Jonathan Van Meter’s new profile of Hillary Clinton in Vogue is very fine. The reporting took place over the middle months of the year since Clinton assumed her position as Secretary of State. It’s complete with a juicy account of the near-misses, prolonged waffling, and trickery that preceded her acceptance of Barack Obama’s job offer.

Each time Clinton wavered, Obama would talk her through it again. "At the end of the day," says one of her aides, "it was the president who sold her on it. He didn't delegate it." Says another staffer, "They started talking about it substantively, looking around the globe, and they were basically in the same place. The things they disagreed about in the campaign? We didn't believe he was actually going to have coffee with Ahmadinejad. It was something he shouldn't have said in the campaign, and we pounced on it. The tiny differences in their foreign-policy ideas during the primaries evaporated during the general election."

As usual, the story makes me feel terrible about the campaign season I spent trashing Clinton’s motives, if not her smarts. Of course, her personal ambition—a key source of derision—has been naturally checked by her new position as diplomat, not commander-in-chief. But when she brings the Liberian parliament to tears with her statement of patriotism, ribs Defense Secretary Bob Gates for being too private, or takes a lonely swim in the Atlantic Ocean, it paints a portrait of a woman satisfied—and converting her own "overexposure" into an overseas version of "hope and change."

What’s really interesting, however, from a diplomatic perspective, is this nugget buried in the middle of the story:

One of the refrains I kept hearing from reporters was Condi would never do this. Clinton, a woman from politics, knows how to work a crowd. Sometimes her motorcade would arrive and she would jump out and just plunge right in, getting out ahead of her security team, who often looked a little panicked. She danced her funky little dance at the dinners held in her honor (as seen on YouTube). In Cape Town, she threw a party for the press and drank with the best of us, talking for more than two hours, into the night, with surprising off-the-record candor about everything from her husband to her disdain for certain world leaders. She's fun. She laughs at herself. And she is full of surprisingly sharp, pointy little retorts, barbs, and comebacks. On several occasions she drifted to the back of the plane, allowing zesty debates to flower, often asking, "What's your take?" of different reporters, who hung on her every word. One of them told me his opinion of Hillary had completely turned around: "My parents hated her, and I thought she was a bitch who surrounded herself with horrible people. But she's nice! She's really frank and blunt and funny. One time she said to me, 'We need China.' Condi would never do that. I like her." Condoleezza Rice, I was told, almost never even came out of her cabin.

Never mind the flattering comparison with Rice—I’m both surprised and not to read that Clinton is so loose-lipped about sensitive bilateral relationships. This candor has caused Clinton to be branded as a gaffe-machine by Michael Crowley in the New Republic, among others—quite a departure from the “almost animatronic ability to stay on message” she maintained during the 2008 campaign. Should we care? Yes, her new job description requires more discretion than this paragraph might suggest she possesses. But the remark about China (of ever greater importance to the United States, given financial and environmental debates raging today) is a blatant statement of fact. Likewise her Kissinger-esque comments about overlooking the nation's human rights failings in service of some realpolitik. Further, not only is this truth-telling refreshing, Clinton’s candor, in a way, fits more closely with the spirit of openness and transparency that her opponent advocated during the 2008 campaign. Have we seen Barack Obama be this genuine about his foreign policy beliefs recently? Turnabout, it seems, is fair play.

Photograph of Hillary Clinton by Alex Wong/Getty Images.

Tags: foreign policy, freedom of speech, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton in Vogue

Emily, I think part of the answer to your great question about why Sarah Palin gets to make up facts and be taken seriously by serious publications is that serious publications are ever more terrified of antagonizing people who take Palin seriously. Better to let her speak than be seen as part of the vast media conspiracy to silence her. Whereas normal people see life as a series of complex events, Palin always sees a pattern of evil plots against her and people like her. Any attempt to marginalize her just proves she’s right.

If you read her global warming op-ed closely (another great debunking courtesy of Marc Ambinder), it’s clear that what undergirds all her scientific misstatements and bad logic is yet more good old Palin-centered conspiracy theory: A bunch of e-mails are built up to represent the entirety of a “highly politicized scientific circle.” Proposals for climate-change legislation are “schemes.” Poor Palin is clobbered by “radical environmentalists.” In Palin’s world, there is always an evil, coordinated master plan to be exposed. But what precisely is the dark plot most of the world’s climate scientists are trying to perpetrate? I can’t figure it out, and Palin never tells me. Are they part of some insidious solar-panel conglomerate? I’m as fond of paranoid conspiracy theories as the next guy, but leave it to Sarah Palin to give voice to the secret narcissistic hope that climate change is really all about persecuting her.

Photograph of Sarah Palin by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images.

Tags: Sarah Palin; climate-gate;

I'm deep in unpacking hell right now, and yearning for some entertaining stuff to play on the computer to divert me while I empty boxes. Thank the powers at MSNBC, therefore, for this interview Rachel Maddow did with professional "ex-gay" Richard Cohen. Under Rachel's steady but fair line of questioning, Cohen seems increasingly bizarre, jackhammering in plugs for his Web site and trying to avoid admitting that he's not only been discredited as a professional, but that he had sex with men after he married. The comic highlight may have been when Cohen described being expelled by the American Counseling Association as a "hate crime" against him for being "ex-gay." The segment was funny but also incredibly enlightening for an 18-minute segment of cable news.

Many, if not most, Americans have probably heard of and laughed at the "ex-gay" movement, but as the segment shows, most of us probably don't know much more about them other than that they attempt to pray the gay away and usually fail. But you can't enjoy the true absurdity until you start digging in, as Maddow did. The world of ex-gays is one so thick with bad-faith rationalizations that it might constitute a whole new level of right-wing nuttery. And the fact that they offer a theory for the "cause" of homosexuality that they made up whole cloth is just the tip of the iceberg.

Ex-gay therapists claim to be apolitical, for instance, and feign shock whenever someone points out that they wouldn't exist if it weren't for right-wing opposition to gay rights, specifically the need for some pseudo-evidence that homosexuality is a choice. (I'd argue the choice that homophobes are thinking of is whether or not to be in the closet, not whether or not you're gay.) Indeed, a cursory glance at the reality of ex-gay therapy demonstrates that it does nothing for the very few people who even look at it, and so, really, the ex-gay movement exists strictly as a political beast. But try getting any of the spokespeople to admit the truth. In this clip, Cohen denies a political bent even as Maddow demonstrates that he sends his book to Ugandan anti-gay activists who are behind a bill to institute the death penalty for being gay.

Ex-gay spokesmen like Cohen also use the sophisticated political technique known as the "I know you are, but what am I?" method. The overwhelming evidence demonstrates that they exist to give a smiley gloss to vicious bigotry against gay people. Even the suggestion that being gay isn't a real sexual orientation is offensive enough, but they usually go way beyond that, as Maddow demonstrated when she pointed out the phony statistics about how gays are child molesters in Cohen's book. But according to ex-gays, they aren't the real bigots just because they promote the idea that being gay makes you a child molester who will die alone at 30 before going straight to hell. They claim that they're actually the victims of bigotry, apparently at the hands of the homosexual mafia. That's why Cohen was quick to describe his expulsion from the ACA as a "hate crime." It's a tactic to minimize the ugly reality of real hate crimes, ones that involve physical assault and bona fide bigotry.

The good news is that the sheer weirdness and strained logic of the ex-gay movement demonstrate how thoroughly the right is losing this battle. Pointing to ex-gays and claiming there is a "cure" is all they've got left, and it reads like a joke in the United States. The bad news is that defeated right-wing nuts in the United States are taking the hate parade to places like Uganda, where their message of bigotry is taking on genocidal proportions.

Tags: ex-gay, gay rights, richard cohen, uganda

As we reflect upon the fact that Tiger Woods paid for soi-disant “trashy girl” Jamie Junger’s liposuction in 2005, we might ask what the golfer has given up. What does “boring” do for a wealthy sports star, and is it worth trading for 11 willing mistresses? As a resident Iowan, I can tell you what "boring" buys here in the heartland: a butter sculpture. Here is Tiger Woods, pre-scandal, at the 2005 Iowa State Fair. Not only is he entirely constructed of low moisture, pure-cream Iowa butter, he, butter Tiger Woods, is holding onto a butter tiger. It is the highest honor this state can bestow and it is glorious.

This kind of exaltation, I promise you, is not extended to the sexually libertine. There was some talk of a butter Michael Jackson this year, but his “lifestyle” was deemed too controversial and Iowans voted the idea down. Previous butter sculptures include Harry Potter, Superman, and gymnast Shawn Johnson (with bonus butter balance beam). Had Iowans suspected that as they were sculpting butter Tiger’s adorable butter nose in 2005, Woods himself was likely having ambien-fueled sex with a lingerie model, they would almost certainly have ceased production.

Look upon what you have lost, Tiger, and despair.

Photograph of butter Tiger courtesy of Kerry Howley.

Tags: Iowa, tiger woods

Jessica, I'm not altogether surprised that the Nelson amendment was defeated, and not in a panic about abortion rights. The nation is at a stalemate on this issue, and has been for a very long time. Last week there was much hand-wringing over Jennifer Senior’s very provocative story suggesting that Americans are more anti-abortion than ever. The story merely shows that America is ambivalent, and has been for the last 30 years. There have been small shifts here and there in technology, generational indifference, and religious fervor, but the overall picture is pretty stagnant.

Here is her analysis of the shifting numbers:

In April 1975, according to Gallup, 21 percent of Americans thought abortion should be legal under all circumstances and 22 percent thought it should be illegal under all circumstances. In the early nineties, there was a brief spell where a full third of Americans believed abortion should always be legal. That started to slide midway through the Clinton years, and by May of this year, we were almost exactly where we started in 1975: 22 percent saying always legal and 23 saying always illegal.

The fact that the numbers have not shifted since 1975 is a good thing. Look at the Gallup poll graph: The vast majority of Americans have consistently said that abortion should be legal “only under certain circumstances,” which could mean something as broad as not in the third trimester. For a pretty religious nation, this seems pretty good, steady support for abortion rights.

Senior mentions the blip in increased support for the pro-choice position in the early 90s. This just happens to coincide with the ascendancy of the Christian right. Pat Buchanan delivered his famous culture war speech at the Republican convention in 1992, which must have scared people into admitting they were pro-choice. Obama, by contrast, would likely make them complacent.

Senior writes that the pro-choice side changed its tactics, and started talking more about government interfering with your rights. In the meantime, the pro-lifers began to focus on government funding of abortion, which led to the Stupak amendment. This seems to me like a fair fight, tit for tat, not a cause for alarm. Both are pretty narrow arenas that don’t say much about the broader cultural feeling.

Yes, the ultrasound makes us more aware of what we are doing. Yes, this generation is more complacent. But again, these are changes around the edges. They do not prove that if there were ever a serious threat to abortion rights, a generation would yawn.

Tags: abortion, generation y and abortion, jennifer senior, nelson amendment, new york magazine abortion

The Nelson Amendement—the Senate's answer to Stupak, which would limit coverage for abortion—was voted down yesterday. On the surface, this seems like a victory for pro-choice forces in the Senate, but Sen. Harry Reid intimates that the fight is not over, and Sen. Ben Nelson is threatening to fillibuster unless the language on abortion restrictions is tightened. According to the Washington Post:

Reid told reporters earlier Tuesday afternoon he would consider other language to allay Nelson's concerns. "If in fact he doesn't succeed here, we'll try something else," Reid said.

This is not the only disappointing news for women's health. As Sharon Lerner noted here on DoubleX and also at the Nation.com:

None of the bills emerging from the House and Senate require insurers to cover all the elements of a standard gynecological "well visit," leaving essential care such as pelvic exams, domestic violence screening, counseling about sexually transmitted diseases, and, perhaps most startlingly, the provision of birth control off the list of basic benefits all insurers must cover.

If essential care isn't part of health insurance reform, getting the bill passed is a pyrrhic victory for women at best.

Tags: abortion, birth control, nelson amendment, sharon lerner, stupak amendment

Sarah Palin has been smart about using her Facebook page to say whatever she wants, skating right past reporters and their pesky follow-up questions. But it's another thing to read her lies and faulty reasoning on the Washington Post op-ed page, today on climate change. She whips up the hype over the leaked e-mails from climate scientists, asserts that "This scandal obviously calls into question the proposals being pushed in Copenhagen," and then gets to santimoniously intone, "I've always believed that policy should be based on sound science, not politics." Oh yes, that is surely the guiding principle of her creationism. And never mind that in the climate change context, the science is clearly and resoundingly on the side of action to head off C02 emissions, any meaningful version of which Palin opposes.

I'm with Gawker, which does an excellent job of showing how Palin's essay proceeds from one faulty assertion to the next: What is this hack job of an op-ed doing in the Washington Post? Palin's distortions last summer about the death panels she invented derailed the debate over the health care bill for weeks. What is it about Palin's ex-candidate, ex-governor, tabloid-author status that makes people who should know better act as if her made-up facts deserve to be taken seriously?

Photograph of Sarah Palin by Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images.

Tags: climate change, climategate, Copenhagen, Sarah Palin