W.

As his tenure nears its end, I find myself becoming strangely sentimental about our president.  Watching W.last night, I found myself rooting for him as he makes his way through a series of jobs that don’t stick (this feels familiar) and a failed run for Congress.  I even found parts of it (especially the scene where he meets Laura at a backyard barbecue) quite touching. 

Compared to other presidents’ biographies, his is undoubtedly on the lackluster and even pathetic side, and yet the average person can probably relate to him better than to Reagan or even Clinton.  Maybe that’s how we ended up with a president who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth but didn’t make much of his life and was something of a loser until he ran for governor.  Many people can relate to his underachievement, or at least his sense of having to prove himself.

Josh Brolin is brilliant as the title character, and Richard Dreyfuss has got the mannerisms and look of Dick Cheney down to an eerie science.  The rest of the cast is almost *too* look-a-like for my taste, but on the other hand it is kind of amazing that they found actors who can so closely resemble and portray all the members of Bush’s cabinet.

As much as it made me wince at times (the gut-level decisions that go on during the meetings about invading Iraq are particularly painful to watch), I was surprised at how much of a good movie and even a historical document this was.  Though I don’t have great memories of Bush’s reign in particular, his presidency was the backdrop of a lot of pivotal moments in my life: from my first semester in college (when he was elected) to meeting my husband and getting married.  When my (hypothetical) kids ask me why we invaded Iraq, passed the Patriot Act, and reelected George W. Bush, I hope I can point them to this film.

Reaching New Lows, or Why I Can’t Wait Til This Danged Election is Over

I don’t know which is more upsetting: the idea that an Obama supporter robbed and assaulted a McCain supporter and carved a ‘B’ into her face, or the fact that the alleged victim confessed to making it all up:

[Ashley] Todd originally told police a man “punched her in the back of the head, knocking her to the ground, and he continued to punch and kick her while threatening to teach her a lesson for being a McCain supporter,” according to a police statement. . .

Ashley Todd, 20, of College Park, Texas, will be charged with filing a false police report, a misdemeanor, and may face more charges, said police spokeswoman Diane Richard at a news conference.

I imagine there are folks out there who heard the first report (of the attack) and will miss or ignore the news that it was a hoax. When will the insanity end?

White Folks: Have You Lost Your Damn Mind?

So there are a lot of very serious issues of race in this presidential election, which are undeniable and upsetting. But how better to address people’s bigotry than with humor?

Grier actually brings up a point I think about a lot, and perhaps those of you more learned in race and sociological studies can enlighten me — why are people of mixed race like Barack Obama always referred to in the media and popular culture as ‘black’ or ‘Asian’ or ‘Latino’ but rarely as ‘mixed race?’ I think I know why, but perhaps someone else has a better answer.

Defending the Right to Shoot Wolves from Helicopters

While I know that both VP candidates are easy targets, I think that this is political satire at its best. Tina Fey is a GODDESS:

more about "Saturday Night Live – VP Debate Open:…", posted with vodpod

Obama and the Unconscious Racists

Lately I’ve been interested in how racism plays a role in the presidential election.  There are so many factors at work that it seems impossible to isolate race admidst all that is new and different about both Obama’s and McCain’s candidacies.  While I strongly take issue with Tim Wise’s piece on white privilege in the 2008 campaign**, I acknowledge that electing a black man to the highest office in our country will be a significant step for Americans, and I wonder how the psychodynamics are playing out on a national level.  

I don’t know any Democrats who will be voting for McCain.  Hell, I’m not sure I know *anyone* who is voting for him in the state of California.  Seemingly everyone I know (parents, friends, neighbors) is JAZZED about Obama and cannot wait to elect him.  So who exactly are the folks who might vote for Obama if he was lily-white?

Nicholas Kristof has written an interesting op-ed on the matter.  He cites a Stanford study that suggests that Obama would be six points ahead of where he is if he were white.  I’m not certain if this takes the Bradley effect into account or not.  Other studies show that good ol’ fashioned racists (those who would admit a preference for a candidate based soley on race) are not the ones taking away votes from Obama.  Rather it is those white people (and sometimes blacks too) who often earnestly believe in racial equality but unconsciously discriminate that will ultimately hurt Obama.

Kristof writes that, “a huge array of research suggests that 50 percent or more of whites have unconscious biases that sometimes lead to racial discrimination.”  A Yale experiment in which white participants were asked to choose between black and white job candidates based on identical qualifications showed a strong unconscious bias toward white candidates.

And:

“Research suggests that whites are particularly likely to discriminate against blacks when choices are not clear-cut and competing arguments are flying about — in other words, in ambiguous circumstances rather like an electoral campaign.”

I am curious to know how we identify pure racial bias when non-quantifiable factors such as personality and perceived intelligence come in to play.  Sure, a study is able to present hypothetical candidates with identical qualifications, but how often is it that cut and dry in politics?  I’ve heard some accusations of racism bandied about on the internet when one person expresses a preference for Hillary Clinton or John McCain over Barack Obama.  Which white candidate with identical experience can we compare to Obama to prove that an objection to Obama is an objection to his blackness?

Isolating the effect of racism on the election is an interesting, if depressing exercise in examining our deap-seated biases.  How does one un-learn unconscious discrimination?  Years of therapy?  Making it a policy to always choose against one’s instinct when race is involved? Yes, race is a factor this year. So is age, sex, personality, issues related to the candidates’ children, and a thousand other things that have little to do with how a candidate would govern our country. For better or worse, (worse, mostly) these biases are entrenched in our electorate. The best we can do is to educate ourselves, and attempt to vote based on the policies and values we agree with.

 
**Wise writes: “White privilege is being able to convince white women who don’t even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a ’second look.’” — uh… EXCUSE me?

A brief political history of… myself

2000: I came of voting age in time to vote in the national election. I was a freshman at a liberal arts college which brought many big name speakers to campus that year, such as Tim O’Brien, Maya Angelou… and a fateful pre-election appearance by Ralph Nader. I was eighteen, inspired, idealistic, naïve… I’ll let you draw your own conclusions, but let me just say that while I don’t necessarily regret the choice I made (Gore won California afterall) I do wish I’d voted Democratic just so my husband wouldn’t give me so much shit about it eight years later.

2004: I was in my last year of college. I had watched an Austrian bodybuilder/”actor” become governor of my state. I had voted for the losing candidate in the mayoral election in San Francisco. I came to believe that while third party candidates may be *almost* electable in city elections in the Bay Area, it was just plain dumb to support them at the national level. I voted for Edwards in the primary, but supported Kerry one hundred percent once he was nominated, and hoped and prayed with every fiber of my being that he would beat out Bush. When the results came in on that November day, I felt a dark sense of despair for my country which I’d only ever experienced during the aftermath of the World Trade center attacks. While I never felt the urge to move to France or Canada like so many of my classmates, I felt a little like I wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

2008: I’m sad to say that I’m not the politically idealistic person I once was. I have a job with health insurance, an apartment, two dogs, and a husband. The environment and human rights issues are no longer on the forefront of my mind. I’ve made compromises and don’t subscribe to the strict ethical code to which I once did. However, I still care. Unfortunately this election, while historic and certainly the most hopeful and interesting of any I’ve lived through, has turned me off from politics in ways I never thought possible.

I supported Hillary initially. She’s smart, tough, and is generally more convincing as a president to me than Obama. I watched as my friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors pooh-poohed her (she was too establishment, too pushy, too much of a “bitch” – ah yes, Democrats’ finest moment, branding one of their own as a bitch), seemingly entranced by (as my husband jokingly says) “His Holiness the Barack Obama.” Yes, the cult-like behavior around Obama has been a big turnoff, as are those Warhol-esque posters that peer at me from seemingly every window in my neighborhood, including my neighbor’s windows which face my backyard. Senator Obama watches us as we play our impromptu badminton games on Saturday afternoons. Sometimes I can see him peeking in to my bedroom.

His Holiness watching over us...

Then there is the gag reflex I’ve developed, which occurs when anyone starts talking about Sarah Palin. It’s not only that I find her annoying (although, ugh, that clip where she’s saying “…and I told Congress, ‘thanks, but no thanks, for that bridge to nowhere’” makes my skin crawl), but I find both the Republican celebri-fication of her as well as the Democratic knee-jerk rumor mongering (the alleged Sambo/bitch remark; the possibility that her son was actually her grandson) equally repulsive.

The truth is that celebrity DOES count for a LOT in this election – one need only look at Obama’s ascent to be sure of this – and as exciting and historic as it may be to elect an African American man as president or a woman as VP, I remain unimpressed with what lies at the core. This year I won’t argue policy or phonebank for my candidate. I will simply look forward to the end of all this madness.

Anyone else out there ready for this all to be over?