AddieStan

Just how delicious is it that Deep Throat has chosen to reveal his perhaps befuddled self at the very moment when the Bush Administration is trying to slam Newsweek for its use of an unnamed source in its infamous Koran-flushing item? Scrumptious, mes amis . Absolutely scrumptious. Now, if the progressive movement had a decent spinmeister in its ranks, s/he'd be out there right now, demonstrating all sorts of parallels between the Nixon and Bush Administrations (penchant for secrecy and invasion of your privacy; political use of the FBI; enemies list-- Helen Thomas likely on both lists). Of course, that would be if the progressive movement had a decent spinmeister in its ranks. In the meantime, your blogstress will have to fill in. Speaking of your cybertrix (and you know we must), she herself has a dark secret to reveal: back in the days when she was a mere Selectrix (think indestructable IBM product), she performed the critical function of periodically receiving a locked bri...

Sometimes your blogstress thinks that Larry King gets a bum rap. He's always accused of asking softball questions, but that's not really the case. He just asks hard questions in an extraordinarily annoying, mincing manner. Anybody who watched him last night interviewing Vice President and Mrs. Cheney will know what I mean. During the interview, Cheney asserted that, as of Thursday, the Republicans had enough votes to pass the Bolton nomination in the Senate with an up-or-down floor vote. Fifty-seven, to be exact, which ain't exactly the 60 he'll need to end debate. He also took shots at the Dems for blocking a pre-Memorial Day vote: There's been a lot of talk these last few days since they put together a sort of gang of 14 that negotiated an arrangement on the judges that somehow now we've entered a new era of bipartisan cooperation that lasted about 48-hours, and the Democrats filibuster Bolton. But I think we'll get him through. He's a good man. H...

More analysis of the filibuster. Michael Tomasky, on the Web site of The American Prospect (which he edits), explains why he thinks the compromise deal is acceptable . Your blogstress still reserves judgment. NOTE: Interestingly, a range of opinion on the filibuster deal is displayed on The Prospect site . Kuttner is not impressed.

Let's give a little wave to the Dems for showing enough discipline in the ranks to delay an up-or-down vote on the nomination of the dreadful John Bolton to the post of U.N. Ambassador. Your blogstress asks for only un petit signe , since the Dems are holding out for some info on Bully-Boy that the Administration refuses to cough up [material on Bolton's requests for info on State Dept. employees gleaned through wiretaps by the National Security Agency (NSA)]. After the Administration gives the Dems the goods, says Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, they'll allow the vote to take place. How come? The guy's a nightmare. Why not keep him out by any legal means necessary? Liberal Oasis offers a thoughful break-down on why this maneuver is nothing over which to dance the Snoopy dance. On his Washington Note blog, Steve Clemons fills in an interesting bit of the backstory . It seems that, as ranking member of the Senat...

Herewith the first in an occasional series whereby your blogstress makes note of stylistic trends in punctuation, linguistic notation and latter-day usage. It will run as a companion series to the yet-to-be-introduced AddieStan occasional feature, Lexiconography, wherein terminology coined in the think shops of Our Nation's Capital will be scrutinized, often with suggestions for alternative appellations. Today's observation centers on the clever use of a font feature usually reserved as an editing tool: the strike-thru. Weary of plodding through the thicket of Orwellian terms employed by the right-wing, liberal writers--at least those in the outsider communities--have found a way to deflate such ridiculous terms so as to reveal their true meaning. First appears the actual meaning of the term in a strike-thru font, and then its rhetorical form as deployed by the right. (It is alternatively used as an implied subliminal subtext.) Dig this, from Confined Space : One of our favo...

Speaking of the Great Compromise, the writing of satirist Tom Burka on this subject is priceless: Senate Republicans to Reject Nuclear Option in Favor of Biowarfare Senate Republicans who feared that they would not get the 50 votes they needed to destroy the filibuster spoke of abandoning the so-called "nuclear option" in favor of biological or chemical warfare. "We should just gas all of them," said Sen. Rick Santorum of the Democrats, almost immediately after he had called them Nazis. Sen. Santorum later told critics that he had meant "sedating all of the Democrats with a non-toxic inhalant." Tom's work is found on his blog, Opinions You Should Have .

Is this a good thing or a bad thing, this act of comity on the future of the filibuster? On the one hand, the filibuster lives to see another day, and the traditions of the Senate are temporarily preserved. On the other hand, three truly frightening judges now ascend to the federal bench. Of these, Priscilla Owen of Texas has received the most attention for her exemplary judicial activism that is, at once (to steal an idea from Molly Ivins), both theocratic and plutocratic. Far more troubling to your Webwench is the specter of Janice Rogers Brown of California occupying the D.C. circuit court, to which most cases regarding the operation of the federal government are brought. Here's Rogers Brown on the virtues of government: "Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates, and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of ...

What with her pesky day job, multiple social commitments and erstwhile singing career, your blogstress has had barely a bustier-clad moment to look up, never mind put words to her blog. Among her other endeavors is this recent piece for The American Prospect Web site on why one issue must trump all others right now: saving the United States Constitution. Even for queer folk, your cybertrix places this burning issue ahead of gay marriage, a cause in which she deeply believes (for those who are the marrying kind, natch). Your thoughts, dear reader?

Your blogstress has said many a rosary awaiting the reply to the probing question posed by Swiss Watch. Here, at last, we display a carefully parsed reply--well, the only reply received. Our good friend, Marimba Man, writes: I'm afraid that if I leave the Catholic Church I'll burn in hell. Aren't you? Well, actually, your cybertrix harbors a greater fear of being sentenced to loll about in Heaven, wearing something white and shapeless, plucking a lyre to a beatless tune. Vive l'existentialism!

A new friend from Old Europe, whom we'll call Swiss Watch, sends this: Obviously, I have to agree with you that the election of Ratzinger is a disaster--for the church and way beyond. Here is what I, as an outsider, cannot understand: Why don't you just leave the church and become Methodist? (Most of the teaching is quite similar, but there is no pope...) In my home country of Switzerland there is a church that calls itself "Old Catholic" or "Christ Catholic" that split from the Roman church after the First Vatican Council, protesting the infallibility doctrine. It has never had a great geographic reach, but it is an obvious alternative for Hans Küng (to whom the vast majority of Swiss have been very sympathetic), yet he never chose to take it. (The church is also present in Southern Germany, where he is a professor.) What is it about the Catholic Church that makes it so hard for people to leave it? Hmmm...Any takers on this one? Your blogstress, rosary gri...

A day has passed since election of the Enforcer to the papacy, and your blogstress has calmed down sufficiently to do a bit of writing on the subject for The American Prospect Web site that should explain her adverse reaction to the naming of this particular pope. (And did he have to be from Bavaria, of all places?) Last night, on MSNBC , Carl Bernstein suggested that, as pope, Ratzinger might surprise us; he might not be all that bad. Carl, from your mouth to God's ears. One presumes Carl is speaking in relative terms, despite Ratzinger's condemnation of moral relativism just the other day. (Your cybertrix does concede, however, that Mr. Bernstein tends to be right more often than not--one of his many maddening traits.) BERNSTEIN: I think that, one, that he may be open-minded on some questions that some of the members of the panel might be holier than the pope about. I think...that Supreme Court justices, kings, queens, and popes, people who get jobs for life, sometime...

If one is seeking further evidence that the eschaton is about to be immanatized, one need look no further than the election of Cardinal Jozef Ratzinger to the papacy. The entire College of Cardinals has much to account for with the election of this zealot, this disdainer of women, hater of homosexuals, enthusiastic enforcer of the most authoritarian aspects of church doctrine with apparent disregard for the words of Jesus of Nazareth: "Judge not lest ye be judged." For years, Ratzinger served as JPII's attack dog, the guy threatening to throw nuns out of their convents for having had the courage to speak their minds; the guy insisting that theologians who took issue with the Vatican's interpretation of God's word lose their jobs; the guy who saw to it that an American bishop who dared to minister to gay people was publicly humiliated. Your cybertrix is truly shaken by this. She wasn't expecting Gandhi, but she never truly believed that the church would anoi...

Your blogstress waits with bated breath to hear the name of the pope who has just been elected at the conclave. She's nearly certain it can't be the dreaded Ratzinger, since his name was so heavily floated--usually a sign of doom for a papal candidate. Let's all stay tuned, shall we?

It is with sadness that your blogstress notes the passing of Andrea Dworkin, the great feminist writer, even if she and Ms. Dworkin found themselves on opposite sides of a gigantic row in the feminist movement. Though Ms. Dworkin would surely not have been amused by your cybertrix's sense of style, she had ferocity and talent enough to warrant respect. In fact, your écrivaine believes Dworkin to be one of the best American writers of her generation, but, alas, she will no doubt be remembered more for her role in stoking the porn wars of the 1980s than for her greater gifts.

It's not that your blogstress doesn't love you--no, no, no! Alas, your cybertrix's publishing tool, Blogger.com, has been struggling to do its job lately. Yesterday, for instance, the system was virtually shut down. So do bear with, dear reader, and perhaps let the Google people (who own Blogger.com, the service that fuels more blogs than anybody else) know that you are not amused when they create such a rift in the time-space continuum of the blogosphere.

Herewith the promised passage from Karol Wojtyla's book, Love and Responsibility , that Carl Bernstein quoted on MSNBC last Saturday: If a woman does not obtain natural gratification from the sexual act there is a danger that her experience of it will be qualitatively inferior, will not involve her fully as a person.. And that's only the part appropriate for a family cable channel. For the full passage, as quoted in His Holiness: John Paul II and the Hidden History of Our Time , the 1996 book by Bernstein and Marco Politi, click here .

Before the birth of the blog, your blogstress had the opportunity to chronicle the impact of Pope John Paul II's policy and personality on American Catholicism. To peruse the AddieStan archives for those pieces on the subject that have found their way to the Web, click here .

It has at last come to pass that Karol Wojtyla, Pope John Paul II, has gone to meet his Maker, and your blogstress is very sad. How can that be, you may ask, that a feminist of mutable sexual orientation should feel such sadness at the passing of a leader who rejected the full empowerment of women and condemned the lives of gay people. To this, your écrivaine can only say that the beliefs of her own grandfather matched those of the pope's, and she still felt tremendous grief when he passed on. She grieved not only the loss of her grandpa, but the loss of a charming raconteur, gifted gardener, avid reader and lover of all things beautiful. John Paul was, without a doubt, a stubborn traditionalist in matters of church doctrine, including that which has caused grave harm to members of his flock. But that was not all he was. Through the force of his own will, he hastened the demise of Communism, which was a very good thing. In the dizzying whirlwind of his travels, he demonstra...

On MSNBC last night, Carl Bernstein read a remarkable passage from Karol Wojtyla's early writings as a church philosopher on matters of sexuality. In this particular treatise, the philosopher seemed to say that, in a sexual encounter with her spouse, it is important that the woman be brought to orgasm. How strange, especially given John Paul II's intractability on the limited role of women in the church. While covering the pope's 1987 U.S. tour, your blogstress sought official word on the Holy Father's understanding of the female condition. This she got from the cardinal archbishop of Boston, who retired in infamy for having covered up the scandal of several predatory priests in his archdiocese. During the Pope's tour, I caught up with Archbishop Bernard Cardinal Law, the prelate often described as "the Pope's man" by the press, the day after the Pontiff had told the bishops that God does not want women priests. Cardinal Law was in the front row o...

Sometimes a conversation with a person of another generation will blast one into place where one may a view things from a broader perspective. Last night, your blogstress conversed with a young Protestant friend who found herself exasperated by the media's vigil over Pope John Paul II's final hours (or perhaps days). Everybody dies, she said. Why all the fuss? When your cybertrix launched into a litany of the pope's more impressive attributes--his charisma, his travels, his ferocity--the friend said, "But isn't that just what a pope does? Doesn't that charisma stem from the office itself?" Suddenly your cybertrix realized that her friend had been born in the year that John Paul took office. She had never known another pope. No, your Webwench explained, before JPII, we had an introverted, hollow-eyed pontiff whom we knew only as a face, not a personality. Sure, Pope Paul VI had broken the travel barrier, being the first pope to visit the U.S. and, ye...