Although if you need just a taste so you can figure out what to go for, try this. Please note that it is cheating to use this series to fake an education on the Internet…

that’s what us cool kids say to the boys we didn’t invite

Using both hands alternatively doesn’t count, Deadman…

that’s what us cool kids say to the boys we didn’t invite

DeadMan

There’s only one book: The Second Sex. You can kind of skip the parts where she dissects authors; it’s interesting, but may be drags some. The rest is just a classic piece of feminist scholarship.

So yeah, Hillary Clinton would not be much of an improvement over some Republican, based on her own political track record, that of her husband (which I think will have some relevance), judging by her contributors and endorsers, her campaign statements–etc. Back in 1992, after Bill Clinton had overturned 12 years of Republican lockhold on the Presidency, the Progressive magazine responded with a cover showing Clinton and the caption: “Four More Years.” Of Reagan/Bush biz as usual, that was. I figured they were a bit overwrought at the time, but was quickly disappointed with how easy it seemed for the rightists to push the new President around, and soon had to wonder whether they weren’t pushing him precisely in the direction he actually wanted to go.

That said–I still think it was better to have Bill Clinton in the White House for those 8 years than the Republican alternative (or any of the 3rd party runners-up for that matter–at this point I wouldn’t even trust Nader). In the same way, I am sure it will be less awful to have Hillary than any Republican–just going by her positions and likely movements as a generic politician.

And I think that if she is the Dem nominee, and does win, it will be against special Republican attacks on her fitness just as a woman, and I also think that if she nevertheless does win as she might–then the fact that the Rs will have started the gender food-fight will have repercussions–good ones. I think there is good reason to hope that she will have found by the time she is elected, or shortly after, that she has reached the limits of triangulating to the right, and that her allies are all to her left, but that if she takes on her enemies bravely that that support base represents the majority of the country and also pragmatic common sense. I think she might, without intending to, be forced into striking the political blows that finally break the back of the Right in this country, just because she is a woman, and a strong one, if not a particularly progressive one.

So yeah, she’s going to have to win the nomination without my help (which is rarely helpful anyway, judging by the results of most campaigns I have ever thrown myself into) unless she articulates a much saner and more humane platform than she has so far. But come Nov ‘08 if she’s on the ballot, I won’t be holding my nose when I vote for her. I will be downright thrilled to be sending a woman, even if it is this dangerously conservative one, to the Oval Office and blowing lotsa right-wing tiny minds.

Now if only Obama were convincing me he’d be so much better it would be worth giving that up (though a black man there would have much the same effect to be sure) or Edwards that he can give the slurs against him the snappy comebacks they deserve better than Kerry did, or Kucinich that he had a chance in hell.

Oh well, Hill running the White House–I’m getting used to visualizing it, and grinning.

Cheney’s discussions with big oil? BORING.

That said, one question: Is it just me, or does the Hate ON! for Hilary remind anyone else of the near-hysterical loathing of Eleanor Roosevelt?

I don’t recall in 2000 Gore being asked to asked to reveal all of his conversations and official papers relating to his position as vice president either. Or Mondale in 1984. Or any other VPs, who are always running at least in part on the basis of their experience in a former administration.

Even weirder, what Russert is asking for is papers relating to personal advice she gave to the president, which I don’t recall anyone ever asking from any candidate who had once worked in former administrations or who had a personal relationship with a former president. Cheney wasn’t asked to release all of his correspondence with Bush Sr from when he was Sec Def. Bush Jr was never asked, as far as I know, to reveal records of his personal conversations with his father, (although I’m fairly sure if he had been he would have told the questioner to go Cheney himself.)

[snip]

Not so for Clinton. Apparently, the thrill of examining every single aspect of that marriage, from sleeping arrangements to pillow talk, is of unending interest to the Village biddies. Why else would they demand that President Clinton release the records for Hillary but not for Al?

Finally, one can only gasp at the extreme irony of Russert pressing Clinton like she was a criminal for allegedly trying to keep some mid-90’s advice about welfare reform a secret. Right before his eyes is an administration that has made a fetish of secrecy to the point where we are now waging wars and torturing people which, short of revolution, we can’t seem to do a damned thing about. But for some reason Tim doesn’t see a problem with that, at least as far as I can discern. He doesn’t have problem with the president commuting the sentence of one of his felonious henchmen, and he doesn’t have problem with an administration that pretty much says the laws don’t apply to him. He doesn’t even ask the Republican candidates if they agree with these policies or press them on whether they would endorse these actions.

But, he’s hell on seeing Hillary’s memos from 1997.

Has Tim ever said one thing about the fact that this White House has taken the nearly unprecedented step of directing its former employees to openly defy congressional subpoenas, leaving the congress’ only option to send the Sergeant at Arms to arrest them in their homes and hold them in a little jail in the capitol that hasn’t been used in about a century? Has that been a matter of interest to Russert and the kewl kidz, because I haven’t heard them fulminating about it, have you? That’s the kind of “executive privilege” we’re talking about with this administration — telling the United States congress to shove it, over and over again.

But seeing those thank you notes from 1995 is something that the public demands.

[/sarcasm]

I’m just going to amuse myself by watching Jon Stewart take him to town.