A Woman's Place (Is Up to a Man)

Ann Romney Blinked: Post-conventions, there was lots of talk about which candidate’s wife conjured up a more touching, if not so truthful, remembrance of the tough financial times she and her husband had starting out their lives together. 

Ann Romney pictured their struggle in a basement Boston apartment, eating tuna casseroles and pasta off an ironing board doing its best impression of a dining room table, while Mitt studied for his Harvard law and business degrees at a desk made from an old door propped up on two sawhorses. 

Not to be outdone, Michelle Obama related how she could see the pavement whizzing by from the holes in the floorboards of Barack’s car; his best pair of shoes were a size too small. 

Oh, how far the seemingly destitute have come!

I’m not sure if the First Lady has retracted any of her depiction, but Ann Romney fessed up to David Gregory on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, “We have not had a financial struggle in our lives, but I want people to believe in their hearts that we know what it is to struggle.” 

For sure they did, as Ann began suffering from multiple sclerosis in 1998. Good thing her husband can afford quality health insurance, or to pay for her treatment out of pocket in case a new insurance company would deny her coverage because of a pre-existing condition. Unless, of course, she’d choose to be covered under provisions of Obamacare that requires insurance companies to extend coverage even for pre-conditions. 

For the record, I was less than impressed by David Gregory’s big moment with Mitt. I watched Meet the Press after returning home from my weekly softball game. Gregory’s questions were softer than the pitches I hurled. What a wasted opportunity to pin Romney down to specifics. He tried once or twice, but for the most part he failed to ask probing questions. 

It also was interesting to hear Romney talk about the country’s Judeo-Christian heritage, considering many Christian sects don’t consider Mormons to be part of their faith. 

A Woman’s Place: Recent articles and events struck me as indicators the world is far from accepting women as equals with men. First there was the controversy in Missouri generated by Rep. Todd Akin on the issue of “legitimate rape” and the ability of a woman’s body to fend off uninvited sperm. That an elected congressman in this day and age could harbor such nonsense is beyond the pale. He’s a deeply religious man. I wonder how much his ignorance is engendered by his religious teachings.

Which brings us to the first article, (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/05/world/middleeast/05iht-letter05.html?_r=1&bl), a depiction of a woman’s place according to the new rulers of Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood. In case you haven’t yet clicked on the link, here’s how the writer, Mona El-Naggar, started her article, “Women are erratic and emotional, and they make good wives and mothers — but never leaders or rulers. That, at least, is what Osama Abou Salama, a professor of botany at Cairo University and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, told young men and women during a recent premarital counseling class.”

The Muslim Brotherhood apparently does not believe such women as Margaret Thatcher, Indira Ghandi, Benazir Bhutto, or Golda Meir were good leaders or rulers. It doesn’t look promising for the women of Egypt, many of whom protested last year in Tahir Square in the hope they would achieve equal status from a post-Mubarak government.

It doesn’t look too rosy to the northeast of Egypt, either. Israel made the desert bloom, but it cannot cultivate tolerance among its religious zealots. Even with their lives at stake, Haredim, the ultra Orthodox, adhere to dictates that endanger the Jewish state. A long-time deferment from compulsory military service has been lifted, so Haredim are now being drafted. The Israeli military has long been an assimilator and equalizer, but the Haredim are offering stiff resistance to modernity, as can be seen in last Sunday’s Review submission in the NY Times by Shani Boianjiu, “What Happens When the Two Israel’s Meet” (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/opinion/sunday/what-happens-when-the-two-israels-meet.html?partner=rss&emc=rss). 

No, the world does not look very egalitarian these days. 

Brook(s) No Evil

To the list of one-issue voters (e.g., supporters of Israel, pro-choice or anti-abortion champions, environmental advocates), David Brooks of The NY Times wants to add another—Medicare cost containers. He wants you to cast a vote for the candidate who “can slow the explosion of entitlement spending (Medicare) so we can devote more resources toward our future.” He reluctantly, it seemed to me, believes it would be Mitt Romney, unless Barack Obama can come up with a credible alternative plan (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/opinion/brooks-guide-for-the-perplexed.html?_r=1&hp).

I applaud his willingness to cross party lines in the latter case, but regret his narrow-minded argument. Though it’s true spending on Medicare (Medicaid and Social Security, as well) must be contained, Republican budgets with their no-new-taxes foundation fail to balance for at least 10 years, during which time Romney-Ryan and their acolytes will have gutted all investment in our future—investments in education, in infrastructure, in the arts, in parks and recreation, in support for the disadvantaged, in women’s health, in the environment. In short, in everything but the military (perhaps they realize they’ll need a strong armed forces not to defend us from outside attack but from a revolt from within. Just kidding, I hope.)

Simply put, a vote for Romney-Ryan is a vote into the past, a vote to solidify the polarization of our society economically, socially and educationally, though not politically, as that has already been achieved (a rather ignominious, but nevertheless accurate, descriptor). 

Obama is not the perfect candidate, but at least he plausibly addresses our needs for the future. By focusing just on Medicare, Brooks fails to see the dangers lurking in a Romney presidency. He’s like the Naderites who cast an absurd ballot for Ralph Nader in 2000, thereby condemning the country to the tragedy of George W. Bush, whose mess Obama has had to clean up, with no assistance from Bush’s Republican mates. 

The headline of Brooks’ column was “Guide for the Perplexed.” What is perplexing is how a normally astute and reasoned commentator could be so narrow-focused when Medicare is but one challenge facing the country.

Akin for More: Speaking of one challenge, it’s easy to focus on and deplore Todd Akin’s misguided and ill-informed views of rape, women and their reproductive systems. It’s easy to dismiss them as an aberration, not just by Akin but also by any other Republican who shares those ideas. 

The true measure of Akin and the problem or benefit Republicans have being associated with him, depending on one’s political point of view, is his advocacy of other extreme positions including, according to Sean Sullivan of The Washington Post, an end to federal support for the National School Lunch Program, his comparing federal student loans to stage 3 cancer, and his belief that civil rights should be re-litigated. 

Akin is a deeply religious man. That appeals to many Missouri voters. But his reactionary positions on social welfare issues, not just abortion, demonstrate he has very little compassion for his fellow man, woman or child. 

Money Votes: Campaign finance is one of the big stories this election season, what with all the “soft” money going into funds, especially conservative leaning ones, that do not have to disclose their donors. Coupled with Romney out-muscling Obama for the third month in a row in raking in millions of dollars in disclosed campaign contributions, the GOP looks like it is winning the vote among those willing to put their money on the line. 

But for those who missed an intriguing story in Tuesday’s NY Times, here’s a different read of the political winds. Under the headline, “Investors in Health Care Seem to Bet on Incumbent,” the article revealed how companies with a stake in the future of Obamacare have made acquisitions based on their belief the president would be re-elected 

(http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/20/investors-in-health-care-seem-to-bet-on-incumbent/).

What If ...

I don’t normally watch Hardball with Chris Matthews, but the Yankees game hadn’t started yet and I had a few minutes to kill while doing the dishes last night. I tuned in at the end of Hardball, in time to hear Matthews describe what would happen if Romney-Ryan were elected. If you vote for Mitt Romney you get the “March of the Clowns,” said Matthews, enumerating the likes of Bachman, Trump and other extreme politicos who would shape a list of regressive disasters known to most intelligent observers and already delineated by your faithful correspondent back in January. I’ll spare you the details, but here’s a link in case you don’t remember what I wrote: http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2012/01/america-of-our-past-and-future.html.

What prompted Matthews’ outrage Monday was the Todd Akins affair. For anyone not familiar with this ultra-conservative Republican congressman running to unseat Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) of Missouri, he espoused Sunday, before partially recanting, a theory that when a woman is “legitimately” raped, her body “has ways to try to shut the whole thing (meaning, pregnancy) down,” thus negating the need for an abortion. Akins opposes all abortions.

Beyond the repulsiveness of what Akin said about rape and his utter failure to comprehend and empathize with women who are attacked sexually, Akin has performed a public service. He is proof-positive this election is about more than just the economy. Social issues, the right to an abortion being one of them, are very much at stake.

Akin exposed a basic belief among many Republicans, that there be no exceptions for abortions. It’s all part of the Republican war on women that includes shutting down Planned Parenthood, requiring invasive gynecological ultrasounds before legal abortions, and efforts to ban contraception. Though Romney said yesterday he would permit abortions in the case of rape or danger to the health of a mother, in the past he has supported a total ban. It’s another flip-flop, another example of not knowing what we’d get should Romney win. 

What’s more, a draft of the Republican Party platform to be adopted next week calls for a constitutional amendment banning all forms of abortion, according to CNN (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/21/gop-platform-abortion_n_1815021.html). Will Romney finesse that total ban out of the platform, or simply ignore it during the campaign, much as he has sidestepped specifics about his economic recovery plan and his taxes? 

His presumptive running mate, Congressman Paul Ryan, in linked to Akins. As Eugene Robinson pointed out in The Washington Post, “Last year, Akin co-sponsored a bill in the House that would have narrowed the exception that allows Medicaid funds to pay for abortions for women who are raped. The proposed measure would have permitted the use of funds only to end pregnancies resulting from ‘forcible rape.’ Paul Ryan, now Mitt Romney’s running mate, was another co-sponsor of the measure, which ultimately failed.

“The statutory rape of a child by an adult would not fit the definition the House Republicans tried to impose; nor would the rape of a woman who was drugged, say, or who had limited mental capacity. Never mind the fact that, as far as criminal law is concerned, rape is rape. Never mind the fact that all rape, by its very nature, is ‘forcible.’

“Akin’s assertion about ‘legitimate’ rape is really nothing but an attempt to blame the victim. It stems from the view that the only true victim is a woman who is raped while violently resisting a ski-masked assailant who came in through the bedroom window. Anything short of that, she must have been asking for it.”

Robinson also noted, “Akin, by the way, is a member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.” 

Hey, Chris Matthews—no need to send in the clowns. They’re already here.