Super Tuesday

First reaction to the election results today:
A win for the Democrats.
That's my take on it.

1. Arlen Specter was soundly defeated by Joe Sestak 53% to 47%. Sure, Specter was running in the Democratic primary, and he's been on the team since he defected. And Obama made a campaign stop for him -- but he didn't go back for the end game, and his support seemed tepid. My guess is that it was a promise from back when Specter crossed the aisle.

Personally, I'd much rather have Sestak. So it feels like a win for our team -- a real Democrat -- if he can win the general election.

2. The Democrat Mark Critz won the special election to fill John Murtha's seat, defeating Republican Tea Party supporter Tim Burns. They were neck and neck in the latest polls, so the victory shows momentum coming into the race.

3. Blanche Lincoln was forced into a runoff with her Democratic challenger in Arkansas, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, a former member of the Clinton administration. Lincoln had particularly angered the more liberal Democrats because of her opposition to the health reform bill.

In all three of these closely watched elections, the more liberal person won; or, in the case of Arkansas, the more liberal challenger forced the center-right incumbant into a run-off.

4. And then of course Rand Paul won big in the Republican primary in Kentucky -- but that could be good news for the Dems on November. How is this good for the Dems? Mitch McConnell and other Republican leaders had endorsed his opponent, so it was a slap at them. A Tea Party darling, Paul is way to the right of his opponent. If he wins in Nov., we're probably no worse off than with the other guy. And, maybe he'll be too extreme for the middle and they'll vote for the Dem in November.

That's my midnight take on it.

Ralph

The politics of spin

Newt Gingrich is bloviating again -- as only Newt can do -- saying that Kagan's nomination should be withdrawn. She's unqualified, he says, because of her anti-military stance when she was Dean at Harvard Law School.

Wouldn't you think that what we need most on the Supreme Court are justices who are capable of calmly weighing the balance between two competing principles, both of which are held to be right? Isn't that what most cases that reach the high court are all about?

That is exactly what impressed Wasington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. about Elena Kagan several years back when she was Dean of Harvard Law School and made the decision to limit the military recruiters on campus because of their discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Yesterday the AJC reprinted Dionne’s column from the Washington Post about Kagan and the military recruiting controversy. He says he had a conversation with her back then, and it was in fact her balanced way of discussing her position that would be the best argument FOR her being confirmed to the Supreme Court. Although he personally came to a different conclusion, he admired the thoughtful way she came to her conclusion.

Dionne’s position was that the military needs the liberalizing influence of educated recruits, so their discriminating against gays should be fought in other arenas and allow them to recruit on college campuses for those who can influence the military from within.

Her position was that, in a free and democratic society, the military should be able to recruit on campuses, but at the same time university officials have an obligation to maintain policies that protect groups that are part of their student population from discrimination. So you have a conflict between two principles. At Harvard Law, she struck the balance by allowing recruiters access through a student veterans group, but not through the main career office.

Dionne said that her comfort in having a calm and thoughtful discussion with him about the issue — they agreed on the conflicting principles but came to different conclusions about the remedy — was exactly what we need on the court.

Hopefully, she will be able to convince the senators of the same, although Dionne said these hearings hardly allow one to be candid and therefore wind up being rituals of non-substance, which is probably the prudent way to go. He coins a phrase: “vacuity in pursuit of confirmation is no vice.”

Let's hope Kagan can somehow get across to the senators this quality that impressed Dionne. What a waste, spending all that time trying to score political spin instead of having a reasoned discussion of issues in our highest deliberative body.

Ralph

The awkward question

Of course it is inevitable that questions will be raised about the sexual orientation of President Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court. The Republicans want any excuse to derail it, and they know full well that the media would cooperate by creating a circus around the issue.

The fact is that the White House felt the need to respond to the question by saying that Elena Kagan had volunteered the information that she is not gay. See how forthcoming she is? I think we can assume that Obama himself couldn't care less -- but he knows that the other side would use it as a political smear and it could complicate the confirmation process.

But isn't it time for the answer to be: So what if she is lesbian?

I was going to just ignore the whole issue, thinking that was the best response -- until this morning, when something I read prompted me to think about the bigger implication.

I think most Americans are ready to accept that it should be a non-issue whether she is straight or gay. But it apparently is an issue that we feel the need for an explanation for why a 50 year old woman has never married -- because we are so immersed in a culture that says it is the norm, we assume there is something wrong if she hasn't. As Janet Reno said in a similar awkward moment about rumors that she was lesbian: She denied it but then, to explain her unmarried status, said: "I'm just an awkward old maid." So, either she's gay or she's a failed heterosexual woman.

Right? Or could it simply be that she has other priorities? Even among us psychoanalysts who revere individual autonomy and self-determination, and even among us gay activists who revere freedom to be who you are -- both groups tend to act as though we think being in a committed relationship is somehow just a little bit healthier than being a lone wolf. Is there something missing in a woman who chooses not to become a mother?

So what's that all about? We should ponder, not Kagan's sexuality, but our own assumptions about relationships and parenthood.

Ralph

Integrity deficit

I don't for a nanosecond feel sorry for John McCain. He brought it on himself by jettisoning his brand "Maverick" and the patina of integrity that he had so carefully constructed for decades.

It began during the 2008 presidential campaign (or sooner, for those watching closely and knowing about his post-Viet Nam opportunism). At one time, some of us saw him as the Republican we would least object to having as president. That was before I knew much about him or paid attention during the campaign as he lurched from one position to another with dizzying, denying aplomb.

But his campaign for re-election in Arizona puts him in a whole new league of absurd chameleonism. Start with his denial a couple of weeks ago that he had ever thought of himself as a maverick -- despite the unofficial slogan of the 2008 pairing with Palin as "a team of mavericks." And I saw him with my own eyes in a tv interview, in response to a question about rumors that there he and Palin didn't always agree -- he said, "Look, when you have two mavericks running together . . . "

Now his campaign manager and a deputy manager have quit in the wake of his recent ad campaign. Arch-conservative commentator Michelle Malkin wrote in the National Review," I need a Dramamine to cover Sen. John McCain's reelection bid. With his desperate lurch to the right, he's inducing more motion sickness than a Disneyland teacup.” She's supporting his more conservative Republican opponent.

Still, he enjoys a comfortable lead over his Republican primary opponent and the Democratic challenger Rodney Glassman. Stay tuned.

Ralph

Awakenings

There was a 1990 movie, "Awakenings," about a hospital ward full patients who have been comatose for decades as the result of an epidemic of encephalitis. Robin Williams (in a non-comic role) played the doctor who discovered a medicinal cure, and overnight the patients "woke up." It turned out that the effect was short-lived, but let's hope that part of the analogy doesn't hold up.

Laura Bush seems to be having her "awakening" moment. She's been pretty much out of the limelight for 16 months, until last week when she began her book promotion round of interviews.

I got the first hint of Laura's awakening in an early book review by Janet Maslin. She was struck by the contrast between the easy-going young woman with a bit of a wild side and opinions of her own -- and then the sudden metamorphosis into the frozen smile of the ultra-conforming first lady she became. Laura says it was a caricature created by the press, but it wouldn't be surprising if she did become frozen, given the political need to "control the message." Michelle Obama seems to have kept her personality and her opinions intact as she moved into the goldfish bowl, however.

What seems to be hinted at though is that Laura Bush, in her own right, is a lot more liberal than her husband and certainly than he was as president. And now we're finding out just how true that is.

Not only is the frozen smile gone and the dead eyes now have light in them, but Laura has in recent days:

1. Declared her belief that gay marriage will eventually come and she is ok with that.

2. She has a more liberal position on abortion.

3. And today, on Fox News, she said she thinks Obama's nomination of Elena Kagan is "great." She put it in the context of having more women on the court, but still -- it's hardly the party line.

4. There was an exchange about Karl Rove that hinted at more that was unsaid. Chris Wallace asked her about Rove's statement in his book that he never knew where he stood with Laura. She laughed, said she liked Karl but there was some tension between them. She finally explained it as: "I think he knew I would tell George what I thought."

This can't mean anything other than that she and Rove disagreed at times and that Rove knew that she had a mind of her own and would "tell Georgie what I thought." Obviously, Karl didn't like that. He wanted to control the message.

I do not watch FoxNews, but I did watch a replay of the interview online. I found Laura seeming more like a real person -- and a more likeable person.

Maybe the notorious, hushed-up wildness of the Bush twins, Barbara and Jenna, was an expression of the real Laura Bush; and maybe she can now release her inner wild child.

Ralph

Ideological insanity

National Rifle Association leadership, and some GOP congressmen, oppose efforts to close the loophole in the nation's gun laws that allows people on the federal terrorist watch list to buy guns and explosives from licensed gun dealers in the U.S.

Let me repeat: you can be on the watch list that keeps you from boarding an airplane because you are considered a possible terrorist -- and you can still walk into a gun show and buy guns and explosives material.

When NY mayor Michael Bloomberg called for this to be fixed in his testimony at a congressional hearing, there was some opposition from Republicans. The NRA strongly objects and calls such restrictions "21st Century McCarthyism."

However, a recent poll shows that rank and file NRA members don't agree. One member simply refused to believe that it was possible, while 82% of gun owners and NRA members support “prohibiting people on the terrorist watch lists from purchasing guns.”

I do not share that deep-seated psychological urge to own guns and to fight any effort to limit my right to carry them anywhere -- now including airports, if the latest effort in Georgia becomes law. (It awaits the governor's signature.) So I just don't get it -- why some people feel so vehemently about being able to purchase, own, and carry weapons of rapid, mass murder.

When it's just as easy to buy a high-powered, people-killing, assault weapon as it is to get a public library card, and even easier than getting a driver's license -- something is crazy in our society. And I don't think it's me -- at least not on this one.

Ralph

Even better news

Better news than the blog below about changes in Cobb County is the followup to stories a few weeks ago about the teenage Derrick Martin in Cochran, GA, who was given permission to take his boyfriend as his date to the school prom -- and created a media storm and protests from some teens at school, who organized an alternate prom.

Here's what he told the gay newspaper GAVoice:

"The whole town turned out this year, and we were both making ourselves sick thinking of all the outcomes . . ,. All eyes were on us as we walked to the podium, and the start of the "red carpet" [each couple was introduced as they walked down the red carpet]. I braced myself for an onslaught of hate and shouting, but what we were greeted with surprised me more than I ever could have imagined.

"People I didn't even know were there just cheering for us, smiling and telling us things like, "be true" and "keep on baby." I couldn't even believe it. All this time I had considered all of the bad things that could have happened, but I never gave a second thought to the night actually going perfectly."

The only think missing, Martin wrote, was his parents. They told him he could no longer live at home after he went public with being gay and brought on all the media attention.

How sad that his parents could not celebrate with this courageous young man, who has handled all the publicity with grace and maturity. Otherwise, it does sound like a perfect evening and an encouraging outcome -- you have to believe that a few people in Cochran had their prejudices challenged and, just maybe, they began to think.

Ralph