Maureen, Marilyn, and Sarah - Oh, the Ignorance

I honestly don't know why I do this to myself, but I have read Maureen Dowd again today.  Her latest attack on conservative women comes in the guise of an ode to Marilyn Monroe, a sad and tragic figure that still has the power to pique the imagination of American pop culture. 

Marilyn is not known for her level of intelligence or for mental stability. Since she died before I was born, I have no firsthand knowledge of either of these things, but it seems to be the meme surrounding her life and death.


Apparently, Marilyn liked the idea of being seen as an intellectual and tried to be seen that way. According to Maureen conservative women such as Sarah Palin is no Marilyn Monroe. Not that I think that is something that Gov. Palin is aspiring to anyway. Maureen talks about the constitution and the myth of the left that there is a separation of church and state contained in it.

So, let’s have a little history lesson here. In 1947 a woman sued a school system because she felt that her son was being belittled due to the fact that she was raising him as an atheist and the school system had religious teachings. This suit wound its way to the Supreme Court in the form of McCollum v. Board of Ed. Now the classes were totally voluntary and were a direct relationship to Champaign Council on Religious Education. The council included Jewish, Protestants, and Roman Catholic clergy. But McCollum, an avowed atheist, felt her son was being ridiculed for not attending any of these classes. The Justice who wrote the opinion on this case that essentially created the separation of church and state was Justice Hugo Black. Black was a democrat and member of the KKK. It is very well known that the Klan doesn't like Jews or Catholics.

Black went and pulled out a letter that was written by founding father Thomas Jefferson shortly after he became president. The letter was written to The Danbury Baptist Association of Danbury, CT. While this is no longer the case at that time Baptists were a minority in that state. They had concerns about the state illegalizing the Baptist sect. Back in the day, most of the original state constitutions did declare a state religion. Some of which were written by the same men who wrote our constitution. The founding fathers did not want a national religion like Britain had, but did feel that the states had that right. The thinking behind that is that people could live in the state that most met their needs. If you didn't like the laws in one state, you could move to another; federalism at work.

In the letter Jefferson wrote the following:

Gentlemen



The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.



Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. [Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorised only to execute their acts, I have refrained from prescribing even those occasional performances of devotion, practiced indeed by the Executive of another nation as the legal head of its church, but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect.] Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.



I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association assurances of my high respect & esteem.



(signed) Thomas Jefferson



Jan.1.1802.

Part of Jefferson's thought process was the fact that both Washington and Adams would declare days of thanksgiving and fasting while president. A practice that Jefferson felt went beyond the confines of the federal government. The bolded section of the above letter did not make it into the final draft. Now, if you read the letter carefully his words are for the federal level of government, not at the state level. Jefferson was a firm believer in no federal mandated religion; which has never existed in this country since its founding. This letter was also looked at by state legislators before sending in order to ensure that he was not over-stepping his bounds.

So, back to the McCollum case, a justice pulls out this letter from the archives and uses this as his own justification to limit state rights through the establishment clause of the constitution. A justice who was a bigot and member of the KKK. Now, historians have largely glossed over Black's membership in the KKK and say that he was a champion of civil rights in his day. Many people have an epiphany about the hatred that they carry in their hearts. It may very well be the truth that he did eventually make that change in his own life. But the evidence to say that this was a decision based on his personal bias has been largely overlooked in today's society. Many people don't even know this history, which says a great deal about our education system. Many younger people in this country don't even realize that the words "Separation of Church and State" don't even exist in the constitution. Now, this case was decided 8 -1, an overwhelming majority. But, the letter was used as an argument to make Black's case and was a direct part of the decision.

So, my question to Maureen is; Did Sarah Palin really get it wrong? I think she may want to read up on the history of this decision. As a person who declares to believe in civil rights, she may realize that this decision was based on bigotry, not on what the Constitution actually says nor what the founders were trying to accomplish. The founders had no problem with the states having established religion, nor did they want limit religion being practiced in the public square.

Maureen Dowd and the Mean Republicans Girls

Aah, I just love waking up early on a Sunday morning and being insulted by someone I have never met.  Maureen Dowd can always be counted on.  The uber liberal columnist is spewing her usual nonsense that republicans are just downright nasty people; especially if you are woman. 

After all, how can we be anything but if we are criticizing the "one"?  It seems she is just as thin-skinned as her dear leader is:

...the Mean Girls have replaced Hope with Spite and Cool with Cold.

I hate to break it to you Mo, but I never thought Obama was "Cool".  But, then again I am just another mean "Mama Grizzly".  Although you have decided to go all those years back to my high school years to describe me;

We are in the era of Republican Mean Girls, grown-up versions of those teenage tormentors who would steal your boyfriend, spray-paint your locker and, just for good measure, spread rumors that you were pregnant.

I don't know about you Mo, but in high school I was pretty shy, didn't date very much and the last thing I did was spread rumors that someone was pregnant.  I would have to think that you seem to have some experience with the mean girls.  Somehow I get this feeling you were actually one of them, how else would you have turned into the mean woman you are now? 

So, I will pass your bff a note in study hall to let you know, that yes, we mean republican women, don't think that federal government should decide what your health insurance should cover, as we are smart enough to know if we need coverage for infertility treatments or that with no history breast cancer in our families we don't need to pay for mammogram coverage when we are 21 years old.  It is added expenses that we would rather spend on other things that our important to our lives not what Nanny Pelosi or you think we need.  We would rather that we find market based solutions to fix the costs issues with health care and not create another boondoggle of an inefficient government program that steals my money and then attempts to run my life. 

Hey Maureen, can we be friends? Probably not.

Wow, I don't think she would like me very much. What Sarah Palin has to do with this I'm not sure.

White Man's Last Stand

Maureen Dowd New York Times July 15, 2009


You can’t judge a judge by her cover.

Despite the best efforts of Republicans to root out any sign that Sonia Sotomayor has emotions that color her views on the law, the Bronx Bomber kept a robotic mask in place.

A wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not know that a gaggle of white Republican men afraid of extinction are out to trip her up.

After all, these guys have never needed to speak inspirational words to others like them, as Sotomayor has done. They’ve had codes, handshakes and clubs to do that.

So when Republican Senator Jon Kyl, without so much as a howdy-do, went at Sotomayor, and soon was asking her if she agreed with Barack Obama’s contention, when he voted against John Roberts, that a judge’s heart is important, the would-be justice was as adroit as her idol Nancy Drew.

“No, sir,” she said, indicating that the only bleeding-heart thing about her was the color of her jacket. She added that “it’s not the heart that compels conclusions in cases. It’s the law.”

President Obama wants Sotomayor, naturally, to bring a fresh perspective to the court. It was a disgrace that W. appointed two white men to a court stocked with white men. And Sotomayor made it clear that she provides some spicy seasoning to a bench when she said in a speech: “I simply do not know exactly what the difference will be in my judging, but I accept there will be some based on gender and my Latina heritage.”

The judge’s full retreat from the notion that a different life experience is valuable was more than necessary and somewhat disappointing. But, as any clever job applicant knows, you must obscure as well as reveal, so she sidestepped the dreaded empathy questions — even though that’s why the president wants her.

“We apply law to facts,” she told Kyl. “We don’t apply feelings to facts.”

She even used a flat tone when talking about the “horrific tragedy” of 9/11, when she was living near the World Trade Center. And she was mechanical in explaining to a grumpy Senator Orrin Hatch that banning nunchaku sticks did not dent the Second Amendment because the martial-arts weapons’ swing “can bust someone’s skull.”

Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer gamely tried to make the judge seem even more coldhearted. Recalling the sad plight of poor families from the Bronx who sued T.W.A. after a jet crashed off Long Island in 1996, he quoted the Bronx jurist’s dispassionate dissent: “The appropriate remedial scheme for deaths occurring off the United States coast is clearly a legislative policy choice, which should not be made by the courts.”

Schumer also cited the case of an African-American woman who filed suit after being denied a home-equity loan, even after the loan application was conditionally approved based on her credit report.

Sonia Legree ruled that the woman’s claim was filed too late, the same argument that the Supremes used on Lilly Ledbetter when she belatedly learned that her male coworkers were much better paid. President Obama has cited the Ledbetter decision as a reason the court needs a more “common touch.”

“The law requires some finality,” Sotomayor explained about her case, with an iciness that must have sent a chill up the conservative leg of Alabama’s Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, even as it left Obama hanging out on an empathy limb.

Republican Lindsey Graham read Sotomayor some anonymous comments made by lawyers about her, complaining that she was “temperamental,” “nasty,” “a bit of a bully.” Then he patronizingly lectured her about how this was the moment for “self-reflection.” Maybe Graham thinks Nino Scalia has those traits covered.

But the barbed adjectives didn’t match the muted performance on display before the Judiciary Committee. Like the president who picked her, Sotomayor has been a model of professorial rationality. Besides, it’s delicious watching Republicans go after Democrats for being too emotional and irrational given the G.O.P. shame spiral.

W. and Dick Cheney made all their bad decisions about Iraq, W.M.D.’s, domestic surveillance, torture, rendition and secret hit squads from the gut, based on false intuitions, fear, paranoia and revenge.

Sarah Palin is the definition of irrational, a volatile and scattered country-music queen without the music. Her Republican fans defend her lack of application and intellect, happy to settle for her emotional electricity.

Senator Graham said Sotomayor would be confirmed unless she had “a meltdown” — a word applied mostly to women and toddlers until Mark Sanford proudly took ownership of it when he was judged about the wisdom of his Latina woman.

And then there’s the Supreme Court, of course, which gave up its claim to rational neutrality when the justices appointed by Republican presidents — including Bush Sr. — ignored what was fair to make a sentimental choice and throw the 2000 election to W.

Faced with that warped case of supreme empathy, no wonder Sotomayor is so eager to follow the law.