Please, just shoot me now. You can't convince me that Givhan, a crappy writer no matter what the topic, is going to write a column about how Chris Dodd looks or about how Mike Huckabee looks.
I mean, honestly: Women have come a long way from the time when wearing a pair of pants was considered "borrowing from the boys." So it would be highly regressive to suggest that the candidate is using trousers to heighten the perception that she can be as tough as a man. And yet . . .
In its way, its as disingenuously bad as the "some rumors say Obama is a Muslim" piece of shit the WaPo recently published.
Dana Milbank contributes to the nonsense, with an article on, I am not making this up, how Hillary "sounds." You'll be surpried to learn that the answer is: like a smart girl. And we all know how bad those are. Even worse,
For a quarter-century now, Democrats have had a habit of selecting brainy, establishment presidential nominees who are frequently pedantic but rarely passionate. Al Gore and John Kerry were bookish, and Michael Dukakis didn't even show emotion when asked about the hypothetical rape and murder of his wife.
The article is subtitled "Nobody Knows More than Hillary" and condemns her for actually knowing what she's talking about, rather than giving a speech long on buzzwords like "hope" and "freedom" and "Jebuz." It's extra cute that the speech Milbank chooses to "illlustrate" her point is a speech given by Clinton to teachers. And even though the teachers applaud throughout the speech, we're supposed to assume that they, like Milbank, hate Hillary for being smart and "methodical." After all, Milbank tells us that the teachers gave Clinton a seated ovation when she finished, rising only to put on their coats.
Goddess guard us from a president who is curious enough to learn the details, intelligent enough to grasp the subject matter, able to do more than show up and catapult the propaganda boulders s/he's been fed by a Karl Rove. Especially if that president is a smart girl.
7 comments:
Milbank was the silly boy who wore blaze orange on national television to discuss the VP shooting a 70 year old rich lawyer in the face, right?
I heard that the teachers were almost going to refuse to leave their seats ever again, to really show how much they were merely pleased with her performance. Cooler heads prevailed.
Dana Milbank contributes to the nonsense, with an article on, I am not making this up, how Hillary "sounds." You'll be surpried to learn that the answer is: like a smart girl.
No danger of Mr. Dana ever sounding smart. He's always going to be the doofus who was completely wrong about Stephen Colbert (genius).
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Maybe Keith can trade Dana Milbank to Tweety for a player to be named later.
from Bill Moyers Journal, Dec. 7th:
KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: Because the words and because the graphic images, the images that are manufactured to be placed in these sites are such that you wouldn't want to be associated with them in any way, nor would I. And they contain such things as graphic representations of what a donkey should do to Hillary Clinton. They contain language suggesting various sexual acts in relationship to Hillary Clinton. They reduce Hillary Clinton to various sexual body parts. They engage in characterizations of her in relationship to her policies. They're nothing but name calling in relationship to all of those categories of language. And so if you came home when you were, oh, say, a 15-year-old boy from school. And you said to your mother "Let me give you some of my language for the day," and you repeated any of those words, you know, your mother would have been shocked.
BILL MOYERS: Here are some of the entries from Facebook, you know? "Hillary can't handle one man; how can she handle 150 million of them? Send her back to the kitchen to get a sandwich. She belongs back with the dishes, not upfront with the leaders." It goes on and on like that. I mean, and it is fairly misogynist, but it isn't just the Internet. I mean on Rush Limbaugh, he talks about Clinton's testicle lockbox. MSNBC's Tucker Carlson says there's just something about her that feels castrating. One of his guests, a former spokesman from the Republican National Committee, Clifford May, says that if Clinton is going to appeal to women for support on the basis of her gender, at least call her a vaginal-American. I mean, in fact, isn't the sexist vilification of Hillary Clinton being set by the mainstream media?
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/12072007/transcript1.html
Youtube:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/12072007/watch.html
I mean, in fact, isn't the sexist vilification of Hillary Clinton being set by the mainstream media?
Yes. And they are salivating over Obama, who is Hillary, sans experience and gravitas, but male, and more right-wing on social issues like Social Security being in "crisis."
Of course they are ignoring Edwards, who, while considered a top-tier candidate by most Americans, is too progressive for teh medja.
I think you're being a little unfair to Dana Milbank. His criticism of Hillary isn't based on her being a woman but on his contention that she is (or, more properly, would be) another in a line of "brainy, establishment presidential nominees who are frequently pedantic but rarely passionate" and serves up three men - Al Gore, John Kerry, and Michael Dukakis - as the other examples.
Unspoken is the obvious point: All three of those men lost.
Now, I agree with Milbank in that I think successful presidential candidates have to show a certain degree of passion, but I disagree with him in Clinton's case, as I think she displays more passion than Gore, Kerry, or Dukakis did.
Still, I don't think his critique of her can fairly be labeled sexist.
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