Sen. Chris Buttars of Utah received media face-time for his legislative proposal urging stores to greet consumers with “Merry Christmas” in lieu of the nonspecific “Happy Holidays.” His motivation…he wants to “end the war on Christmas” as the United States is a “Christian Nation.”
The scene felt like a contemporary version of 1960, when John F. Kennedy captured the imagination of the country. The nation was swept with a tide of idealism, and the belief that every individual could make a difference.
Folks in line were a cross section. Mothers with strollers, retirees, some men who looked like they had taken the day off.
A series of fire trucks from the station house around the block went speeding down Second Avenue, sirens blaring. I didn’t give it much thought.
Doesn’t anyone remember when John McCain made an ugly “joke” (that most newspapers wouldn’t print) about Hillary Clinton, Janet Reno, and Chelsea Clinton?
On a visceral level, as a single Mother, I resent the Republican appropriation of the “family values” brand. I feel more connected with a man, Joe Biden, who questioned whether he should take his seat in the U.S. Senate after his wife and daughter were killed in a car crash.
It’s impossible to know if Elizabeth Edwards asked or encouraged her husband to admit to his liaison publicly, before he decided to run for the Presidency. Maybe she believed that he had so much to offer the country that his recklessness was immaterial.
The public, who may be interested in knowing more about what Michelle Obama is up to, could have gained greater insight by learning that she has been visiting with military families, to understand how “spouses are struggling.”
In that moment, Scarborough epitomized every boorish, condescending male that ever tried to diminish a woman…whether it be a family member, a co-worker, or a presidential candidate.
Clinton acknowledged that both she and Obama had achieved milestones, and invoked the historical precedents of the suffragettes, the abolitionists, and civil rights workers.
"The Jump Rope Line" by Marcia G. Yerman is included in the Seal Press anthology Dancing at the Shame Prom.
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