Archive for

This Week in Separation

With poetic license regarding what constitutes “this week”…

Another year, another Supreme Court term: on November 12th, the Court heard oral arguments in Pleasant Grove City v. Summum,  in a case that promises to define the law of “public fora.” Stated simply, a minority religious sect (Summum) argues that, because the majority-Mormon Utah town allowed the erection of monuments to the Ten Commandments in a park (Pioneer Park), Summum should be allowed to place a monument to its “Seven Aphorisms,” allegedly derived from the first tablets that Moses brought down from Mount Sinai (in Summum theology, Moses conveniently smashed these tablets… the Ten Commandments were Version 2.0). Anything less – Summum argues – would be an unconstitutional limitation on the usage of the park, which it characterizes as a “public forum” open to any reasonable citizen expression.

I agree. While no doubt the case is a complicated one, the City of Pleasant Grove had a choice: (1) accept its Ten Commandments monument pursuant to a government sponsorship program (oral arg. transcript, 35-36), therefore ensuring it had total control over viewpoints expressed by monuments in the park, and risk an Establishment Clause lawsuit, or (2) put the damn thing in the park, therefore treating the park as an open forum for free expression, and risk being sued for viewpoint discrimination if it declined to place other, controversial memorials. The city chose option two in an attempt to dodge the Establishment Clause problem, and now they’re paying the price. The sum of the clauses of the First Amendment stand for this simple proposition, if anything: the state can’t favor one religion over another, and the erection of blatantly religious monuments, unless ancient indeed, surely runs afoul of this principle. We’ll have to wait until May to see if the Court agrees.

In more hilarious news, the Cincinnati Zoo, a publicly-owned institution linked with the local public school system, today sharply reversed its stated plan to offer “two-for-one” tickets to the zoo and the nearby Creation Museum. The Cincinnati Zoo’s wildlife can safely rest without fear of being prodded by “baraminologists” (read: zoologists who trace biological ancestry based on God’s “plan” for creation). Epic win.

Grrl Power: Thoughts on the New Faces of U.S. Foreign Policy

Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, Samantha Power … High-profile, not-afraid-to-speak-their-minds, mega-smart women are invading Foggy Bottom under Obama’s watch. How far we have come from my days in middle school when class debates about whether a woman could be president focused on whether a woman could control her emotional ups and downs during her period every month. After all, she could get swept up in a hormonal fit and hysterically “press the button” … Ay-yi-yi!

I am working on a post about Susan Rice. I am reading her papers and speeches delivered during her recent tenure at the Brookings Institution. She is a fascinating woman, and I am truly enjoying learning from her work. I think she will be terrific at the U.N., and I will have more on her and Samantha Power tomorrow.

For this post, I want to focus on Hillary Clinton. In learning about Rice and revisiting Samantha Power, I am reminded of Clinton. Not so much Senator or Presidential Candidate Clinton, but First Lady Clinton: driven, ambitious, fearless, smart as the dickens. Clinton really took one for the team (women in general) as First Lady. She did not fit the image of the loyal wife (though, she has definitely proven she is one), quietly supporting her husband. She certainly seems chastened by her years in the White House, ceaselessly in the sights of Republican and conservative talk-show adversaries.

Her Senate career is notable to me for how careful she had become … with her words and with her positions, especially with respect to foreign policy. Clinton seemed to have over-corrected for her, er, brashness. Once bitten and twice shy, she seemed unwilling to venture outside the safety of the hawkish-side-of-center, lest she be considered a crazed, femi-nazi liberal. Ergo, Hillary, during the primaries, sounded more like John McCain even though I very much believe her views were really much closer to Obama’s.

I don’t think even Clinton bought her position on, for instance, Iran. She seemed like she was trying to fit scorecard criteria of pundits rather than present coherent foreign policy that could adequately correct the Neocon mess in which we find ouselves. This was the primary reason why I could not support her candidacy for the Democratic nomination.

And this is also why I was not thrilled about Obama wanting her for State.

But I have grown more comfortable with the choice, and in researching Rice and Power, I realize now that Obama’s move is extraordinarily inspired. Particularly, Rice’s pragmatic and realistic approach to national security and foreign policy echo Clinton’s strengths. While Clinton has played it safe with her rhetoric, she is still a skilled negotiator and leader in her own right in the Senate.

Ironically, Obama’s appointment of Clinton to State is going to free her to reconnect with the dynamism she originally brought to the national stage. I believe she will thrive as Secretary of State, and the nation will benefit tremendously. I’m not giving much stock to the tittering of pundits, trying to find Obama’s angle: Is he trying to castrate (Ha! Ha!) any future presidential run from Clinton? Is he following the tried and true “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer” philosophy? Frankly, there are too many pressing issues for our national discourse to revolve around silly, gossipy conspiracy theories.

My gut says that Obama likes having intelligent, powerful, skilled people under his charge. It is to his credit that he can so readily identify and appreciate these qualities in women.