Hundreds Remember With Affection the Activist and Political Wife Who Died After Long Battle With Cancer at Age 61
Saying Goodbye to Elizabeth Edwards
Elizabeth Edwards: 1949-2010
Estranged wife of John Edwards dies at 61 after a six-year battle with cancer
John Not a Speaker at Elizabeth Edwards Funeral
(AP) Hundreds of family and friends gathered Saturday to honor the life of Elizabeth Edwards, who has been praised for her strength amid a series of life tragedies that included the death of a son, a betrayal by her husband and a battle with cancer that eventually led to her death.
The funeral was held at Edenton Street United Methodist, a Raleigh church that Edwards turned to after her 16-year-old son Wade died in a car crash in 1996. She was to be buried later in the day alongside her son during a private ceremony.
Speakers recalled Edwards as a woman filled with energy, intellect and humor. They joked they had trouble coming up with what to say without the woman who used to leave notes of advice for those close to her.
"There aren't words that are good enough," said daughter Cate Edwards, whose eulogy contained a passage from a letter her mother spent years preparing to leave to her children after she was gone.
"I've loved you in the best ways I've known how," the letter said. "All I ever really needed was you, your love, your presence, to make my life complete."
John Edwards, her estranged husband, did not speak. The couple had four children together, including 12-year-old Emma Claire and 10-year-old Jack.
John Edwards "Grieving Terribly" for Elizabeth
Anti-Gay Protesters at Edwards Funeral
Their oldest daughter, 28-year-old Cate, also talked of how her mother comforted those around her as she lay dying - at one point barely able to speak as she held her daughter and John's hands, looking back and forth to each, repeating, "I'm OK. I'm OK."
"She was way more worried about us than we were about her," Cate Edwards said.
She talked of her mother's strength and grace and also of her witty advice about everything from clothing (there are always fewer regrets wearing solids than patterns) to marriage (don't settle for the first boy you ever meet).
"She's been a lighthouse to all of us - a point of guidance when we all feel lost," she said.
The memorial brought several political figures, including Sen. John Kerry, who led the Democratic presidential ticket in 2004 that included John Edwards, and North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue.
Two of Elizabeth Edwards' longtime friends, Hargrave McElroy and Glenn Bergenfield, also gave eulogies.
McElroy spoke admiringly of the fiery woman who first became a close friend as the couple raised their young children, telling stories of Edwards' expertise at any pursuit that required intellect - from board games to sports trivia. She said Edwards was always an optimist.
"She knew who she was. She never held back. She was without pretense," McElroy said.
Bergenfield described a woman he first met in law school who challenged her professors with a vibrant mind and who possessed "big world, head-turning, walk-into-the-poll gorgeous" looks. He related anecdotes about how strong she was, but also how she was down-to-earth she was, seeming to care for each stranger she met, disarming campaign operatives with plain language or crawling under a dorm room bed to find clothing Cate had discarded.
"Nothing that she said publicly, as a mother, as an author or as a friend - none of it fed or was in any way fueled by ego," he said.
Bergenfield described Edwards as a close friend to him and his family - giving his children thoughtful advice and teaching people around her to "live like it's important."
One of the pallbearers, Tyler Highsmith, was in the car Wade Edwards was driving when he died. He and three other pallbearers - Michael Lewis, Ellis Roberts and Charles Scarantino - were pallbearers in Wade Edwards' funeral.
Jennifer Palmieri, who was a senior adviser during John Edwards' presidential campaigns, said the funeral was open to the public because Elizabeth Edwards always insisted on open campaign events - much to the consternation of staff who wanted to control access. She never wanted tickets issued, even free ones.
Among the people who gathered on a nearby street hours before the funeral was Barbara Fields, a 65-year-old Raleigh resident who never knew Edwards personally but was impressed by how she handled adversity.
Fields, a 10-year breast cancer survivor who wore a pink scarf with breast cancer logos, said she found comfort in books and speeches by Edwards about the fear and sleepless nights that come with fighting the illness.
"She just carried herself with a quiet dignity," Fields said.
Elizabeth Edwards was first diagnosed with cancer in 2004, a day after the Kerry-Edwards ticket lost to George W. Bush in that year's presidential election. Doctors declared her cancer-free after grueling treatments, but the disease returned in an incurable form in 2007. She died Tuesday.
Her last years were tumultuous ones, made difficult by her husband's affair and eventual admission that he'd fathered a child with the mistress. John and Elizabeth Edwards separated about a year ago.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Is Sexual Fidelity the Most Important Part of a Relationship?
Thoughts on Non-monogamy - Is Sexual Fidelity the Most Important Part of a Relationship?
Recently a new sex partner asked for my advice on how to deal with three women he was “seeing,” each of whom was interested in having a monogamous relationship with him. Being as how we had just had “no strings attached” sex, I asked him if he was really able to handle truly being monogamous. His reply was (as I expected) a sheepish “No.”
It came out that he was more interested in one of the women than he was in the other two, but that she also had commitment issues. So I suggested that he consider an open relationship, one in which he did all the “girlfriend” things with this woman, but which allowed for both of them to still have the option of sex with other people—provided that there was no emotional involvement.
This was an apparently novel idea for him, and he liked it. I explained that they would need to negotiate the ground rules of their relationship (for example, he was okay with her having sex with other men as long as she didn’t talk about it) and they would have to keep the lines of communication open. After he left, I wondered to myself: If we didn’t have the expectation that our “committed” partners would be able to fulfill all of our sexual needs, could we be free to simply enjoy the closeness and commitment of a relationship based on emotional instead of sexual fidelity?
For me, the most important part of a relationship is the emotional connection you have with your partner. You trust them, you talk openly with them, they know your quirks and flaws and still love you for them. When you have this connection, it usually makes for better sex. But there’s something to be said about having someone you can give your heart to and still remain free to engage in other sexual encounters. I’m talking about emotional monogamy. Sex is a pleasurable bonus in an emotionally monogamous relationship, and we can extricate sex from the relationship equation if we’re willing to accept that one can love someone deeply and still desire and pursue other sex partners, without loving the primary partner any less.
Some people take the next step and choose to practice polyamory—multiple full-fledged emotional and sexual relationships. Books like The Ethical Slut offer a guide on how to construct working polyamorous relationships, touching on topics such as having a primary partner with whom you have unprotected sex and “satellite” partners with whom you use protection—but in ANY type of non-monogamous relationship safer sex is extremely important. This type of relationship arrangement is not for those interested in emotional fidelity, because, by definition, polyamory is participation in multiple LOVING relationships. Meaning, you’re sharing your partner’s affections—so if you’re the jealous type, this probably won’t work for you. But many people can and do thrive in a polyamorous relationship. Me, I need that emotional exclusivity. To each her own.
Lately, some men have been approaching me looking for another, more familiar type of arrangement, optimistically called, “friends with benefits.” This is about one step up from “fuck buddy,” in my opinion, and will usually either end up with you in an awkward, forced relationship, or with you minus a friendship. Remaining “just friends” while being involved sexually takes a level of emotional detachment that many women (and men, actually) aren’t able to attain. As you become better friends, it’s natural that you become more involved with them. Add sex to the equation, and the fact that when you orgasm with a partner a hormone called oxytocin is released causing the creation of strong attachment, and you’ve got drama if your partner doesn’t get the same dosage. If you can pull this off, more power to you—but if you’re the type that becomes easily love-struck, I’d suggest staying clear of this arrangement.
Each of these non-monogamous relationship configurations—and I’m only touching on a few of the multiple possibilities—have their pros and cons. It is important to think carefully about what you need in order to feel comfortable. Do you want to “come home” to one person but have sex with many people, as in, an emotionally monogamous yet sexually open relationship? Can you handle knowing that your partner both loves and sleeps with more women than just you, as in, a polyamorous relationship? Do YOU want to love and sleep with more partners than just the one? Can you rein in your attachment and just be friends who fuck? Really, it’s up to you where the line is drawn.
But in any non-monogamous relationship, just as in monogamous relationships, communication is of the utmost importance. The minute that communication breaks down when one partner expects something that the other has no idea they want, things fall apart. I recently experienced a situation in which one of my sex partners had assumed that they were the only person I was having sex with. We had never talked about having any type of monogamous relationship, we had just hooked up and had fun. But because he wanted something from me that I didn’t know he desired, there was a bit of “reevaluation of the situation” on his part. Our “arrangement” didn’t end, but his ego may have taken a bruising.
Practicing non-monogamy doesn’t make you a “ho” or a “slut.” I know we are wary of the stereotype of the hypersexualized Black woman. I’m not suggesting that you pull on a pair of booty shorts and go hit up all the potential sex partners you see. What I am suggesting is that we shed the notion that there’s only one way to be in a relationship with someone, and embrace the spectrum of relationship configurations that include flavors of non-monogamy.
You might find ways to fulfill needs you didn’t even know that you had.
Tasha Fierce LAUNCH Magazine
Recently a new sex partner asked for my advice on how to deal with three women he was “seeing,” each of whom was interested in having a monogamous relationship with him. Being as how we had just had “no strings attached” sex, I asked him if he was really able to handle truly being monogamous. His reply was (as I expected) a sheepish “No.”
It came out that he was more interested in one of the women than he was in the other two, but that she also had commitment issues. So I suggested that he consider an open relationship, one in which he did all the “girlfriend” things with this woman, but which allowed for both of them to still have the option of sex with other people—provided that there was no emotional involvement.
This was an apparently novel idea for him, and he liked it. I explained that they would need to negotiate the ground rules of their relationship (for example, he was okay with her having sex with other men as long as she didn’t talk about it) and they would have to keep the lines of communication open. After he left, I wondered to myself: If we didn’t have the expectation that our “committed” partners would be able to fulfill all of our sexual needs, could we be free to simply enjoy the closeness and commitment of a relationship based on emotional instead of sexual fidelity?
For me, the most important part of a relationship is the emotional connection you have with your partner. You trust them, you talk openly with them, they know your quirks and flaws and still love you for them. When you have this connection, it usually makes for better sex. But there’s something to be said about having someone you can give your heart to and still remain free to engage in other sexual encounters. I’m talking about emotional monogamy. Sex is a pleasurable bonus in an emotionally monogamous relationship, and we can extricate sex from the relationship equation if we’re willing to accept that one can love someone deeply and still desire and pursue other sex partners, without loving the primary partner any less.
Some people take the next step and choose to practice polyamory—multiple full-fledged emotional and sexual relationships. Books like The Ethical Slut offer a guide on how to construct working polyamorous relationships, touching on topics such as having a primary partner with whom you have unprotected sex and “satellite” partners with whom you use protection—but in ANY type of non-monogamous relationship safer sex is extremely important. This type of relationship arrangement is not for those interested in emotional fidelity, because, by definition, polyamory is participation in multiple LOVING relationships. Meaning, you’re sharing your partner’s affections—so if you’re the jealous type, this probably won’t work for you. But many people can and do thrive in a polyamorous relationship. Me, I need that emotional exclusivity. To each her own.
Lately, some men have been approaching me looking for another, more familiar type of arrangement, optimistically called, “friends with benefits.” This is about one step up from “fuck buddy,” in my opinion, and will usually either end up with you in an awkward, forced relationship, or with you minus a friendship. Remaining “just friends” while being involved sexually takes a level of emotional detachment that many women (and men, actually) aren’t able to attain. As you become better friends, it’s natural that you become more involved with them. Add sex to the equation, and the fact that when you orgasm with a partner a hormone called oxytocin is released causing the creation of strong attachment, and you’ve got drama if your partner doesn’t get the same dosage. If you can pull this off, more power to you—but if you’re the type that becomes easily love-struck, I’d suggest staying clear of this arrangement.
Each of these non-monogamous relationship configurations—and I’m only touching on a few of the multiple possibilities—have their pros and cons. It is important to think carefully about what you need in order to feel comfortable. Do you want to “come home” to one person but have sex with many people, as in, an emotionally monogamous yet sexually open relationship? Can you handle knowing that your partner both loves and sleeps with more women than just you, as in, a polyamorous relationship? Do YOU want to love and sleep with more partners than just the one? Can you rein in your attachment and just be friends who fuck? Really, it’s up to you where the line is drawn.
But in any non-monogamous relationship, just as in monogamous relationships, communication is of the utmost importance. The minute that communication breaks down when one partner expects something that the other has no idea they want, things fall apart. I recently experienced a situation in which one of my sex partners had assumed that they were the only person I was having sex with. We had never talked about having any type of monogamous relationship, we had just hooked up and had fun. But because he wanted something from me that I didn’t know he desired, there was a bit of “reevaluation of the situation” on his part. Our “arrangement” didn’t end, but his ego may have taken a bruising.
Practicing non-monogamy doesn’t make you a “ho” or a “slut.” I know we are wary of the stereotype of the hypersexualized Black woman. I’m not suggesting that you pull on a pair of booty shorts and go hit up all the potential sex partners you see. What I am suggesting is that we shed the notion that there’s only one way to be in a relationship with someone, and embrace the spectrum of relationship configurations that include flavors of non-monogamy.
You might find ways to fulfill needs you didn’t even know that you had.
Tasha Fierce LAUNCH Magazine
Body Fell From Plane ( OOOOPS!)
BOSTON — A North Carolina teenager whose body was found in a Boston suburb last month had most likely stowed away inside a plane’s wheel well and fallen as it lowered its landing gear, the authorities said Friday.
The remains of the youth, Delvonte Tisdale, 16, were found in a quiet neighborhood in Milton, Mass., on Nov. 15, below a flight path to Logan Airport.
“It appears more likely than not that Mr. Tisdale was able to breach airport security and hide in the wheel well of a commercial jet airliner without being detected by airport security,” William R. Keating, Norfolk County district attorney, said at a news conference on Friday afternoon.
Mr. Keating said he had alerted federal authorities and the airport in Charlotte, N.C., where the teenager is believed to have gotten on the flight, about the events. While the case is a sad one, Mr. Keating said, it also underscores fears that someone with malicious intent could do the same thing.
“It’s a terrible tragedy what happened to this young man, but if that was someone with a different motive,” he said, “if that was a terrorist that could have been a bomb that was planted, undetected. This is very serious.”
Mr. Keating said the authorities had searched two airplanes that left Charlotte for Boston on Nov. 15, and found handprints in the left wheel well of a Boeing 737 that was scheduled to leave Charlotte Douglas International Airport at 7 p.m. that day.
“As they looked at the grease, they saw what I describe as lateral impressions that showed there was someone in there. There was a handprint in an area where it ordinarily wouldn’t be,” Mr. Keating said.
“I don’t pretend to tell you how he did it,” Mr. Keating said, noting that Delvonte was an Air Force R.O.T.C. student.
Clothing that matched a description that Delvonte’s family had given the authorities was found in Milton along the flight path, Mr. Keating said, and a plastic card — the type one uses to get into a hotel room — was found shattered.
“The altitudes were very high, and it gets very cold,” Mr. Keating said. “That card was shattered into such tiny pieces that it was consistent with something that had been frozen and shattered.”
The authorities initially believed that Delvonte had been murdered, and impounded two cars they thought to be suspicious. But in recent weeks, officials began investigating the possibility that the teenager had stowed away on an airplane.
“This was something that sounded quite remote, that someone could breach security aboard a commercial jet,” Mr. Keating said. “Again we look at every possibility.”
The authorities were at first flummoxed as to how the teenager had made it from North Carolina to Massachusetts so quickly. Delvonte was last seen around 1 a.m. Nov. 15 in Charlotte, and his body was found less than 24 hours later in Milton. A neighbor in the Milton neighborhood reported hearing a loud thump outside around 9 p.m.; the authorities said the plane landed minutes later.
Federal and state authorities continue to investigate the case, Mr. Keating said.
“I suspect,” he said, “that there will be a lot of scrutiny into this.”
The remains of the youth, Delvonte Tisdale, 16, were found in a quiet neighborhood in Milton, Mass., on Nov. 15, below a flight path to Logan Airport.
“It appears more likely than not that Mr. Tisdale was able to breach airport security and hide in the wheel well of a commercial jet airliner without being detected by airport security,” William R. Keating, Norfolk County district attorney, said at a news conference on Friday afternoon.
Mr. Keating said he had alerted federal authorities and the airport in Charlotte, N.C., where the teenager is believed to have gotten on the flight, about the events. While the case is a sad one, Mr. Keating said, it also underscores fears that someone with malicious intent could do the same thing.
“It’s a terrible tragedy what happened to this young man, but if that was someone with a different motive,” he said, “if that was a terrorist that could have been a bomb that was planted, undetected. This is very serious.”
Mr. Keating said the authorities had searched two airplanes that left Charlotte for Boston on Nov. 15, and found handprints in the left wheel well of a Boeing 737 that was scheduled to leave Charlotte Douglas International Airport at 7 p.m. that day.
“As they looked at the grease, they saw what I describe as lateral impressions that showed there was someone in there. There was a handprint in an area where it ordinarily wouldn’t be,” Mr. Keating said.
“I don’t pretend to tell you how he did it,” Mr. Keating said, noting that Delvonte was an Air Force R.O.T.C. student.
Clothing that matched a description that Delvonte’s family had given the authorities was found in Milton along the flight path, Mr. Keating said, and a plastic card — the type one uses to get into a hotel room — was found shattered.
“The altitudes were very high, and it gets very cold,” Mr. Keating said. “That card was shattered into such tiny pieces that it was consistent with something that had been frozen and shattered.”
The authorities initially believed that Delvonte had been murdered, and impounded two cars they thought to be suspicious. But in recent weeks, officials began investigating the possibility that the teenager had stowed away on an airplane.
“This was something that sounded quite remote, that someone could breach security aboard a commercial jet,” Mr. Keating said. “Again we look at every possibility.”
The authorities were at first flummoxed as to how the teenager had made it from North Carolina to Massachusetts so quickly. Delvonte was last seen around 1 a.m. Nov. 15 in Charlotte, and his body was found less than 24 hours later in Milton. A neighbor in the Milton neighborhood reported hearing a loud thump outside around 9 p.m.; the authorities said the plane landed minutes later.
Federal and state authorities continue to investigate the case, Mr. Keating said.
“I suspect,” he said, “that there will be a lot of scrutiny into this.”
In Tapes, Nixon Rails About Jews and Blacks (now we know HE WAS A CROOK & A RACIST!)
YORBA LINDA, Calif. — Richard M. Nixon made disparaging remarks about Jews, blacks, Italian-Americans and Irish-Americans in a series of extended conversations with top aides and his personal secretary, recorded in the Oval Office 16 months before he resigned as president.
The remarks were contained in 265 hours of recordings, captured by the secret taping system Nixon had installed in the White House and released this week by the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.
While previous recordings have detailed Nixon’s animosity toward Jews, including those who served in his administration like Henry A. Kissinger, his national security adviser, these tapes suggest an added layer of complexity to Nixon’s feeling. He and his aides seem to make a distinction between Israeli Jews, whom Nixon admired, and American Jews.
In a conversation Feb. 13, 1973, with Charles W. Colson, a senior adviser who had just told Nixon that he had always had “a little prejudice,” Nixon said he was not prejudiced but continued: “I’ve just recognized that, you know, all people have certain traits.”
“The Jews have certain traits,” he said. “The Irish have certain — for example, the Irish can’t drink. What you always have to remember with the Irish is they get mean. Virtually every Irish I’ve known gets mean when he drinks. Particularly the real Irish.”
Nixon continued: “The Italians, of course, those people course don’t have their heads screwed on tight. They are wonderful people, but,” and his voice trailed off.
A moment later, Nixon returned to Jews: “The Jews are just a very aggressive and abrasive and obnoxious personality.”
At another point, in a long and wandering conversation with Rose Mary Woods, his personal secretary, that veered from whom to invite to a state dinner to whether Ms. Woods should get her hair done, Nixon offered sharp skepticism at the views of William P. Rogers, his secretary of state, about the future of black Africans.
“Bill Rogers has got — to his credit it’s a decent feeling — but somewhat sort of a blind spot on the black thing because he’s been in New York,” Nixon said. “He says well, ‘They are coming along, and that after all they are going to strengthen our country in the end because they are strong physically and some of them are smart.’ So forth and so on.
“My own view is I think he’s right if you’re talking in terms of 500 years,” he said. “I think it’s wrong if you’re talking in terms of 50 years. What has to happen is they have be, frankly, inbred. And, you just, that’s the only thing that’s going to do it, Rose.”
These tapes, made in February and March 1973, reflect a critical period in Nixon’s presidency — the final months before it was “devoured by Watergate,” said Timothy Naftali, the executive director of the Nixon Library.
Mr. Naftali said that there were now only 400 hours of tapes left to released, and that those would cover the final months before the tape system was shut down in July 1973 after Alexander Butterfield, who was a deputy assistant to Nixon, confirmed its existence to the Watergate committee.
Mr. Naftali said he intended to have those tapes — actually, given changing technologies since Nixon’s time, CDs, and available for listening online at the library’s Web site — released by 2012.
An indication of Nixon’s complex relationship with Jews came the afternoon Golda Meir, the Israeli prime minister, came to visit on March 1, 1973. The tapes capture Meir offering warm and effusive thanks to Nixon for the way he had treated her and Israel.
But moments after she left, Nixon and Mr. Kissinger were brutally dismissive in response to requests that the United States press the Soviet Union to permit Jews to emigrate and escape persecution there.
“The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy,” Mr. Kissinger said. “And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.”
“I know,” Nixon responded. “We can’t blow up the world because of it.”
In his discussion with Ms. Woods, Nixon laid down clear rules about who would be permitted to attend the state dinner for Meir — he called it “the Jewish dinner” — after learning that the White House was being besieged with requests to attend.
“I don’t want any Jew at that dinner who didn’t support us in that campaign,” he said. “Is that clear? No Jew who did not support us.”
Nixon listed many of his top Jewish advisers — among them, Mr. Kissinger and William Safire, who went on to become a columnist at The New York Times — and argued that they shared a common trait, of needing to compensate for an inferiority complex.
“What it is, is it’s the insecurity,” he said. “It’s the latent insecurity. Most Jewish people are insecure. And that’s why they have to prove things.”
Nixon also strongly hinted that his reluctance to even consider amnesty for young Americans who went to Canada to avoid being drafted during the Vietnam War was because, he told Mr. Colson, so many of them were Jewish.
“I didn’t notice many Jewish names coming back from Vietnam on any of those lists; I don’t know how the hell they avoid it,” he said, adding: “If you look at the Canadian-Swedish contingent, they were very disproportionately Jewish. The deserters.”
The remarks were contained in 265 hours of recordings, captured by the secret taping system Nixon had installed in the White House and released this week by the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.
While previous recordings have detailed Nixon’s animosity toward Jews, including those who served in his administration like Henry A. Kissinger, his national security adviser, these tapes suggest an added layer of complexity to Nixon’s feeling. He and his aides seem to make a distinction between Israeli Jews, whom Nixon admired, and American Jews.
In a conversation Feb. 13, 1973, with Charles W. Colson, a senior adviser who had just told Nixon that he had always had “a little prejudice,” Nixon said he was not prejudiced but continued: “I’ve just recognized that, you know, all people have certain traits.”
“The Jews have certain traits,” he said. “The Irish have certain — for example, the Irish can’t drink. What you always have to remember with the Irish is they get mean. Virtually every Irish I’ve known gets mean when he drinks. Particularly the real Irish.”
Nixon continued: “The Italians, of course, those people course don’t have their heads screwed on tight. They are wonderful people, but,” and his voice trailed off.
A moment later, Nixon returned to Jews: “The Jews are just a very aggressive and abrasive and obnoxious personality.”
At another point, in a long and wandering conversation with Rose Mary Woods, his personal secretary, that veered from whom to invite to a state dinner to whether Ms. Woods should get her hair done, Nixon offered sharp skepticism at the views of William P. Rogers, his secretary of state, about the future of black Africans.
“Bill Rogers has got — to his credit it’s a decent feeling — but somewhat sort of a blind spot on the black thing because he’s been in New York,” Nixon said. “He says well, ‘They are coming along, and that after all they are going to strengthen our country in the end because they are strong physically and some of them are smart.’ So forth and so on.
“My own view is I think he’s right if you’re talking in terms of 500 years,” he said. “I think it’s wrong if you’re talking in terms of 50 years. What has to happen is they have be, frankly, inbred. And, you just, that’s the only thing that’s going to do it, Rose.”
These tapes, made in February and March 1973, reflect a critical period in Nixon’s presidency — the final months before it was “devoured by Watergate,” said Timothy Naftali, the executive director of the Nixon Library.
Mr. Naftali said that there were now only 400 hours of tapes left to released, and that those would cover the final months before the tape system was shut down in July 1973 after Alexander Butterfield, who was a deputy assistant to Nixon, confirmed its existence to the Watergate committee.
Mr. Naftali said he intended to have those tapes — actually, given changing technologies since Nixon’s time, CDs, and available for listening online at the library’s Web site — released by 2012.
An indication of Nixon’s complex relationship with Jews came the afternoon Golda Meir, the Israeli prime minister, came to visit on March 1, 1973. The tapes capture Meir offering warm and effusive thanks to Nixon for the way he had treated her and Israel.
But moments after she left, Nixon and Mr. Kissinger were brutally dismissive in response to requests that the United States press the Soviet Union to permit Jews to emigrate and escape persecution there.
“The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy,” Mr. Kissinger said. “And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.”
“I know,” Nixon responded. “We can’t blow up the world because of it.”
In his discussion with Ms. Woods, Nixon laid down clear rules about who would be permitted to attend the state dinner for Meir — he called it “the Jewish dinner” — after learning that the White House was being besieged with requests to attend.
“I don’t want any Jew at that dinner who didn’t support us in that campaign,” he said. “Is that clear? No Jew who did not support us.”
Nixon listed many of his top Jewish advisers — among them, Mr. Kissinger and William Safire, who went on to become a columnist at The New York Times — and argued that they shared a common trait, of needing to compensate for an inferiority complex.
“What it is, is it’s the insecurity,” he said. “It’s the latent insecurity. Most Jewish people are insecure. And that’s why they have to prove things.”
Nixon also strongly hinted that his reluctance to even consider amnesty for young Americans who went to Canada to avoid being drafted during the Vietnam War was because, he told Mr. Colson, so many of them were Jewish.
“I didn’t notice many Jewish names coming back from Vietnam on any of those lists; I don’t know how the hell they avoid it,” he said, adding: “If you look at the Canadian-Swedish contingent, they were very disproportionately Jewish. The deserters.”
Bill Schools Barack ( I remember when WJC was Prez I could fill my tank with gas for less than $20!)
While stumping for Obama’s maligned tax deal at a White House presser Friday, the master triangulator taught his successor a lesson in the art of persuasion. Let’s hope the president was taking notes.
Once Barack Obama ceded the podium, there was no stopping him.
Bill Clinton, back in the building he called home for eight years, offered a tutorial in how to sell a legislative package in simple terms. Obama watched intently as his predecessor rambled on, perhaps convincing him there was no point in continuing, and that he’d better hustle off to a Christmas party.
You had to wonder what was going through 44’s mind as he handed off to 42, introducing him as having “presided over as good an economy as we’ve seen in our lifetime”—and undoubtedly wishing his economy was even close.
Perhaps the two men have healed the scars of the 2008 primaries, when the newcomer out of Chicago was the only thing standing in the way of the Man From Hope moving back into the White House, this time as first spouse. Obama has, after all, given Clinton’s wife a pretty good job as a consolation prize.
But it can’t have thrilled the president that he needed the former president to help get wavering Democrats in line on the compromise tax package he hammered out with the GOP. The master triangulator would show the kid how it was done. It was like the rookie basketball player, sidelined by a split lip, calling the wily veteran off the bench to sink a couple of crucial three-pointers.
Twitter was abuzz with ’90s talk, as folks wondered when the next Mike McCurry briefing would be, or whether the Republican House would have to impeach Clinton all over again. You could practically hear Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow in the background. About the only thing that stopped me from humming it is that Clinton looked gaunter than in the intern-chasing days.
The contrast wasn’t as great as I might have expected, because we got the wonky Clinton, who somehow wound up talking about wind turbines in Nevada, rather than the feel-your-pain Clinton. But the body language was instructive. Obama tends to stand straight, as if addressing a law school class; Clinton kept putting his hand over his heart, as if to signal he’s speaking with sincerity.
Clinton instantly personalized the debate, saying that as a rich guy, he would benefit from the GOP’s insistence on tax cuts for the wealthy. “You know how I feel,” he told reporters. “I think people who benefit the most should pay the most—not for class-warfare reasons, but for reasons of fairness and rebuilding the middle class in America.” He made the case right there, in one sentence.
Clinton thanked the Republican leaders for their concessions, appearing gracious rather than grudging. “There’s never a perfect bipartisan bill in the eyes of a partisan,” he said.
As Clinton ticked off the provisions, he had a way of using everyday language: “A lot of people are heaving a sigh of relief that there’s finally been some agreement on something.” He said that on a recent trip to Asia he noticed that even Hong Kong “had a stimulus, although I guess we’re not supposed to use that word.” Democrats have avoided the S-word, which got a bad name with the trashing of last year’s economic package, so it’s taken the likes of conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer to point out that the deal sneaks in nearly a trillion dollars’ worth of stimulus.
Before it was over, Clinton even worked in a heartfelt plug for the START treaty, recalling his days of negotiating with Boris Yeltsin. Cue Fleetwood Mac.
The comparison is a bit unfair, because as Clinton noted, “I’m not running for anything.” And it’s not true that Obama never shows Clintonesque emotion at his news conferences. He showed some passion at his last presser—unfortunately for the Democrats, it was aimed at them and their “sanctimonious” behavior.
But before the Dems get swept away by nostalgia, Clinton smiled in puncturing the myth that has grown up around his dealings with the GOP Congress in 1995 and 1996. “The story line is how well we worked with the Republicans and all that,” he said. “But, you know, we played kabuki for a year and had two government shutdowns—we can’t afford that now.”
Clinton offered a tutorial in how to sell a legislative package in simple terms. Obama watched intently as he rambled on, perhaps convincing him there was no point in continuing.
Then the grin got broader. “Oh, I had quite a good time governing,” he said. “I am happy to be here I suppose when the bullets that are fired are unlikely to hit me, unless they’re just ricocheted.”
And that’s when the distinction was sharpest. Clinton, whatever his flaws, exudes a deep love for the game of politics. Obama often seems exasperated by the grubby business of arm-twisting and horse-trading, as if the fact that he has made the right intellectual case ought to be enough. He deserves credit for bringing in Bubba. Maybe he made some mental notes.
Howard Kurtz is The Daily Beast's Washington bureau chief
Once Barack Obama ceded the podium, there was no stopping him.
Bill Clinton, back in the building he called home for eight years, offered a tutorial in how to sell a legislative package in simple terms. Obama watched intently as his predecessor rambled on, perhaps convincing him there was no point in continuing, and that he’d better hustle off to a Christmas party.
You had to wonder what was going through 44’s mind as he handed off to 42, introducing him as having “presided over as good an economy as we’ve seen in our lifetime”—and undoubtedly wishing his economy was even close.
Perhaps the two men have healed the scars of the 2008 primaries, when the newcomer out of Chicago was the only thing standing in the way of the Man From Hope moving back into the White House, this time as first spouse. Obama has, after all, given Clinton’s wife a pretty good job as a consolation prize.
But it can’t have thrilled the president that he needed the former president to help get wavering Democrats in line on the compromise tax package he hammered out with the GOP. The master triangulator would show the kid how it was done. It was like the rookie basketball player, sidelined by a split lip, calling the wily veteran off the bench to sink a couple of crucial three-pointers.
Twitter was abuzz with ’90s talk, as folks wondered when the next Mike McCurry briefing would be, or whether the Republican House would have to impeach Clinton all over again. You could practically hear Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow in the background. About the only thing that stopped me from humming it is that Clinton looked gaunter than in the intern-chasing days.
The contrast wasn’t as great as I might have expected, because we got the wonky Clinton, who somehow wound up talking about wind turbines in Nevada, rather than the feel-your-pain Clinton. But the body language was instructive. Obama tends to stand straight, as if addressing a law school class; Clinton kept putting his hand over his heart, as if to signal he’s speaking with sincerity.
Clinton instantly personalized the debate, saying that as a rich guy, he would benefit from the GOP’s insistence on tax cuts for the wealthy. “You know how I feel,” he told reporters. “I think people who benefit the most should pay the most—not for class-warfare reasons, but for reasons of fairness and rebuilding the middle class in America.” He made the case right there, in one sentence.
Clinton thanked the Republican leaders for their concessions, appearing gracious rather than grudging. “There’s never a perfect bipartisan bill in the eyes of a partisan,” he said.
As Clinton ticked off the provisions, he had a way of using everyday language: “A lot of people are heaving a sigh of relief that there’s finally been some agreement on something.” He said that on a recent trip to Asia he noticed that even Hong Kong “had a stimulus, although I guess we’re not supposed to use that word.” Democrats have avoided the S-word, which got a bad name with the trashing of last year’s economic package, so it’s taken the likes of conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer to point out that the deal sneaks in nearly a trillion dollars’ worth of stimulus.
Before it was over, Clinton even worked in a heartfelt plug for the START treaty, recalling his days of negotiating with Boris Yeltsin. Cue Fleetwood Mac.
The comparison is a bit unfair, because as Clinton noted, “I’m not running for anything.” And it’s not true that Obama never shows Clintonesque emotion at his news conferences. He showed some passion at his last presser—unfortunately for the Democrats, it was aimed at them and their “sanctimonious” behavior.
But before the Dems get swept away by nostalgia, Clinton smiled in puncturing the myth that has grown up around his dealings with the GOP Congress in 1995 and 1996. “The story line is how well we worked with the Republicans and all that,” he said. “But, you know, we played kabuki for a year and had two government shutdowns—we can’t afford that now.”
Clinton offered a tutorial in how to sell a legislative package in simple terms. Obama watched intently as he rambled on, perhaps convincing him there was no point in continuing.
Then the grin got broader. “Oh, I had quite a good time governing,” he said. “I am happy to be here I suppose when the bullets that are fired are unlikely to hit me, unless they’re just ricocheted.”
And that’s when the distinction was sharpest. Clinton, whatever his flaws, exudes a deep love for the game of politics. Obama often seems exasperated by the grubby business of arm-twisting and horse-trading, as if the fact that he has made the right intellectual case ought to be enough. He deserves credit for bringing in Bubba. Maybe he made some mental notes.
Howard Kurtz is The Daily Beast's Washington bureau chief
Friday, December 10, 2010
Sales of Sarah Palin's book 'America by Heart' are lackluster Dispite that allot of right wing groups are buying and giving book away! Like NEWSMAX (now that is a wack job)
Sarah Palin's magic touch might be fading a bit. Although several of her recent projects have been successful, Palin's latest book isn't one of them.
"America by Heart," Palin's new memoir, has logged disappointing receipts since it officially went on sale late last month, publishing sources say. Although the book is second on the New York Times bestseller list this week (behind former president George W. Bush's memoir, "Decision Points") , its publisher, HarperCollins, hasn't ordered a second printing - a sign that sales haven't been overly brisk.
By contrast, Palin's first book, "Going Rogue," became the second-fastest-selling political book in history upon its release last year, according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks industry sales. It went into a second printing three days after its release and went on to sell 2.2 million copies in hardcover, according to the publisher.
"America by Heart" (subtitle: "Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag") got a more modest launch. HarperCollins's initial press run was 1 million copies, suggesting that the publisher recognized that "Heart" would likely not repeat the success of "Rogue."
Officially, at least, HarperCollins says it is pleased with the sales of the second book. "We're happy with how it's selling and expect to see it do well in the holiday season," said Tina Andreadis, a spokeswoman for the imprint, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
In 2009, Palin spent six weeks on the road promoting "Going Rogue," hitting 33 states. In recent weeks, her "America by Heart" tour was more modest - 16 states in 10 days.
One theory within the publishing industry is that Palin is overexposed, at least in terms of drawing readers.
Palin's first book, published only a year ago, sold well enough to sate Palin's supporters, enemies and the merely curious. It was such a strong seller in hardcover that it crowded out demand for the book in paperback and for the sequel of sorts, some in the industry say. The paperback version of "Going Rogue" has not made the bestseller lists or gone into reprint since it was issued with a new afterword by Palin in August.
The former Alaska governor and her family have been the stars of an eight-part reality series/travelogue, "Sarah Palin's Alaska," which scored record ratings for a new program on Silver Spring's TLC network in its debut Nov. 14. The program's ratings subsequently dipped.
Meanwhile, Palin's daughter Bristol was a recent finalist on the ABC show, "Dancing With the Stars," turning the dance competition into a kind of proxy political event. Despite tepid reviews from the show's judges, Palin stayed alive on the program, buoyed by a wave of support from audience votes.
Sarah Palin has also stayed in the news with her frequent and combative postings on Facebook and Twitter, where she has more than 325,000 followers.
According to her publisher, the crowds greeting Palin on her most recent book tour were similar in size to those that turned out for her first tour. The most recent promotional tour included a stop in Des Moines, which of course is the capital of the state - Iowa - that will hold the first presidential caucus in 2012.
"America by Heart" got a little pre-publication publicity when Gawker Media, the Web site operator, published leaked pages of it. HarperCollins sued, claiming copyright infringement. After a federal judge ordered the extensive excerpts removed pending a hearing, Gawker agreed to keep the material off its site - but not before both parties in the dispute drew attention to the book and to Gawker.
Washington lawyer Bob Barnett, who has handled such clients as former president Bill Clinton and former British leader Tony Blair in book negotiations, was Palin's agent on both of her books.
"America by Heart," Palin's new memoir, has logged disappointing receipts since it officially went on sale late last month, publishing sources say. Although the book is second on the New York Times bestseller list this week (behind former president George W. Bush's memoir, "Decision Points") , its publisher, HarperCollins, hasn't ordered a second printing - a sign that sales haven't been overly brisk.
By contrast, Palin's first book, "Going Rogue," became the second-fastest-selling political book in history upon its release last year, according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks industry sales. It went into a second printing three days after its release and went on to sell 2.2 million copies in hardcover, according to the publisher.
"America by Heart" (subtitle: "Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag") got a more modest launch. HarperCollins's initial press run was 1 million copies, suggesting that the publisher recognized that "Heart" would likely not repeat the success of "Rogue."
Officially, at least, HarperCollins says it is pleased with the sales of the second book. "We're happy with how it's selling and expect to see it do well in the holiday season," said Tina Andreadis, a spokeswoman for the imprint, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
In 2009, Palin spent six weeks on the road promoting "Going Rogue," hitting 33 states. In recent weeks, her "America by Heart" tour was more modest - 16 states in 10 days.
One theory within the publishing industry is that Palin is overexposed, at least in terms of drawing readers.
Palin's first book, published only a year ago, sold well enough to sate Palin's supporters, enemies and the merely curious. It was such a strong seller in hardcover that it crowded out demand for the book in paperback and for the sequel of sorts, some in the industry say. The paperback version of "Going Rogue" has not made the bestseller lists or gone into reprint since it was issued with a new afterword by Palin in August.
The former Alaska governor and her family have been the stars of an eight-part reality series/travelogue, "Sarah Palin's Alaska," which scored record ratings for a new program on Silver Spring's TLC network in its debut Nov. 14. The program's ratings subsequently dipped.
Meanwhile, Palin's daughter Bristol was a recent finalist on the ABC show, "Dancing With the Stars," turning the dance competition into a kind of proxy political event. Despite tepid reviews from the show's judges, Palin stayed alive on the program, buoyed by a wave of support from audience votes.
Sarah Palin has also stayed in the news with her frequent and combative postings on Facebook and Twitter, where she has more than 325,000 followers.
According to her publisher, the crowds greeting Palin on her most recent book tour were similar in size to those that turned out for her first tour. The most recent promotional tour included a stop in Des Moines, which of course is the capital of the state - Iowa - that will hold the first presidential caucus in 2012.
"America by Heart" got a little pre-publication publicity when Gawker Media, the Web site operator, published leaked pages of it. HarperCollins sued, claiming copyright infringement. After a federal judge ordered the extensive excerpts removed pending a hearing, Gawker agreed to keep the material off its site - but not before both parties in the dispute drew attention to the book and to Gawker.
Washington lawyer Bob Barnett, who has handled such clients as former president Bill Clinton and former British leader Tony Blair in book negotiations, was Palin's agent on both of her books.
Swindle of the year Charles Krauthammer
Barack Obama won the great tax-cut showdown of 2010 - and House Democrats don't have a clue that he did. In the deal struck this week, the president negotiated the biggest stimulus in American history, larger than his $814 billion 2009 stimulus package. It will pump a trillion borrowed Chinese dollars into the U.S. economy over the next two years - which just happen to be the two years of the run-up to the next presidential election. This is a defeat?
If Obama had asked for a second stimulus directly, he would have been laughed out of town. Stimulus I was so reviled that the Democrats banished the word from their lexicon throughout the 2010 campaign. And yet, despite a very weak post-election hand, Obama got the Republicans to offer to increase spending and cut taxes by $990 billion over two years. Two-thirds of that is above and beyond extension of the Bush tax cuts but includes such urgent national necessities as windmill subsidies.
No mean achievement. After all, these are the same Republicans who spent 2010 running on limited government and reducing debt. And this budget busting occurs less than a week after the president's deficit commission had supposedly signaled a new national consensus of austerity and frugality.
Some Republicans are crowing that Stimulus II is the Republican way - mostly tax cuts - rather than the Democrats' spending orgy of Stimulus I. That's consolation? This just means that Republicans are two years too late. Stimulus II will still blow another near-$1 trillion hole in the budget.
At great cost that will have to be paid after this newest free lunch, the package will add as much as 1 percent to GDP and lower the unemployment rate by about 1.5 percentage points. That could easily be the difference between victory and defeat in 2012.
Obama is no fool. While getting Republicans to boost his own reelection chances, he gets them to make a mockery of their newfound, second-chance, post-Bush, Tea-Party, this-time-we're-serious persona of debt-averse fiscal responsibility.
And he gets all this in return for what? For a mere two-year postponement of a mere 4.6-point increase in marginal tax rates for upper incomes. And an estate tax rate of 35 percent - it jumps insanely from zero to 55 percent on Jan. 1 - that is somewhat lower than what the Democrats wanted.
No, cries the left: Obama violated a sacred principle. A 39.6 percent tax rate versus 35 percent is a principle? "This is the public option debate all over again," said Obama at his Tuesday news conference. He is right. The left never understood that to nationalize health care there is no need for a public option because Obamacare turns the private insurers into public utilities, thus setting us inexorably on the road to the left's Promised Land: a Canadian-style single-payer system. The left is similarly clueless on the tax-cut deal: In exchange for temporarily forgoing a small rise in upper-income rates, Obama pulled out of a hat a massive new stimulus - what the left has been begging for since the failure of Stimulus I but was heretofore politically unattainable.
Obama's public exasperation with this infantile leftism is both perfectly understandable and politically adept. It is his way back to at least the appearance of centrist moderation. The only way he will get a second look from the independents who elected him in 2008 - and abandoned the Democrats in 2010 - is by changing the prevailing (and correct) perception that he is a man of the left.
Hence that news-conference attack on what the administration calls the "professional left" for its combination of sanctimony and myopia. It was Obama's Sister Souljah moment. It had a prickly, irritated sincerity - their ideological stupidity and inability to see the "long game" really do get under Obama's skin - but a decidedly calculated quality, too. Where, after all, does the left go? Stay home on Election Day 2012? Vote Republican?
No, says the current buzz, the left will instead challenge Obama for the Democratic nomination. Really now? For decades, African Americans have been this party's most loyal constituency. They vote 9 to 1 Democratic through hell and high water, through impeachment and recession, through everything. After four centuries of enduring much, African Americans finally see one of their own achieve the presidency. And their own party is going to deny him a shot at his own reelection?
Not even Democrats are that stupid. The remaining question is whether they are just stupid enough to not understand - and therefore vote down - the swindle of the year just pulled off by their own president.
If Obama had asked for a second stimulus directly, he would have been laughed out of town. Stimulus I was so reviled that the Democrats banished the word from their lexicon throughout the 2010 campaign. And yet, despite a very weak post-election hand, Obama got the Republicans to offer to increase spending and cut taxes by $990 billion over two years. Two-thirds of that is above and beyond extension of the Bush tax cuts but includes such urgent national necessities as windmill subsidies.
No mean achievement. After all, these are the same Republicans who spent 2010 running on limited government and reducing debt. And this budget busting occurs less than a week after the president's deficit commission had supposedly signaled a new national consensus of austerity and frugality.
Some Republicans are crowing that Stimulus II is the Republican way - mostly tax cuts - rather than the Democrats' spending orgy of Stimulus I. That's consolation? This just means that Republicans are two years too late. Stimulus II will still blow another near-$1 trillion hole in the budget.
At great cost that will have to be paid after this newest free lunch, the package will add as much as 1 percent to GDP and lower the unemployment rate by about 1.5 percentage points. That could easily be the difference between victory and defeat in 2012.
Obama is no fool. While getting Republicans to boost his own reelection chances, he gets them to make a mockery of their newfound, second-chance, post-Bush, Tea-Party, this-time-we're-serious persona of debt-averse fiscal responsibility.
And he gets all this in return for what? For a mere two-year postponement of a mere 4.6-point increase in marginal tax rates for upper incomes. And an estate tax rate of 35 percent - it jumps insanely from zero to 55 percent on Jan. 1 - that is somewhat lower than what the Democrats wanted.
No, cries the left: Obama violated a sacred principle. A 39.6 percent tax rate versus 35 percent is a principle? "This is the public option debate all over again," said Obama at his Tuesday news conference. He is right. The left never understood that to nationalize health care there is no need for a public option because Obamacare turns the private insurers into public utilities, thus setting us inexorably on the road to the left's Promised Land: a Canadian-style single-payer system. The left is similarly clueless on the tax-cut deal: In exchange for temporarily forgoing a small rise in upper-income rates, Obama pulled out of a hat a massive new stimulus - what the left has been begging for since the failure of Stimulus I but was heretofore politically unattainable.
Obama's public exasperation with this infantile leftism is both perfectly understandable and politically adept. It is his way back to at least the appearance of centrist moderation. The only way he will get a second look from the independents who elected him in 2008 - and abandoned the Democrats in 2010 - is by changing the prevailing (and correct) perception that he is a man of the left.
Hence that news-conference attack on what the administration calls the "professional left" for its combination of sanctimony and myopia. It was Obama's Sister Souljah moment. It had a prickly, irritated sincerity - their ideological stupidity and inability to see the "long game" really do get under Obama's skin - but a decidedly calculated quality, too. Where, after all, does the left go? Stay home on Election Day 2012? Vote Republican?
No, says the current buzz, the left will instead challenge Obama for the Democratic nomination. Really now? For decades, African Americans have been this party's most loyal constituency. They vote 9 to 1 Democratic through hell and high water, through impeachment and recession, through everything. After four centuries of enduring much, African Americans finally see one of their own achieve the presidency. And their own party is going to deny him a shot at his own reelection?
Not even Democrats are that stupid. The remaining question is whether they are just stupid enough to not understand - and therefore vote down - the swindle of the year just pulled off by their own president.
The right-wing backlash against advancing minority rights - Media Matters
The past week has been a significant one for justice, fairness, and tolerance in American society. Issues of minority rights dominated the news and the legislative agenda as President Obama signed into the law the Pigford II and Cobell settlements, and Congress took up Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal and the DREAM Act.
The DREAM Act, which opens paths to citizenship for undocumented minors, has already passed the House, but still awaits Senate action. It's still unclear whether the votes are there for passage. DADT repeal was included in a defense authorization bill that failed to break through a Republican filibuster on what the New York Times editorial board called "[o]ne of the most shameful days in the modern history of the Senate."
Proponents of these bills are letting their passion show. Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL), who has been pushing the DREAM Act and comprehensive immigration reform for years, sees parallels between those causes and the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and has suggested there will be modern protests in the spirit of those led by Martin Luther King.
Speaking on the Senate floor in favor of repealing DADT, which would allow gay service members to serve openly, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) choked up as he told the story of one of his USO tours and the warm reception he received after mocking the discriminatory policy.
Standing in the way of the legislative push for justice and equality is a conservative movement that bases its opposition on falsehoods and no longer cares to mask its racially divisive rhetoric. The dog whistles are being traded in for sousaphones.
Many in the conservative media are trying to block the DREAM Act by driving a wedge between Hispanics and white Americans. That, at least, is how Glenn Beck is doing it. "If you are white, or you're an American citizen, or a white American citizen, you are pretty much toast," Beck observed, as he joked with a caller who sarcastically suggested he would need to pretend to be an "illegal alien" in order to qualify for in-state tuition for his MBA program.
Rush Limbaugh theorized that the legislation was Sen. Harry Reid's (D-NV) way of "thanking Hispanics for stealing the election for him."
Elsewhere in the right-wing press, pundits are asking whether a bill aimed at assisting Hispanics will be a "nightmare for hard-working Americans," calling the bill "shamnesty," and raising the specter of criminality, calling it "reckless illegal alien amnesty" and that "incentivizes illegality."
Fox News contributor Mike Gallagher even compared the beneficiaries of the bill to bank robbers.
This is a reflection of what the American Prospect's Adam Serwer pegged as "the widely held conservative view that minorities and whites in America are in a zero-sum competition for scarce resources."
Essentially, if the government does something to benefit minorities, it must be at the expense of white people. It's not true, of course, but that's not the point -- it's all about capitalizing on racial resentment.
While we're on the topic of racial resentment, let's talk Pigford. The Pigford settlement will award $1.15 billion to African American farmers who were unfairly denied loans by the Department of Agriculture in the 1980s and 1990s.
The farmers were found to have been discriminated against and are being compensated financially. But because the settlement involves federal money being paid to African Americans, the right-wing is calling it "reparations."
Actually, a policy need not exclusively benefit African Americans to earn the "reparations" tag. It only needs to be associated with Obama. Just look at the reprehensible behavior of Rush Limbaugh, for whom every Obama-endorsed policy -- whether it be health care reform, expanded unemployment benefits, or his "entire economic program" -- is some form of "reparations."
But it doesn't matter that the farmers were discriminated against. It doesn't matter that Pigford legislation has enjoyed bipartisan support going back to the days of Speaker Newt Gingrich.
What matters is the perception -- both utterly false and politically potent -- that America's first black president is implementing some form of punitive racial justice, to the benefit of African Americans and at the expense of whites.
Meanwhile, the fight over Don't Ask, Don't Tell has entered the realm of the surreal. Don't Ask, Don't Tell persists despite the fact that the American public is overwhelmingly against the policy, and a major Pentagon report concluded that repealing DADT "would present only a low risk to the armed forces' ability to carry out their missions."
And though the measure remains in place after Thursday's vote, a standalone bill to repeal it was introduced today. You'd be hard-pressed to find a less popular policy, or one recognized to be more ineffective.
Regardless, the right-wing media are defending DADT, going so far as to lie about the Pentagon's review of the policy and falsely accuse the Department of Defense of purposefully acting against the wishes of active-duty soldiers.
On Fox News, the push for repeal was mentioned in a segment asking whether the "media [has] a gay agenda." Tucker Carlson thinks DADT repeal is just a "stupid issue," and the Fox News morning hosts find the claim that people are being discharged based on their sexual orientation quite risible.
The right's arguments against DADT repeal are part of a gay-bashing undercurrent that also leads them to blame the WikiLeaks scandal on gays and promoted "research" into how "homosexual behavior is harmful."
There's an insidiousness to all this that goes beyond the ugliness on display, and to understand it you have to go back to last July, right after Glenn Beck accused the "racist" President Obama of harboring "a deep-seated hatred for white people."
At the time, NBC News' First Read responded to Beck's rant by noting that "[t]here was a time when outrageous rants like this would actually cost the ranters their jobs. But not anymore; if anything, it's now encouraged."
In the last two years, the racially divisive rhetoric coming out of the conservative media has grown more and more explicit. We now almost expect right-wing pundits to just come out and say that Obama is acting contrary to the interests of white people. When it happens, it's barely noticed by the rest of the media.
While that doesn't bode well for the future of journalism, it's even more destructive for the minority groups that find themselves the targets of these attacks.
The promise of America is that the rights of the minority and the rights of the majority are one and the same. The right-wing media's destructive and discriminatory rhetoric is meant to ensure that that equality is never realized.
The DREAM Act, which opens paths to citizenship for undocumented minors, has already passed the House, but still awaits Senate action. It's still unclear whether the votes are there for passage. DADT repeal was included in a defense authorization bill that failed to break through a Republican filibuster on what the New York Times editorial board called "[o]ne of the most shameful days in the modern history of the Senate."
Proponents of these bills are letting their passion show. Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL), who has been pushing the DREAM Act and comprehensive immigration reform for years, sees parallels between those causes and the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and has suggested there will be modern protests in the spirit of those led by Martin Luther King.
Speaking on the Senate floor in favor of repealing DADT, which would allow gay service members to serve openly, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) choked up as he told the story of one of his USO tours and the warm reception he received after mocking the discriminatory policy.
Standing in the way of the legislative push for justice and equality is a conservative movement that bases its opposition on falsehoods and no longer cares to mask its racially divisive rhetoric. The dog whistles are being traded in for sousaphones.
Many in the conservative media are trying to block the DREAM Act by driving a wedge between Hispanics and white Americans. That, at least, is how Glenn Beck is doing it. "If you are white, or you're an American citizen, or a white American citizen, you are pretty much toast," Beck observed, as he joked with a caller who sarcastically suggested he would need to pretend to be an "illegal alien" in order to qualify for in-state tuition for his MBA program.
Rush Limbaugh theorized that the legislation was Sen. Harry Reid's (D-NV) way of "thanking Hispanics for stealing the election for him."
Elsewhere in the right-wing press, pundits are asking whether a bill aimed at assisting Hispanics will be a "nightmare for hard-working Americans," calling the bill "shamnesty," and raising the specter of criminality, calling it "reckless illegal alien amnesty" and that "incentivizes illegality."
Fox News contributor Mike Gallagher even compared the beneficiaries of the bill to bank robbers.
This is a reflection of what the American Prospect's Adam Serwer pegged as "the widely held conservative view that minorities and whites in America are in a zero-sum competition for scarce resources."
Essentially, if the government does something to benefit minorities, it must be at the expense of white people. It's not true, of course, but that's not the point -- it's all about capitalizing on racial resentment.
While we're on the topic of racial resentment, let's talk Pigford. The Pigford settlement will award $1.15 billion to African American farmers who were unfairly denied loans by the Department of Agriculture in the 1980s and 1990s.
The farmers were found to have been discriminated against and are being compensated financially. But because the settlement involves federal money being paid to African Americans, the right-wing is calling it "reparations."
Actually, a policy need not exclusively benefit African Americans to earn the "reparations" tag. It only needs to be associated with Obama. Just look at the reprehensible behavior of Rush Limbaugh, for whom every Obama-endorsed policy -- whether it be health care reform, expanded unemployment benefits, or his "entire economic program" -- is some form of "reparations."
But it doesn't matter that the farmers were discriminated against. It doesn't matter that Pigford legislation has enjoyed bipartisan support going back to the days of Speaker Newt Gingrich.
What matters is the perception -- both utterly false and politically potent -- that America's first black president is implementing some form of punitive racial justice, to the benefit of African Americans and at the expense of whites.
Meanwhile, the fight over Don't Ask, Don't Tell has entered the realm of the surreal. Don't Ask, Don't Tell persists despite the fact that the American public is overwhelmingly against the policy, and a major Pentagon report concluded that repealing DADT "would present only a low risk to the armed forces' ability to carry out their missions."
And though the measure remains in place after Thursday's vote, a standalone bill to repeal it was introduced today. You'd be hard-pressed to find a less popular policy, or one recognized to be more ineffective.
Regardless, the right-wing media are defending DADT, going so far as to lie about the Pentagon's review of the policy and falsely accuse the Department of Defense of purposefully acting against the wishes of active-duty soldiers.
On Fox News, the push for repeal was mentioned in a segment asking whether the "media [has] a gay agenda." Tucker Carlson thinks DADT repeal is just a "stupid issue," and the Fox News morning hosts find the claim that people are being discharged based on their sexual orientation quite risible.
The right's arguments against DADT repeal are part of a gay-bashing undercurrent that also leads them to blame the WikiLeaks scandal on gays and promoted "research" into how "homosexual behavior is harmful."
There's an insidiousness to all this that goes beyond the ugliness on display, and to understand it you have to go back to last July, right after Glenn Beck accused the "racist" President Obama of harboring "a deep-seated hatred for white people."
At the time, NBC News' First Read responded to Beck's rant by noting that "[t]here was a time when outrageous rants like this would actually cost the ranters their jobs. But not anymore; if anything, it's now encouraged."
In the last two years, the racially divisive rhetoric coming out of the conservative media has grown more and more explicit. We now almost expect right-wing pundits to just come out and say that Obama is acting contrary to the interests of white people. When it happens, it's barely noticed by the rest of the media.
While that doesn't bode well for the future of journalism, it's even more destructive for the minority groups that find themselves the targets of these attacks.
The promise of America is that the rights of the minority and the rights of the majority are one and the same. The right-wing media's destructive and discriminatory rhetoric is meant to ensure that that equality is never realized.
CAN YOU STAND MORE HAPPY NEWS! Gas prices on track for unseasonable spike
Motorists, brace yourselves for a lump of coal this holiday season: higher-priced gasoline.
Nationwide, a gallon of regular unleaded gas averaged $2.977 on Friday and more than $3 a gallon in 20 states. That's up nearly 10 cents the past week and 34 cents higher than December 2009, AAA spokesman Troy Green says.
Benchmark crude oil opens today at $88.37 a barrel. If crude crosses $90 for the first time since 2008 and continues to rise, as many industry experts forecast, the average price of regular unleaded could hit $3.15 or higher by year's end.
Gasoline is already at or near that in California, Connecticut, Maine, New York, Rhode Island and Washington.
Slumping demand usually pushes gas prices lower from autumn to late February. However, the strengthening global economy, weaker dollar, rising overall commodity prices and surging energy demand overseas will likely continue propelling prices into spring.
"A move through $90 a barrel seems very likely, and then we could quickly test $100," says Telvent DTN senior energy analyst Darin Newsom. "You could easily see a 15- to 20-cent rise (in gas prices) the next three weeks, if not sooner."
Consumers are unlikely to get a break anytime soon. "I don't see anything that's going to turn this puppy around and send it south," says Cameron Hanover industry analyst Peter Beutel. "For the next two to 12 weeks, the forecast is higher prices."
About 70% of the nation's gas is sold at convenience store chains. National Association of Convenience Stores spokesman Jeff Lenard says for every $1 increase in crude oil, gas prices rise about 2.5 cents per gallon.
Near term, few energy analysts expect crude oil to approach the $147 a barrel record set in July 2008, pushing U.S. prices above $4 a gallon.
But even $3 a gallon gas will pinch some consumers. "If they have to pay more for gas, they'll have less to spend on other things," Green says.
The higher gas prices could be partially mitigated by the tax deal, including a temporary cut in payroll taxes, agreed to by President Obama and GOP lawmakers. "To offset the impact of the tax package, you'd have to see a $60 rise in crude oil prices," says economist Brian Bethune of IHS Global Insight.
"Some people are going to get zapped a bit, but it depends on where you live," Bethune says. "In rural areas where people drive trucks and have long ways to go, higher gas prices tend to bite. In urban areas, more people use public transportation and the average commuter is probably driving a much more fuel-efficient car."
Nationwide, a gallon of regular unleaded gas averaged $2.977 on Friday and more than $3 a gallon in 20 states. That's up nearly 10 cents the past week and 34 cents higher than December 2009, AAA spokesman Troy Green says.
Benchmark crude oil opens today at $88.37 a barrel. If crude crosses $90 for the first time since 2008 and continues to rise, as many industry experts forecast, the average price of regular unleaded could hit $3.15 or higher by year's end.
Gasoline is already at or near that in California, Connecticut, Maine, New York, Rhode Island and Washington.
Slumping demand usually pushes gas prices lower from autumn to late February. However, the strengthening global economy, weaker dollar, rising overall commodity prices and surging energy demand overseas will likely continue propelling prices into spring.
"A move through $90 a barrel seems very likely, and then we could quickly test $100," says Telvent DTN senior energy analyst Darin Newsom. "You could easily see a 15- to 20-cent rise (in gas prices) the next three weeks, if not sooner."
Consumers are unlikely to get a break anytime soon. "I don't see anything that's going to turn this puppy around and send it south," says Cameron Hanover industry analyst Peter Beutel. "For the next two to 12 weeks, the forecast is higher prices."
About 70% of the nation's gas is sold at convenience store chains. National Association of Convenience Stores spokesman Jeff Lenard says for every $1 increase in crude oil, gas prices rise about 2.5 cents per gallon.
Near term, few energy analysts expect crude oil to approach the $147 a barrel record set in July 2008, pushing U.S. prices above $4 a gallon.
But even $3 a gallon gas will pinch some consumers. "If they have to pay more for gas, they'll have less to spend on other things," Green says.
The higher gas prices could be partially mitigated by the tax deal, including a temporary cut in payroll taxes, agreed to by President Obama and GOP lawmakers. "To offset the impact of the tax package, you'd have to see a $60 rise in crude oil prices," says economist Brian Bethune of IHS Global Insight.
"Some people are going to get zapped a bit, but it depends on where you live," Bethune says. "In rural areas where people drive trucks and have long ways to go, higher gas prices tend to bite. In urban areas, more people use public transportation and the average commuter is probably driving a much more fuel-efficient car."
Jury Convicts 3 Officers in Post-Katrina Death SAD TIME MADE WORSE BY PEOPLE
NEW ORLEANS — More than five years after a man named Henry Glover was shot and his body burned here by police officers in the days after Hurricane Katrina, a jury has weighed in on the circumstances of his death. Three police officers were found guilty Thursday night on nine federal counts in an emotionally charged case that painted a grim portrait of the city’s troubled Police Department.
David Warren, a former police officer, was found guilty of manslaughter in the shooting of Mr. Glover; Officer Gregory McRae was convicted of obstructing justice and other charges for burning Mr. Glover’s body; and Lt. Travis McCabe was convicted of perjury and obstructing justice for drawing up a false police report.
Two other police officers were found not guilty on various counts. The mixed verdict, returned by the jury after nearly three days of deliberation, left relatives and friends of Mr. Glover with an incomplete sense of vindication.
“All of them should have been found guilty,” said Rebecca Glover, Mr. Glover’s aunt, as she left the courtroom. “They all participated in this. How are you going to let them go free?”
This was the first trial of an untold number of New Orleans officers being investigated by the federal authorities. There are at least eight other such investigations into actions by the city Police Department, including one into shootings on the Danziger Bridge on Sept 4, 2005, that left two civilians dead and six wounded.
Six police officers who were indicted in that case face trial, four of them charged in connection with the deaths. Five other officers have pleaded guilty. One of them, Michael Hunter, was sentenced to eight years in prison last week.
The horrific nature of some of the actions being investigated, as well as the city’s stubborn crime rate, led the Justice Department to begin conducting a full scale review of the department in May.
Few of the criminal cases contain such grisly details as the one involving Mr. Glover, which remained uninvestigated for years despite repeated inquiries by his family. In late 2008, an article about the killing was published by The Nation, in a joint investigative project with ProPublica. Federal investigators began looking into the case shortly afterward.
Preparing to leave the city, Mr. Glover, 31, and a friend drove in a stolen truck to a strip mall in the Algiers neighborhood, across the Mississippi River from downtown New Orleans. They had come to pick up suitcases that had been looted from the mall but left behind earlier, prosecutors said.
Mr. Warren, who was patrolling the strip mall — which was being used as a detective bureau — shot Mr. Glover, who was unarmed. Mr. Warren claimed at trial that he had fired in self-defense, and that he had perceived something in Mr. Glover’s hand. His partner testified that he shot him in the back. Mr. Glover, his shirt covered in blood, was picked up by a stranger, William Tanner, who drove him, his brother and a friend to an elementary school that was being used as headquarters for a police special operations division.
There, Mr. Tanner says, he was beaten by Lt. Dwayne Scheuermann and Officer McRae, though they were both found not guilty on this count. Officer McRae did not deny taking Mr. Tanner’s car, with Mr. Glover’s body inside, and driving it to a levee behind a police substation. There, Mr. McRae used flares to set afire the car and the body.
The other two defendants, Robert Italiano, a retired lieutenant, and Lieutenant McCabe, were charged with creating a false report to cover up the killing. Lieutenant Italiano was found not guilty.
All of the testimony was haunted by the specter of Hurricane Katrina, and a debate about the nature of law and order within catastrophe.
“When you take into account reasonable versus unreasonable,” Rick Simmons, who represents Mr. Warren, said in his closing arguments, “you have to take into consideration the conditions under which he was living.”
But prosecutors, who described Mr. Warren as zealously looking for an opportunity to use his expensive personal assault rifle, said that even under the harrowing conditions after the hurricane, the rule of law was never abandoned.
“Hurricane Katrina didn’t turn petty theft into a capital offense,” said Jared Fishman, a federal prosecutor in his closing arguments.
CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
NY Times
David Warren, a former police officer, was found guilty of manslaughter in the shooting of Mr. Glover; Officer Gregory McRae was convicted of obstructing justice and other charges for burning Mr. Glover’s body; and Lt. Travis McCabe was convicted of perjury and obstructing justice for drawing up a false police report.
Two other police officers were found not guilty on various counts. The mixed verdict, returned by the jury after nearly three days of deliberation, left relatives and friends of Mr. Glover with an incomplete sense of vindication.
“All of them should have been found guilty,” said Rebecca Glover, Mr. Glover’s aunt, as she left the courtroom. “They all participated in this. How are you going to let them go free?”
This was the first trial of an untold number of New Orleans officers being investigated by the federal authorities. There are at least eight other such investigations into actions by the city Police Department, including one into shootings on the Danziger Bridge on Sept 4, 2005, that left two civilians dead and six wounded.
Six police officers who were indicted in that case face trial, four of them charged in connection with the deaths. Five other officers have pleaded guilty. One of them, Michael Hunter, was sentenced to eight years in prison last week.
The horrific nature of some of the actions being investigated, as well as the city’s stubborn crime rate, led the Justice Department to begin conducting a full scale review of the department in May.
Few of the criminal cases contain such grisly details as the one involving Mr. Glover, which remained uninvestigated for years despite repeated inquiries by his family. In late 2008, an article about the killing was published by The Nation, in a joint investigative project with ProPublica. Federal investigators began looking into the case shortly afterward.
Preparing to leave the city, Mr. Glover, 31, and a friend drove in a stolen truck to a strip mall in the Algiers neighborhood, across the Mississippi River from downtown New Orleans. They had come to pick up suitcases that had been looted from the mall but left behind earlier, prosecutors said.
Mr. Warren, who was patrolling the strip mall — which was being used as a detective bureau — shot Mr. Glover, who was unarmed. Mr. Warren claimed at trial that he had fired in self-defense, and that he had perceived something in Mr. Glover’s hand. His partner testified that he shot him in the back. Mr. Glover, his shirt covered in blood, was picked up by a stranger, William Tanner, who drove him, his brother and a friend to an elementary school that was being used as headquarters for a police special operations division.
There, Mr. Tanner says, he was beaten by Lt. Dwayne Scheuermann and Officer McRae, though they were both found not guilty on this count. Officer McRae did not deny taking Mr. Tanner’s car, with Mr. Glover’s body inside, and driving it to a levee behind a police substation. There, Mr. McRae used flares to set afire the car and the body.
The other two defendants, Robert Italiano, a retired lieutenant, and Lieutenant McCabe, were charged with creating a false report to cover up the killing. Lieutenant Italiano was found not guilty.
All of the testimony was haunted by the specter of Hurricane Katrina, and a debate about the nature of law and order within catastrophe.
“When you take into account reasonable versus unreasonable,” Rick Simmons, who represents Mr. Warren, said in his closing arguments, “you have to take into consideration the conditions under which he was living.”
But prosecutors, who described Mr. Warren as zealously looking for an opportunity to use his expensive personal assault rifle, said that even under the harrowing conditions after the hurricane, the rule of law was never abandoned.
“Hurricane Katrina didn’t turn petty theft into a capital offense,” said Jared Fishman, a federal prosecutor in his closing arguments.
CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
NY Times
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