Thursday, January 22, 2009

Taxing: Kennedy Out, Geithner In?

GENDER INEQUALITY REARS ITS HEAD UNNOTICED

At the moment it is hard to establish exactly what is going down regarding Caroline Kennedy's on/off/on/off Senate bid. Did she take herself out the running to save face on the knowledge New York Governor David Paterson has chosen some one else, presumably first-term Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand?

The initial response that Kennedy was so distraught by Uncle Teddy Kennedy's seizure on inauguration day was a ridiculous red herring apparently drawing the ire of some in the Kennedy clan. The latest rumor that tax problems regarding a housekeeper is the real reason Paterson shied away from Kennedy is plausible. Then, again, it could also be a convenient excuse. Yet, on the basis of fairness, if tax problem did derail Kennedy's bid for the Senate, it raises concerns from a gender point-of-view.

How was Tim Geithner approved by the Senate Finance Committee today with apparent egregious tax bills outstanding and Kennedy was excluded from Congress because of hers?

Detractors will say Kennedy just was not qualified to a senator. Is someone like Gillibrand experienced enough? Did we not recently elect a perceived novice to the Oval Office.

On the practical side, it was not the Kennedy name that appealed to some, but the money behind the brand. The next senator from New York will need huge resources in one of the most expensive media centers in the world and campaign twice in the next years--due to the remainder of Hillary Clinton's term in 2010.

One media outlet in sexist fashion, counted the number of "you knows" Kennedy uttered in an interview with The New York Times at 138. Would an editor bring a "you know" clicker to count a mans quirky use of language?

You know, once again, the election of Barack Obama did not radically change the attitudes of Americans with regard to race and gender equity. They still exist in full-force when the man now in charge of the nation's money supply gains his position--at a time when the job is far more crucial than that of one senator out of one hundred--with serious questions regarding his payment of taxes, while a woman with reportedly the same problem is shut out of hers.

This connection is not being made today and that, in itself, is the real problem.

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