What struck me most, Kerry, about Elizabeth Edwards interview with Oprah was her repeated insistence John's possible child with Rielle Hunter is irrelevant. She told Oprah that she doesn't know if the baby is John's (She also said John didn't know if the baby was John's, which reminds me of Emily's post wondering why, if Elizabeth Edwards has such an infallible bullshit detector, she's married to this dissembler in the first place) and that it doesn't matter. Here's a quote of her talking about the child, always an "it", at length:

"It doesn't make any difference to me [if Hunter's son is John's]. If I have to analyze why that should make a difference to me [it would only be because] I care about something completely extraneous to my life. That is not my life. And if we were to discover it was, that would be part of John's life, but it is not part of mine. And I cant see any upside to making it part of my life. It doesn't change anything. It doesn't change anything. It's not going to change my life in any way. I could try to make it change my life and could keep myself up about if I thought he was trying to start a family with this woman. That would be one thing, but I do I not think that's true. I do not by any stretch of the imagination think that's true. And therefore, it doesn't have any effect on me. Part of resilience is deciding to make yourself miserable about something that matters, or deciding to make yourself miserable over something that doesn't matter."

And her children's possible half sibling is something that doesn't matter? And can something, a something that's really a son, be "part" of John's life without being a part of hers? Does saying something won't change anything over and over make it true?

I found this exchange even more blinkered in the context of the entire interview, during which Edwards seemed, as she usually does, remarkably open, likeable, thoughtful, and authentic—as Hanna pointed out, her key trait. (In an age of disappearing privacy, it's worth remembering that we're not all equally equipped to kill our private lives. Some people, Edwards and Oprah among them, are better able to totally explode the distinction between their public and private lives by virtue of being more natural, comfortable, and open at television and publicity than the rest of us).

But on this subject, her husband's probable kid, Edwards seems willfully unthoughtful, as if she has artificially cordoned off one of the more painful aspects of her husband's philandering and decided that her ability not to think or feel about it means it doesn't warrant thoughts of feelings. I wonder if there will be another book that comes after Resilience, like Acceptance (or maybe Divorce).

Tags: Elizabeth Edwards, John Edwards, political wives, politics, Resilience

Politico just ran a pretty intriguing story speculating on why there are so few women in the Republican party, and it definitely rang true for me. A few weeks ago, I went to a GOP lunch at the National Press Club sponsored by the RNC.

The main speaker? A fiftysomething white guy in a suit. Who proceeded to talk nonstop for the next 30 minutes about his impressive political connections (yawn—does he think we know who these people are?), the dire need for volunteers that weekend for a tight race in Pennsylvania (dude, we live in D.C.), and the strange predicament of women not being attracted to the GOP (hmm ...).

I was by far the youngest and had the least respectable job—not a lawyer, doctor, or entrepreuneur but a member of the mistrusted media. At one point, it dawned on our host that I must know how to use Facebook! I could start a Facebook page for this group! It was a genius idea! It would attract women all over the country! I bit my lip and nodded noncommitally.

The women I know who have gotten into politics aren't motivated by power. They're motivated by a desire to tackle specific problems in their schools and local communities. At this lunch, the women I talked to didn't care so much about some race in Pennsylvania or the opportunities that could move us up the political ladder as about the issues that we're confronted with every day in the newspaper headlines and routines of life: school vouchers, high taxes, national security, or abortion.

My take is that there are some good reasons for women to be Republicans: True republicanism is a platform where local communities are empowered to solve their own problems. It's a good model for women, who like to accomplish tangible change in specific situations. But until the Republican Party can articulate what it stands for and how it's going to bring those ideals about, I'll probably keep on bringing my own lunch to work.

Tags: Facebook, Republicans

Meghan McCain was on The Colbert Report last night and despite some giggles and a hideous, huge, Bedazzled ring, she acquitted herself admirably. When is someone going to give this self-identified "24-year-old, pro-sex woman" and Republican her own television show? Young and Republican In America, hosted by Meghan McCain, running on one of the cable news networks twice a week? I'd watch.

Colbert tries his best to throw his guests off their talking points, but McCain could recite hers in a coma. She was not to be derailed. While defending her core position—the Republican Party needs to appeal to younger voters, and it can only do so by getting liberal on social issues—she told Colbert the following:

"President Obama said he was going to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell and I think me and a lot of people are still waiting for that."

"If you go to the basic beliefs of the Republican party, keeping the government out of your life, why can't that include marriage?"

"I think it's not realistic for this generation to be just plain abstinent, I think we need to have sex education with condoms and birth control... I would never practice anything I didn't preach. My father's gonna watch that, God!"

"I don't believe twittering is going to make anyone think that the Republican party is cooler."

That last one, about twitter, is not a policy position, it's just funny. And true. All the rest sound good to me, but that's because they sound like something a Democrat would say. Or maybe a Libertarian. Socially conservative Republicans are probably a smidge less amused.

The Colbert Report
Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Meghan McCain

colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Political Humor
Gay Marriage

Tags: Meghan McCain, Pro-Sex, Republican Party, Stephen Colbert

The Daily Telegraph reports unreleased Abu Ghraib photographs include sexual torture and "rape." Does that have any bearing on the debate over whether we should be allowed to see the photographs? According to the story, the pictures include an American soldier raping a female prisoner and a "male translator raping a male detainee." Other photos include prisoners being sexually violated with a "truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube." Yet another is of a female prisoner being forcibly stripped to expose her breasts. Meanwhile, Obama has reversed his earlier stance and refused to release the photos, a position that has generated outcry and support.

According to a recent New York Times op-ed by Philip Gourevitch, who co-wrote The Ballad of Abu Ghraib with Standard Operating Procedure director Errol Morris, "Releasing additional photographs would not be telling us anything that we don’t already know." (Vanessa weighs in with her take on the op-ed here.) The Telegraph report seems to suggest otherwise—as this set of photos takes what we have seen to a whole new level. "Crime-scene photographs," Gourevitch writes, "for all their power to reveal, can also serve as a distraction, even a deterrent, from precise understanding of the events they depict." Ultimately, his point is that it's the story behind the story depicted in the photographs that matters. It's the men who led our country to this state that we must keep in our sights if we are to avoid repeating the war crimes of our recent past.

While Gourevitch is generally correct, in this specific case he is wholly wrong. What makes this new photographic revelation tricky, and is what, I suspect, led to Obama's some say "stunning" reversal, is that these photographs, for all intents and purposes, are pornographic. They are hardcore, unblinking, unphotoshopped depictions of Americans raping and sexually violating the "enemy" in the context of war. Because they are sexually graphic, it's their reception that is the potentially problematic part. Rightly or wrongly, in all likelihood, these photographs will titillate. All the P.C. politics of the mind cannot override the un-P.C. desires of the libido. But it is in spite of this fact that these photographs must be released. These days, we speak of "the pornography of war." This is that writ real. And we must bear witness to it in order to comprehend it, in all its horrifying reality. After all, we paid for it.

Tags: abu ghraib, Barack Obama, torture, torture photos

If the Daily Telegraph is right that the unreleased detainee-abuse photos include graphic images of rape, Obama must have been lying when he said the photos are “not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib.” For all the pain of those earlier images, what they depicted were not generally criminal acts in the same way that rape is. They showed violation, humiliation, the horrific power differential between prisoners and their jailors—war crimes, to be sure—but they tended to document the effects and aftermath of violence more than its actual commission. Gourevitch, who writes that he has seen “many—if not most” of the unreleased photos, also gives no indication that they depict sex crimes.

I wouldn’t put it past Obama—or any president—to lie about the content of images that he thinks the public will never see. But what about these photos, which may well be released soon if judges continue to rule as they have recently in favor of the ACLU’s Freedom of Information Act request? Wouldn’t that be a big risk for the president to undertake? Is it possible that he hasn’t seen the photos of rape, but is referring only to the 40-some images that are part of this particular lawsuit? (Activists say there are as many as 2,000 others that we haven’t yet seen—maybe those are the ones depicting sexual violence.) And does Gourevitch think that if indeed these pictures document rape, that doesn’t even merit a mention in an article arguing against their release? Maybe this would make no difference to his larger point, but it makes a difference to me as a reader to at least acknowledge this content, which as Susannah points out, may complicate matters for some.

Yet even if these unreleased images do depict rape, I still agree with Major General Antonio Taguba's position in the Telegraph piece that they shouldn’t be published. If we have in written form the evidence needed to frame a criminal prosecution, why do we need, as a society, to look at photographs that would further violate the victims by their release? Article 13 of the Geneva Convention notes that prisoners of war must be protected not just against violence and intimidation, but “public curiosity.” When does our need to see the vivid imaes of abuse trump our effort to enforce the very codes whose violation the photos document? In Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag rightly notes that “most depictions of tormented, mutilated bodies do arouse a prurient interest” and “all images that display the violation of an attractive body are, to a certain degree, pornographic.” We have already seen the pornography of this war. If we don’t know by now that detainee abuse in all its forms is real and appalling and must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, more pictures won’t convince us.

Tags: abu ghraib, Obama, politics, torture, torture photos

General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection today as part of the Obama administration’s plan to shrink the automaker to a sustainable size. (Associated Press)

Paul Krugman is blaming the recession on the economic policies begun in the early 1980s during the Reagan Administration. (New York Times)

Hugo Lindgren talks to a wide variety of economic forecasters to try and determine whether the “downturnaround: is real. They didn’t agree on much.(New York Magazine)

Daniel Gross is relieved that the vacation home market has cratered. (Slate)

Unemployment in the U.S. likely passed 9% in May, which is the most it has been in more than 25 years. (Bloomberg)

Mortgage delinquencies have increased again, with the number of borrowers at least two months behind on their payments hitting 5.22%. (Wall Street Journal)

It’s likely that the recession will change Americans’ credit card habits, as spooked consumers cut back on borrowing. (San Francisco Chronicle)

The recession is taking a toll on Americans’ mental health. Even people in relatively secure positions are feeling stress about their losing their homes and jobs. (San Francisco Chronicle)

The recession has struck museums and performing-arts groups with a vengeance. Endowments have shrunk everywhere, and sizable budget cuts have been the rule at museums across the country. (Time)

Flea markets and swap meets in California have been drawing increasingly larger crowds during the recession as consumers try tighten their belts and hunt for bargains. (Los Angeles Times)

Tags: GM, Hugo Lindgren, news, politics, Reagan, real estate, Recession Briefing, shopping, spending, unemployment

What are the factors that help women win national and statewide political races? Nate Silver of 538 fame adds to the conversation on this important topic—generations of K School graduates want to know!—with his latest analysis, "The Palin Paradox: Women More Likely to be Elected in Male-Dominated Districts":

Although women are still having a relatively tough time getting elected in general—they represent just 17 percent of the members of the U.S. Congress—Congresswomen, as opposed to Congress men, are more plentiful in areas where the male-to-female ratio is higher...

Nine of the 25 most male-dominated districts (36 percent) most recently elected a woman to office, as compared with 4 of the 25 most female-dominated districts (16 percent). This alone is somewhat interesting—however, it actually conceals the strength of the relationship because female-dominated districts are more likely to vote Democratic, and Democratic-leaning districts are more likely to elect women to office regardless of their sex ratios ...

The most male-dominated from among these strongly Democratic districts elected women in 10 out of 15 instances. The 15 most female districts elected just 3 women.

Intriguing, to be sure. But as we all know, correlation is not causation. Silver, of course, also knows this and says the effect held even after he controlled for a wide variety of demographic factors. But what if the issue is not demographics, but geography? We also know that women do better in political districts that don't have strong machine-style Democratic political organizations. As Harold Meyerson observed in 2008:

When we look across the nation to ascertain which states have elected the most women to political office and which the least, it turns out that states once (or still) dominated by party machines don't create a political culture in which women can thrive. Where entry into politics depends entirely on who sent you—on winning the backing of the boy—women often end up outside the clubhouse, the legislature, and the Congress.

Looking back at Silver's analysis, it's worth noting that of the top 15 Democratic-leaning, male-dominated, woman-electing districts, only two are not in Western states, where political machines are weaker. Meanwhile, of the top 15 Democratic-leaning, female-dominated, male-electing districts, none are Western, and many are well known for having a history—and even present—of robust Democratic political machines. As between Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey and Alaska, Arizona, Texas and Colorado, the states with the more liberal political reputations also have the more entrenched associational networks for promoting individuals for public office.

Silver hints in the direction of a geography effect, writing, "Perhaps in male-dominated areas, women are more likely to violate traditional sex roles including something like running for political office, which has traditionally been a male-dominated occupation—the Sarah Palin frontierswoman caricature works well here." His commenters take it a step further, noting that women's suffrage was acheived earlier in the Western states than back East.

The frontierswoman caricature arose not because of—or not just because of—gender imbalances in frontier populations, but also becuase the demands of life in the emerging states required women to cast aside many behaviors typical of women of their day back East.

Tags: 538, congress, elections, female, frontierswomen, Nate Silver, politics, Sarah Palin, suffrage, women

I have a strange fascination with Eliot Spitzer. There, I said it. It's true. I suppose that's in part due to the fact that when Spitzergate roared its way into the headlines, I was running a project in which I was (for reasons that now escape me) collecting e-mails from men who had paid for sex about why they had paid for sex. Spitzer was one of those guys. I mean, he didn't send me an e-mail (not that I'm aware of, anyway), but he was one more john who had paid for sex, and the only difference was that A) he had gotten caught and B) he was famous.

Since, I've followed the guy's fall from grace and heady reascent to Slate columnist. Most recently, the kids over at Vanity Fair took him out to lunch, and John Heilpern succeeds in getting the former governor to open up over hotdogs. These days, Spitzer works for his father, a real estate tycoon. He's worked doggedly to rehabilitate his reputation, but his candor is surprising (for a politician, at least). "What I did was heinous and wrong," he has concluded. Apparently, he's got a shrink, or something like it. "But I don’t view it like, 'Gee! I’m in therapy,'" he protests.

He appears to be most ashamed of having successfully ruined his own hard-won legacy. "And that is a very hard thing to live with," he notes. "When he turned away," Heilpern observes, "I could see he was in tears." It was a moving scene. Or maybe just the crocodile tears of a narcissist who had lost the spotlight.

Tags: Eliot Spitzer, politics, Vanity Fair

I have a strange fascination with Eliot Spitzer. There, I said it. It's true. I suppose that's in part due to the fact that when Spitzergate roared its way into the headlines, I was running a project in which I was (for reasons that now escape me) collecting e-mails from men who had paid for sex about why they had paid for sex. Spitzer was one of those guys. I mean, he didn't send me an e-mail (not that I'm aware of, anyway), but he was one more john who had paid for sex, and the only difference was that A) he had gotten caught and B) he was famous.

Since, I've followed the guy's fall from grace and heady reascent to Slate columnist. Most recently, the kids over at Vanity Fair took him out to lunch, and John Heilpern succeeds in getting the former governor to open up over hotdogs. These days, Spitzer works for his father, a real estate tycoon. He's worked doggedly to rehabilitate his reputation, but his candor is surprising (for a politician, at least). "What I did was heinous and wrong," he has concluded. Apparently, he's got a shrink, or something like it. "But I don’t view it like, 'Gee! I’m in therapy,'" he protests.

He appears to be most ashamed of having successfully ruined his own hard-won legacy. "And that is a very hard thing to live with," he notes. "When he turned away," Heilpern observes, "I could see he was in tears." It was a moving scene. Or maybe just the crocodile tears of a narcissist who had lost the spotlight.

Tags: Eliot Spitzer, politics, Vanity Fair

The Minnesota Supreme Court just ruled 5-0 that Al Franken is the winner of the contested 2008 Minnesota Senate race, by 312 votes out of 2.9 million cast. Finally, right? Minnesota has been down one senator for almost half a year. That's already too long. The state shouldn't have to half sit out the summer's big business on Capitol Hill: health care, the energy bill, and the confirmation hearings for Judge Sotomayor.

But there's one avenue left for Norm Coleman, Franken's Republican opponent, and that's a federal lawsuit. From a legal standpoint, such a suit would be extremely dubious, for reasons election law expert Rick Hasen explains here. It would depend on reviving the Supreme Court's ruling in Bush v. Gore, which as you may remember was supposed to be a one-shot deal. (The court said then that application of the decision was limited to "present circumstances.") But from a political standpoint, the picture is much more mixed. The national GOP has plenty of reason to fight on, since seating Franken will give the Democrats 60 senators. A couple of months ago Senator Lindsey Graham and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell urged Coleman to go to federal court. Since then, polls in Minnesota, however, have shown voters losing patience with the delay in seating their senator. Will Coleman listen to the voters, or to his party leaders in DC? Or will McConnell and Graham and the rest agree that it's time to cease and desist?

ADDENDUM: We have the answer: Coleman concedes!

Photograph of Al Franken by Jeffrey Thompson/Getty Images.

Tags: al franken, election law, u.s. senate