Political InQueery

Think back just a couple of years, and you'll return to the tail end of the Bush Administration. For some, it marks the terminus of the good times: when America didn't look to allies in order to make foreign policy, when we were on the right road against "abortionists," and abstinence-only education got boatloads of money to save our children from certain sexual promiscuity and queerness. For others of us, it was like waking up from an eight-year nightmare.

Maybe the summer only seems quiet, free from the stresses of the holiday season, the doldrums of mid-winter, and the frantic fervor of spring. Maybe this is when we're lulled into complicity and we acquiesce into a false sense of comfort. Because fall is just around the corner, and it's not just any fall this year: it's the 2010 Midterm Elections. The world is ending, and so far, nobody cares.

Regardless of which person the President would have selected for Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, I would have been interested. I am curious to see what floats around in the ether (read: debate) around present-day nominees, and given the interest by many in the makeup of the court, I want to keep tabs on the rhetoric around this specific nominee. Especially since she's an ex-gay.

I love movies, and I am more than interested in politics. So it behooves me to think about the sizable overlap between the two. One of the things I love about political movies (and heck, political television shows, too) are the tropes they include and play to, especially as tropes reveal something about an era's ideology around politics. There's something different in the feel and mood, for example, in the original and remake of The Manchurian Candidate that goes to the heart of 1962's understanding of the Korean War and the just-after 9/11 tragedy zeitgeist's take on the first Gulf War, respectively, but both take on conspiracy theory and the presidency.

In the camp of You Can't Make This Shit Up, I'd like to take a brief look—a glance, really—at a few odd stories about the weird things former politicians and lobbyists (and politicians who became lobbyists) do. Honestly, I don't think I should write about this for too long, as something in my brain might start to mis-fire on purpose. Contemplation isn't worth long-term cognitive damage, after all.

First, there's the Bill Clinton weight loss story that I keep pretending isn't there, but like Al Pacino says in The Godfather Part III, it keeps "pulling me back in."

Up until now, I've looked at people who have for better or worse had their time in the spotlight of Washington, DC and who have, for the most part, faded from view, or at least have made their ways to the back of our collective memory. And starting next month I'll take a gander at folks who were not as much on the national stage but who have affected policy or political expectations more regionally. So far going through the scandals and politicized campaigns of yore has been relatively straightforward. Not so this time around. Because I'm taking up the sordid story of Oliver North.

June 28, 2010, is a Monday. It is also roughly a week after the summer solstice, so just as the days start getting shorter here in the northern hemisphere, the United States Senate will begin hearings to confirm Elena Kagan as the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Sound the trumpets and flip the play button on a rousing Sousa march.

Elena KaganWait a minute—it's probably not going to transpire that way.

If Alice Paul had gotten her way, the United States Constitution would read:

Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

This, her proposed text of the Equal Rights Amendment, has never come to pass. Drafted by Paul and introduced by two Republicans in 1923—one of whom was Susan B. Anthony's nephew—the ERA was introduced in every congressional session thereafter, until 1980. Nearly 60 years of finding a sponsor, and for all but three of those years, ERA died in committee. In those other three years, it either failed on a close vote in the Senate, or it passed, but with a rider that none of its supporters could stomach.

June is LGBT pride month, commemorating the multi-day standoff at the Stonewall Inn in New York City, 1969. When I've marched through the sticky heat of Washington, DC's pride festivities, I find myself wishing we were commemorating something in April, but the Stonewall riots are probably the best touchstone to choose, so June it is.

As commercialized as Pride festivals are these days—and here I note the full inclusion of a Frito-Lay truck having an actual float in this year's DC parade—it's easy to forget the moments that have been hard fought in the last 41 years. When I first came out in 1991, I thought gay marriage would never happen in my lifetime, and as of today, it is legal in five states and the DC. We have progressed further than I thought possible, and in other ways, we have barely moved an inch. [More]

I don't mean to get stuck on Sarah Palin, honestly. She pops up on the media's radar, however, for a whole host of reasons:
* She gives meatier, off-the-cuff remarks than most anyone, including Joe Biden
* She is something other than a white guy in a stuffed suit
* She looks like she's gunning to run for President in 2012
* She has sex appeal

This last point isn't my own assessment—I'm just saying I think mainstream media thinks she has sex appeal. Either from what she radiates in the way of sinewy forearm muscles (see Wednesday's blog post), or because the media is premised at least a little bit on a sexist framework, when there are articles about Ms. Palin, there often is a focus on something other than her policy stances. So I wasn't exactly shocked to read this headline on Thursday morning—Sarah Palin (DD-Alaska)?—from the Boston Herald. [More]