Whilst cruising past the really big news: TomKat’s bride’s new haircut (same barbershop, maybe?), Paris’ Potty Problems, and Angelina’s lawyer falling on his sword for Queen BigLips and Country—quite desperate to get the sweet taste out of my mouth—I encountered an ongoing debate on BlogHer.com raising the question of whether the nomination of a female as President of India is, indeed, empowerment or tokenism. Whether that’s the case or not—ground broken is ground broken.

Pressing on, I can’t help but reflect on the ongoing similar (however different) discussion about American Democratic front-runner, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton—who, if you’ve just arrived on the planet, is a female, a Democrat and no matter what New-Yorkers say, is from Arkansas. That discussion cannot be separated from the same (but different) discussion about Sen. Barack Obama—whose name initially scared the shit out of Americans caught up in GWB’s ongoing stealthy but unproductive search for a swarthy Mediterranean psycho with a similar name. (Hell, Dubya, have the IRS find him—those bastards get results.

Reporting in a January ’07 issue of The Australian, Washington correspondent Geoff Elliott describes Senator Clinton, rather simplistically, I think, as, “…the former first lady who stands as the front runner for Democrats in the 2008 presidential race… .” Makes it sound like, “Oh, well, now that Bill’s through with the White House, think we’ll switch places; someone have my secretary cancel lunch this afternoon.”

Elliott defines Senator Obama as this: “…the son of a former Kenyan goat herder (who went on to become a Harvard educated minister in Kenya) and a white woman from Kansas.” Do we see a bias here?

While I stand on the side of those persons aghast at injury done our Constitution over the past seven years (click here for partial list), some jackasses are going to say—when either Senator wins the Presidency—that it is tokenism: racial or feminist. For true tokenism on both fronts, we need look no further than current Presidential Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice to see a real two-fer, as we call them back home. One example ( I promise), for your reading pleasure. Decide for yourself if she was/is unqualified for her job; Google her name along with “faux pas.”

Back to empowerment v tokenism, pundits ask those questions. You don’t, I don’t, although we may pick over such notions with friends. While I do not wish to pick a fight with anyone who “buys ink by the barrel,” [1] a win is a win. Besides, bloggers have photons by the google so it could be said, “Never pick a fight with someone who writes in his or her jammies.” Unquestionably, the USA has endured atrocities during this regime; certainly, the next several administrations need a hell of a Hoover and a lifetime supply of disinfectant.

Notwithstanding all that, anyone questioning whether the President of India or the President of the United States or anyone else who can get her/himself elected to the highest executive office in the land (without a brother who is Governor of a swing State) should wake up and smell the coffee, er, sweat, er, disinfectant.

1] Variously attributed to Samuel Johnston and Mark Twain, among others. No one seems to know. I thought it was Oscar Wilde, Dorothy Parker or Florence King—y’know—a bitchy girl who actually does buy ink by the barrel.

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