Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 1014

Republicans Are Rushing to Remind You That Hillary Clinton Is Old

It's no secret Republicans are worried about Hillary Clinton earning the 2016 Democratic nomination and steamrolling the fresh-faced crop of candidates they have lined up, so it's no surprise that Republicans are already reminding everyone that she is, in fact, quite old. Yes, that's the latest Republican strategy against Hillary Clinton's oft-theorized Presidential run. 

"The 2016 election may be far off, but one theme is becoming clear: Republican strategists and presidential hopefuls, in ways subtle and overt, are eager to focus a spotlight on Mrs. Clinton’s age," writes The New York Times' Jonathan Martin. Everyone from Mitch McConnell to Scott Walker to Stuart Stevens, Mitt Romney's old lieutenant, have gone out of their way to remind crowds recently that Clinton is 65 years old right now. By the time 2016 rolls around, she'll be 70 years old. That's so many years old. And when you compare Clinton's age to the relatively ripe crop of stars expected to contend for the Republican nomination -- Bobby Jindal (42); Marco Rubio (42); Walker (45); Rand Paul (50); Chris Christie (50) -- well, the Republicans kind of have a point. 

It's not the first time Clinton has faced an attack over her age, either. She's been called wrinkly and dowdy by the Republican press in the past. Her pantsuits -- those precious pantsuits! -- have been the target of Republican criticisms before. They've drawn attention to Clinton's wrinkles and crevices, her needing a rest, while she was flying across the world, leaning in and having it all as Secretary of State. 

Now you're probably thinking, this is all a little rich, no? It was only last year that Barack Obama, 51 years young, soundly defeated the card carrying senior citizen Mitt Romney. Four years before, it was hope-y, change-y 46-year-old Obama who took out the balding, white-haired John McCain.

Update: The Atlantic Wire's Philip Bump prepared this graph showing the age of each Republican nominee in the last 20 years, along with Clinton in 2016. Bush was by far the youngest of the bunch: 

The script has flipped just so in the intervening years. The Republicans were regrouping and looking young while the Democrats were waiting on the older, experienced powerhouse waiting in the wings. But, perhaps in the most ironic twist, this "you're old" strategy is exactly what Bill Clinton used when he was elected President, too: 

A yesterday-versus-tomorrow argument against a woman who could be the last major-party presidential nominee from the onset of the baby boom generation would be a historically rich turnabout. It was Mrs. Clinton’s husband, then a 46-year-old Arkansas governor, who in 1992 put a fellow young Southerner on the Democratic ticket and implicitly cast the first President George Bush as a cold war relic, ill equipped to address the challenges of a new day. Mr. Clinton then did much the same to Bob Dole, a former senator and World War II veteran, in 1996.

So you can't say the tactic isn't tried and true. But it all adds up to a full course of obstacles facing Clinton heading into 2016. Besides attempting to become the first woman elected President, Clinton will have to overcome being old and, as The Atlantic Wire's Elspeth Reeve explained, quite short. The diminutive Clinton is an inch shorter than Rand Paul, the shortest of the Republican candidates, and America historically does not elect short people. She does have one advantage, though: her hair and heels give her the inches to play on an equal field with Christie, her tallest potential foe. 

       

Millions in Donations Divided Among Boston Marathon Victims

Starting this weekend, One Fund Boston, the charity established in the wake of the Boston Marathon attacks, will be distributing millions of dollars between some victims who were injured or killed that day. Administrator Kenneth Feinberg announced Saturday that the victims' fund will start dividing the total $60,952,000 raised into cash awards and delivering them as early as Sunday. The charity, started by Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Governor Deval Patrick after the bombings, will be giving cash awards to 232 victims. Every person chosen to receive a cash settlement was vetted by the fund's administrators to avoid fraudulent claims. 

The biggest payments -- $2.2 million each -- are going to two double amputees and the families of the four people slain in the marathon bombings and the pursuit of alleged bombers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Fourteen people who lost single limbs will receive $1.2 million. The rest of the fund is divided according to the length of a victims' hospital stay. The CBS Boston affiliate has the best breakdown of how the funds will be distributed: 

• Six people who either had family members killed in the blasts, lost multiple limbs or suffered permanent brain damage would each be receiving $2,195,000.

• An additional 14 people who lost limbs would receive $1,195,000.

• Remaining funds were broken down by length of hospital stay. A total of 69 people spent at least one night in the hospital as a result of the bombings. Funds were broken down accordingly:
• $948,300 for 32 or more overnights
• $735,000 for 24-31 overnights
• $580,000 for 16-23 overnights
• $480,000 for 8-15 overnights
• $275,000 for 3-7 overnights
• $125,000 for 1-2 overnights

• The remaining 143 victims were treated on an emergency outpatient basis. Each will receive $8,000.

The charity exceeded their initial expectations by miles. In the very immediate wake of the attack, the different causes raising money for Marathon victims were being grossly surpassed by the Veronica Mars movie. Thankfully America bonded to put that movie shame. But the organizers admitted this money would do little to recoup the real loss suffered from the attacks. "No amount of money can replace what has been lost," Feinberg said in the group's press release. "It was a solemn responsibility to allocate these finite contributions across tremendous pain and suffering, but it was made lighter by the unprecedented generosity of Bostonians, of Americans, and of people around the world." 

       

Is Fox Trying to Steal John Mulaney from NBC?

The very popular comedian John Mulaney has spent most of his brilliant television career within the NBC universe, but that could be changing very soon. Mulaney might be taking his talents over to Fox. Deadline's Nellie Andreeva reports the multi-camera sitcom, Mulaney, written by Mulaney with Lorne Michaels as executive producer may end up airing on Fox instead of NBC. The network has ordered a script rewrite and, depending on how good the new treatment is, may order six episodes. Mulaney and Martin Short are the only members of the original pilot's strong cast signed on to continue so far. Whether Michaels, another NBC stalwart, would continue as producer is also a question. 

The show, loosely based on Mulaney's life, originally earned a pilot order from NBC to some fanfare. But the peacock passed on it last month. The move by NBC baffled most considering the pedigree behind the project. Besides Mulaney and Short, the cast was rounded out by bold-faced names like Elliot Gould and Saturday Night Live's Nasim Pedrad. With names like that involved, the expectations for the show were pretty high. But NBC decided not to pick up Mulaney for whatever reason and now one of the hottest comedy free agents might be going to a rival network. 

Mulaney cut his television teeth at NBC's Saturday Night Live and many expected him to return to the show sooner than later. As an established former SNL writer, and one of the co-creators of Stefon, Mulaney was seen by many as the most obvious choice to replace Seth Meyers as SNL's head writer when Meyers graduates to hosting Late Night in January. Some theorized that NBC passed on Mulaney's pilot because they wanted him to take Meyers' place as head writer and Weekend Update host next year. "[Mulaney] didn’t get a series order, which could be the best thing to happen to SNL," Variety's Andrew Wallenstein wrote at the end of SNL's last season. A rumor started on Tumblr that Mulaney was already named head writer proved to not be true, despite the excitement it produced. 

Mulaney also would have been another feather in Michaels' growing comedy cap at NBC, too. With Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show, Late Night and, potentially, Mulaney, Michaels was positioning himself as a major powerbroker within the Rockefeller Center halls. (Now Michaels only has the three most prestigious properties in late night TV, so he's doing OK.)

       

Joe Biden Is on Edward Snowden's Case

Up until this point, the search for Edward Snoden has been carried out behind the scenes by low-level diplomats and CIA agents. But things have changed within the last 24 hours, apparently, because the Vice President is the one making the calls now. 

A phone call has taken place between Vice President Joe Biden and Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa about that pesky former National Security Agency contractor, Edward Snowden, who leaked all those surveillance secrets, still holed up in the transit area at Sheremetyevo airport, according to Russian officials. The Vice President requested Ecuador not grant Snowden asylum. 

The White House was mum to speak about what was discussed beyond the obvious. "They engaged in a broad conversation on the bilateral relationship. They did discuss Snowden," Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security advisor, told NBC News. 

But Correa was much more open about what transpired during the call. He admitted that Biden asked his country not to house the fugitive leaker during the "cordial" telephone call. "He communicated a very courteous request from the United States that we reject the (asylum) request," Correa said during his weekly televised speech. Correa criticized the "brats" in Congress who threatened trade sanctions should Ecuador not comply while praising Biden's good manners. He also stressed that no decision could be made until Snowden arrives on Ecuadorian soil or inside one of its embassies. "When he (Snowden) arrives on Ecuadorian soil, if he arrives ... of course the first opinions we will seek are those of the United States," Correa said.

Whether this call occurred before or after Correa halted Snowden's special travel request because the U.S. embassy said it appeared Jullian Assange is "running the show" is unclear. We don't know when the phone call actually took place. We know what was said by who, and that Biden "initiated" the call. Any details beyond that are a mystery. 

But now we know why the President said he wouldn't be scrambling any jets to get Snowden: because he was putting Joe Biden on the case. The Vice President is the new thorn in Showden's side, and this call is the highest level talks between the U.S. and Ecuador since the stalemate over Snowden began. 

       

So, How Does Everyone Feel About This New Digg Reader?

A few days behind schedule, but still before deadline, Digg's much-hyped new RSS reader finally opened to the public on Friday night. So now everyone from the tech press and early adopters to regular Joes have used the Google Reader replacement from the Betaworks team, and, strangely, the reviews are mixed.

The Digg team announced the official public opening of Digg reader in a blog post on Friday. "After a week of testing and scaling, adding batches of users and improving our infrastructure, we’re happy to fully open Digg Reader to the public!" the post reads. The launch was expected to come on Wednesday, June 26, so the Digg team was slightly behind. But considering they built the entire thing in under 90 days, racing to complete a workable product before Google Reader's July 1 shutdown deadline, the public was willing to grant them an extension. 

Tech reporters got their hands on beta invites earlier this week and lots and lots of early, bug-filled reviews followed. For the most part, the professional arbiters of tech taste agreed Digg's rushed reader was a step in the right direction, but it ultimately falls short of being the savior from Google's demise that many hoped it would be. "It’s impressive that Digg was able to produce a functional Google Reader alternative in such a short amount of time, but the service, as it stands today, is not a replacement for Google’s product," writes TechCrunch's Sarah Lacy. "In order to get feed reader to the point of launch, other features had to be sacrificed," she adds.

That lack of features seems to be Digg Reader's downfall according to the critical consensus. Many will urge people looking to replace Google Reader to stick with some of the other RSS options out there. "The Digg Reader web app currently lacks the robust feature set of rivals such as Feedly or Newsblur. But, the service is simple, intuitive, and not set to be killed off anytime soon as Google Reader is as of July 1st," The Verge's Nathan Olivarez-Giles writes. For now. "It's still missing some key functionality—search function, tagging, other service integration—but for something that's only 90 days old, it's hard to argue with the results," says Popular Mechanics' Darren Orf.

But perhaps Digg Reader's best quality is that it exists at all. "Where Google set us adrift, Digg threw us a life-preserver. While it's exciting to see what the future might hold, right now, it's nice enough just to have our heads above water," writes Gizmodo's Mario Aguilar. 

Now that the product is out in the world the common people have had a change to weigh in. While the gadget and software world's illuminati may not be bullish on the new product, the plebes are, if only because it's so darn nice to look at. "Oooh, Digg Reader looks good," said one new user. "Digg Reader went live today as a replacement for Google Reader and it looks pretty," said another. "I like the dots indicating popularity in Digg Reader," chimed Quartz's Zach Seward. 

Others are infatuated if not blown away by the service. "I guess Digg Reader will be my replacement for Google Reader, so congrats or whatever," said one enthusiastic reviewer. "The new Digg reader is live. It's not amazing, but it is simple and usable and imports all your old Reader stuff," added another satisfied new customer. 

The new product is still under construction and will have more new features -- including all the ones people complained were missing -- at some point in the coming days, weeks and months. But people seem thankful they have an easy to use, stripped down replacement for Google Reader at all. It came in under the wire, and it didn't wow people, but that Digg Reader exists is, in itself, an accomplishment. Now they just need to finish building it. 

       

Why Can't Danica Patrick Have It All?

Danica Patrick has been driving race cars very fast and competing and beating the boys for years now. And yet, there are still some members of the racing establishment trying to bring her down. The first (and only) female NASCAR came under fire this week for, well, for being a woman. 

Kyle Petty has a long resume in the racing world. He had a long career in NASCAR, currently works as an analyst on Fox Sports and TNT, and his dad is the seven-time champion Richard Petty. He is as racing establishment as they come. For some reason, Petty decided to give his opinion of Patrick during a Thursday broadcast of Speed TV's NASCAR Race Hub:

"Danica has been the perfect example of somebody who can qualify better than what she runs," Petty said. "She can go fast, but she can't race. I think she's come a long way, but she's still not a race car driver. And I don't think she's ever going to be a race car driver."

The 31-year-old Patrick started racing Indy Car in 2005 and has since made the difficult jump to NASCAR. She has struggled to break through the male-dominated world of NASCAR while posting some respectable finishes during her very short, very difficult racing career. This year, she's participating in her first full season in NASCAR's premier Sprint Cup Series. It's true that she has not found immediate, headline worthy success while competing at her sport's most difficult level with the best drivers in the U.S. No one is debating that fact. 

For Petty to insinuate that Patrick can't race is preposterous, especially when you consider that Patrick is already on track to accomplish as much or more in her short time racing as Petty did during his entire career. Jalopnik's Travis Okulski highlighted how ridiculous Petty's comments are once you stack their resumes side by side: 

In her first full season of Sprint Cup and after 26 total races, Danica has one pole position, one top 10 finish and three top 20s. She sits 27th in points.

[...]

Kyle, a real racing driver who ran his final full Sprint Cup season in 2006, finished 27th or worse in the standings in nine of his 12 final full seasons in Sprint Cup racing. He also scored 0 poles (that's a big huevo) in his first 243 races run over 10 years. A real racing driver like Kyle knows to let the veterans get poles for the first decade in the sport. Danica, who isn't a real racing driver, got pole in her first start as a full time driver.

Okulski also goes on to explain how Patrick accomplished much more during her career in the lesser levels of NASCAR competition than Petty ever did. For Petty, racing NASCAR wasn't an accomplishment he worked to earn so much as something he was born into. That last name is hard to ignore. Patrick's response to yet another man saying she has no right to be on the race track was a beautiful example of how every woman should respond to a dude telling them they aren't qualified for their job. 

"I really don't care," Patrick said during a Friday press conference. "There's going to be people who believe in you and people who don't. Plenty of people say bad things about me. I see it on Twitter. Some people want me to die. But at the end of the day, you get over that stuff and trust you're doing a good job for the people who believe in you."

Patrick has faced this kind of criticism since she started racing professionally in 2005. For her, hearing that she's not a race car driver is an unfortunate regular occurrence in the male-dominated world of racing. The only reason it made headlines this time is because Kyle Petty was the critic, and Kyle Petty is Richard Petty's son. But, as the LA Times' Jim Peltz explains, the haters can crow all they want but it's not going to change much: 

She's right -- and in some ways it's irrelevant whether she ever does or doesn't. Her team and her corporate sponsors are glad to have her. So is NASCAR. Patrick has a lot of fans. She'll go on making millions of dollars a year regardless of whether she cracks the top 10 in points or even becomes the first woman to win a Cup race.

Patrick is here to stay, win, push the sport and make money. You'll have to learn to deal with it. 

       

An American Student Was Stabbed During Protests in Egypt

[image error]An American was killed for taking pictures during protests that are sweeping Egypt and threatening to boil over ahead of President Mohammad Morsi's one-year election anniversary. Andrew Pochter was a 21-year-old college student visiting Egypt for an internship to teach seven and eight-year-olds how to speak English for the nonprofit group Amideast.

According to The New York Times and Al Jazeera, officials said Pochter was stabbed by a protestor while taking pictures of the clashes near Alexandria's Muslim Brotherhood headquarters, which had just been set on fire. He was going to return to Gambier, Ohio for his junior year at Kenyon College at the end of the summer. Tens of thousands of protestors clashed Friday in Alexandria as tensions are climbing ahead a mass demonstration planned for Sunday protesting Morsi's first full year in office. Opposition and pro-Morsi protestors turned violent in the first major unrest before the weekend's big opposition protest. Hundreds were injured and eight killed, including an Egyptian journalist, during Friday's clashes, and the violence is expected to continue over the weekend. 

Pochter's  family posted this moving statement to a Facebook page set up in his memory: 

 "Our beloved 21 year old son and brother Andrew Driscoll Pochter went to Alexandria for the summer, to teach English to 7 and 8 year old Egyptian children and to improve his Arabic. He was looking forward to returning to Kenyon College for his junior year and to spending his spring semester in Jordan. As we understand it, he was witnessing the protest as a bystander and was stabbed by a protester. He went to Egypt because he cared profoundly about the Middle East, and he planned to live and work there in the pursuit of peace and understanding. Andrew was a wonderful young man looking for new experiences in the world and finding ways to share his talents while he learned. Andrew cared deeply about his family and his friends. We won't have any further comment and ask for privacy now at this difficult time for the family."

The President responded to Pochter's death and the growing instability in Egypt during his tour of Africa on Satruday, ahead of his visit with Nelson Mandela's family. Obama said he was "looking at the situation with concern" and urged the country to denounce violence and participate in constructive conversation. "We'd like to see the opposition and President Mursi engage in a more constructive conversation about how they move their country forward because nobody is benefiting from the current stalemate,'" he said. The State Department also pulled non-essential employees out of their outposts and issued a travel advisory for the region. 

       

Obama Paid His Respects to the Mandela Family

President Obama carved out some time on his busy tour of Africa to meet with members of Nelson Mandela's family as the the 94-year-old former president of South Africa and civil rights leader is fighting for his life. Mandela is still in critical condition and seeking treatment at a hospital in Pretoria. Things are tense in South Africa as South African President Jacob Zuma and Mandela's own daughter have made it clear these may be Madiba's last days. (Mandela is fondly known as Madiba by South Africans and his supporters.) 

Obama had a very private meeting with Mandela's two daughters and eight grandchildren at the Mandela Centre of Memory in Johannesburg, which is part of Mandela's foundation. The President also spoke with Graça Machel, Mandela's wife, by phone. "I expressed my hope that Madiba draws peace and comfort from the time that he is spending with loved ones," the President said afterwards. Machel is by her husband's side at the hospital.

Machel thanked the President for his kind words during this obviously very difficult time. "I am humbled by [Obama family's] comfort and messages of strength and inspiration which I have already conveyed to Madiba," Machel said. The president chose not to see Mandela in person in accordance with the family's wishes. The vigil outside of the hospital has drawn huge crowds and has overshadowed Obama's three-day visit to South Africa. 

       

Just Like That, Gay Marriage Is Once Again Legal in California

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has lifted its order putting on hold a state court ruling determining that Prop 8 is unconstitutional. Or, in other words: thanks to the Supreme Court throwing out a challenge to the decision earlier this week, Judge Vaughn Walker's 2010 determination that the law barring gay marriages in the state violated California's constitution is now in force.

"The stay in the above matter is dissolved effective immediately," the Court wrote. With that, and a bit ahead of schedule, gay marriage is once again legal in California.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

A spokesman for the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had originally said it would takes the court at least 25 days to act after a Supreme Court ruling. Immediately afterward, Gov. Jerry Brown ordered his public health agency to advise the state's counties to "begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in California as soon as the 9th Circuit confirms the stay is lifted."

With the order today, which can be read in all of its brevity below, that process is now complete. The AP reports that "the state is required to issue licenses to gay couples starting immediately" —  just in time for Pride Weekend.

Appropriately enough, it looks like one of the first couples to be married are Kristin Perry and Sandra Stier, the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case. California Attorney General Kamala Harris will do the honors.

CA AG Kamala Harris about to marry Berkeley plaintiffs in Prop 8 case. #BREAKING #Prop8 @KTVU pic.twitter.com/qjzo7pFbh5

— David Stevenson (@DStevensonKTVU) June 28, 2013

The Times notes that "clerks began receiving calls Wednesday from gay couples wanting to schedule appointments." Expect lines out the door Monday morning.

Photo: San Francisco City Hall last night. (AP)

       

How 'Bridesmaids' Brought 'The Heat'

[image error]The Heat will not get as rapturous reveiws as Bridesmaids, nor will it be considered as revolutionary, but it's actually a sly advancement for women in comedy as a film that, if you look hard enough, busts down some pretty big doors. 

As different as the two films are — Melissa McCarthy and director Paul Feig aside — it's hard not to think of The Heat as a direct descendant of Bridesmaids, which, to hear many movie pundits tell it, finally proved that women could be funny and sell lots of movie tickets. 

Bridesmaids was supposed to revolutionize the movie landscape, but that didn't quite happen. "Look back to Bridesmaids," veteran film producer Lynda Obst told Kevin Fallon of The Daily Beast. "It was really funny and did well internationally and created new stars. It proved that there was a female market. Instead, the story became that the movie overperformed. Like 50,000 scripts turned up on managers’ desks for two weeks, but no one was willing to take a shot on them."

Now, The Heat is spurring its own trend pieces, most of them wondering if the movie will open the door to more female buddy comedies. Martha Lauzen of San Diego State University's Center for the Study of Women in Television & Film told The Atlantic Wire that the more apt metaphor for films like these is that they "inch open the door but they don’t throw it wide open." And yet, while The Heat may not be as zeitgeist-y as Bridesmaids, Feig has —thanks to, in no small part, his writer Katie Dippold—made a film that is a step forward for women on the big screen from even that original effort.  

Feig knows he's got a lot of people watching him in these efforts. In promoting The Heat, Feig has become a one-man army advocating for women on film, particularly in comedy. He has enough quotes on the matter to fill up a Huffington Post listicle, and he even wrote a column for The Hollywood Reporter back in May explaining "Why Men Aren't Funny" in a clever rebuff of Christopher Hitchens' infamous Vanity Fair piece. Not satisfied with just these two films, he's next working on a female spy movie, which is billed by The Wrap as a "realistic" James Bond type comedy, not a Get Smart-esque parody. 

Bridesmaids was also not a parody, even though it took some romantic comedy tropes and turned them on their heads. The wedding plot was simply a way to tell a story about friendship and life. It also was a good vehicle for raunchy, gross-out comedy. Still, Bridesmaids is about women in the feminine world of weddings. It got knocked even for the fact that Kristen Wiig's lead character was a baker, in what seemed like a frustrating embrace of feminine cliché. The Heat is about women in the male world of law enforcement, and as tough, aggressive, and violent women in law enforcement, Ashley Fetters at The Atlantic calls their characters "subtly radical." The Heat—in a slightly subversive way—deals directly with the way women are treated by men in the workplace. One character, an albino DEA agent played by Dan Bakkedahl is explicitly misogynistic, loudly complaining about how women act with their "emotions" and how their "estrogen" messes things up. He immediately becomes the film's suspected villain.

We don't want to overstate the role of this conversation in the film. As Linda Holmes writes at NPR, The Heat succeeds because of its "delightful combination of self-awareness about the fact that it's a rare buddy-cop movie about women and total commitment to being a buddy-cop movie, not a female-buddy-cop movie." But The Heat is also something of a metaphor for the entertainment industry in a way Bridesmaids never was. (It should be noted, though, that Bridesmaids is a great movie whose importance should not be understated.) The way its heroes Mullins and Ashburn take down the (male) bad guys is tantamount to the way the movie itself hopes to take down the male-centric movies at the box office, which has been dominated by (so-called) supermen this summer. Just look at the film's climactic moment, in which (spoiler alert) a villain gets shot in the dick. If that's not symbolic, we don't know what is.