Day: March 16, 2008

Dr. Laura Blames Silda Spitzer for Eliot’s Prediliction for Prostitutes

Jon Ponder

Last week, Laura Schlessinger showed us again what a PhD in physiology has taught her about what makes people tick. Here is her take on what drove former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer to cheat on his wife, Silda, with high-priced hookers:

“When the wife does not focus in on the needs and the feelings, sexually, personally, to make him feel like a man, to make him feel like a success, to make him feel like her hero, he’s very susceptible to the charm of some other woman making him feel what he needs” the popular psychologist and radio personality said.

Schlessinger admitted she was speaking from ignorance: “I do not know anything about their personal lives,” she said, but she insisted that when men cheat it is because their needs are not being met:

“The cheating was his decision to repair what’s damaged and to feed himself where he’s starving,” Schlessinger replied. “But, yes, I hold women responsible for tossing out perfectly good men by not treating them with the love and kindness and respect and attention they need.”

If she can make shoddy analyses based on nothing more than a hunch, so can I: Sounds like Laura Schlessinger may be projecting. We can only wonder what needs she was trying to meet in 1975, for example, when she agreed to pose topless for her boyfriend, Bill Balance.

A more realistic view is that while some men stray because they and their partners have grown incompatible, perhaps about a third of the species just can’t keep their jimmies in their pants. The “needs” of these guys, the Hugh Hefners of the world, are insatiable. They are hard-wired to seek greener pastures, no matter how lovely the yard they’re in may be. The fact that so many of these men are rich and powerful is incidental. The fact that the divorce rate hovers around 50 percent (and is even a bit higher among evangelical Christians) is strong circumstantial that hound-dogging is a common practice up and down the social strata — from auto mechanics, plumbers and dry-wallers to doctors, lawyers and accountants, and governors, senators, presidents and kings — and even the occasional preacher.

To blame the women these “womanizers” marry for not being able to quench their unquenchable needs is just the sort of crackpot shame-centered analysis that has made Dr. Schlessinger a national laughing stock.

Bush Fails First, Then Rice. Now It’s Cheney’s Turn to Make Things Worse in the Middle East

Trish

People who know about this stuff don’t expect much from Dick Cheney’s trip to the Middle East.

Cheney will reinforce the message from visits by President George W. Bush in January and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice earlier this month, in a stepped-up diplomatic push for Israelis and Palestinians to move forward on peace efforts dealt a blow by violence in Gaza and Israel.

Analyst: “He’s got nothing to offer. He represents a lame duck president, a floundering economy, a situation in which the U.S. for all its efforts in Iraq has no leverage on the government in Baghdad.”

“The mood has deteriorated incredibly in the last six weeks since the president was there,” Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said.

“From the outside it’s very hard to see that Secretary Rice was able to even arrest the slide let alone get things moving forward. My guess is the vice president will be able to arrest the slide if not necessarily put things on track,” he said.

Let’s be honest. Our interest in the Middle East isn’t about justice in Israel, for either the Israelis or the Palestinians. It is, and always has been, about one thing.

“I’m not sure he’ll seek anything more than a good and thorough discussion about the current situation in the global energy markets,” a senior administration official said.

That’s right, the big O: oil. After all, what else besides the subject of his past, current, and future business interests does Cheney have to talk about?

“I don’t think that he’s going to be able to bring back anything meaningful because he’s got nothing to offer,” Steven Simon, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said.

“He represents a lame duck president, a floundering economy, a situation in which the U.S. for all its efforts in Iraq has no leverage on the government in Baghdad,” Simon said.

Prediction: Florida Re-Vote Would Mirror Iowa Primary

Trish

I think the same thing that happened in Iowa on Saturday — Obama taking the delegates originally won by John Edwards, plus a few more that have grown disenchanted with Clinton — would happen if Florida Democrats were to mail it in.

The Iowa primary (as distinguished from the caucuses held first) showed how things have changed since January.

Obama’s gains at Saturday’s county conventions came from successfully wooing Iowa Democratic Party activists who had previously backed former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., as well as picking up the support of some Iowans who had backed Clinton during the Jan. 3rd precinct caucuses.

As a result of Saturday’s county conventions, Obama gained nine delegates, Clinton lost one, and Edwards lost eight delegates. Moving up by nine while Clinton moved down by one gave Obama a net gain of 10 over his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Florida Democrats, if anyone still remembers, went for Clinton at 50 percent, Obama, 33 percent, Edwards, 14 percent, and everybody else, 1 percent. I can’t see Edwards voters (like me) going over to Clinton in any great number but I can see former Clinton-neutrals falling into the Clinton-ick category. I can also see some Clinton supportors becoming Clinton never-minders. Hillary is trying so hard to preserve the January Florida vote because she thinks the same thing.

And Iowa’s primary results don’t help her.

To highlight the significance of Obama netting 10 delegates at Saturday’s low-profile Iowa county conventions, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe issued a statement juxtaposing it with Clinton’s high-profile win earlier this month in Ohio’s primary.

“With all of the results in,” said Plouffe in a statement whose accuracy was confirmed by the Iowa Democratic Party, “Sen. Obama earned 25 delegates, while Sen. Clinton earned 14. Sen. Obama netted 10 delegates tonight.”

“For comparison purposes,” he added, “Sen. Clinton netted nine delegates in Ohio” by winning that state’s primary on March 4.

So, with Iowa, the latest delegate count is:

Clinton Obama
Delegates 1,240 1,407
Superdelegates 245 207
TOTAL 1,485 1,614

A total of 2,025 delegates is needed for the nomination to avoid a brokered convention (one where superdelegates would have to step in).