Beth Arnold

Obama: Even the Conservatives' Right Choice

This column first appeared on HuffingtonPost.com. Comments not included here.

by Beth Arnold

To follow along with James Carville's Biblical imagery, Barack Obama has parted the Presidential Red Sea to lead even principled Republican conservatives to the Obama Land of unifying and transforming America. In the March 24th issue of The American Conservative, Andrew J. Bacevich writes a clear and persuasive argument for his readership's voting for the Illinois senator called "The Right Choice? The conservative case for Barack Obama."

This is a must read. Among other satisfying points, he slams George W. and his policies and repudiates John McCain as the next president. Here are some clips of the piece:

    ...For conservatives to hope the election of yet another Republican will set things right is surely in vain. To believe that President John McCain will reduce the scope and intrusiveness of federal authority, cut the imperial presidency down to size, and put the government on a pay-as-you-go basis is to succumb to a great delusion. The Republican establishment may maintain the pretense of opposing Big Government, but pretense it is....
   

Vlaminck at the Luxembourg Museum

His confident brush strokes of pure and intense color made our hearts beat faster as we paid glad homage to his  style.  Maurice de Vlaminck was one of the Fauves that my husband, Jim, and I had come to know better in our chase for Matisse.  Last week when daughter Blair was visiting, we made our way though the crowd who had also come to pay their regards and consider Vlaminck's work.  We ogled the paintings together -- especially those of the Fauvist period -- which were our favorites of the show.

I recommend getting your tickets on the website so as not to stand in 
line outside.

A Rose of A Lettuce

At the Montmartre Market: This exquisite head of lettuce was displayed on the vendor's table like the prize that it was, an edible work of art. Our daughter, Blair, was visiting from San Francisco, and she and I oohed and ahed over the celadon green and blood red spattered leaves.  But when the vendor told us the price for a handful of Bio greens and two violet artichokes--35 Euros--we left them on his stand!  He wasn't happy and neither were we.

Can you imagine it on a plate?

Hillary's Balkan Adventures, Part II

For anyone who hasn't seen it,  the Washington Post piece with the checked facts of Hillary's Bosnia "story" is here. 

This is another example of the exaggerated to (in some cases) nonexistant experience Hillary claims.  Didn't she get that lying is wrong through her Midwestern home training? 

Why did she put herself in this position--and why this?  To prove that she's a tough broad?  Who doubts that!

Why would Hillary take her daughter to a War Zone, where her only child's life was in real danger? No one has ever said Hillary was a reckless mother.  She was a very thoughtful and careful mother.

Check out the real story--the one she didn't tell--and here's a video:

Outside Versailles

Ponder the symbolism.

Photo by Carlyn Snell

Easter in Paris

This column first appeared on Huffington Post.com.  Comments not included here.

By Beth Arnold

It's a beautiful though cold day in Paris.  The sky is blue with white puffy clouds floating high above us. The Sunday market on rue Montmartre is buzzing, as usual, with us and our neighbors choosing choice fish and meat, breads and cakes, beautiful crisp vegetables, bottles of wine, and other treats.

Easter and the beginning of Spring always feel hopeful to me. The new growth of a year buds its baby green, and I feel reborn. Governor Bill Richardson was joyful in his endorsement of Obama this week. It was obvious he felt that he'd done the right thing.

I, too, feel that Obama is a "once-in-a-lifetime leader," and like other progressives, I'm excited to be a part of this movement of change. Of course, the Clintons and their henchmen struck back with venom. They must have been furious that another Democratic leader would dare to defy them. What else would we now expect from them? But Richardson included gracious words about Bill and Hillary in his Obama endorsement and didn't deserve such vitriol in return.

It is in this spirit of change and rebirth that I want to include this Will.I.Am video. To lift us up and remind us again that yes, yes we can!

cross-posted to The Huffington Post

Sleeping Girl Sets Her Record Straight

I had seen clips on CNN of the (now almost 18 years old) sleeping girl in 
Hillary's fear-inciting 3 A.M. ad. With her family, she had gone to 
the media to set her record straight. The irony is sweet:  she 
supports Obama. Sometimes justice does prevail. 

Now's she's released this:

Andrew Sullivan, What Do You Think?

This column first appeared on Huffington Post.com.  Comments not included here.

By Beth Arnold

The other night, my dear friend L. wrote:

Beth / You just have to begin reading Andrew Sullivan's blog regularly. He is obsessed by Hillary, having started, like you, as a Clinton fan. He writes brilliantly, and he is so angry! L.

Sullivan's current piece in The Times Online is a perfect example of how right he gets the political moment in which we're living.

And L. is right about me, too. For decades, I was a starry-eyed Clinton fan -- in Arkansas and after they moved to the White House, even when they started out making dumb mistakes once Bill was inaugurated -- like the gays in the military, for one example. Many Clinton supporters, especially gay ones, were mad at the time that they had been sandbagged with the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. Bill had promised in his campaign to allow all citizens, despite their sexual orientation, to serve openly in the military -- and then made this compromise in 1993 after he was elected. My late brother was gay, and I wasn't happy that my new and beloved Commander-in-Chief had sold out gay men and women. But I thought he was choosing bigger battles down the road. I figured he might need some of the clout he would've had to give up, and I forgave Bill for sacrificing the dignity and rights of gay Americans and for not living up to his promises. I thought he had to play the written-in-stone Washington games or his presidency could go the way of one-term Jimmy Carter, whom I happen to admire. But now I believe I was wrong not to hold Bill accountable.

Esquire: The Tabloid

This column first appeared on Huffington Post.com.   Comments not included here.

by Beth Arnold

Esquire has joined the ranks of The National Enquirer, or better yet, The Sun in publishing their "reported fiction" piece about the last days of Heath Ledger. Reported fiction -- what's that? In this particular instance, it's Esquire highlighting itself as a media blood sucker. In order to cash in on more of our debilitating celebrity culture, the magazine decided to hound actor Heath Ledger from his grave by assigning a writer to invent a fictional story about the last days of his life. The writer "visited the actor's neighborhood, talked to the store owners and bartenders who may have seen him during his last week, and read as many accounts and rumors about the events surrounding his death as possible. She filled in the rest with her imagination."

I'd say Esquire's editors weren't being imaginative or journalistic or ground-breaking to assign a stunt piece like this, which amounts to celebrity necrophilia. They were being sleazy. Are they now competing in the tabloid category?

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This brief was originally posted at HuffingtonPost.com.

The Hillary Show

This column first appeared on Huffington Post.com.  Comments not included here.

By Beth Arnold

Months ago I said that Hillary was beginning to remind me a lot of George Bush, and my husband looked at me a little askance (though no more). It was that arrogance she projected, especially in debates, that every other candidate was less savvy, less knowledgeable, less entitled to be president -- but especially to her biggest rival, Barack Obama. It was that smirk on her face that was beginning to look more and more like W.'s. It was that attitude of "my machine is going to run you all down and smash you, because no one can beat Bill Clinton. And I'm riding in on his tail."

Besides all the Clinton "friends" (where is tax evader and illegal oil runner Marc Rich these days?), who had been whipped willingly (or not) into line to support her candidacy, Hillary had a bunch of old white women signed up to be outraged at other women who didn't want to vote for her. Women whose only goal seems to be getting a woman elected -- period, end of story. Not that there's anything wrong with getting a woman elected -- but if we're building the egalitarian society we want to live in, there should be more. If we really want equal rights, then we should think equally about who would make the best president. And in these worst of times that we Americans have endured over the last seven years, I see part of the job of our next president as letting loose a canon of sweeping change. (Yoo hoo, you Democrats in Congress who have voted like Republicans, I'm talking about getting rid of you.)