(Photo Credit: Shana Wittenwyler, New York Times)Sorry to be so late with our Super Tuesday post, kids. I know you've been on pins and needles waiting for me to weigh in. "How is Roxie feeling?" you were wondering between games of solitaire in your lonely cubicle. "Does she really think Hispanics will stick with Hillary in California?" "Is Huckabee's win in West Virginia making her feel confident about her VP prediction on the Republican side?" "And is Moose thinking that her pick for Oscar-winning best song, 'Falling Slowly' from Once, offers a great refrain to hum on this extraordinary day in American political history?" You remember the chorus, not to mention that melody line that got lodged in your brain for three days after you saw the flick. Go on -- Hum along:
Take this sinking boat and point it homeThe truth is, kids, we're tired and cranky and have no idea what's going to happen tonight. We give you permission to watch TV or click over to the big-dog blogs that are liveblogging the results that will be trickling in all night long. Tweety is already warming his big seat on MSNBC, so if you tune in there make sure your cattle gun is close at hand. We like what we're hearing so far about national exit polls of Hispanic voters (breaking 61% to 38% for Clinton over Obama), but we've been freaking out over what has felt like a shift in momentum toward Obama in the last several days.
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you have a choice
You've made it now
So, settle in on the couch. Pour a drink. Or three. Take a breath. Or two. Because we love you, here are some links we would have sent you over the past couple of days if my typist hadn't been preoccupied by her day job. (You do realize that the spring semester has started, right? And you do remember that she did what she has taken to calling her "blog talk" again today at Maryland, right?) Put these links in your Backlash Against the Backlash Against Hillary Clinton File:
- Stanley Fish in NYT arguing that much of the Hillary hatred is so deeply irrational it merits comparison to anti-Semitism, because "both feed on air and flourish independently of anything external to their obsessions."
- Robin Morgan offering an update of her 1970 essay "Goodbye to All That," an on-the-ramparts analysis of sexist double standards at play in the election. Some of it is a little over-the-top, but, hey, sister's got a point to make and she's makin' it.
- Susan Faludi reviewing the new book, Thirty Ways of Looking at Hillary: Reflections by Women Writers, edited by Susan Morrison. The gist?
The ratio of trenchant political commentary to personal pot-shotting on the subject of Hillary Clinton in the larger media realm is precisely echoed in the pages of this book, which seems intended to reprise the op-ed fixations, not to bury them. The result is a good deal of convenient psychologizing, self-absorbed meanderings and unearned snipes—and a handful of efforts to take a respectable step back from how-do-I-personally-feel-about-Hillary thumb-suckery.
MANY OF THE writers in Thirty Ways are busy reviewing their own lives and taking their own temperatures, some with notable self-regard. Others are preoccupied with such pressing questions as, is Hillary a dog or cat person? Does she like olive burgers or Boca burgers? If she did have a hobby, what would it be?
A final note for all you girl-watchers: Rachel Maddow, official Butch Goddess of Roxie's World is on MSNBC tonight. Maybe she packs a cattle gun and can take care of Tweety if he gets out of control. After all, she's the one credited with unleashing the blog swarm that resulted in Tweety's red-faced apology for the way he talked about Senator Clinton after New Hampshire. Whatev. We just think she's. . .an incredibly articulate political analyst.
Hey, Roxie! Congratulations to Moose on a great talk at the Univ-of, today! My human couldn't make it but we listened to it on podcast. I was shocked to learn that "Moose" was short for "Moose-alini." I wouldn't dream of suggesting how you should run your household, Roxie, but just a quick comment on that: personally, I permit no such dictatorial behavior from my humans, and I encourage you, as a terrier (of all breeds!) to deflate what seem to be delusions of grandeur on the part of your amanuensis. Just a suggestion. You really have to watch them, or they start thinking they run the place.
ReplyDeleteMy own human (who can have a nickname other than "Dudley's human" when I say she can) spent a while on the phone tonight talking to an elderly aunt who recently moved to Iowa and attended her first caucus (and, she assures us, her last--well, next caucus, she'll be pushing 90). Said aunt spent most of my human's youth trying to enforce conservative Christian rules about women not having positions of authority. (My human got into trouble with that aunt for not wearing a head covering in church a few times. Seems head coverings show submission to the male of the species. [Humans! Catch dogs doing anything so stupid, I don't think!])
Well, my human, remembering her experiences with the auntly temper in days of yore, asked timidly, "And who did you caucus for?"
"Hillary, of course!" the aunt said proudly.
"Um, Aunt, didn't you used to say that God said women shouldn't be in positions of authority over men?"
"Well, the presidency isn't the church. And when you're as smart as Hillary, what's the problem? She can handle it!"
So my human is sitting here trying to fit THAT image of her aunt--the one caucusing fiercely for a woman in the White House--into her head.
And we here at the House of Beagle thought you would enjoy knowing that there are shock troops of Feisty Elderly Ladies going out there for Hillary. (We have no doubt that Uncle caucused for Hillary, too. We know Aunt, and he wouldn't dare do otherwise!)