The five-term congresswoman from Ohio suffered an aneurysm while driving last night, and the Plain Dealer is reporting that she died.

Rachel Maddow is kinda the shit.

From an old interview:

At first, I said no make-up, but then I saw myself on TV and it was like Nixon debating Kennedy. Now I say, Okay, do me up like you’d do a dude.” And they’re like “But you’re so pretty, why would you want to look like a man? How about a little lip gloss?” And I’m like “Hey, look. I look this way on purpose!”

“No one should be judging and assuming that because I’m black, I have to speak in that hip-hop way. That’s something I prefer not to do.

This newsflash comes to us from Evin Cosby. (Because everyone gets to choose how they speak.) The Cosby scion, who’s trying really hard to make news about her new boutique which I will not publicize here, goes on to share the following gem:

“I always went to private schools - Bank Street elementary, Columbia Prep - so I was surrounded by people like me. Not so much African-American, but privileged. I don’t really have a connection to other people who didn’t have my lifestyle.”

It looks like she learned well at her father’s knee.

And this is the thing about privilege that bugs. It’s one thing to acknowledge your privilege. It’s quite another to wade in it, to splash in it, to swim in it. I’m privileged. I’m guessing everyone who reads this blog is. You have access to the Internet, don’t you? But that privilege isn’t something to be proud of. It doesn’t make you better. It makes you luckier. Privilege is the best reason to connect with people who don’t have the same opportunities. It’s called giving back. And while giving back and selling $500 polyester dresses aren’t mutually exclusive, I suspect they are in Ms. Cosby’s world.

Sigh. I could go on, but this is making me tired.

PB Update: I’ve since napped and gone back to reread what Evin had to say, and I’d just like to submit the following for your review.

“My own people used to say to me, ‘You speak like a white woman.’”

A small quibble: to which of your “own people” are you referring? The privileged white kids you went to private school with, or the hip-hop speaking blacks you don’t have a connection to?

And I call shenanigans on this ’speaking like a white person’ business. I was one of two or three blacks in AP classes in my 11 percent black high school, and I went to an HBCU, and yet, I’ve never met a single black person who told me that my speaking plain English makes me sound like a white person.

Crossposted from The Neo.

John Adams called the vice presidency “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.” Cactus Jack Garner, one of FDR’s vice presidents, once said the post “wasn’t worth a bucket of warm spit.” (Although he ain’t really say “spit.”) That was all pre-Cheney, of course. I’m still not sure how much the choice of a running mate matters to the fence-sitters, but it certainly matters to those who are already decided.

The Obama camp has already more or less staffed their VP choice, but they’re staying mum on who that will be. We could know who Obama’s No. 2 is as early as tomorrow, and donors to his campaign will find out via text before anyone else. A lot of the speculation is that it’s gonna be Biden, who has managed to improve his political reputation with some pretty winning debate answers. This is, you know, even though he said a little while back that he didn’t want the gig.

The Case for Biden. Anyway, Jamelle says that the longtime Delaware senator “certainly isn’t perfect - like others have mentioned, he’s gaffe prone and in thrall to the credit card industry - but he has done a lot of good with his time in the Senate, and it’s worth keeping that in mind.”

Ezra Klein goes further: “Biden is, arguably, the most effective voice Democrats have on foreign policy. And here’s why: Joe Biden is an incredibly arrogant jerk. And that’s exactly what Democrats need. … In the 2008 election, he was the only Democrat who really figured out how to talk about Republicans and foreign policy. All the other candidates on the stage started from the presumption that Republicans were strong on national security, and voters needed to be convinced of their failures and then led to a place of support for a Democratic alternative. Biden dispensed with all that. He started from the position that Republicans had been catastrophic failures on foreign policy, and their ongoing claims to competence and leadership should be laughed at, and even mocked.” M.J. Rosenberg also vouches for Biden’s foreign policy chops.

jilltubman over at JJP hates the Biden idea. “If this guy were a Republican, Democrats would be hanging him out to dry. All he needs is a Confederate flag to complete the picture. We’re talking major Macaca moment potential here. And yes, as hilarious for George Allen as that was, is Obama ready to sign up a VP with a record of racism comments, including one aimed straight at himself during the primaries? I doubt it.”

Yglesias thinks that Biden’s vote for the war in Iraq could be a problem for Barack Obama, but that Biden would be good for Amtrak.

The Case for Sebelius. Last week, Neil Sinhababu over at Cogitamus made the case that the Kansas governor is being unfairly overlooked in Democratic veep talks. “I’m astonished by the number of national progressive issues on which Kathleen Sebelius kept picking fights as Governor of Kansas. I’m even more astonished by her amazing record of winning those fights. She was the first governor in America to object to a coal plant in her state on climate change grounds. She blocked the coal plant with a veto that the state House failed to override and got money to set up wind power. She blocked a health insurance merger that would’ve cost Kansans an additional $248 million in premiums over five years. She successfully vetoed anti-abortion legislation (the override attempt failed by two votes in the House) and wasn’t afraid to have a doctor who performed abortions over for dinner after he won a raffle. And while it’s hard for a governor to take on the Iraq War, she managed to attack Bush for taking the Kansas National Guard to Iraq when she needed them to deal with tornadoes. That picture up top, by the way, is Sebelius signing Sudan divestment legislation. What does this woman not do?”

You Went From Top-Ten to Not Mentioned at All… Sorta related. Not sure if this is a good look for the top editor at the Charlotte News & Observer, but he seems a little touchy about John Edwards’s lying to him about his affair way back in October. “Edwards told me that the allegations were not true. He said The N&O was the paper that arrived on his doorstep every day, the one read by friends of him and his wife, Elizabeth. He said he’d never called before to complain or state his case. Given Elizabeth’s health — she has cancer — he said it was especially important to him that the story not run in The N&O. He was calling from an airport, and we spoke only a few minutes. I made no promises. Edwards’ comments were off the record. Because he has acknowledged he lied, I feel free to report them.”

We just found out that we’re finalists for “Best Political/News Blog” in the 2008 Black Weblog Awards! We have to buy dinner for all of you who voted for us*, but it ain’t over yet! There’s still voting to be done, so go here and vote for us. Voting closes on the Aug. 31 (unless you live in Florida, where Katherine Harris has made it her mission to see us fail) and we will be reminding you not-so-subtly until then.

Also, we’d be remiss in not shouting out our homie Thembi, a finalist in the “Blog To Watch” category. And, not surprisingly, Jay Smooth over at IllDoctrine was nominated for “Best Video Blog.”

*Let’s figure out how many ways a 20-piece McNugget meal can be split. Large fries for my fellow vegetarians. Oh, and BYOB.

Annoyed by the MSM’s choice of Official Black Spokeperson position — it was always Jesse or Al — T. Coates decided the post should be filled democratically. (The winner, in case you were wondering, was Lando CalrissianBilly Dee Williams.)

Now, it’s white folks turn: Who will speak for them?

Morgan Freeman? Don Draper? Princess Leia? Galactus, Devourer of Worlds?

Rock the vote, y’all.

A pro-Obama Christian group questioned McCain’s virtue by bringing up the fact that he ditched his first wife after a debilitating car accident. The McCain camp, naturally, got huffy:

“These smears on John McCain’s character and faith expose the utter hypocrisy of Barack Obama’s claim to represent a new kind of politics. It’s disgraceful.” He went on to say that Americans “know that John McCain’s faith and character were tested and forged in ways few can fathom.”

The response made One Drop roll his eyes:

First of all, we have the obvious hypocrisy of the McCain camp trying to hold Obama responsible for something said by members of a PAC that has no affiliation with his campaign, after denying that their own campaign has any responsibility for what independent groups say about Obama. But that’s nothing new for Republicans.

What I find interesting about McCain’s response is that the list of personal attributes that arise out of McCain’s time as a POW keeps growing. We’ve been hearing the argument that having been a POW gives McCain foreign policy savvy for a while. Now, in addition to gaining expertise in international relations, McCain apparently also gained irrefutable proof that he is a man of faith. There can’t be any criticism of McCain’s publicly-known philandering, and abandonment of his badly injured first wife in favor of a young, blonde heiress, because McCain was a POW. Of course he has faith, he was a POW.

Having been a POW is not some all-encompassing shield of virtue, able to deflect any and all criticisms or block accountability for every action that McCain has taken since being released. Had McCain returned to the U.S. and started robbing banks, his status as a former POW wouldn’t stop him from going to jail. That’s obviously an extreme example, but the same principle applies to smaller indiscretions. If it matters whether politicians are faithful to their wives, it matters whether or not those politicians are former POWs. If the way McCain treated his first wife, specifically the timing and circumstances of their divorce, is a valid subject for voters to consider, it remains valid regardless of McCain’s wartime experiences.

The McCain camp, though, is gonna ride the POW train ’til the wheels fall off. At that forum at Saddleback on Saturday*, Rick Warren interviewed Obama for an hour, and then McCain. He asked both of them the same questions, but McCain was supposed to be tucked in some “cone of silence” where he couldn’t hear any of the questions or Obama’s answers. (As it turns out, McCain was actually in a motorcade on the way to the church.) When some folks thought McCain’s responses were a little too clever, the McCain camp, again, got all huffy:

“The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous,” Ms. Wallace said.

*I haven’t had a chance to peep the forum yet. If you did, what did you think?

The moderators for the presidential debates were announced last week by the Commission on Presidential Debates, and, surprise, surprise, the moderators are three aged white men:

Jim Lehrer, Tom Brokaw, and Bob Schieffer.

Gwen Ifill, who moderated the VP debate in ‘04, has been tapped to moderate it again this year.

NPR’s Michel Martin took a few moments to discuss the absurdity myopia of the decision:

You cannot tell me that race and age do not matter in year where race and age are the two issues people bring up when they talk about how they’re going to vote and why. Think about it: if the commission had picked three 40-something African Americans to moderate all three debates, do you think somebody would say, ‘Gee, is that fair to John McCain?’

Of course, the CPD’s executive director Janet Brown said the moderators were picked based on their years of experience. Martin goes on to list several journalists who could fill that description, but who also happen to be women or people of color. While she doesn’t blame the commission for eschewing women or people of color because they’re women or people of color, she does make a good point:

I think they made the all too typical mistake of seeing white men as the universal citizen, the standard by which everybody else must be judged, without recognizing that they, too, have a perspective, a life history, a worldview.

This is what frustrates me: just as white women are the baseline for womanhood, white men are the baseline for humanity, and we’re all supposed to try our best to get on their level. Nevermind that Ifill kicked ass as the VP moderator four years ago, and, if anything, “proved” herself to be an impartial, firm, and thoughtful questioner. What more do they need? And the ‘they’ in question is a relatively diverse board, which is another reason why the choices are so perplexing.

How long will it be until women and/or people of color attain the requisite experience and gravitas to question the men and women applying to lead one the world’s most diverse nations? Will we forever be answering to white men, even as their population shrinks?