Why the Sotomayor Argument is a Waste of Time

I’ve read (time I’ll not get back), lots of hand-wringing over the “bad treatment” Sonia Sotomayor is receiving just after her nomination by The One. Yawn. Apparently the Left / Obama’s minions / MSM has rediscovered sexism. Double yawn. As a woman, I’m supposed to be OUTRAGED and SHOCKED at this treatment of a worthy woman nominee. Stuff like this is supposed to make me furious:

In a piece at ThinkProgress, Watergate good fella G. Gordon Liddy is quoted as hoping Sotomayor isn’t trying to think during, you know, THAT time of the month.

LIDDY: Let’s hope that the key conferences aren’t when she’s menstruating or something, or just before she’s going to menstruate. That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then.

Naturally, ThinkProgress is OUTRAGED! OUTRAGED I TELL YA!

Could this possibly be more boring?? Hearing the whole “she can’t act right when she’s on the rag” canard is an old one. Women have been putting up with that forever. And Liddy is hardly the first idiot male to use it. Anyone remember this immortal pronouncement from BO (see time – 1:15) along with some other classic moments from the Democratic primary campaign?

And what about all that collectible campaign merchandise? The Hillary nutcracker? The Sarah Palin blow up doll? The Sotomayor cojones cracker? Wait, that last one doesn’t exist.

UppityWoman warned some time ago that misogyny is an equal opportunity offense. For a looong time, Democrats have sold themselves as the party of fairness, opportunity and race / gender / orientation neutrality. Remember that? They’ve got our female backs. Or maybe not.

Sisters, you have been duped by the Democratic party. They do not respect you. They have used the same issues to hold you hostage for decades–while never actually ensuring they would no longer be issues. Abortion. Equal Pay. Equal ANYTHING. There is no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. The only thing that separates them is which party the woman is in when they bash her. And please remember: Barack Obama was the Enabler of both of these travesties and assaults upon women.

They have seamlessly moved from the destruction of one woman in one party to the destruction of another woman in the other party, and have you not even noticed?

So now, big bad Newt Gingrich calls Sotomayor a racist? Feh. Arguable. And I’m SURE Newt is the absolute worst ever to wrongfully call a woman a racist on slender evidence right? And I’m sure such epithets are limited to those in the “rough and tumble” of politics. After all, we don’t just toss that label around to just anyone. . .

Oh ye of little faith. Newhampster had the story:

Read my lips people: S-T-O-P with the faux charges of racism; children are now getting on the faux outrage bandwagon. MyFox Orlando has the story:

She’s only 12 years old but Ashleigh Jones is feeling the heat of this election year. That’s because the seventh grader at New Smyrna Beach Middle School was called a racist by classmates for wearing a pro-Sarah Palin t-shirt. Jones is volunteering at the Republican Headquarters in New Smyrna Beach. The Palin t-shirt was a gift from her fellow volunteers. “Some of the students were calling me racist because I was Caucasian,” she said. “I wanted the Caucasian man to win. And I told them that’s not true. It’s my freedom of speech, it’s my opinion.” Jones’ parents say they aren’t mad at the school they just want everyone including their daughter to voice their opinion constructively.

And the whole “Pussy Galore” thing with Pelosi? Lame. The RNC blows chunks with their over-the-top wink wink to sexism and misogyny. But it’s not as if Nancy Pelosi is a victim either. Pelosi was “see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil” when misogyny was directed at Hillary Clinton during the primary campaign, and I certainly can’t remember any anti-sexism statement by her regarding Sarah Palin.

And Keith Olbermann, so upset about Sotomayor’s treatment by conservatives, put together a clip video of the attacks by “mostly white, mostly male” comers (and given Keith’s intellect, I’m guessing the pun WAS intended).

Yet, Olberman also took precious time out of his highly rated Countdown show to blast Katie Couric months ago for saying that sexism in the primary campaign was deliberately ignored.

Olbermann, a serial offender with regard to truth, ethics, and good taste, famously said what Democrats needed to force Senator Clinton from the primary race was, “Somebody who can take her into a room and only he comes out.” He was upset she didn’t concede the primary race earlier. Advocating violence against an uppity chick? Just another day at work. But, of course, Sotomayor is different. She’s BO material.

And the media in general? Blech. Don’t get me started. Or do. I still say John Lennon had it right.

But of course, calling Sotomayor a racist, as Gingrich did, is certainly over-the-top and beyond the pale right? Well, uh, no. How about calling a whole state racist? Anyone remember those “low information voters” who were just too stupid and racist to realize The One was the second coming???

Or how about calling someone with a looooongg history of working with the AA community a racist? Bill Clinton, if you remember, campaigning for his wife in South Carolina got the “racist” tag for daring to suggest Obama’s promises were a “fairy tale.”

Of course, Obama himself disavowed any racism or intention to call someone else a racist. Well, except for his dying grandmother. But I’m sure granny had it coming.

OK, so is calling Sotomayor a racist or a mad menstruationist justified THIS time around? No. Crap is still crap. But it seems to me her treatment is genteel compared to Hillary’s and Palin’s. And there just aren’t any Sotomayor cojones crackers out there. I’ve looked.

But all this points to two things: (1) short term memory damage is an asset in DC and MSM; and (2) it’s all a game.

I think some serious astro-turfing is going on here, but regardless, the political players are just playing the game as it’s always played. If the chick is on your side, rediscover sexism. If the chick is on the other side, suggest she’s a mad menstruationist. Please. It’s sooooooooo boring.

We’re all being played. The game is to attack as much as possible the other side – no rules. The past doesn’t matter, reality doesn’t matter, ethics don’t matter and neither does decency. The appalling fact is that the Left, self-described “staunch defender” of women, saw fit to eviscerate, with sexism, at least two women during the last campaign. You might think howling about perceived racism and sexism should, at least, embarrass Democrats now. But it DOESN’T.

THAT’S the takeaway here. There is no floor of behavior, there is no self reflection, there is no ultimate truth about the parties and you cannot count on them nor the MSM to tell the truth. As we said a few months ago here and here, the media does not respect its audience.

You know, I think many dissertations will be written in the next 20 years about the failure and/or the mutation of the “4th estate” into something less than objective journalism. I think this election will be seen as the moment when the MSM jumped the shark and proved it deserves neither our trust nor our interest. It will be so obvious people will wonder why it took us so long to realize our “journalists” were really salesmen pimping themselves out for pundit shows and book contracts.

I’m just sorry that the explanation for media bias is so banal. Self-interest, after all, isn’t a very sexy explanation, but it’s a profoundly human one. I think that explanation passes Occam’s Razor.

I think Andrew Bacevich has it right:

A conversation on Bill Moyer’s Journal between Moyers and author Andrew Bacevich, makes a very interesting point about both the Republican and Democratic parties. (You can also download the interview in video or audio free from iTunes, and it’s worth the time.)

Emphasis – mine.

ANDREW BACEVICH: One of the great lies about American politics is that Democrats genuinely subscribe to a set of core convictions that make Democrats different from Republicans. And the same thing, of course, applies to the other party. It’s not true.

No, it’s not. All this talk about sexism and/or racism from politicians and media? Crimes of opportunity not statements of belief. If you want to buy in, buy in. I’d rather remind politicians and media folks that their concern over Sotomayor is convenient timing at best and rank opportunism at next best. The real problem is people actually think this is anything other than situational ethics as it applies to women. None of these parties actually care about advancing women, or we might actually be ahead of countries like Rwanda or other sub-Saharan African states in female participation in government.

Any psychology major probably remembers the saying “the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.” Applied to both political parties and the media, that should be a profound statement about “equal treatment.”

And a warning.

Or, as Herman’s Hermits sang, “second verse, same as the first.”

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NQ has published many posts on sexism against Hillary, Sarah Palin and other women. We’ve called both conservatives and liberals on their misogyny.