becoming just another reality show.
maha, I disagree.
Government was the FIRST reality show. Or, at least politics is. A position in goverment is your prize. It’s like the really, really, old game show, “Queen for a Day.” Except you have to be a really bad Queen not to stretch that out for thousands and even tens-of-thousands of days.
Politics as reality show:
First, you have a bunch of egotistical freaks who want to win.
They will do anything to win.
The freaks have to do something to attract attention to themselves.
Then, like in a beauty contest, they preen for camera’s, and are vicious to the competition.
They try to show us what they got, or try to hide what they got long enough so they don’t scare us.
They court the judges, and in this case we’re all Simon Cowell, just not as vicious, snarky, rich, or good looking.
The losers, for the most part, slink away and disappear from sight, usually forever, as if they developed leprocy in their campaign (I mean physical leprocy, not the moral kind – I think you get that by winning, actually).
The winner gets a nice paying gig, with plenty of of perks and power. (Any “Idol” winner would be jealous. There’s a ‘term-limit’ of one year, and after he/she wins, they still have to go out into the market to earn a living. NOT politicians.).
The next time the winner goes up for re-election, it’s no longer a reality show. It’s not even one of those entertaining Hispanic “Novella’s,” which are mini soap opera’s with an actual conclusion. No, our winner is now a full-blown SOAP OPERA, with the politician as the diva and star, with villains, fans, dramatic plots, but with no real story to tell the public other than the story itself.
Our political soap opera runs on and on, with no goal, except the continuing gainful employment of our star, the writers, managers, producers, and the people who pay everyone’s salary, the lobbyist’s, er, uhm, excuse me, the commercial advertisors.
So, there you go. I’ll leave it up to you.
Reality show? Soap Opera?
I actually think of it more as “Bread & Circuses” for the masses, except that a chunk of our politicians just voted down giving the masses any hunk of bread.
Oh, well, we still have Circus Season until November!!!
SEND IN THE CLOWNS!
Don’t bother, they’re here…
Happy Independence Day! 234 years since we threw off the yoke of the British Monarchy!
Unhappy Dependence Day – on foreign oil, corrupt politicians, crooked, greedy corporations and bankers, and every other wealthy and powerful entity that keep people killing one another in senseless wars, children dying of hunger, and seniors of neglect.
government is becoming just another reality show
Amen! and a bad one at that.
Happy Birthday..Mahablog!
I really do get irritated with the stealthy ways righties work to undermine the perceptions of Obama. IMO, the author thinks that female voters want a manly man in the WH – and men want a manly man in the WH – so if the voters canbe convinced that Obama is feminine because he is nuanced, then any nuanced statement can be spun as weak and feminine.
A lot of the criticism in the article is about the federal response to the oil spill. Some of that criticsm is justified. Obama and MMS believed that the promises made by BP about how they could respond to a spill were based in fact. In the early weeks, I suspect BP was saying, ‘We are on the scene and have it under control.” Only in retrospect was it obvious how fictional BPs commitments for preparedness were. The MMS and Coast Guard were never prepared for a spill of this magnitude because they bought into the promise of BPs readiness.
The conclusion you can draw is not one Ms Parker wants to discuss. The relationship between regulatory agencies and big business MUST be sceptical bordering on antagonistic. In this regard, Obama failed, but it’s not a failure the wingnuts want to dwell on, because the ‘fix’ is aggressive oversight that Big Oil opposes.
Righties have a problem here – how to lay the blame on Obama without allowing the governmental failure (trusting Big Oil to police itself) to be addressed. So the focus is on how many skimmers are in the Gulf and the estrogen level of Obama’s speeches while the GOP dances away from fundamental reform.
Last, and I am sorry for being wordly, Obama strong-armed a commitment from BP for 20 billion for the people of the Gulf. That’s in addition to the cleanup. I don’t believe any GOP president would have done that. You can’t ascribe the ‘shaedown’ of BP to any gender, but it wasn’t weak.
I’ve been lurking here for a while, but I wanted to say “Happy Birthday” to Mahablog and Happy 4th to everyone.
Maha, this is off topic, but I have a question for you. I have my nails done at a salon with many Thai and Vietnamese employees. In the corner is a small Buddhist altar. There is a small statue of Buddha, some candles and offerings. Last time I was in, there was an offering of unpeeled kiwi fruit on a plate in front of the statue. Made perfect sense to me. But next to the fruit was a chicken biscuit. Wasn’t Buddha a vegetarian? Was a chicken biscuit a proper offering?
What a stupid woman.
And Jesus actually spoke of brotherly love in an Ayn Randian manly man sort of way…
Well, they’ve already tried to paste terrorist, socialist, illegal, hitlerian, teleprompter idiot, cunning megalomaniac, inexperienced, unpatriotic, incompetent and uh-an-arab on Obama. They might as well try “femaleâ€.
Happy Independence Day, and Happy Blogoversary, Maha!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY FAVORITE BLOG!!! MAHA!!!!! Hip Hip, Hooray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The relationship between regulatory agencies and big business MUST be sceptical bordering on antagonistic.
Precisely true, Doug. It used to be that way across the board. I used to do stock options accounting, and I was regularly interviewed by the exchange compliance office. And remember when accounting firms like Arthur Andersen (RIP) did an independent review of the books and it was trusted? Oversight standards are falling across the board, not just in government. And we’re clearly not better for it.
Happy birthday to the Mahablog! I wish I’d found it much earlier than I did.
The great majority of us ‘get’ government by way of, through, from a television set. And television, in order to attract sponsors must attract viewers. Television, therefore must first off be theatrical, secondly it must cater to our love for the trivial and thirdly it must concentrate on the dystopian of any issue – utopia, let’s face it is boring. And I’m talking about the evening news here.
I don’t blame television and it’s easy to see why government has become a reality show – the two are tied at the umbilical cord by necessity.
Very happy birthday, mahablog. I ‘discovered’ you when you appeared I-can’t-remeber-when on a CSPAN program and I’ve been here ever since and very glad that I just happened to be watching that program that morning. You’re a valuable site, one of the only four I ever visit.
Happy 8th Blogbirthday! There is always a spot for you on my bookmark bar — in fact, the #1 spot! I’ve read for years and finally began commenting. What great topics and what great fellow commenters you have inspired!
I look forward to joining everyone before the TV tonight for fireworks. HD is truly worth it for that!
I had a comment on Ms. Parker, but it struck me as too much like her, so better left unsaid.
Haven’t been by for a while. Happy Birthday, Maha!
The day somebody decided to allow Kathleen Parker to write an opinion column needs to be a landmark day in the history of the “stupidizing” of our political discourse. I’ve never read an intelligent commentary by this woman. But in the race to the bottom which is modern American journalism and punditry, her stupidity has avoided recognition only because she is part of a crowd, a haze of stupidity in punditry and journalism. Punditry used to be an honorable profession. Walter Lippmann comes to mind. You could disagree with Lippmann but nobody ever said he was stupid.
Happy 8th, and may there be many more! Race to the bottom is right, although I have to say Peggy Noonan is so vapid that she makes Kathleen Parker look like a genius by comparison.
And that experience allows me both the luxury of seeing people without the lens of race…
…that is really the money quote that allows us to peek under the covers of the “conservative” movement and MSM’s understanding of race in America, isn’t it? It is the most blatant representation of the intellectually vapid mindset of both the WaPo editorial board and conservative columnists as a group that one could hope to see, if only because the editors who read this simplistic and blatantly racist bit of nonsense appear to have nodded their heads, said “yup”, and sent it on to publication…
I would love to learn how Parker’s personal life story grants her some luxury to possess a race-free lens that adequately excuses her other commentary…
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“I would love to learn how Parker’s personal life story grants her some luxury to possess a race-free lens that adequately excuses her other commentary…”
You know as well as I do: White isn’t a “race”; it’s just, you know, normal.
PS: Happy Birthday!
I have enjoyed your website for years now. Thank you.