I had you pegged, didn't I?

May 13, 2008

Clinton Campaign Brought Sexism Out of Hiding

By Marie Cocco

WASHINGTON -- As the Democratic nomination contest slouches toward a close, it's time to take stock of what I will not miss.

I will not miss seeing advertisements for T-shirts that bear the slogan "Bros before Hos." The shirts depict Barack Obama (the Bro) and Hillary Clinton (the Ho) and they are widely sold on the Internet.

I will not miss walking past airport concessions selling the Hillary Nutcracker, a device in which a pantsuit-clad Clinton doll opens her legs to reveal stainless steel thighs that, well, bust nuts. I won't miss television and newspaper stories that make light of the novelty item.

I won't miss episodes like the one in which the liberal radio personality Randi Rhodes called Clinton a "big f---in' whore" and said the same about former vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro. Rhodes was appearing at an event sponsored by a San Francisco radio station, before an audience of appreciative Obama supporters -- one of whom had promoted the evening on the presumptive Democratic nominee's official campaign Web site.

I won't miss Citizens United Not Timid (no acronym, please), an anti-Clinton group founded by Republican guru Roger Stone.

Political discourse will at last be free of jokes like this one, told last week by magician Penn Jillette on MSNBC: "Obama did great in February, and that's because that was Black History Month. And now Hillary's doing much better 'cause it's White B---- Month, right?" Co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski rebuked Jillette.

I won't miss political commentators (including National Public Radio political editor Ken Rudin and Andrew Sullivan, the columnist and blogger) who compare Clinton to the Glenn Close character in the movie "Fatal Attraction." In the iconic 1987 film, Close played an independent New York woman who has an affair with a married man played by Michael Douglas. When the liaison ends, the jilted woman becomes a deranged, knife-wielding stalker who terrorizes the man's blissful suburban family. Message: Psychopathic home-wrecker, be gone.

The airwaves will at last be free of comments that liken Clinton to a "she-devil" (Chris Matthews on MSNBC, who helpfully supplied an on-screen mockup of Clinton sprouting horns). Or those who offer that she's "looking like everyone's first wife standing outside a probate court" (Mike Barnicle, also on MSNBC).

But perhaps it is not wives who are so very problematic. Maybe it's mothers. Because, after all, Clinton is more like "a scolding mother, talking down to a child" (Jack Cafferty on CNN).

When all other images fail, there is one other I will not miss. That is, the down-to-the-basics, simplest one: "White women are a problem, that's -- you know, we all live with that" (William Kristol of Fox News).

I won't miss reading another treatise by a man or woman, of the left or right, who says that sexism has had not even a teeny-weeny bit of influence on the course of the Democratic campaign. To hint that sexism might possibly have had a minimal role is to play that risible "gender card."

Most of all, I will not miss the silence.

I will not miss the deafening, depressing silence of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean or other leading Democrats, who to my knowledge (with the exception of Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland) haven't uttered a word of public outrage at the unrelenting, sex-based hate that has been hurled at a former first lady and two-term senator from New York. Among those holding their tongues are hundreds of Democrats for whom Clinton has campaigned and raised millions of dollars. Don Imus endured more public ire from the political class when he insulted the Rutgers University women's basketball team.

Would the silence prevail if Obama's likeness were put on a tap-dancing doll that was sold at airports? Would the media figures who dole out precious face time to these politicians be such pals if they'd compared Obama with a character in a blaxploitation film? And how would crude references to Obama's sex organs play?

There are many reasons why Clinton is losing the nomination contest, some having to do with her strategic mistakes, others with the groundswell for "change." But for all Clinton's political blemishes, the darker stain that has been exposed is the hatred of women that is accepted as a part of our culture.

mariecocco@washpost.com

Copyright 2008, Washington Post Writers Group

Page Printed from: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/clinton_campaign_brought_sexis.html at May 14, 2008 - 07:05:18 AM PDT

The apartment, the cupboards. I came out of the bathroom earlier and reached over to chuck my clothes in what would've been a makeshift hamper outside of my bathroom door. After cleaning around my desk, I reached over towards the right to what would've been a wastebasket. It's funny how your body is conditioned to certain habitual maneuvers. I'm tired beyond comprehension, but I'm sure some introspective post will be written about life as an undergrad. Some things don't change. :o)

What do you daydream about? Is it something far-fetched, or something that might actually happen?
Submitted by lost_in_eternity2207.

I daydream about boning or ravaging certain men to stay remotely alert in some classes. It's unethical and maybe even sacreligious for a school in which classrooms have crosses by the door, but hey, I'm graduating summa cum laude on Sunday. Some are far-fetched, some may happen, and some already have. How's that for ambiguity ;-).

At least to one reader.

Email me. :o)

GRACE: You know, Will has a theory about relationships. One person is the gardener who tends, and the other person is the flower who gets tended to.

which one are you?

currently have half a dozen half-baked (say that three times!) entries coming along. needless to say, i am mincing my way through a pile of papers and magazines. till then, follow me on twitter. :o)

Last year, I came home from Whole Foods after having purchased organic granny smith apples at $1.49 a pound, to which my mom responded with "that's kind of expensive." Today, conventional apples cost $1.69 at the local grocery stores.

Maybe it's prevalent and I'm only realizing it now, but I feel as if this week was emblematic of the current food crisis. JJ and I stopped by the Briarwood Family Residence to donate some bags of clothing for the families and the recreation specialist told us about how they are really in need of food. Yesterday, when I spontaneously decided to cut my Child & Adolescent Psychopathology class to go to AA and JJ's Sociology of Poverty with my old professor, a guest speaker from St. John's Bread & Life Soup Kitchen took over the class. Food shortage, New York City Council, donations, volunteers were among the gamut of words being used.

A few friends are having difficulties finding stable jobs post-college and "it's the economy" is no longer a deflection of personal responsibility. It's the economy. And as the value of the American dollar drops because the Federal Reserve is printing more money to pay for the War in Iraq, I receive an e-mail from a friend telling me that by the time I graduate with my MA, we'll all be facing another Depression. My heart and hands hurt when a small middle aged woman approached me, with my arms full of produce, asking me for fifty cents.

I have my own issues regarding emergency food charities and private charities in general; I'm not pro-privatization here, but you'll probably find AA and me volunteering at the soup kitchen this summer.

my sister told me she was proud of me this weekend. coming from a family with a deficit of properly socialized reactions to achievements and accomplishments, this means a lot to me.

oooh, i feel as if my creative side of the brain has become vestigial. :-(