Beth Arnold

Vive la Obama différence!

Why the French love Barack Obama -- even if he'd rather not be seen with them in public.

This article was first published at Salon.com.  Reader comments not included here.

By Beth Arnold

The building is not far from the Place Vendôme and the Opéra Garnier and is closer still to the Bibliothèque Nationale. For those in the know, this area, the 2nd arrondissement, is where Napoleon Bonaparte once lived, where the Americans Robert Livingston and James Monroe signed the Louisiana Purchase into being, and where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart debuted his "Magic Flute." This quartier is where the "Jewish question" was decided during the German occupation, and where Alexandre Dumas' three musketeers rode and fought their way into myth and history. This is the very heart of Paris.

On Wednesday, a good-looking young man wearing jeans and a Barack Obama/France T-shirt waves his visitor into a chic, but not fussy, light-filled conference room. With its sofas, its simple black chairs filed around an elegantly rustic table, the room could double as a gracious salon in someone's home -- someone who's a hard-core Barack Obama supporter, that is. Obama posters are tacked to the wall, and others lie on the big table. An Obama banner is unfurled around one of the fireplaces, and two flags are draped on a chair -- one American, the other French.

Ode to The Catfish (Stuff the Other White People Like, and A Whole Lot of Black People, Too)

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

by Beth Arnold

It was sad news to read of the decline of Southern catfish farms in today's New York Times. The farmers are going under because the cost of corn and soybean fish food has gone up so much it has sunk them, and the companies are draining their big ponds and shutting down. The loss of these farm-raised Southern catfish farms also means the fadeout of jobs that are desperately needed in the achingly poor Mississippi Delta. I wonder exactly who's losing these jobs. In the Times photos, the workers were all black (while management is white but who's surprised?). Not that there aren't plenty of poor white people along the Delta--poor is poor--and, no doubt, they're losing precious jobs, too. These are the Americans who can least afford this, in one of the poorest regions of the U.S., which is already in bad economic times.

And what will this mean for the lip-smacking all-you-can-eat catfish restaurants that dot the Southern landscape, that feed Southerners' souls as well as their bodies? I'm not talking about the yuppie/snuppie/boho/p.c. crowd who fit the "stuff white people like" mold. No, ma'am.

Maureen Dowd, Please Don't Shut Up

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

by Beth Arnold

When I read New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt's dressing down of columnist Maureen Dowd, I was appalled. What a sterling example of how not to stand behind your man -- or woman, in this Times star columnist's case. This wussy editorial behavior came after some Hillary Clinton supporters complained about Ms. Dowd's columns. Oh, no. The gall of Maureen Dowd for doing what she does best. She dished out her opinion and wit, which is exactly what The New York Times pays her to do.

As Mrs. Clinton herself said during her recent campaign, invoking Harry Truman: "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." Mrs. Clinton knew what she was getting into when she entered the race. I have a sneaking suspicion she'd also read Ms. Dowd and other national columnists like her, so it wasn't a big surprise to Hillary that they'd be writing spirited commentary on her and the other candidates. In fact, the Clinton campaign managed the press like lap dogs most of the time. When Hillary's handlers threw a bone, the traditional media couldn't run any faster to pick it up -- including, yes, I'm going to say it, the bone of sexism.