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UPDATED - BlogHer EXCLUSIVE: Barack Obama answers policy questions from women who blog (Video)

Sen. Barack Obama sat down with BlogHer this weekend to answer key policy questions developed by this community of bloggers for 2008 presidential candidates.

In an exclusive on-camera interview with BlogHer, Sen. Obama (D-IL) answers questions about the economy, Iraq, health care and the environment --  including a health-care screening process for every veteran and support for their spouses and families, health insurance coverage for birth control to avoid unwanted pregnancies, and working with China and other countries on climate change, a "major problem." (For specific questions and video of answers see the bottom of this post.)

Sen. Obama is the first presidential candidate to accept our invitation to come on-camera to directly address BlogHer's audience, which now reaches nine million women each month via BlogHer.com and a publishing syndicate of 1,800 blogs. The interview was conducted in Roseburg, Oregon, by Contributing Editor Erin Kotecki Vest, with input from Contributing Editor Kim Pearson. BlogHer also has extended an open invitation to Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and John McCain (R-AZ) to discuss their presidential candidacies with this community. 

By answering these questions, I think Sen. Obama has made an important statement about the value he personally places on voters, our questions and opinions, the communities we reach on our blogs and, ultimately, our votes. That's a powerful message. Especially since BlogHer is a non-partisan organization the women in our network span the political spectrum. This isn't a presidential candidate preaching to the converted -- it's a presidential candidate reaching out to an important cross-section of American influencers, given the audiences these women reach on their blogs. As I say above, this is an opportunity to speak directly to the voter that BlogHer also has offered to Candidates Clinton and McCain. We very much hope they will take us up on that offer. 

Here are Sen. Obama's answers to specific questions: Thanks everyone! We just posted the senator's answers to individual questions for folks who want to discuss specific issues: Economy:  Sen. Obama answers "How will you create federal public policy that helps families break the cycle of poverty?"

Environment:   Sen. Obama answers the question, "We are reaching the point of no return on climate change. What will your legacy be on the environment?"

Health care: Sen. Obama answers "How will you allocate scarce resources to help solve the country's health-care crisis?" and "What is your position on requiring all major private, Medicaid, or federal health insurance plans cover birth control?"

Iraq: Sen. Obama answers three questions about the war in Iraq: 1. Will you work to end the Iraq war before the 2008 election? If so, how? 2. How do you propose to keep paying for the costs of war? 3. What are you physically going to do to help the Veteran's Administration and soldiers in need?

So - what do you think of Sen. Obama's decision to do the interview? Do you think the other candidates should participate? Come on over to this BlogHer discussion and tell us what you think -- and what you like to see from BlogHer's convention coverage.

I'm closing comments below so that we can keep that conversation all in one place - thanks.

"Body Confidence 2.0: How Technology Is Changing Women's Body Image"

Well played, Fitness magazine.

Kudos for this well-researched article by Julia Savacool. Savacool not only quoted me right, she did her research, including:

• Sarah R. Bloom's gorgeous naked photo of self as a Walt Whitman billboard ("I celebrate myself...)
• Judith Donath from the MIT Media Lab and Berkman
• Bonnie Crowder and readers from theshapeofamother.com
• Laurie Toby Edison of Body Impolitic
• BlogHer Contributing Editor Suzanne Reisman, who also writes CUSS
• Kathy O'Brien, a marketing director from Dove's Real Beauty

Ode to Maybelle for the Mother's Day Blog Carnival: "Mother Knows Best"

Shannon Lowe of Rocks In My Dryer has thrown down a mighty challenge: A Mother's Day blog carnival called "Mother Knows Best." I doubt I can match Shannon's lovely, spare prose about the lessons she most prizes from her mother; instead I pass the hat to my sister's post, Angels R Us. But it's my mother's inner political fighter that I'd like to talk about, as I did with Nordette Adams earlier this month in her series I Remember Mama Voting.

I come from a long line of women for whom the ballot box is a sacred duty. A self-described yellow-dog Democrat, my mother was born on Nov. 4, a date that is regularly Election Day in the United States. Perfect karma.

Lord, how she loves politics -- and how her politics have deepened my love for her. Mom was born to it -- one of my favorite memories is of her fortieth birthday, an Election Day, when my parents' friends stretched her name on a husting between two maple trees.

"Did your mother win?" the neighbors asked later. I laughed. She sure would have, had her name ever appeared on a ballot. But rather than be a politician, my mother was all voter, all the time. Some of my earliest political memories are of my mother and father talking about experiencing race riots in the late 1960s in Baltimore, Nixon's resignation and the sacred duty they both consider voting to be. 

"Your vote is private," Mom told me, in the wake of Nixon's resignation as gangs of kids roamed the neighborhood, asking whose parents voted for whom. "Don't ever forget to do it, but you don't have to tell anyone what you decided," she assured me.

My favorite political memory is the event that sent her over the edge....the Anita Hill | Clarence Thomas hearings. Every day during the Hill|Thomas hearings, I'd pick up the phone from the California newsroom where I was working and hear an iron slapping cotton to the rhythm of a Georgia accent. Mom.

My mother was a teacher first, and then later a principal, but she always did my father's shirts. I think she had two motivations: One was love. The other, when she was furious, was anger.

Dad looked good during the hearings, I'll tell you that.

"Strom Thurmond cannot die soon ENOUGH!" she'd rage, working through the day's insults to Anita Hill and ironing his button-downs to a fare-thee-well.

"I cannot believe what they are putting her through, these men. Listen to them! All of them...." I cannot further re-print her parody of Joe Biden or Strom Thurmond without (a) further permission or (b) nearly peeing my pants. It was that good.

And to think that she was shipped north to private school during de-segregation. You'd never know from her politics. My mother's deep concern for other women, her love for other people, has always tinged her approach to public policy. She probably wouldn't always call it politics -- she'd just say she was doing what's right.

That's why, all these years, the little lady -- now a grandma many times over -- who can put herself in the shoes of other people has been such a terrific example for me. And why Election Day will always feel like a celebration.

Okay, blog carnivalists -- tag, you're it! And if you are interested in more stories across the generations, don't miss I Remember Mama Voting at ACORN.

Photo thanks: Caribbeanfreephoto

Send in your questions for Carly Fiorina, former CEO of HP, now campaigning for GOP's John McCain

BlogHer has the honor of interviewing Carly Fiorina this Friday, when I'll sit down to record a podcast with the former CEO/Chair of Hewlett Packard, the first woman to lead a Fortune 20 company and, as of March 8, leading surrogate and fundraising chair for presumptive GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

Here's a recent YouTube video recorded by techRepublican where Ms. Fiorina talks about her support of John McCain's presidency, what her candidate needs to win, and why being listed by Fortune as the most powerful woman in business for six years in a row is a little like...playing golf:

Join us! I invite you to tell me what you would like me to ask Carly Fiorina on your behalf. Please leave your question in the comments on this post and be sure to include your name and blog as you would like me to attribute your question.

The interview will be available soon afterwards as a podcast on BlogHer.com, which I'll link from here too.

Thanks in advance for posting your questions before 5pm PST Thursday, May 8. I look forward to reading them.

Katie Couric, media literacy and the First Amendment's slippery slope

Well played Katie Couric. Today Couric ventures outside CBS.com into the momosphere. In a guest post on NYC Moms Blog, Couric writes about the dark side of the Internet and its affect on children:

Katie Couric on Mean Girls (And Boys) Online

"Is the genie out of the bottle?  Are parents today simply oblivious to the anonymous hate speech that’s so pervasive?   I think our jobs as Moms have gotten a lot harder, and it seems to me we need to have some kind of concerted effort, along with our schools and other leaders, to communicate to our kids that freedom of expression is a protected right in this country--but are we expressing ourselves too freely?"

My opinion? The facts of life for children, teens and their parents now include cyberspace. That's why our family computer is in the kitchen, so I can stir spaghetti while making sure I know exactly the surfing habits of our eight- and 12-year-old.

Every parent I know -- myself included -- grapples with cyberliteracy. At what age should my 12-year-old son be allowed to open a Facebook or Bebo profile? (Answer: 13, with careful guidelines.) Should my eight-year-old be allowed to play online games with a community "chat" function? (No way.) 

This is the era where parents do need an entirely new guidebook. At the same time, I love this brave new world.

Couric's question, "Are we expressing ourselves too freely?" invokes the First Amendment (um, see the top of this page) that has been sacred to me for 20 years as a journalist. "Too freely" by what measure? By whose? I respect my senators and congressional representatives enormously -- but I need to make those choices for myself and for my kids.

As in the case of religion, every person -- and every family -- must make their own choices. And that's one of the reasons I love Couric's post. An educated choice requires the kind of terrific conversation, the very real questions I see on NYC Moms blog -- hashing out the issues, sharing the difficulty of ushering our little babies through the awful adolescent years, which just got, well, a google harder.

I'm a big believer that children of every age (me included) do need now to learn how to ignore the trolls and take care of herself online. Is Juicyc*mpus, the new f*ckedcompany.com of the college world for veterans like myself, the new bathroom wall? Fine. I will say to my boys, ignore them too, honey. 

For now the Internet and all multimedia -- mobile phones in particular -- are included in the realm of my children's world. And I want them to be safe in that world. As my own mother told me, God gave you one self; treat that self with the same respect you believe other people should be treated. And follow the Golden Rule.

Or you will be sorry.