A positive externality

(Sarah Palin spread in my local newspaper, El Norte, September 21st, 2008)

In economics a positive externality occurs when an individual or a firm making a decision does not receive in full the benefit of that decision. The concept can be easily applied to what I consider to be an unintended effect of the current presidential campaigns in the United States: Hillary Clinton’s bid to become the Democratic nominee and Sarah Palin’s candidacy have done no small favor to the struggle of women politicians across the border.

In Mexico those women who have managed to achieve national recognition have not followed through by actually becoming members of the tight group of key decision makers. Neither Patricia Mercado, nor Cecilia Soto or Rosario Ibarra received each more than 5% of the vote when they contended for the Mexican presidency. It is safe to state that women politicians in Mexico have yet to build a generally credible counter hegemony, to use Adam Przeworski’s term, which would allow for the effective dismantling of the current male monopoly of national politics.

Yet, both Clinton and Palin have been the object of widespread attention by the Mexican media and the coverage is having the inadvertent effect of reassuring the general public on the idea of women occupying the highest positions of power. Moreover, the healthy ongoing debate in the United States about what constitutes a double standard in the vetting of a female candidate will prove to be of immense value for those Mexican women attempting to break their own political glass ceiling.

(Note to Nonna: no more Palin entries for a week I promise. Don't want to be held responsible for inducing assorted nightmares!)

Sex and the City author not joining the Sarah Palin bashing fest

(satc00119Cargado originalmente por Howie_Berlin)

In an interview with The Huffington Post's Lesley M.M. Blume, Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell had this to say on the topic of women in politics:

I was disturbed by what I read about Hillary before she lost the nomination.There were editorials about, 'yes, we want a woman, but she has to be the right woman.' The standards that we are trying to impose on someone who's just a person are enormous. I think we have to let go of the idea that we have to have a woman who's perfect to every woman. She just has to be good at what she does. When we talk about male politicians, we don't hold them to mystical standards of perfection.

I certainly do not agree with Sarah Palin's politics, but at the same time, as an American citizen, she is entitled to her beliefs, just as all women are entitled to their beliefs. We don't all have to agree. One of the things that's interesting about these campaigns is that - guess what - women are as different from each other as men. We allow for all different kinds of male types. We need to allow for all different kinds of female types as well.

The revered National Organization for Women begs to differ from Bushnell. In a statement released by NOW's chair Kim Gandy, the organization not only declines to support Palin but also fails to give credit to any of her credentials or life experience as factors that would in any way promote the advancement of women. In doing so, NOW chooses wording reminiscent of some of the feminist(?) attacks on the Hillary Clinton candidacy: Palin has officially joined Clinton in the ranks of not-the right-women-to-be-supported group of female politicians. Cosmos anyone?

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A nonpartisan message from Gov. Palin and Senator Clinton on Saturday Night Live

What would Oriana Fallaci ask?

(Wendypants/Flickr)


In the United States, softball interviews with politicians are all too common. There are too many handlers and too many media outlets vying to get the “EXCLUSIVE.” One thing that struck me while studying in Britain during Tony Blair’s premiership was how often Blair would subject himself to drilling from reporters on the unpopular Iraq war. By contrast, George W. Bush took a decidedly Bartleby approach to the press.

The British prime minister faces aggressive questioning from MPs each week during Question Time and has his responses mocked accordingly. American voters don’t enjoy similar treats. Sure, we celebrate our freedom from the monarchy with massive consumption of grilled meat and beer on Fourth of July, but the president is treated more like the queen and less like the prime minister.

Christopher Hitchens wrote a fantastic Vanity Fair article back in 2006 about the late Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci and the demise of the art of the interview. The part that stayed with me was the beginning:

Here is an excerpt from an interview with what our media culture calls a "world leader":

Dan Rather: Mr. President, I hope you will take this question in the spirit in which it's asked. First of all, I regret that I do not speak Arabic. Do you speak any … any English at all?
Saddam Hussein (through translator): Have some coffee.
Rather: I have coffee.
Hussein (through translator): Americans like coffee.
Rather: That's true. And this American likes coffee.

And here is another interview with another "world leader":

Oriana Fallaci: When I try to talk about you, here in Tehran, people lock themselves in a fearful silence. They don't even dare pronounce your name, Majesty. Why is that?
The Shah: Out of an excess of respect, I suppose.
Fallaci: I'd like to ask you: if I were an Iranian instead of an Italian, and lived here and thought as I do and wrote as I do, I mean if I were to criticize you, would you throw me in jail?
The Shah: Probably.

The difference here is not just in the quality of the answers given by the two homicidal dictators. It is in the quality of the questions.

Charlie Gibson is no Oriana Fallaci and Sarah Palin is no Shah. I had very low expectations of the hyped up interview and, as a result, was not disappointed. Palin was clearly not answering some of Gibson’s questions and he was right to push her on some of them. He did not push all the way, but at least he did it. The question about her being able to handle her large family and the vice presidency was inappropriate. Interestingly, though, when he asked her if she thought it was a sexist question, she ran away from the word as if it were a contagious disease.

The Bush doctrine part of the interview has turned into an embarrassment for both sides. In the previous post, Barbara argues that Palin was right to ask Gibson for a clarification on which aspect of the Bush doctrine he meant. U.S. News and World Report Report’s Robert Schlesinger points out that Gibson should have used “preventive war” instead of “pre-emptive war.” My main beef with Gibson is that he used language that was unfamiliar to many people watching the program. Still, Palin is not just one of the viewers, and it was pretty clear to me that she did not have the foggiest idea about what he was talking about:

GIBSON: Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?

PALIN: In what respect, Charlie?

GIBSON: The Bush—well, what do you—what do you interpret it to be?

PALIN: His world view.

GIBSON: No, the Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war.

PALIN: I believe that what President Bush has attempted to do is rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell bent on destroying our nation. There have been blunders along the way, though. There have been mistakes made. And with new leadership, and that's the beauty of American elections, of course, and democracy, is with new leadership comes opportunity to do things better.

GIBSON: The Bush doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense, that we have the right to a preemptive strike against any other country that we think is going to attack us. Do you agree with that?

PALIN: I agree that a president's job, when they swear in their oath to uphold our Constitution, their top priority is to defend the United States of America.

I know that John McCain will do that and I, as his vice president, families we are blessed with that vote of the American people and are elected to serve and are sworn in on January 20, that will be our top priority is to defend the American people.

GIBSON: Do we have a right to anticipatory self-defense? Do we have a right to make a preemptive strike again another country if we feel that country might strike us?

PALIN: Charlie, if there is legitimate and enough intelligence that tells us that a strike is imminent against American people, we have every right to defend our country. In fact, the president has the obligation, the duty to defend.

Asking tough, well-researched questions is one of the most important tasks that a reporter has. Honest answers to those tough questions set great politicians apart from mediocre ones.

Palin's impatient (and wrong) foreign policy teacher

Sarah Palin's anticipated interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson is now being publicised by some in the media as conclusive proof of the Governor of Alaska's lack of foreign policy experience. At one point of the interview Gibson asked Palin if she agreed with the "Bush doctrine". Her answer ("In what respect Charlie?") is being mocked as evidence of Palin's ignorance, an ignorance to be expected from a woman politician who, quite obviously for Gibson and many others, has no business in contending for the vice presidency of the United States.

According to the creator of the term, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, Palin was right in demanding from Gibson a clarification of his question. Gibson's characterization of the "Bush doctrine" as purely a doctrine of preemptive war is wrong according to Krauthammer:

It's the third in a series and was superseded by the fourth and current definition of the Bush doctrine, the most sweeping formulation of the Bush approach to foreign policy and the one that most clearly and distinctively defines the Bush years: the idea that the fundamental mission of American foreign policy is to spread democracy throughout the world. It was most dramatically enunciated in Bush's second inaugural address: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."

Krauthammer centers his criticism in Gibson's perceived exasperation on defining the Bush doctrine for Palin and how this issue has been overexploited by the pundits to further dicredit McCain's VP pick:

Yes, Sarah Palin didn't know what it is. But neither does Charlie Gibson. And at least she didn't pretend to know -- while he looked down his nose and over his glasses with weary disdain, sighing and "sounding like an impatient teacher," as the Times noted. In doing so, he captured perfectly the establishment snobbery and intellectual condescension that has characterized the chattering classes' reaction to the mother of five who presumes to play on their stage.

Debating a Lady 101

Jennifer Granholm (T.W.I.T./Flickr)

My hat’s off to Jennifer Granholm, Michigan’s governor, for agreeing to lock herself up with Joe Biden for four whole days during which she will pretend to be Sarah Palin. Like Palin, Granholm is the first female governor of her state, a mom and a former beauty pageant winner (Miss San Carlos, California, 1977). Except, of course, she is liberal and spent more time in the ivory towers (Berkeley—go bears!—and Harvard Law School).

I don’t know if it ever change, but the dynamics of a man debating a man, a man debating woman and a woman debating a woman are completely different. Biden is clearly Palin’s superior in his knowledge of the issues but has the unfortunate tendency to yell, seem too full of himself and blurt out inappropriate things. If he comes off as being condescending, he will lose the debate even if he wins on the arguments. Let’s hope that Granholm will practice some very tough love.

Beauty and the vote

Sarah Palin's nomination to be the Vice President of the United States as part of the Republican ticket has encountered severe criticism from both the mainstream media and the liberal blogosphere.

The Governor of Alaska's alleged lack of qualifications and experience has been cited by pro-Obama commentators as reason enough to condemn John McCain's pick. However, many of the attacks against Palin have not been solely directed at her conservative stands or her policy choices.

"Caribou barbie," "beauty queen" and "trophy Vice" have been regularly used as supporting elements to discredit Palin as a viable candidate. The fact that she competed in the Miss Alaska 1984 beauty pageant where she won second place and a college scholarship is given as sufficient evidence that she cannot be taken seriously as a politician the underlying argument being that an attractive woman must be a bimbo, and a bimbo must not be in a position of power.

Most disturbingly, many of those willing to fire the thinly veiled misogynistic bullets are self proclaimed liberal women. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd writes:

The guilty pleasure I miss most when I’m out slogging on the campaign trail is the chance to sprawl on the chaise and watch a vacuously spunky and generically sassy chick flick. So imagine my delight, my absolute astonishment, when the hockey chick flick came out on the trail, a Cinderella story so preposterous it’s hard to believe it’s not premiering on Lifetime. Instead of going home and watching “Miss Congeniality” with Sandra Bullock, I get to stay here and watch “Miss Congeniality” with Sarah Palin.

The reality is that the world of politics is still dominated by men and this has not changed with the current surge of Dowd-approved, non-sassy, serious, intense and highly educated women involved in politics around the world.

Many women who have advanced in politics until now have done so aided by a family name made trustworthy by the actions of a male. Without questioning their remarkable careers and credentials, Michele Bachelet, Cristina Kirchner, Benazir Bhutto, Indira Gandhi and Hillary Clinton may fall into this category.

Other female leaders have succeeded by projecting a character that is not by-and-large associated with what are generally acknowledged as feminine traits. Examples of these so-called iron ladies are Margaret Thatcher and Angela Merkel.

Although Palin does not fall into any of the described categories her story is hardly unique. Her political career is reminiscent to that of Venezuelan Irene Saez. Saez competed and won in the 1981 Miss Universe pageant. Like Palin, she subsequently earned a B.A. and later on decided to run for office in a small municipality. As Mayor of Chacao, Saez enjoyed high approval ratings. She was re-elected and then decided to run for president on an anti-corruption platform that echoed Venezuelans rejection of the traditional political parties. After losing to Hugo Chavez in the 1998 elections, Saez decided to run for the governorship of Nueva Esparta. She won handily with 70% of the vote.

A woman politician who fulfills all of Maureen Dowd's feminist requirements might take a while to come by. That is remembering that Ms. Dowd was also hostile towards Hillary Clinton, a non-Sarah Palin like female politician if there ever was one.

Women still have a hard enough time to reach the upper levels of decision making positions for Palin's physique to be enlisted as one of her disqualifications to run for office. In an equal opportunity world a woman should at least have the right to be attractive and succeed in politics without having to apologise for it to the self appointed defenders of feminism, regardless of her platform and views.

Right women rule, left women drool?

(Photo courtesy of Roger H. Goun. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.)


The Guardian’s Anne Perkins asks the question that is on the minds of Hillary Clinton supporters these days:

So why is it that women get more chances on the political right than it seems they do on the left? Is there something not very progressive about progressives, is the right really gender-blind, or is there something else going on here.

One explanation, she argues, is that:

The women on the right (who make it) share a common disregard for gender politics. The women on the left (who by and large haven't, or at least not yet) have made feminism an integral part of their public personality.

OK, enough feminist talk. I am too distracted by the number of times the term "hockey mom" has been uttered at the RNC. Can I get a count on "moose" as well? Everyone seems to have conveniently forgotten about George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and pretty much anyone else actually responsible for foreign policy.

Putin and Palin

If the Republican ticket wins, the caribou-hunting Sarah Palin and tiger-taming Vladimir Putin can swap shooting techniques as they attempt to put some love into the Alaska-warm U.S.-Russian relations.

P.S. Some editor at Der Spiegel loves Putin showing a bit of skin so much that she (or he?) created a "Putin Just Can't Keep His Shirt On" photo gallery. One more sign of a "resurgent Russia"?

"Women don't vote with the big head!"

The Daily Show's "senior female & women's issues correspondent" Samantha Bee gives her analysis of why die-hard Clinton followers are now sold on McCain.

Newsflash: Alaska is next to Russia!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Americans favor governors over senators when picking their presidents even though the latter tend to have much more foreign policy experience. Nevertheless, it is important for all presidential and vice presidential candidates to affirm their knowledge of and interest in foreign policy to the American public.

Sometimes, valiant efforts to do so backfire. Back in 1999, George W. Bush infamously flunked a quiz on foreign affairs when he was asked to name the leaders of such exotic hot spots as Chechnya and Taiwan. Clearly, such things don't really matter in determining the outcome of elections, but I doubt that any other candidate will concede to answering similarly brazen questions ever again. Pity.

One of the biggest criticisms of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, John McCain's recently-picked running mate, is her lack of foreign policy experience. Steve Doocy, of Fox News, was trying really hard to find something,anything, to refute the claim and came up with: "[T]he other thing about her, she does know about international relations because she is right up there in Alaska right next door to Russia." Who knows, perhaps you do get a better view into Putin's soul from Juneau than Washington.

Republicans are somewhat undercutting their own argument about the importance of foreign policy experience by picking her. However, I doubt that Democrats will gain many points on this one since, ultimately, Barack Obama is still at the top of the ticket and his foreign policy experience is minimal. Obama's best bet is to argue, as he has been doing, that he knows enough to do better than the current mess. It is a very, very low bar to cross but John Kerry, a person infinitely more experienced, failed, and I am not sure if Obama will be any different.