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Recent Posts by Mona Gable

In Defense of Meghan McCain

Let’s talk about breasts. After all, it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. But the real reason I want to talk about breasts is Meghan McCain.

To recap, last Sunday McCain appeared on Christiane Amanpour’s show on ABC, where she challenged Christine O’Donnell’s fitness to be a U.S. senator. And it wasn’t just because of the TV ad where O’Donnell unwittingly proved the point McCain was making by declaring:

I am not a witch…I am you.

Or her bizarre views on masturbation and abstinence. McCain said that many in her generation see the 41-year-old Sarah Palin wannabe as a

Nutjob.

She then added:

I speak as a 26-year-old woman. And my problem is that, no matter what, Christine O’Donnell is making a mockery of running for public office. She has no real history, no real success in any kind of business. And what that sends to my generation is, one day, you can just wake up and run for Senate, no matter how [much] experience you have.

Never mind that McCain is a moderate Republican. Never mind that what she said was entirely reasonable compared to a Senate candidate who believes that teaching creationism in the public schools is perfectly legal. Faster than you can shout “We want our government back!” the new conservative boys’ club started trashing her.

On Michelle Malkin’s blog, a blogger named Doug Powers posted a photo of McCain wearing a skimpy tank top and waving a copy of Andy Warhol’s biography. A year ago McCain caused a tizzy when she uploaded the photo to her Twitter page. If you ask me, the image was far less racy than anything you’d see on a Victoria’s Secret commercial or an episode of the Kardashians. Still, the fake outrage was so intense that McCain eventually apologized and removed the photo.

No matter. Here’s what Powers wrote:

Disregard the above photo. I’m only putting it there to remind myself to check my tire pressure later this afternoon.

Conservative blogger Dan Riehl referred to her as

Meggie ‘Big Mac’ McCain,

and then declared

this self-indulgent set of mega-breasts doesn’t belong anywhere near a TV studio commenting on anything.

If you think that was hilarious, you will really love this comment that Jeff Poor, who writes for something called the Media Research Center’s Business & Media Institute, retweeted from a conservative blogger:

I swear, if Meghan McCain gets any dumber she’ll be drooling on her boobs.

Poor, whose surname seems just right, then added:

Haha.

On Rachel Maddow’s show the other night, McCain said she has gotten used to such sexist attacks and feels good about her body. I’m glad. As it happens, I too have large breasts so I take these attacks personally. Don’t get me wrong. I like my breasts. Still, there were years in my teens and twenties when I felt utterly self-conscious and embarrassed about them. Oh, to be an A cup or a B cup! I would cry, envying women whose chests did not attract stares and lewd remarks wherever they went.

What I did not realize then is that many women are unhappy with their breasts, no matter what their size. Otherwise why would countless women spend thousands of dollars to undergo breast enhancement surgery? (Now there’s a euphemism for you.) Because men are obsessed with breasts. That’s why. Did you know there are at least 138 slang words for breasts? I didn’t either until in the interest of writing this post I did a Google search.

Here are some terms I wasn’t even aware of: funbags, devils’ dumplings, milk wagons, sweater cans. My favorite is Thelma and Louise. (Though Winnebagos was a close second.) As for Thelma and Louise, only a man who’s very insecure would take two iconic feminist movie heroines and reduce them to a pair of breasts.

Which brings me back to Christine O’Donnell, and McCain’s doubts about her ability to be a U.S. senator. I think she might have a point. For example, during the second debate, O’Donnell challenged Democrat Chris Coons when he asserted that the First Amendment dictates the separation of church and state. Really? O’Donnell kept repeating incredulously. At which point the audience started laughing. But rather than realize that they were laughing at her, the clueless O’Donnell just kept talking. And boy can she talk a blue streak!

I’m all for more women running for office. God knows, we need more women in Congress. But when did it become acceptable for female candidates not to be smart? Or accomplished? Or able to think? When did ignorance and failure and a penchant for being glib and talking nonsense not only become OK, but admirable?

This is what Meghan McCain was getting at. And I applaud her for speaking out about it, and then for taking the heat. Not even Karl Rove, after initially trashing O’Donnell, had the courage to stand up to the tea partiers and the GOP. The reason the right-wing hates Nancy Pelosi so much is not because she’s an unapologetic San Francisco liberal and Speaker of the House. That’s just their excuse. The reason they hate her is because she’s fearless, savvy and smart. And if there’s anything conservative men find threatening, it’s a smart woman in charge. Especially one like Pelosi, who doesn’t care a whit what right-wingers think of her.

This is why they resort to attacking women’s bodies. Calling them fat. Calling them ugly. Emphasizing their breasts. Because it’s easy, and it’s mean. And they know how vulnerable women are to this kind of personal shaming. Hillary got the worst of it, and now she’s one of the most powerful and admired women in the world. So occasionally there’s justice.

But it’s not only men who try to bully women like McCain into silence. One female conservative blogger tweeted about her:

You know why Meghan McCain’s physical appearance is still a topic of conversation? Because she won’t shut up about it.

And why should she? It’s a free country. Isn’t that what the tea partiers are always shouting about? Free speech? But the point I want to make is we clearly have a long way to go before women in public life get the respect they deserve. Before going after a woman’s body or her looks as a way to retaliate against her for being smart and opinionated is just no longer acceptable.

In the meantime, let’s talk about breasts. And be sure to get a mammogram.

A True Populist Revolt in Bell: And It’s Not the Tea Partiers

We haven’t had much to cheer about lately, between the Gulf oil spill and the war in Afghanistan and the pink mama grizzlies rearing up. So I’d like to give a shout-out to the fine citizens of Bell, whose unlikely populist revolt against city leaders has been the feel-good story of the week. (Kudos to the Los Angeles Times too!)
But first a few salient facts:

Bell is a small working-class city about ten miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. It’s also largely Hispanic and poor. Of its 40,000 residents, a quarter live below the poverty line. The median household income is $37,130–in short, we’re not talking Hollywood and Brentwood here.

I’ve never been to Bell. It’s one of those anonymous towns you fly by on the freeway when you’re invariably going somewhere more fun like the retail outlets in Commerce or Disneyland. Clearly I’ve been missing out.

Another thing. Compared to the inane rantings of the Tea Partiers we’ve been hearing, the citizens of Bell actually had legitimate complaints.

Despite its poverty and a dire economy, Bell’s top officials were paying themselves like bankers. In fact, some of the biggest municipal salaries in the nation. City Manager Robert “the rat” Rizzo, whose nickname needs no further explanation, was pulling in nearly $800,000 a year–twice what the President makes. Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia received more than $375,000 a year. Police Chief Randy Adams, who Rizzo hired last year to clean up the department, made $457,000–50 percent more than what LAPD Chief Charlie Beck makes to police our tiny city of 3 million. (An aside here: Adams’ previous post was with the Glendale Police Department, an organization with its own fun history of police brutality and corruption.)

Rizzo’s name has also surfaced in a lawsuit filed by a former Bell police sergeant involving everything from Hitler and sexual harassment of a city employee to voter fraud. The latter of which involves Bell police officers allegedly giving residents ballots and telling them how to vote in a 2009 city council election. And of casting ballots for dead people. Innovative! The L.A. County D.A.’s office has been looking into that since March.

We’re not done yet. There are so many colorful players it’s hard to keep track.

Then there is Mayor Oscar Hernandez, Vice Mayor Teresa Jacobo and four of five city council members, all of whom were receiving nearly $100,000 a year for part-time work. Not bad, particularly since part of their salaries came from serving on boards or commissions that typically met during city council meetings. And that lasted only a few minutes.

As it happens, my favorite quote of the Bell scandal comes courtesy of council member Luis Artiga, a pastor. Artiga told the LA Times that when he saw his first paycheck, he believed it was “a miracle from God.” If only!

Meanwhile, the city was cutting $9-an-hour jobs and police and park and recreation services.

I know what you’re thinking. That’s outrageous! How could they get away with this?

In November 2005, to skirt a state law limiting municipal officials’ salaries, Bell held an election in which residents voted to become a charter city. Well, some residents anyway. Out of 10,000 registered voters, fewer than 400 cast ballots.

Last week, all this was revealed in a series of stories in the LA Times.
When the citizens of Bell heard about the astronomical salaries, they were understandably surprised. And that’s when things got interesting. Instead of acting like the poor meek immigrants that Rizzo and his cronies clearly thought they would, they launched a rebellion and demanded that their leaders resign.

Which is precisely what Rizzo, Spaccia and Adams did, though they still could get hefty pensions. That is, if the dizzying number of investigations into the city’s finances don’t get in the way. Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown, the Democratic nominee for governor, though you’d hardly know it from his Zen campaign, emerged to say he had subpoenaed hundreds of documents in relation to the fat salaries.

Meanwhile, after a lively city council meeting this week, Bell’s mayor promised to forgo his salary and council members agreed to a 90 percent pay cut. Meaning they’ll now get what they deserve: $310.63 every two weeks.

Still, Bell’s citizens didn’t get everything they wanted. “I will resign my salary, but I will not resign to my position,” said Vice Mayor Teresa Jacobo, in another memorable quote. “I am here to stand by my people.”

I’m sure the people were elated to hear that.

There is one good guy in this scandal. City Council member Lorenzo Velez, who had no idea his colleagues had such lavish salaries and convinced them that it might be wise to slash them. He also convinced the mayor to apologize. For this he was named one of CNN’s “Intriguing People.”

I’m sure there are more revelations to come. I do hope they get to the bottom of the Hitler thing.

Carly Fiorina: Why She’s Not Cool for California

We’re so lucky in California to have two wealthy women running for political office in our upcoming primary. Who says we haven’t come a long way, baby?

But while I’m a big fan of eBay, the candidate I want to focus on is Carly Fiorina, who wants to be our next female senator and promises to bring jobs, jobs, jobs to our beleaguered state. As opposed to that liberal do-nothing Barbara Boxer.

Let’s review her credentials. Fiorina is perhaps best known for running Hewlett-Packard into the ground when she was CEO, a feat she achieved by laying off thousands of employees, shipping jobs overseas, pushing an ill-advised merger with Compaq, trashing the stock price, and generally destroying HP’s famously mellow culture. For this she got sacked in 2005 in a unanimous and highly publicized vote by HP’s board.

Understandably it’s still a touchy topic. After a Tea Party rally in Pleasanton, CA, in April, Fiorina snapped at some reporters when, instead of asking her about the wonderful response she got from the crowd, they asked her about the recent federal probe into HP’s murky business dealings with Russia when she led the company. And another about HP’s relations with Iran. Talk about a downer!

All of which raises a question: with California’s economy in tatters, a $19 billion deficit, unemployment at a staggering 12.5 percent, do we really need a failed CEO with a chip on her shoulder representing us in Washington? Someone who was widely reviled for axing jobs rather than creating them?

I hate to bring this up, but it’s not like Fiorina has been an avid citizen or particularly excited about government, either. (Unless you count that auspicious period in 2008, when she was one of John McCain’s economic advisers and got in trouble for saying he couldn’t run a company.)

As Connie Bruck wrote in The New Yorker of Fiorina’s record,”she has failed to vote in two-thirds of local, state and national elections since 2000, including gubernatorial elections and Presidential primaries.”

I know teenagers who have better voting records than that.

Call me picky, but it also seems a stretch to call yourself a populist, as Fiorina has done every chance she gets, when you walked away from your last job with $21 million in severance, have a yacht, a mansion, a condo in Georgetown, and have been able to funnel at least $5.5 million of your personal fortune into a Senate race. But let’s not dwell on the obvious.

Aside from the lack of interest problem, the conservative Republican also seems to think she’s running in Texas or South Carolina, and has been proudly touting her endorsements from everyone from anti-choice groups to the NRA to Sarah Palin. (Who in her typical oblivious fashion got her facts about Fiorina’s “humble beginnings” wrong, saying her dad was a school teacher. He was a law professor and later a federal judge.)

At least Fiorina, who has said she would overturn Roe v. Wade if given the chance, hasn’t dubbed herself a feminist, like her new BFF Palin did recently in one of her more comic moments.

In her effort to win the Tea Party vote and disgruntled Independents, Fiorina has been particularly intent on slamming Tom Campbell, a former congressman and the lone moderate in the race. (Chuck DeVore, the other GOP candidate, is pretty much toast at this point.) It seems like ages ago, but remember the delightfully tacky demon sheep ad, where Fiorina painted Campbell as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing”?

At a debate in May, when the GOP candidates were asked if people on the “no-fly list” should be allowed to carry guns, Fiorina attacked Campbell when he very sensibly said no, sniffing, “That’s why he has a poor rating from the National Rifle Association, right there.”

The attacks appear to have worked. This week Campbell pulled his ads off the air, after Fiorina leaped ahead in the polls.

She’s nothing if not tenacious. Faster than you can say “demon sheep,” Fiorina was up with a new ad trashing Barbara Boxer. In the ad Boxer is shown saying that climate change is a national security issue. Is that ridiculous, or what? Then Fiorina comes on screen and gravely says, “Terrorism kills, and Barbara Boxer is worried about the weather.”

Is that ridiculous, or what?

As for the newly resurrected wedge issue of the moment, Fiorina is all for Arizona’s harsh immigration law. At a time when Californians are most worried about jobs and not who’s busing their tables or picking their strawberries, that might not be such a swell move.
There’s also the no small matter that one in six voters in November is expected to be Hispanic. And that most young Californians have grown up in a strikingly diverse culture where race-baiting not only is unusual but extremely uncool.

Maybe Fiorina should move to Texas?

Why Sarah Palin Is Not Only an Airhead But a Dangerous One

A while ago I promised myself I was not going to blog about Sarah Palin. Why feed her bottomless ego? I thought. Why give more ink to an airhead? Even when she invaded my turf in LA before the Academy Awards I didn’t blink. Even when she and her entourage brazenly crashed a celebrity event and then filched some expensive swag, I shrugged. So, what else is new? It just seemed like more of the same from the opportunistic Wasilla mom who’s been cashing in on her fame since she first discovered designer clothes and became an accidental darling of the right.

But now Palin’s done something so patently outrageous I can’t be silent, much as I’d like. And I don’t mean the mind-boggling deal she struck with Discovery Channel for a “documentary” series about Alaska on TLC. Though having spent time there in my youth, I do find the idea strangely intriguing.

First off, this is the same cable channel that gave us those paragons of good parenting, Jon and Kate Gosselin. So can we be clear about Palin’s new gig? We’re talking reality TV here, people. We have many fine programs that can accurately be called documentary series. Frontline is one. The acclaimed, meticulously produced Life is another. But Palin’s Alaska will doubtless not be winning any Emmys in the documentary category.

Beyond semantics, what were the folks at Discovery Channel thinking? Did anyone there consider the irony of hiring a woman to host a “nature” show who disdains nature? I mean, before she fleeced you for more than $1 million an episode, (for that matter, John McPhee would have been excellent, and I’m sure he’d have done it for much less), that maybe it wasn’t the smartest choice given her strange relationship to the truth and her polarizing politics? Did you forget that in her brief and erratic tenure as governor, Palin had a dreadful environmental record, championing such animal-friendly policies as the aerial shooting of wolves? Or refusing to give protected status to such endangered species as the beluga whale? Even now, Palin proudly and avidly flaunts her ignorance about climate change.

So good luck with that nature show, Discovery Channel! I’m sure it will be a hit with the NRA and the Al Gore-hating crowd.

But my real problem with Palin this week is not her reality show, absurd as it is. But her refusal to take responsibility for stirring up violence on the right with her incendiary rhetoric.

Palin has done this before, of course. Most notably when she accused Obama of “paling around with terrorists” when she was running for vice president. Or claimed that the president had inserted “death panels” in the health care bill, precisely so they could kill her Down syndrome infant and her aging parents. Palin was lying, of course, but being the devout Christian that she is, she didn’t let that interfere with her quest for prosperity and fame. Or the anger and ignorance she was encouraging with her repeated attacks on our first African-American president.

After the landmark health care vote on Sunday, Palin promptly posted a map of the U.S. targeting vulnerable Democratic members of Congress. To highlight their districts, she didn’t use something all Alaska and folksy like a smiley face or a grizzly bear. No, she marked them with rifle cross-hairs. But I guess she didn’t think the message was explicit enough. So she exhorted her gun-loving followers with this: “Don’t Retreat–Reload.” Cute.

This week we’ve seen that words like these have terrifying consequences. In an interview with The National Review John Boehner suggested that Steve Driehaus, a freshman Democrat from Cincinnati, would be a “dead man” if he voted for health care. Driehaus did, and now his family has received death threats. New York Democrat Louise Slaughter received a message saying snipers were going to kill the children of all those who’d voted for health care. Imagine walking outside your house one morning to find a coffin there. That happened to Missouri Democrat Ross Carnahan.

Republican leaders have yet to firmly denounce these threats. I guess they’re afraid of looking wimpy or weak and want to keep their jobs. It’s no wonder Palin feels emboldened to demean Obama and attack Democrats with no regard for the consequences. It’s clear she doesn’t care, that she’s willing to say anything. Let’s not forget: this is the college dropout who couldn’t even tell Kate Couric what newspapers she reads. So it’s not like she has a regard for language or facts.

With thousands of angry followers on Facebook and Twitter, Palin might no longer hold office, but she’s still holding court. And that combined with her almost gleeful ignorance makes her dangerous. It’s time to call Palin out and hold her accountable.

It’s an icky job, but somebody’s got to do it.

Doctors Without Borders in Haiti: Why Couldn’t They Land?

Bill Clinton is on the ground in Haiti with Chelsea touring the rubble. I’m elated the former president was able to get permission from the Defense Department to fly in. It’s no small feat, I’m telling you. Because apparently not everyone can.

Take Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the highly respected international medical humanitarian organization. You know, the one Sandra Bullock gave $1 million this week before she won the Golden Globe? They’ve been in Haiti for years. They have hundreds of medical staff in place, and are working in five hospitals in Port-au-Prince. They know the country. They’re experts in delivering medical aid. These are the people you want on the ground after a killer earthquake? Am I right?

Then why was an MSF cargo plane carrying, among other badly needed supplies, an inflatable surgical hospital, not allowed to land in Port-au-Prince on Saturday and re-routed to the Dominican Republic? Despite assurances from the United Nations and the Defense Department that its planes would be allowed in?

If this is an air traffic control problem, they need to fix it now. Maybe Bill could help?

The inflatable hospital included two operating theaters, an intensive care unit, 100 beds, an emergency room and equipment for sterilizing material. The supplies had to be sent by truck, so the hospital didn’t arrive in Haiti until a day later.

To be fair, a plane carrying supplies for the other half of the field hospital did arrive in Port-au-Prince on Sunday. But for a while even that looked sketchy. And as Isabelle Jeanson, an MSF Emergency Communications Officer wrote in an email from Haiti on Sunday: “MSF is still concerned that delivery of vital supplies is being delayed.”

As the crisis in Haiti drags on survivors are dying. Even if they’re rescued, they’re slowly and painfully dying from their wounds because they can’t get into surgery quickly enough. And they can’t get into surgery because the hospitals have collapsed and the makeshift ones aren’t equipped to do surgery. That is, except for the Israelis. They had a modern field hospital up and running in seconds. But they can’t treat 2 million people.

The MSF plane that was dispatched to the Dominican Republic was carrying medical supplies for Choscal hospital in Cite Soleil, which had barely a 24-hour supply left for the 500 patients waiting to have surgery. Even under horrific conditions, MSF teams performed more than 90 operations in the day after their operating theatre was functional.

Like other aid groups in Haiti, Doctors Without Borders is hurting too. Some of their Haitian staff members died. Some they haven’t been able to reach.

And then there is the frustration of trying to help. Of not having the right equipment. The heartache of watching people die when you know you could have saved them.

As Jeanson wrote in her email on Sunday: “Patients who were not critical only three days ago are now in critical phases. This means that people will die from preventable infections. It’s horrible. It’s really so terrible that people are begging for help and we can’t help them all to save their lives!”

Why A Mom Should Be Allowed to Be Buried with her Dead Soldier Son

I can think, off the top of my head, of a dozen sad stories this holiday season. But for some reason the story of Denise Anderson won’t let me go.

Denise is 42, a single mom. Her son Army Spc. Corey Shea was killed in Mosul last year shortly before Thanksgiving. About a month before his tour of duty would have ended in Iraq. Corey was 21, Denise’s only son.

Like many soldiers bearing the brunt of our two wars, Corey was so young he wasn’t married, didn’t have kids. So Denise made a request. To be buried alongside Corey in his plot at the Massachusetts National Cemetery, not far from his hometown of Mansfield.

Sounds reasonable enough. But that’s when Denise ran headlong into the enlightened thinking at the VA. They told her there was a policy and the policy was this: only spouses or children could be buried with their loved ones who’d died on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. It came down in the end to a space problem. A matter of concern that when push came to shove, there might not be enough grave slots in the national cemeteries for dead vets and their dependents.

And since Denise was only a mom–and a single mom at that–she didn’t count.

Even some vets’ groups didn’t back Denise up. “In this particular case, we really have to fall on the side on protecting the integrity of the veterans benefits system,” AMVETS spokesman Jay Agg told the AP. “The position of AMVETS is that the benefits are for service members and their eligible dependents.”

Pretty chintzy, don’t you think? But if that makes you mad, you might want to take a breath.

According to the AP story, the VA does make exceptions to its burial policy and has done so for four parents since 2005. Denise asked for a waiver, too, but was turned down.

Here’s the hitch: Before they’d grant Denise’s request, first she’d have to die.

Or as VA spokeswoman Laurie Tranter explained using this convoluted logic: Because Denise made the request “in advance time of her need,” it didn’t fit VA policy.

That made my head hurt just typing it.

“It was the most devastating blow that I could ever get,” Denise said of the decision. “I just miss him so much. Just being with him will give me some sort of peace.”

The VA wasn’t totally heartless about the grieving mom’s request. Corey’s remains were buried “at a sufficient depth to accommodate her future burial.” How prescient!

Maybe the VA is trying to think ahead. Be proactive. Avoid the kind of public outrage they engendered when they allowed wounded vets at Walter Reed to languish in filth. Or maybe they’re trying to get a jump on the plot problem the way the military has with sexual assault. (Read here: http://bit.ly/7jS2pj). Maybe the VA is right. The number of Americans who’ve been killed in Afghanistan this year has already surpassed last year’s. Imagine what the tally could be by the time we leave in 2011, the date Obama has promised he’ll withdraw our troops?

All those dead soldiers. And no place to rest.

Maybe there won’t be enough burial plots if they grant every mom who wants to be buried with her dead soldier son–or daughter, for that matter–her wish.

If that’s true then we’re in worse trouble than we think.

But I digress. Denise, bless her stubborn heart, isn’t planning to die anytime soon. So she’s decided to fight the VA’s cruel and antiquated burial policy with the help of some allies. Including a Vietnam War hero and former presidential candidate.

You can probably guess who.

“No mothers or fathers of a fallen soldier should have to worry about their child being buried alone,” Sen. John Kerry told the AP. “I think Corey Shea would be unbelievably proud of his mother for her determined efforts to honor his memory and ease the burden for other parents who have experienced unbearable loss.”

Kerry and Barney Frank, Denise’s representative in Congress, are spearheading the Corey Shea Act. If it becomes law, the bill would allow biological and adoptive parents to be buried with their dead sons and daughters in any of the VA’s cemeteries. Unless, that is, the veteran has children or a spouse, or there isn’t enough gravesite space.

I have a son. He’s not in the service, and I wouldn’t want him to be. A few years ago when recruiters were hot on his 16-year-old trail, I did everything to persuade him it was a terrible idea. For me it came down to the Iraq war. I didn’t believe in it. I still don’t.

Before some of you start shrieking, she hates the troops! she has no respect for the military! hold your horses. My cousin’s son just spent his first Christmas in Iraq. My stepmother served in the Korean War. Her best friend was one of the Army’s first female colonels.

And now I have friends whose children might be heading to Afghanistan. According to icasualties.org, we’ve lost 941 Americans to that war since 2001. That sounds like a trickle compared to Iraq. But wait. Just now the New York Times reported that at least six Americans were killed in an Afghan attack by a suicide bomber.

I don’t want to be buried with my son. I hope it never comes to that. But Denise Anderson does. And if I were Denise and my son were the one lying in that cold lonely grave, I’d want to lie there for eternity with him too. Talk about patriotic. It’s the least the VA can do for Denise.

For any parent who loses a child to war.

The Assault on Abortion AKA Health Reform

I’m still trying to get my mind around the idea that a little-known congressman named Bart Stupak hijacked the entire health care bill at the last second. While also managing to infuriate millions of American women like myself.

How did Stupak do it? And all with the apparent support of a Democratic-controlled Congress and a popular Democratic president who is supposedly pro-choice? If you have any insights on this I would certainly appreciate hearing them.

I hate to offend voters in Michigan, but Stupak reminds me of a character on “The Simpsons.” You have to admit he does tend to get red in the face like Homer, as when he thundered there would be “hell to pay!” if his abortion amendment got stripped from the final bill. Really? Not to get too uppity here, but who does the Democratic congressman think he is? A Catholic bishop?

This would all be funny were it not so incredibly outrageous and serious. And the stakes so high for women. Under the Stupak amendment, anyone who uses a federal subsidy to buy insurance wouldn’t be able to choose a plan with abortion coverage. The size of the subsidy wouldn’t matter. Even if you only got $50, you still couldn’t buy insurance that covers abortion.

It gets worse. If Stupak and the anti-choice lobbyists have their way, women wouldn’t be able to get abortion coverage through the public option, either. Instead they’d be forced to purchase supplemental abortion insurance, all for a medical procedure they might never have. All for a medical procedure that is legal, safe and widely used.

Call me cynical, but it seems to me women are getting screwed.

What’s next? An amendment to ban birth control pills as a lever to pass climate change?

I hope Obama wakes up and decides whether he is truly pro-choice or not. And that Nancy Pelosi stops justifying this assault on women’s health as necessary to get the reform bill through the House. I’d also like the Democrats to stop saying it was a victory and we should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. This bill is not good. Not for women. Not for children. Not for families. There is nothing good about the insidious way Stupak and his allies manipulated a bill meant to help millions of sick, desperate and needy Americans get health insurance to restrict abortion. So let’s not pretend we’re all going to Disneyland.

At an event at Harvard’s Institute of Politics last Friday night, Pelosi as much told David Gergen so:

“We do not consider getting a rider as an option for women. We might as well give out big ‘A’s’ and put them on people. How do you get a rider for an unintended event with an unintended consequence? We consider that something that is really unfair to women.”

To put it mildly this is change we don’t need. Right now something like 80 percent of insurance companies cover abortion. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 35 percent of all American women of reproductive age will have had an abortion by the time they’re 45. That’s a lot of women, despite efforts by abortion opponents to intimidate them and their doctors.

We all know where this amendment is headed. To a time when abortion will be so inaccessible and expensive that only rich women will be able to obtain one. A time, for some of us anyway, not that long ago.

There will be hell to pay with the Stupak amendment, but it’s not the one its author is shaking his fist about. It’s the wrath of millions of American women standing up for their rights.

Are we angry yet?

A Lesson From Barack (and Malia) Obama

I know this isn’t nice, but I was secretly pleased when the President outed Malia for getting a C on her science test. As a parent I found the news immensely reassuring. Why, the elder First Daughter has as much trouble juggling homework, sports and her social life as my kids do! I marveled.

Granted, Malia lives in a much grander house and vacations in places like Russia as opposed to spending the day at the local grubby beach. If she needs one mom and dad also won’t have to pony up $50 an hour for an algebra tutor.

But she also has the Secret Service accompanying her to sleepovers and nosing around her Facebook page (Like she probably even has one. Remember Dad’s fight to keep his BlackBerry?). And she’s under enormous pressure to succeed in school, all while living under a
microscope every second.

It can’t always be fun having a dad who’s President, a best-selling author and a Nobel Laureate. Not to mention one who occasionally spills your secrets to the entire world. (Thanks, Dad!) Then there’s mom, a crack organic gardener, international style icon, Harvard Law grad, who’s as popular as Taylor Swift. How’s an 11-year-old to top that?

Appropriately enough the occasion for this betrayal was an education speech at a charter middle school in Madison, Wisconsin. The President was spelling out what schools need to do to win grants from the Department of Education’s $4.35-billion “Race to the Top” fund. He wasn’t in a particularly forgiving mood. Referring to public schools, he said there should be “no excuse for mediocrity.”

Given Dad’s high expectations, maybe the C wasn’t entirely surprising. It certainly wasn’t terrible. (Although I would have hated to be Malia when she told her parents. You know how the President gets that stern look.) As it turns out, Malia quickly bounced back, earning 95 on her very next test.

Here’s how Dad explained her turnaround in the Los Angeles Times: “What was happening was she had started wanting it more than us.”

And that’s the real lesson I think parents should absorb from this. That no matter what your ambitions are as a parent, you can’t control how motivated your children are or what they achieve. It has to come from them.

I learned this the hard way. Despite making sure my kids did their homework in elementary school, going online to check their assignments in middle school, emailing their teachers when there was a problem in high school, all the while trying not to be the noxious helicopter parent, they occasionally did not meet my standards of excellence.

In middle school I remember lining up in the cafeteria to talk with my son’s teachers about his “progress report.” Talk about the line of shame. It was a dreadful ritual. Invariably I’d be right behind the parent whose 13-year-old had perfect citizenship and straight A’s. All of which I’d have to hear about while my son looked around anxiously and fidgeted. Knowing that he did not have such grades. Knowing that I’d be angry with his Bs and Cs and missing assignments.

I did not see then that my son, with his ADHD, his charming personality, his prowess at skateboarding and music, had other gifts. Gifts that his overcrowded public school and overtaxed teachers did not necessarily appreciate, much less have the resources to cultivate. I had to accept that he was probably not bound for Oxford.

My daughter has hit similar bumps in her academic career. Last year it was the dreaded English poet Milton that did her in. “I hate poetry,” she would fume every night, as she sat poring over phrases in Middle English. “I don’t understand it. I don’t get why we have to learn this.” Her teacher, who could not get enough of Milton, alas, was not particularly sympathetic. Thank goodness she’s taking women’s studies this semester!

This month she’s sending out her college applications. Like a good parent, I’m trying not to ask, “So, how’s that essay coming?” every five minutes. A few months ago she broke the news that she would not be applying to Berkeley, her mother’s beloved alma mater. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, mom, but I don’t want to go to a school where I’m too stressed out.” (Not incidentally, we’ve had similar conversations about the fact she will not be entering journalism, like her parents. Which only goes to show how smart she is.)

My daughter is not me. What a shock. And I suppose this goes without saying, but neither is my son. If I can get out of their way and let them make mistakes, learn from them, grow up, they’ll both forge their own distinctive paths.

Just as Malia Obama will, Dad.

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