Text:

Fortune teller [0:01]: Now we’ll see, my beauty, whom fate has intended for you.

Young woman [0:06]: I’d like it to be for love.  You see, it’s my first time.

Fortune teller [0:17]: The cards will tell the truth.  [0:20] I see that it will be for love, and with no deception.

Young woman [0:28]: It’s him!

Fortune teller [0:32]: You’ll be happy with him.  He’ll protect you like a fortress.

After that, we see the girl approaching a building with a sign that says, “Voting precinct.”

Tagline: “Putin.  The first time, only for (heart symbol).”

(Via Buzzfeed.com.)

When Prof. Parker’s study was first released, it was widely discussed as evidence that the Tea Party movement was driven in large part by racism.   The proof was in the numbers: as Salon.com’s David Jarman summed it up, in a “Who are the tea partiers” article that for some reason can no longer be found at its original URL,

Among whites who approve of the Tea Party, only 35 percent said they believe blacks are hard-working, only 45 percent believe blacks are intelligent, and just 41 percent believe that they’re trustworthy.

Salon.com editor Joan Walsh, whose article also seems to have disappeared but is cached here, sarcastically inquired,

And Tea Party supporters don’t like it when anyone notices the racists in their midst?

As I found when I obtained a fuller set of numbers from Prof. Parker (by now, all the data are on the UW website), the actual picture was far more complex.  Prof. Parker acknowledges this in his response:

Young is correct that our study found that whites overall, not just Tea Party supporters, harbored some negative stereotypes about blacks. Indeed, although more white Tea Party skeptics considered black people trustworthy than did white Tea Party supporters (57 percent to 41 percent, respectively), those white Tea Party skeptics also found whites more trustworthy than blacks (72 percent of them saw whites as trustworthy). The white Tea Partiers were only a little more likely to think blacks are less intelligent than whites than white Tea Party skeptics.

(Note, by the way, that respondents in the study are not directly asked whether they regard whites as more intelligent or trustworthy than blacks, but to rate how intelligent they think “almost all” members of various racial groups are on a 1-to-7 scale.)

Nonetheless, Prof. Parker takes issue with my analysis of his study:

Young admits there were much bigger gaps on questions about whether blacks are sufficiently hardworking, rely too much on government help and on other indicators of “racial resentment.” … But there Young merely saw conservatism: the belief that those who work hard will be rewarded, and small government is best.

He is echoed by Walsh:

To her credit, Young does acknowledge that on the indicators of what the University of Washington researchers call “racial resentment,” white Tea Partiers differ notably, not only from white Tea Party skeptics, but from all whites in the study. Young puts forward an interesting defense: That’s conservatism, not racism. I’m not sure why Young seems to want to tar all conservatives, not merely the Tea Partiers, with racially blinkered views.

But that isn’t quite what I said.  First of all, in response to Prof. Parkr: the perception of blacks as less hardworking than whites belongs to the “racial stereotyping” rather than “racial resentment” category in the poll.   While white Tea Party supporters are indeed more likely than white Tea Party opponents to harbor this stereotype, they are only slightly more likely to espouse it than all whites.  (The gap between the number of those who give positive ratings to blacks vs. whites on the “hardworking” item is 14 percentage points for strong Tea Party supporters, 12 percentage points for all whites, and 1 point for strong Tea Party opponents.)

As for the “racial resentment” index: my point was not to acknowledge that Tea Party supporters are more likely than other whites to harbor “racial resentment”; it was to question the study’s blinkered definition of “racial resentment.”  For instance, the “racial resentment” index includes the statement that “Irish, Italians, Jewish (sic), and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Blacks should do the same without special favors.”  Well, guess what: I agree with that too (despite not being a Tea Party supporter), and if somebody thinks that that makes me a racist, I frankly think it says far more about them that it does about me.  As I pointed out in my column, the view that the key to overcoming poverty in the black community is in the efforts of blacks themselves — not only hard work but overcoming self-defeating cultural patterns — is shared by many black conservatives (ones whom white liberals often feel entitled to ridicule in appallingly condescending terms, such as Maureen Dowd’s 2003 column dismissing Clarence Thomas’s opposition to affirmative action as the ravings of a man driven “barking mad” by racial insecurity).

Rather oddly, Prof. Parker accuses me of making an ad hominem argument by stating that he and his colleagues have “standard left-of-center view(s).”  In fact, what I said was that to equate opposition to race-based preferences with “racial resentment” is a standard left-of-center view; I fully stand by that statement, which is certainly far less ad hominem than to insinuate that opponents of preferences are driven by resentment.

Prof. Parker also writes:

Young links another finding in our study — that the Tea Partiers support government restrictions on civil liberties — to mere conservatism. But, again, supporters of the Tea Party movement are more likely than other conservatives to support such measures — even though the movement’s supposed goal is freedom from government tyranny. Indeed, controlling for conservatism, Tea Party supporters are 28 percent more likely to say that it’s OK for the government to detain suspects indefinitely without filing charges.

But in fact, this is something I acknowledged in my column:

Not surprisingly, the Tea Partiers are disproportionately Republican and right-wing: 39% consider themselves “very conservative” and 34% “somewhat conservative” (compared to 12% and 24%, respectively, of the general population). Their conservatism, moreover, tends to be more authoritarian than libertarian: In the UW poll, pro-Tea Party respondents are much more likely than others to agree that the government should be able to detain suspects indefinitely without trial and to tap phones if there is a threat of terrorism.

Finally, both Walsh and Parker think they have caught me in a substantial error here:

The other charge against Tea Partiers is that they are not “the people” but the privileged defending their privilege. Walsh gleefully points out that in the Times/CBS poll, 12% of Tea Party sympathizers had an annual income over $250,000 — forgetting to mention that so did 11% of all Americans.

Prof. Parker notes that “In fact, less than 2 percent of Americans make more than a quarter of a million dollars a year,” while Walsh uses my alleged error to insinuate (jokingly or not, I’m not sure) that I myself travel among the privileged:

I wish I hung with Cathy Young; her friends must be doing very, very well: In fact, less than 2 percent of Americans earn more than $250,000 a year, according to Factcheck.org.

(In the comments on Walsh’s article, someone charmingly suggested that 11% of those I consider “real people” make over $250,000 a year.)

In fact, I was not talking about the census figures, but about the ones in the New York Times/CBS poll, which I would think was clear from the wording.  And yes,  it’s right there in the poll (scroll down to the bottom of Page 41).  Which perhaps says something about poll’s validity, but nothing at all about the people I hang out with.

And I’ll start off with a follow-up to my recent Boston Globe column (April 14) on the new sexual misconduct policy at Duke University.  An excerpt:

The policy, introduced last fall but recently challenged by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, co-founded by Boston attorney Harvey Silverglate, targets “sexual misconduct’’ — everything from improper touching to forced sex. Some of the examples given in the text of the policy, such as groping an unwilling woman’s breasts, are clearly sexual offenses not just under university regulations but under the law.

But the policy’s far-reaching definition of sex without “affirmative consent’’ covers much more. Unlike the notorious Antioch College rules of the 1990s that required verbal consent to every new level of intimacy, Duke’s policy recognizes non-verbal expressions of consent. However, it stresses that “consent may not be inferred from silence [or] passivity’’ — even in an ongoing sexual relationship.

What’s more, consent can be invalidated by various circumstances — not just obvious ones such as being threatened or unconscious, but also being intoxicated to any degree, or “psychologically pressured,’’ or “coerced.’’ The latter is an extremely broad term, particularly since the policy warns that “real or perceived power differentials . . . may create an unintentional atmosphere of coercion.’’ As FIRE has noted, a popular varsity athlete may face a presumption of coercion in any relationship with a fellow student.

Meanwhile, women, the default victims in the Duke policy, are presumed passive and weak-minded: Goddess forbid they should take more than minimal responsibility for refusing unwanted sex. In one of the policy’s hypothetical scenarios, a woman tells her long-term boyfriend she’s not in the mood, but then “is silent’’ in response to his continued non-forcible advances; if he takes this as consent and they have sex, that is “sexual misconduct.’’ Why she doesn’t tell him to stop remains a mystery.

The man’s behavior may be inconsiderate. However, adult college students have no more of a right to be protected from such ordinary pressures in relationships than, say, from being cajoled into buying expensive gifts for their significant other.

On April 20, I received an email from my occasional sparring partner Barry, a.k.a. Ampersand, of Alas, a Blog.  Sayeth Barry (posted here with his kind permission):

Cathy, I have a question about your recent Globe column. Does Duke’s policy actually state, in any way, that women are the “default victims” in the policy?

The policy appears to be written in gender-neutral language, and the examples make it clear that both sexes can be either a victim or a rule-breaker under the policy. So what am I missing?

Excellent question.

First of all, while the text of the policy is officially gender-neutral, the policy requires the campus Women’s Center (along with the Office of Student Conduct) to be notified of all allegations of sexual misconduct.  (See this August 28, 2009 article in the Chronicle, the Duke daily newspaper.)  The involvement of the Women’s Center clearly suggests that the victims are generally presumed to be female.  The Women’s Center was also heavily involved in championing the new policy.

Secondly, is there anyone who really thinks that a man claiming to be a victim of sexual assault because he had sex with a woman while he was tipsy, or because the woman continued to come on to him after he told her he didn’t want to have sex, will be given serious consideration by a sexual misconduct review panel?  I find it very hard to imagine such a complaint eliciting anything but laughter, or perhaps the suspicion that the man is trying to make a political point.

That reminds me: Some years ago while researching an article on the date-rape controversy, I interviewed several people on various college campuses who had some connection to the handling of sexual assault policies and complaints — mostly university officials and counselors.  As a litmus test of sorts, I showed them an article someone had sent to me from a campus newspaper in which the author recounted an experience of “rape” by a girlfriend, consisting of non-forcible but persistent advances to which the author finally gave in.  (The girlfriend began to make sexual overtures after the author told her, while in bed together, that perhaps they should end the relationship.)   Rather to my dismay, almost every person I interviewed agreed that this story was in fact a rape.  (By contrast, every single person to whom I showed it outside academia thought it was ridiculous, and several thought it was a parody.)  The exception was one Women’s Center counselor who looked quite annoyed at first when she was reading the article, and made a comment about how the author was obviously trying to make a point.  Then, as she read on, her expression changed and she said, “Oh … it’s a woman.”  The author was indeed a woman; the counselor had mistakenly thought it was a man, and assumed that this man was trying to make the point that, by some current definitions of rape, women routinely rape men too.

It is also worth pointing out that when ostensibly gender-neutral domestic violence laws began to result in a steep rise in arrests of women, the reaction from most women’s advocates made it very clear that these laws were meant to target only men.  And not just advocates: the mainstream media, too, carried articles about domestic violence laws “backfiring” or having “unintended consequences.”

Finally, the examples used with the policy are revealing as well.   The example with a male victim and a female perpetrator involves clearly criminal behavior (posting online, without his consent, a video of them having sex).  It also involves actions pretty far outside the boundaries of socially accepted behavior.  The same is true of the female perpetrator/female victim scenario, in which a student in a lesbian relationship balks at going as far as oral sex and her girlfriend threatens to “out” her on the Internet if she does not comply.  (In this example, the perpetrator sounds downright psychotic.)  Of the two male perpetrator/female victim scenarios, one also involves criminal and (I hope) very atypical behavior (groping the woman’s breasts in public); but the other — the one I mentioned in my column — is indeed fairly ordinary behavior.  Thus, in the specific instance in which the policy criminalizes the kind of sex that the vast majority of people would consider consensual, it does use a male perpetrator/female victim scenario.

(Many thanks to Barry for pulling me out of my blogging retirement!)

Cheney (not that Cheney) slams Obama for supposedly too pro-Russian in his comments on the Cold War’s end in his speech at a Moscow university.  Here’s why I think she’s wrong (article on TNR.com’s The Plank).

The latest news:

Russia will not agree to tougher sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program in exchange for a new nuclear arms cuts deal with Washington, Interfax news agency quoted a foreign ministry source as saying Tuesday.

…

A Kremlin source told Reuters that the exchange of remarks over START and Iran did not indicate any change in the overall atmosphere of Russia-U.S. contacts.

Pretty much the textbook definition of business as usual.

In other, little-reported news, Medvedev reiterated right after the summit that Russia still plans to deploy (not-yet-existent) missiles in Kaliningrad if the U.S. goes ahead with the missile shield installations in Poland and the Czech Republic (plans that remain intact, though still under review for effectiveness, according to a July 10 briefing by Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Philip J. Crowley; see the video here at 13:26).

Of course, this renewed crude saber-rattling actually makes it harder for Obama administration to scrap those sites if the review finds them less than effective, because then Obama will be seen as giving in to Russian blackmail.  Of course, it’s entirely possible that the Kremlin junta, with its “foreign policy” of tantrums and grievances, would much rather have those missile defense installations in place and be able to scream about being threatened and disrespected by the Americans.

So much for the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

(Cross-posted to RealClearPolitics.com)

In a July 7 article on Grani.ru, Andrei Piontkovsky, one of the commentators who have warned most strongly about the possibility of a new war this summer, writes that he now believes the risk is considerably reduced.

Why?  For one thing, Piontkovsky (not a big Obama fan) thinks “Obama has done what he could,” both by bringing up Georgia during his Moscow visit — apparently in rather firm tones — and by sending Vice President Biden to Tbilisi.  (There’s a new function of the Veep role: a human shield!)

However, he believes the actions of another president — the president of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan — may have been even more important.

On June 26, an amazing event happened in Yerevan.  In the midst of the anti-Georgian bacchanal in all of the pro-Kremlin media, the president of Armenia, Russia’s only remaining ally not just in the Caucasus but in the entire post-Soviet space, solemnly and very publicly bestowed on Mikhail Saakasvili the highest Armenian state award – the Order of Honor.

Such things in the Caucasus are never accidental.  Serzh Sargsyan, who is in many ways dependent on Moscow, would have never permitted himself to simply taunt the Kremlin.  He would be risking too much for such a dubious pleasure.  It was a well-thought-out demonstration, a deliberate attempt to stop the madmen in Russia’s political and military leadership who were preparing for a second Georgian war, which would have been devastating to the entire Caucasus and to Russia.

It seems to me that this act probably affected our wannabe geopolitical strategists more than any other argument.  If they are losing even Armenia, what “zone of privileged interests” do they have left?  As if on command, the active phase of psychological preparation for the war – the articles and interviews of the Dugins and the Dorenkos about the inevitability of a Georgian attack on Russia – came to a halt.

More here on the award to Saakashvili and his trip to Armenia, and some reactions from Russia.

(By the way, the title of this post is an obscure pun.)

However, this, from Andrew Sullivan (on top of the never-ending flogging of Trig Palin conspiracy theories), is outrageous.  I saw the reference to the “white trash concupiscence” Palin-slam in Douthat’s column and wondered who could have written that. Despite my knowledge of Andrew’s raging PDS, I was shocked.  And saddened, because I used to quite like Andrew’s blog (and have not forgotten that he was the first to link to mine when I started it).  I fully intend for this to be my last visit to The Daily Dish, and I have to say that at this point, if someone started a campaign to get The Atlantic website to drop Andrew, I’d back it.  Imagine the reaction if a journalist/blogger writing about a black politician referred to “ghetto concupiscence”, without even using the word “black.”

And she’s not nearly as much a victim of the “liberal media” as her defenders make her out to be (at least if we’re talking about the mainstream media; there has been some incredible nastiness on left-wing blogs, though at least no one that I know of tried to claim that she left a trail of bodies in her wake).  About the mockery of her religion: yes, it was suggested with no real evidence that she believes the dinosaurs lived 5,000 years ago (it’s actually unknown whether she’s a creationist or not; she does support the teaching of both “intelligent design” and evolution in public schools).  However, I do think she got off rather easy on her connection to a witch-hunting African pastor (I suspect for two reasons: one, bringing up a wacko pastor connection would have inevitably called up the ghost of Jeremiah Wright; two, it might have seemed somewhat un-PC to make too much fun of a crazy pastor from Africa and his looney medieval beliefs).

Is it possible that in a few years Palin will reinvent herself as a brilliant candidate?  Perhaps; F. Scott Fitzgerald notwithstanding, there are second acts in American life.  But it would have to be one hell of a second act.  And if it is, I’ll gladly eat my words.  As I said in the article, and in other venues, I think there is definitely a place and a need for a conservative/libertarian/individualist feminsm that embraces female strength, femininity, family, and small government — and for the kind of female leadership Palin could have provided if she had lived up to her billing.

The Obama Putin breakfast meal was served indoors on an open terrace, with some tables covered with blue, white and red tablecloths in the style of classic Pavlovsky Posad shawls.

The menu included smoked sturgeon with pancakes and cranberry sauce, eggs with black caviar and sour cream, and quail pelmeni, Russian dumplings filled with minced meat.

Homemade ice-cream and cherry kisel, a sweet sauce, were served for dessert.

Obama also got the opportunity to drink tea made from water boiled in a samovar, a traditional Russian boiler containing hot coals. A waiter in national dress, including a red embroidered tunic, used a leather riding boot to fan air through the coals to boil the water.

A folk ensemble played traditional Russian songs during the breakfast.

There’s kitsch, and … there’s this.

Words fail.

It includes 13 working groups headed by corresponding high-level Russian and American officials (e.g., Health: Tatyana A. Golikova, Minister of Health, and Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services).   One of the pairs is rather eyebrow-raising (brought to my attention by Dmitry Sidorov, the Washington, DC correspondent for Kommersant, writing on EJ.ru):

Civil Society: Vladislav Surkov, First Deputy Chief of Staff, Presidential Administration, and Michael McFaul, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russia , National Security Council

Say it ain’t so!  On one side, Michael McFaul, a strong opponent of Russian authoritarianism, a champion of the “color revolutions,” a passionate believer in democracy who takes pride in having been a part of Russia’s democracy movement in the 1980s and ’90s.  On the other side, Vladislav Surkov, the Kremlin’s Putin-era ideological enforcer, creator of the term “sovereign democracy” (which seems to be shorthand for “we’ll define democracy as we damn well please, and everyone else should keep their nose out of our business”) and of Nashi, the thuggish “youth movement” launched with the express purpose of thwarting grass-roots democratic activism of the kind that brought about Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution”).  The same Surkov who just recently rejected the idea that the crisis should be an incentive for the Kremlin to loosen its iron grip on political life within Russia.

Putting Surkov at the head of a commission on the civil society is a bit like putting Bernie Madoff at the head of a commission on business ethics.  Or Britney Spears at the head of a commission on marriage and the family.

At Obama’s meeting with the Russian opposition today, according to Grani.ru (in Russian), Sergei Mitrokhin of the semi-loyalist Yabloko opined that “Russian-American relations must be developed in such a way as to involve the Russian political and military elite into common projects, which will contribute to the development of democracy in our country.”  If that’s the idea here, the notion of McFaul trying to teach Surkov democracy is darkly hilarious.

Later, at the Russian-American NGO forum where Obama appeared for about half an hour, Russian participants including veteran human rights activists Ludmilla Alexeyeva, Lev Ponomarev, and Sergei Kovalev asked Obama to replace Surkov.  That, of course, would be quite a slap in the face to the Russians; it will be interesting to see how this impasse will be managed.  One has to wonder what McFaul, also present at the forum, was thinking — he must have seen the makeup of the commission ahead of time.

Kommersant‘s Sidorov believes that the Surkov appointment signifies “the triumph of ‘realism’ and, simultaneously, the rejection of the principle of support for democratic transformation and civil society in other countries.”  I hope he’s wrong.  Nonetheless, it is a rather alarming choice, seriously at odds with Obama’s pro-democracy statements in his Moscow speech.