"Female staffers adopted a meeting strategy they called 'amplification': When a woman made a key point, other women would repeat it..."

"... giving credit to its author. This forced the men in the room to recognize the contribution — and denied them the chance to claim the idea as their own. 'We just started doing it, and made a purpose of doing it. It was an everyday thing,' said one former Obama aide who requested anonymity to speak frankly. Obama noticed, she and others said, and began calling more often on women and junior aides."

From "Obama’s Female Staffers Came Up With a Genius Strategy to Make Sure Their Voices Were Heard" in New York Magazine.

"So I’d like to think that I’ve been pretty aware of the unique challenges women face—it’s what has shaped my own feminism."

Writes President Barack Obama in Glamour Magazine.

But I also have to admit that when you’re the father of two daughters, you become even more aware of how gender stereotypes pervade our society. You see the subtle and not-so-subtle social cues transmitted through culture. You feel the enormous pressure girls are under to look and behave and even think a certain way.

And those same stereotypes affected my own consciousness as a young man. Growing up without a dad, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out who I was, how the world perceived me, and what kind of man I wanted to be. It’s easy to absorb all kinds of messages from society about masculinity and come to believe that there’s a right way and a wrong way to be a man. But as I got older, I realized that my ideas about being a tough guy or cool guy just weren’t me. They were a manifestation of my youth and insecurity. Life became a lot easier when I simply started being myself.

So we need to break through these limitations. We need to keep changing the attitude that raises our girls to be demure and our boys to be assertive, that criticizes our daughters for speaking out and our sons for shedding a tear. We need to keep changing the attitude that punishes women for their sexuality and rewards men for theirs....

ADDED:  "Sasha Obama is working for the summer... at a restaurant on Martha's Vineyard."

Sasha is checking out customers at the register and bussing tables at Nancy's ... a seafood restaurant. Of course, the 15-year-old employee comes with her own entourage....

“Are you happy with the two sisters I brought you?”/“I’m very, very happy. But I’ll be even happier when you give me five more.”

What President Obama asked and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — according to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, quoted in a short New Yorker piece by Ian Frazier, "Sonia From the Bronx."

If the quote is accurate, it means that Justice Ginsburg dreams of a Supreme Court with 8 female justices. Either the math is off or one male Justice is is ideal for some reason... a recognition of Justice Breyer perhaps.

ADDED: Have you noticed the meme The next President will appoint as many as 4 Supreme Court Justices?

It seems hard to believe that there could be 4 vacancies to fill within one 4-year presidential term, and we have not seen more than 2 per term unless we go back as far as Richard Nixon. Nixon had 4 appointments, all within his first term. Consider the age of the current Justices: Justices Scalia and Kennedy will turn 80 in the next few months. Justice Ginsburg will be 83 next month, and Justice Breyer turns 78 in August.

"The truth of the matter is that Elizabeth is, you know, a politician like everybody else. And you know, she's got a voice that she wants to get out there."

Sexist? Megan McArdle says it's risky to say "sexist" if it's not really bad, obvious sexism:

The great difficulty of sexism in this moment is that we're fighting subtle bias and knotty structural issues, not fellows who stride up to the podium to jauntily announce that women just don't have the brains for politics, the dear little things.

But there's a reason that I rarely dissect a statement in search of such subtle bias. It's because sexism is so serious we need to be careful when and where we level accusations.... To claim "sexism" too often just robs the word of its power.

So if we want to keep the norm that sexism is very bad, we need to think twice about when we pull out those accusations. Before you shoot, remember that you're not a movie hero with an unlimited supply of ammunition. You're the guy with a single six shooter crouching behind the bar. You have to make every shot count. Aim carefully. When in doubt, hold your fire.

First, that's a terrible analogy! Calling something "sexist" isn't anything like shooting one of your 6 bullets at a guy. Words actually are unlimited, and the guy who is hit by your words has unlimited words too, and the interchange of words can go on forever. The problem is the dilution of the meaning of words and the erosion of credibility.

I was going to say it's the problem of "crying wolf." But "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" is also a bad analogy. It's about a specific alarm that demands immediate action and a boy who outright lied when there was no cause for alarm at all (and as a consequence was not believed when the cause for that specific alarm was true). But sexism is not like a wolf. There's no continuum of wolfism. There is only a wolf or no wolf. Sexism is a continuum, and some people — perhaps including McArdle — might like to say that it would be best only to use the important word "sexism" to refer to the obvious things about which there will be consensus, like that jaunty announcement that women just don't have the brains for politics.

But McArdle knows that's not the sexism problem anymore: "we're fighting subtle bias and knotty structural issues." If that's what we need and want to talk about, why shouldn't we use the word "sexism" for that? Why set it aside so it will be useful for a purpose we don't have anymore? The only reason I see is that it's harder to convince people that you're right about subtle sexism (and, indeed, you could be wrong). But that's saying we shouldn't talk about non-obvious sexism. And if the subtle sexists of this world could be assured that subtle sexism won't be talked about anymore, they'd know how to ply their sexism. Subtly!

So the question is: Where on the continuum from no sexism to outright sexism do you want to draw the line? Really, the continuum needs 2 lines: 1. The point at which you believe there is sexism, and 2. The point at which you will make your belief known. I think McArdle's guy-with-a-6-shooter bad analogy is an argument for a wide gap between Line #1 and Line #2.

As for Barack's statement about "Elizabeth" and her "voice," that crosses the line where I believe there is sexism. Should I have refrained from saying that? Should I have refrained from saying that so my... voice... will come across as decently powerful when I encounter something more worthy of the accusation? Like in case that jaunty strider-up-to-the-podium blurts out something really crude? I say no, because the jaunty podium strider is a dumb jerk who won't get anywhere in America these days, and Barack Obama is the President of the United States and an educated, up-to-date, eloquent speaker. It's important to keep track of what he's saying, what's between the lines, and all the subtleties of his rhetoric!

The "Women on 20s" campaign reveals the results of its poll in a very slick "Dear Mr. President" video.

"It doesn't take an 'Act of Congress' - it just requires the Secretary of the Treasury to make the change...."

Obama seems to be getting kicked around a lot these days, so maybe he's looking for something inspiring to do, but I don't think he will. I told you why last month:

If one President fiddles with the [$20]... the next thing you know, Reagan will have the $10. And then where will Obama go, years from now, when his face becomes legally billable?

If Obama sees the long game, and what he wants is to end up as one of the faces of U.S. currency, he should not put the woman on the 20, because if he does that, Reagan will follow on the 10, and then — even though the process of politicizing the bills will continue — he'll be stuck with the 50.... I think he'll see the best strategy is do nothing and leave the field clear for some future administration to honor him. He'll have the 20.

IN THE COMMENTS: Freeman Hunt said...

Stop pandering to us! It's so insulting. It makes me sick.

You don't say, "A woman needs to be on one of these," and then go picking out a woman. You wait until there's a woman who makes you say, "She needs to be on one of these!" and you put her on one. When she's dead.

Unless you can think of a woman who doesn't make it look like the women got a pity prize in the bill lineup, do not add a woman!

"When President Obama talks up the family-friendly vibe at the White House — the nightly family dinners, the flexibility to attend school presentations and join impromptu plunges in the pool with his girls..."

"... his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, sets him straight. 'Family friendly to your family,' Mr. Emanuel counters."

So begins a July 2009 NYT article titled "Family Friendly’ White House Is Less So for Aides," which I'm reading this morning because it's quoted and linked in the article blogged in the previous post.

"Liberals like Obama... apply the 'wave the magic wand' school of policy analysis..."

"... as in 'If I could wave a magic wand, there would be no trade-offs in life. Child care would be plentiful, staffed by Ivy League graduates, convenient to everyone’s homes, and dirt-cheap. Moms would be able to work while their kids were young, and never feel a tug of regret. Or, they could choose to stay at home for a few years and return to the workforce without missing a step or a paycheck.' This is the sort of talk that liberals and progressives have been feeding eager audiences for decades. It glides past economic realities without so much as a backward glance. How, for example, are you going to get those highly educated college grads to work in day-care centers when they expect large returns for their very expensive educations? Is the pay going to start at $100,000? Where will the money come from?"

Writes Mona Charen in "Choices We Don’t Want Women to Make /President Obama is eager to free women from child-care responsibilities" (via Jaltcoh).

ADDED: To be fair to Obama and his ilk, I don't think they ever express a desire to put Ivy League graduates in day care jobs. The Ivy League graduates are all supposed to have brilliant careers, not simply the dignity of work and a "living" wage and nice benefits. Who are those hoards of women who are supposed to staff the day care facilities for the higher class of women who've gone to the finest schools, all right? Charen seems to want to make the magical thinking sound as absurd as possible. But in doing so, she's missing the class politics that is, I think, even more embarrassing to lefties. I remember once, years ago, back in the day when I attended "femcrit" sessions in Madison and Cambridge, bringing up this problem. I was not trying to be confrontational, only to talk plainly about who would do all this child-care work so the higher-achieving women could soar. There would be so many new jobs to draw women into the workplace. I got stone-cold stares. That was something no one wanted to talk about — plentiful low-status jobs for women.

"Obama Courts Women in Campaign Swing" — courts women?! Not men?

That's a headline in The New York Times, and it trips my sexism meter.

They wouldn't say he was "courting men," would they? This reminds me of something Obama himself said the other day: "I shook hands with, hugged, and kissed, not the doctors, but a couple of the nurses...."

To be fair, "to court" doesn't always mean "To pay amorous attention to, seek to gain the affections of, make love to (with a view to marriage), pay addresses to, woo." (OED.) It can also mean "To act as though trying to provoke (something harmful, unpleasant, etc.); to invite unwisely." You see that meaning in phrases like "courting disaster" or "courting death." It's funny to read "courting women" with that as the meaning.

Obama is out in the hinterlands courting disaster women.

ADDED: "There are two main distinctions that make dating different than courting, says Jim Bob. Dating is spending time with someone alone, not necessarily with the end goal of marriage. Not so with courtship, which is carefully monitored and not for the commitment-phobic. 'Courtship is really waiting for the one God has for you and praying through the whole process,' the father of 19 says. 'It’s really examining the person and considering, "'Would this be the guy I want to be the father of my kids?"' says Michelle."

AND: You know, I created the tag "Obama the Boyfriend" for a reason, and I don't put it on a post unless it's deserved. How many posts have that tag? 54!

Rush Limbaugh calls my name... and calls out Obama for woman-kissing and other possible sexism.

Here's the transcript of a segment of today's show, where there was discussion of 2 related incidents: 1. The "don't touch my girlfriend" scene in Chicago where Obama, demonstrating how to vote, ordered a woman to kiss him, and 2. Obama's description of an ebola-related appearance at Emory University hospital: "I shook hands with, hugged, and kissed, not the doctors, but a couple of the nurses at Emory because of the valiant work that they did in treating one of the patients."

A woman had called in about that ebola incident, and — as Rush put it:

"[W]hat she thought was that since he made a big deal out of not kissing the doctors, that he wanted to make everybody aware that he wasn't gay. And her point was, what's wrong with being gay? 

My point would be that he used the stereotype that doctors are male and nurses are female. But, yeah, on top of that, what's wrong — within his world view — with men kissing men?

Well, he is married. If he was gay, that would be a problem....

Wait! If he's distinguishing kissing males and females, he's specifying that kissing is sexual, and kissing the women should be a problem for a man married to a woman. If it's not sexual, he should kiss both sexes indiscriminately (which would work to deny the sexuality of kissing unless he's bisexual).

... so he's going out of his way to say he's not gay. That's her interpretation. 

If that's correct, then Obama made a homophobia faux pas.  Rush connects that incident to the "don't touch my girlfriend" scene that I wrote about — here — yesterday. Rush describes what happened and says that some people think the scene was scripted. His theory — which is nothing like mine — is that it was supposed to make Obama seem attractive and supportive to women, to counteract Tina Brown's recent statement: "I don't think [Obama] makes [women] feel safe." Whether the Chicago incident was scripted or not, I didn't read it as a demonstration of making women feel safe. I thought it was an intrusion on the woman. But Rush proceeds to quote me:

Like Ann Althouse on her blog said, "Wait a second, I thought men weren't supposed to --" You know, you have to get consent to do this now on every college campus. You can't just kiss a woman without her permission, and you can't approach her and put your arm around without her permission, without her consent. Obama just forced his way on that woman. And she looked like she wanted it, by the way. She looked like she didn't mind, honored to be given a hug and a smooch by the president, cocksman A. 

In my book, it doesn't matter how she acted. He didn't know in advance how she would feel. Even if she loved it, he assumed he was welcome to impose on her body. And her reaction doesn't convince me that she loved it. She was on camera, overwhelmed by the most powerful man in the world, and forced to think quickly about what might be in her interest. How was rejecting him or acting offended even an option?

Rush continues:

So that happens, and everybody's laughing and Obama walks out around her and he's looking like he's pulled off some major score here. Talks about this guy, why would a brother want to embarrass me like this and so forth. So people are wondering if the whole thing was scripted since it followed, by one day, Tina Brown saying that Obama makes women feel unsafe.

Clearly this woman was not feeling unsafe. She's laughing. She's all excited. 

I don't think that's clear. She was put on the spot... by the President of the United States. She might be laughing out of sheer emotional overload, confusion, and the weirdness of it all. Are you allowed to fight off the advances of The Leader? Droit du seigneur?? Is there some core of personal autonomy and rectitude that I can voice right now? The safe bet is to let it all roll over you. Pretend you're into it. Safe bet. Women want to be safe. Tina says. Safety is one way to play the game of life. But the other players should not assume that your silence means consent. If they do, they don't really care about women. Yes mean yes. Silence does not mean yes. Silence may mean: I am subordinated.

Rush finishing the segment, trying — I think — to pick up on what I'd said:

But it's very clear that she did not sign a consent form before he embraced her. It wasn't an embrace. He put his arm around her shoulder. But there was no consent form. She didn't sign a consent form before he embraced her and kissed her. And that's illegal in many places in America now and on college campi. Just did it.

"Don't touch me"... "Don't touch my girlfriend."

Who says "Don't touch me"? Most famously: Jesus. He said it — "Noli me tangere" — to Mary Magdalene, in a scene depicted many times in art:



That had something to do with the fragility of the fleshly body in the immediate aftermath of resurrection. A very special case. In modern times, I think we tend to think of a woman saying "Don't touch me." But Howie Mandel wrote a book called "Don't Touch Me":



He was writing about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Maybe you remember pre-"2001" Keir Dullea as David in "David and Lisa" with his mentally disordered fear of touching:



"You touched me! You want to kill me! Touch can kill!... You coarse, clumsy, stupid FOOL!"

The truth is that we all have a right to sovereignty over our own bodies. It's not just something for women to demand from men. It's something we are all entitled to as human beings. We are now encountering the defense of female integrity embodied in the rather muddled campus policy known as "Yes means yes," but it applies to men too. Women care about our bodily integrity, but too many of us believe that our sexual favors are so universally desirable that a "yes" from a man can be presumed, that a woman can impose upon a man. But that's wrong.

And now, today, we see this story of the President of the United States, Barack Obama, making the kind of assumption that is more typical of the female — the assumption that the person he chooses to touch must necessarily want to be touched. Obama is caught in a relationship with a man who postures as the woman's boyfriend and says to the President: "Don't touch my girlfriend." The President proceeds to grasp at his own dignity by demonstrating to that man that he most certainly can touch that woman, but what of the woman, that woman possessed by two men? It was her choice whether to be touched by the President, and her choice whether to be owned by the man who said to the President "Don't touch my girlfriend," and yet both men assumed ownership over her autonomy — the boyfriend because he had a past with her and the President because, like too many woman, he thought of himself as so universally desirable that a "yes" from any woman can be presumed.

In the history of the world, has there ever been a woman as uniquely subordinated as Aia Cooper? My heart breaks to see how she saw her best hope in coming to the aid of both men, both men who, within seconds, claim sovereignty over the territory of her body. What history lies behind this instinct to protect these 2 men, these 2 exemplars of male power — the boyfriend and the President of the United States? Cooper didn't even want to stand next to the President: "I was like, 'do I have to stand there? I don't really want to stand there.'" And after the incident in which Cooper defended her boyfriend and acceded to the Commander-in-Chief's command "You're gonna kiss me," Ms. Cooper reached out to the President's wife:  "I wanna meet Michelle... Hopefully she doesn't think anything about me, but I really want to meet her."

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth," Jesus said.

I thought only "yes" means yes: Did Obama get true, verbalized consent from that woman before he kissed her?

No. He did not. People are focusing on Obama's interplay with a man who said "Don't touch my girlfriend" as Obama was voting in Chicago, demonstrating how to vote.

But let's talk about the woman. Obama orders her to kiss him: "You're gonna kiss me. Give him something to talk about. Now, he's really jealous." As you see in the video, he makes that declarative statement and immediately grabs her and kisses and hugs her.

Why is that acceptable? He's using her in an effort to regain dignity and to humiliate the man who humiliated him. It might all be dismissed as play humiliation and play counter-humiliation. But the woman's body was used as an object of that play, a means of communication between men.

Democratic Senators think hammering on the female organs just might work.

Manu Raju has a piece Politico called "Obama’s standing with women hurts Senate Dems," which studiously loads the blame on Obama for the flagging power of the old war-on-women politics:

In battleground states across the country, Obama is underwater with female voters — especially women unaffiliated with a political party — and it’s making it harder for Democrats to take advantage of the gender gap, according to public polling and Democratic strategists....

First, they must overcome the Obama factor. After defeating Mitt Romney by 11 points among women in 2012, the president has seen his approval rating drop sharply with females, particularly in the battleground states....

The theory is, Obama has lost popularity with women, and Democrats still need women, so they ought to double down on war-on-women politics:

In Alaska... Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska)... fighting for his political life against Republican Dan Sullivan... knows full well that female voters will be a key part of his equation if he manages to pull off a win next month. So he’s hammering home Sullivan’s opposition to abortion rights and pay equity legislation and slams his views on birth control and a version of the Violence Against Women Act. 

Hammering and slamming on the female organs. That oughta work...



... cuz it worked before.

Meanwhile, in Colorado, Democratic Sen. Mark Udall is way down in the polls but less way down with women, so:

Udall has been running a campaign heavily focused on Gardner’s opposition to abortion rights, hoping to disqualify his GOP opponent in the eyes of suburban women and independent female voters.

Raju doesn't mention that Mark Udall's obsessive focus on female organs has got people mockingly calling him Mark Uterus.



Stop poking at us like that! What worked before might not work again, and when it seems not to be working, doing it more and harder might make it worse. We may see your desperation, see what you are trying to do, and that's exactly what will make it not work. Women have a full range of interests, not just the interest in maintaining control over our reproductive function, and once you've made it obvious that you think you can have us because we do care about that, we might find your approach insulting and offensive.

Kathleen Sebelius is a walking joke, literally.

At the White House Correspondents Dinner, Obama exploits the woman for laughs acting as if his slide show is broken and then calling someone out to fix it. Sebelius is the sight-joke punchline.



Hey! War on Women… don’t you think? I've also posted this at Instapundit, where I'm guestblogging this week.

Obama's stint at the lectern was terrible overall, by the way. For example, he made a joke about the missing Malaysian airplane. It's an occasion to laugh at CNN, and joking about the media is the thing to do at the Correspondents Dinner, but the President of the United States should not be laughing about the death of hundreds of human beings.

The teachers who feel disrespected by what the President said in Waukesha.

He was here in Wisconsin the day after the State of the Union. Spot the offense. It will be easy. Obama sees it too. He knows when he's stepping in it and tries to scrape it off, laugh it off:

A lot of parents, unfortunately, maybe when they saw a lot of manufacturing being offshored, told their kids you don't want to go into the trades, you don't want to go into manufacturing because you'll lose your job. Well, the problem is that what happened — a lot of young people no longer see the trades and skilled manufacturing as a viable career. But I promise you, folks can make a lot more, potentially, with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art history degree. Now, nothing wrong with an art history degree — I love art history. (Laughter.) So I don't want to get a bunch of emails from everybody. (Laughter.) I'm just saying you can make a really good living and have a great career without getting a four-year college education as long as you get the skills and the training that you need. (Applause.)

Oh, you'll be getting emails. You'll be getting emails and letters and all forms of expression of hurt from the art history sector of the education economy. And let me play the gender card, because if this were not a President with gender immunity — that is to say, if this were a Republican President — the coded sexism would be translated and bruited about everywhere.

10 things I might have live-blogged, if I'd blogged the State of the Union Address last night.

1. Most memorable line: "Are you going to have sex with me or do I have to rape you?" That's a paraphrase. Let me get the actual quote from the text. Obama said he had "a set of concrete, practical proposals," and "Some require congressional action, and I’m eager to work with all of you. But America does not stand still, and neither will I. So wherever and whenever I can take steps without legislation... that’s what I’m going to do."

2. The inanity of the congressional dress-up. Is every woman wearing bright red? As Obama squeezes in down the aisle, the backdrop of red looks like an array of military personnel from some European country, but it's just the congresswomen, bulging into the aisles. Of course, military personnel would clear a path, not make it more difficult for The Commander to walk by. The congressmen are less showily dressed. What choice do they have? If a male member wore anything other than a dark, neutral color, you'd think he's lost his mind, but the women seem to think they can't look crazy. "Shirley Temple is there," I said, spotting Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and being unfair to Shirley Temple, whose ringlets — as I do an image search this morning — look artlessly subtle and not at all like Debbie's headful of boing-y springs. Incredible what women can do to themselves and still be taken seriously. Respect the women! You'd better. Or else!

3. Obama kept kissing women. No selfies were taken, but what's with kissing so many women? "He should kiss some men," I said, and not because he's The First Gay President. He should kiss some men to establish that the kissing isn't sexual.

4. Meade announced "He looks high." I glanced up from the iPad game I was playing for the purpose of paying attention — solitaire — and noted the heavily drooping eyelids, then returned to my listen-only mode, with the audio in the room augmented by Meade's intermittent outbursts on the Obama-is-high theme, which fit the text, in ways that perhaps point #5 will make you see. If you're high. And, no, Obama said nothing last night about legalizing marijuana. And, also, Althouse and Meade were not high, not both of us or either of us. We were already talking and laughing as if we were. Artificial enhancement might tip us over into crying and despair.

5. Instead of talking about the government and anything related to his job or Congress's job, Obama begins by telling us about one American character after another, each described with irrelevant specificity. "An entrepreneur flipped on the lights in her tech startup...." Who the hell cares that the light was "flipped" on? Are we supposed to flip on with the excitement of your action verb "flipped"? This is why I don't read pulp novels. Characters continually commit actions that create a picture in your head, but it's always a dumb picture — flicking on light switches — and these details don't matter, don't connect to any meaning the author has to give. It's the opposite of turning on light. I can imagine the speechwriter deluding himself into thinking that this picture would somehow intrigue us, but it makes us feel that our time is being wasted. "An autoworker fine-tuned some of the best, most fuel-efficient cars in the world..." There's zero pretense that anybody checked to see if there really was that guy — "today in America" — doing exactly that. It's detail that is really the absence of detail. We're swimming in bullshit. "A man took the bus home from the graveyard shift, bone-tired" — no one noticed "bone" next to "grave"?! — "but dreaming big dreams for his son" — a deliberate allusion to Obama's autobiography title? I know he's trying to say This Is America. Like that's going to open us up for the paragraphs of policy that we know lie ahead.

6. The characters are more real when they're present in the room, like "Misty DeMars... a mother of two young boys." Okay, they really did find a person to represent this generality, and she's undeniably real. She's right there. But what does it mean that one particular lady got insurance? It's all worthwhile — all the clusterfuck of Obamacare — because Misty DeMars got insurance? And there's Estiven Rodriguez. Something about education happened to him, so that must mean something. I forget what. We got distracted by the way Obama's said "Rodriguez" — close to "Rod Regrets."

7. It's late, and we got tired, and we're on Central Time. I felt a little sorry for all those 50 and 60ish Congressfolk having to act excited that late at night. We were watching the speech on TV, and then I got it streaming on the mini-iPad, and we got in bed, each reading on iPads, while the mini, between us, blabbed on. Do those Congressfolk feel they're enjoying rare privilege, or do they wish they could be in bed too? I notice none of them seem to be wearing glasses, but they must need glasses, which means they are all wearing contact lenses. That must feel awful that late at night.

8. So much clapping. Clapping is quite an annoying noise, and this clapping happens and is going to happen so regularly, so exaggeratedly. The time-wastage is a constant, nagging presence. The speech is literally claptrap. Our legislative branch is trapped into clapping. At least the Democratic side. The judicial branch is represented, but they're trapped into not clapping. I see Roberts, Kennedy, and Kagan. (Kagan glowed red when Obama greeted her at the beginning.) I don't see Scalia, who once called the State of the Union "a juvenile spectacle" and said: "I resent being called upon to give it dignity…. It’s really not appropriate for the justices to be there." I, too, resent being called upon to give it dignity, not that anyone's calling on me, and I wonder if it's "appropriate" for a law professor to blog the SOTU into the indignity it deserves. Am I saying anything properly legal? If you don't think so, reread point #1 and dig the dignity of the lawprof blogger's concision.

9. With all the applause made the absence of applause stunning at the end the last thing he said about Iran. I said: "Wow!" at the time and made a mental note to check the text in the morning. It's: "If Iran’s leaders do not seize this opportunity, then I will be the first to call for more sanctions and stand ready to exercise all options to make sure Iran does not build a nuclear weapon. But if Iran’s leaders do seize the chance — and we’ll know soon enough — then Iran could take an important step to rejoin the community of nations, and we will have resolved one of the leading security challenges of our time without the risks of war."

10. The speech that began with a string of generically specific American characters ends with a long tribute to one character, present in the gallery, an Army Ranger named Cory Remsburg. He's already been on camera numerous times because he's sitting next to Michelle Obama (who, by the way, is wearing something that seems halfway between a 1950s little girl's party dress and an enlarged insect's carapace). There can be no dissent from solemn respect for Cory Remsburg, but are we to be bamboozled into thinking there can be no disrespect for this speech? Why is the President using Cory Remsburg as his shield from criticism, as he creaks to the end of this spectacle? Maybe everyone's so tired and so desirous of an end that we will be swept up into this it-must-be-the-last story — The Story of Cory — after which the applause must be so long and thunderous — because it must be bigger and louder than any of all the previous applauses — that we will have forgotten everything, as we dissolve into Dreams From My President.

But it's morning now, and I have the text. I can read where he bounced off the Army Ranger. Cory embodies the will and strength to fight back. It's not easy. "Sometimes we stumble; we make mistakes; we get frustrated or discouraged." Obama has stumbled and made mistakes, not that he directly admits it. Look there: It's Cory. But Cory didn't stumble and make mistakes. He did his duty, got injured, and kept going, doing what he, individually, needed to do. But he is appropriated to symbolize The People as a Whole. America as an entity moves forward: We have "placed our collective shoulder to the wheel of progress." The dismal old cliché put your shoulder to the wheel gets tricked up with the lefty words "collective" and "progress," and the workmanlike action verb "put" becomes the never-did-a-day-of-manual-labor word "placed." And now, we've gotta get out of this place, back into our individual lives, and I don't want to be in your collective, I'm tired of your "progress," and I've got my own wheels.

Drudge at his best: "Wanna Come to Russia?"

That links to a Guardian story with the far less ominous heading: "Edward Snowden: Russia offers to consider asylum request/Vladimir Putin's spokesman says any appeal for asylum from whistleblower who fled US will be looked at 'according to facts.'"

Drudge's attitude is shown by other links at the top right now.

Above Putin's image: "Democrats Love Gov't Surveillance -- As Long As It's Obama, Not Bush..." (which is about the same WaPo-Pew poll that we're talking about here).

At the top of the left-hand column is: "Plan B: In latenight announcement, Obama allows morning-after abortion pill for under-17s..." (which makes it look like Obama is trying to woo us over into women's issues), "UPDATE: Soldier Who Read Conservative Books Faces Charges..." (more political bias in the exercise of power), and "US Ambassador to Belgium 'Solicited Prostitutes, Including Minors': State Dept IG..." (the new scandal).

The middle column begins with 3 headlines about terrorism in airports, and then another story about  political bias in the exercise of power: "Audio: IRS agent tells pro-life group: 'Keep your faith to yourself'..."

The right-hand column is devoted to the NSA story, pairing a Republican — "Boehner: NSA Leaker a 'Traitor'..." — with a Democrat — "AL FRANKEN: 'There Are Certain Things Appropriate For Me To Know That Is Not Appropriate For Bad Guys To Know'..."

Susan Rice as the new National Security Advisor.

And Samantha Power as the new U.N. ambassador.

ADDED: Rand Paul: "I can’t imagine... keeping Ambassador Rice in any significant position, much less promoting her to an important position." (Video at link.)

"Let’s be clear, nobody looks like [Kamala] Harris at her age (48) without effort."

Instapundit says: "This sounds a bit catty, no?"

Well, yeah. "Effort" isn't saying much. It takes effort to get out of bed in the morning and drag a comb through your hair. But, let's be clear, the insinuation is serious effort, because otherwise, why say "let's be clear"?

I'm looking at pictures of Kamala Harris, and I don't assume she puts a lot of work into her looks. She wears a suit, a double string of pearls, light makeup, a simple hairdo. What's the big deal? She's healthy and has naturally good features.

Am I lacking in clarity?

Let's be clear, let's be clear can be an irritating phrase. It's closely allied to Obama's phrase "let me be clear." (And Elizabeth Warren's "I want to be clear. ") "Let's"— let us — is more inclusive, but in a coercive way. You're the one purporting to be clear. Quit demanding that I own your statements!

Hey, did you know that back in 2009, Harris said, about Obama, "He looks and he sounds like a million bucks"?

2 more thoughts (both via Meade):

1. Obama apologized to Harris, but Obama should apologize to his daughters.

2. Harris looks like Obama Girl.

"Women today operate" in "two worlds": "the system of beauty, and the system of power."

Asserts Garace Franke-Ruta, in an effort to explain "Why Obama's 'Best-Looking Attorney General' Comment Was a Gaffe."

Beauty is a system of power, deeply rooted, preceding all others, richly rewarded....

I thought there were 2 systems, beauty and power. But beauty is a system of power. Franke-Ruta stumbles over her own jargon. The word "system" was already too much. What makes beauty or power a "system"? Back in the 1960s, we were always complaining about "the system." It's the system, man. So it's a word that sets off my bullshit detector. What does it mean to say "Beauty is a system of power, deeply rooted, preceding all others, richly rewarded"?

Beauty is beauty. We are human. We have eyes. Our eyes are rigged to our entire nervous system. That's a system, and I'd certainly agree that that system is deeply rooted and preceding all others. But I don't think Franke-Ruta is talking about the nervous system that tracks through our animal bodies and that we would never wish to eradicate or even numb. We are alive, sensual beings. The visual experience is real and vivid and fundamental.

But Franke-Ruta pictures an external system that "operates everywhere in the world" and consist of women as "a natural resource, a form of wealth that men can acquire." Beauty is valued and people want what they value. Is that a system? Those with the value can make an exchange, or as Franke-Ruta puts it "can choose the extent to which they wish to engage with this system of power." But women can also "choose to go to law or medical school or contend in any other way for standing and earning capacity in the world."

That is, they can enter the system of power. 

That is, the other system of power. Which is to say, women can trade only on their beauty or they can have a career. But then Franke-Ruta talks about women wanting or needing to be in both systems at the same time. And this is "why beautiful and extremely capable women are often valued above their less glamorous or less fit peers — they are triumphs in two systems of value, double-threats." But somehow everyone is supposed to know which "system" we're in on any given occasion. In this light, what Obama did wrong was to mix up which was the operable "system" as he spoke on a particular occasion.

Despite all the jargon and the many nods toward feminism, Franke-Ruta calls what Obama did a "gaffe." A little oopsie. Would a feminist unbound by Democratic Party partisanship let him off so easily?

ADDED: I can't help but be reminded of how easily all the supposed feminists let Bill Clinton evade serious criticism.

Mika Brzezinski on Obama's Kamala Harris remark: "It just divides people up to separate them by looks."

Longer quote as transcribed at HuffPo:

I'm sure he meant to pay her a compliment... but quite frankly, it just divides women and it just divides people up to separate them by looks and probably was a little hand-fisted. I just think the whole thing, the whole dynamic about women and their looks puts women under a lot of stress that they don't need. and they should be sort of talked about by their qualities at work, especially when he is introducing someone because she is the attorney general. I actually think, you know, he meant to do -- say something nice. I think he made a mistake.

Did she really say "hand-fisted"? The colloquialism is "ham-fisted." I tried to check, listening to the video at the link, but it went on and on, beginning with a commercial, which I put up with, proceeding through some David Letterman jokes about North Korea, on to introductions of a number of internet-focused male journalists, and then to a presentation of what Obama said about Harris, and I'm still waiting to hear the Mika quote that I can already read, but I actually still care about whether she said "hand-fisted" or "ham-fisted," and then Morning Joe turns to the insipid internet men and asks:

"What did you see on line yesterday?"

I'm all: What did you see on line yesterday? What did you see on line yesterday? What did you see on line yesterday? What the hell am I doing slogging through a video with some guys summarizing what was on line yesterday? Is TV like this now? They don't have commentators opining about what they think. They have little men who pick through Twitter and, essentially, retweet for... who is this for? People who can't find Twitter on their own and need Twitter summarized?! People who think the news is the way the news looked to the people who tweeted about the news the other day" And the only news underlying all of that news is that the President said a pretty lady is pretty?

But like a pretty lady's face, the President's remark has got our attention. (What are we not paying attention to?) And it's something we can all chat about. (What are we not talking about?) And if we don't have anyone to talk to, we can lull ourselves into utter oblivion by listening to Morning Joe's little men repeat the texts of tweets they saw on line yesterday.

That's what I have to say, and you are so far ahead of the Morning Joe-level folks, because you are seeing it on line today.