I Heart Strong Women

It's good to have the cracker-jack writing of Maureen Dowd back after her recent hiatus. Here, she's giving it to BushCo for their women's lib lip service--at least where it concerns foreign territories where we don't have that much control and when it provides some cover for their dealings.

Americans like it when the president talks up women's rights in Iraq and Afghanistan, so he does it often. It helped him sell the invasions of those two countries. But W. should stop listening to "My Sharona" on his iPod and start listening to their Sharia. The fundamentalist Taliban is recrudescing in Afghanistan, young girls in Iraq are afraid to leave their homes because there are so many kidnappings and rapes, and women's groups in Iraq are terrified that the new constitution will cut women's rights to a Saudiesque level. Some Shiite politicians are pushing to supplant the civil courts that have long governed marriage, divorce, child custody and inheritance with religious courts that are based on Sharia, or Islamic law. The New York Times reported that one of the crucial articles in various drafts of the constitution is: "The followers of any sect or religion have the right to abide by their religion or sect in their personal affairs, and a law should organize this." That little provision could jeopardize any chance for women's equality. Clerics running religious courts based on the Koran could legitimize polygamy, honor killings, stonings and public beheadings of women charged with adultery, and divorce by "talaq" - where all a husband has to do is declare, "I divorce thee," three times. Saddam repressed Islamic politics, so under him, Iraq was one of the most secular countries in the Middle East. It has become far more fundamentalist since the U.S. took over. The back-to-burka trend has been widely reported throughout Shiite-dominated southern Iraq, and young women activists told The Los Angeles Times that their mothers had more freedom in the 60's.

In Maureen's absence, Arianna Huffington has been doing quite well with her Huffington Post start-up--part lefty response to the hackery of the Drudge Report, part celebrity blogging community--with posts ranging from politicos like VT independent senator Bernie Sanders to Harry Shearer (the ex-Spinal Tapper covers the media beat) and Laurie David (wife of HBO's favorite curmudgeon, Larry David, she's an environmental activist who has helped steer many a star to the Prius). Huffington's been doing a great job dissecting the whole Judy Miller angle to the PlameGate/Rove-a-Palooza dealings, and she's offered space to budding protest celeb Cindy Sheehan as she continues her vigil in Crawford. And here Huffington comes to the defense of Ms. Sheehan, who has suffered a number of attempts to smear her this week (she's really striking a nerve)

Rush Limbaugh played his usual role, parroting the flip-flop party line, saying that Sheehan was “trying to pull a little bit of a swindle” and that “she’d been totally co-opted by…the whole Michael Moore leftist mentality.” Fred Barnes piled on, saying of Sheehan: “She’s a crackpot” (no doubt using the same video-based diagnostic technique pioneered by Bill Frist). And Michelle Malkin went all Patricia Arquette on the case, using her heretofore unpromoted ESP powers to let us know that Sheehan’s dead son Casey wouldn’t approve of “his mother’s crazy accusations”. Beyond contempt. But I will say this for these sleazeballs: they are nothing if not resilient. After the Cindy as Flip-Flopper story was revealed as a very poorly done hatchet job, a second load of sludge was quickly dumped: the ludicrous statement from the (ahem) “Sheehan Family” condemning Cindy’s “political motivations and publicity tactics” (run under a banner headline proclaiming “Family of Fallen Soldier Pleads: Please Stop, Cindy”). Where do I start with this piece of manufactured offal? How about the fact that no one put their names on the statement, which was “signed” by “Casey Sheehan’s grandparents, aunts, uncles and numerous cousins”. Don’t these folks have names? The only name attached to the “Sheehan Family” statement (delivered to Drudge via email with permission “to distribute as you wish”) belongs to Cherie Quartarolo who describes herself as Casey’s aunt and godmother. So did I miss something? Since when does godmother outrank mother? What I really want to know is: how does Casey’s second-cousin-twice-removed feel about Cindy’s vigil? How about his ex-brother-in-law’s cleaning lady? Cindy deals with all this very succinctly in her latest post, but suffice it to say that Casey’s dad and their three other children are all supportive of what Cindy is doing. Hmm… I always thought conservatives were big proponents of the importance of the nuclear family. Does James Dobson know about this attempt to undermine the primacy of a mother? I guess it takes a village to trash a grieving Gold Star Mom.

You can also see Ms. Sheehan rebuff her critics on Keith Olbermann's MSNBC Countdown (hosted at Crooks and Liars in both WMA and QuickTime).

Speaking of smearing, Ms. Sheehan, you absolutely have to download the WMA video (again, hosted at Crooks and Liars) of this segment from Fox's O'Really show, where on-air doofus extraordinaire John Gibson subbed for Bill and volleyed smears back and forth with guest Ira Stoll. It really is amazing how much mud they fling at her in just a few minutes of air time. And it's also a good example of a trend I've been noticing on Fox and other Right-leaning commentaries, which is to label essentially any liberal advocacy group or voice as "extreme." Now, frankly, I don't think Naral with its recent ad (now taken off the air) attempting to link John Roberts to womens' clinic bombings did anything to help this. And maybe the Left is flinging as much "extreme" rhetoric at the Dobsons, et. al. But I just don't see the inclusionary MoveOn or (now defunct) America Coming Together groups as extreme when placed side by side with Focus on the Family and the whole Justice Sunday II spectacular, which want to exclude rights to citizens of this nation.