John Lennon, Meet Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin
By LisaB on September 2, 2008 at 12:30 PM in Abuse, Current Affairs
The treatment Sarah Palin has enjoyed during her first 4 days as McCain’s running mate is disgusting. I hope she watched what happened to Hillary, because the same horrible people are using the same tactics. It’s an indication of how much the politics of governing doesn’t matter that the same type of attacks are used against two women with very different political leanings. Get that? It’s NOT ABOUT THE POLITICS.
How do they do this? By making the candidate look as small as possible. How do you do that? You attack on a personal level – particularly if you cannot really attack someone’s positions or experience.
Let’s review, shall we?
In Hillary’s case, her positions on issues were more attractive to the primary voters, so attacks were leveled against her as a wife (she can’t keep “house”), mother (pimping out Chelsea), and woman (cackles, appearance, etc). Attacks were leveled against her husband (racist, not THAT good a president, crazy, out-of-control). The only attacks I remember against Chelsea directly involved her looks.
Read the rest ->
All these attacks were clothed as “real journalism” and worthy of constant comment. Need a reminder of some of this? Good, because I’ve got a list:
* On his radio show Glenn Beck called Senator Clinton “. . . the stereotypical bitch” and he said “After four years, don’t you think every man in America will go insane?” or “. . .there is a range in women’s voices that experts say is just the chalk, I mean, the fingernails on the blackboard.”
In reply Mr. Andros said, “Oh my gosh, she could be talking about how she’s giving every American a million dollars, and I’m hearing, “Could you take out the garbage now?”
* Marc Rudov said, “You know what? The woman is not called a B-word because she’s assertive and aggressive; she’s called a B-word because she acts like one,” and “Men are depressed, and it’s their own fault, because men are allowing women to take over the world.” How about he says when asked about the downside of having a female president, “You mean besides the PMS and the mood swings, right?”
* CNN’s Alex Castellanos asserted, “And some women, by the way, are named that [white bitch] and it’s accurate” or when he suggested that if Clinton were Sen. Barack Obama’s vice president, “I think Barack Obama would have to hire a food tester …”
Fox’s Mort Kondracke said “Well, this person says Hillary’s a vampire. She’s sucking the blood out of Barack Obama.”
* NPR’s Ken Rudin stated, “[L]et’s be honest here, Hillary Clinton is Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. She’s going to keep coming back, and they’re not going to stop her.”
* On MSNBC David Shuster presented Tucker Carlson with “a Hillary laughing pen” where the mouth moves and the pen makes a laughing noise. In response, Carlson stated: “I can’t tell you, David, how much I appreciate this. . . ”
* On MSNBC Pat Buchanan asserted that when Clinton “raises her voice, and when a lot of women do, you know, it’s — as I say — it reaches a point … where every husband in America … has heard at one time or another.” or when he said,”It’s very difficult for women to reach those kinds of levels effectively, as it is to make them sort of a rally speech. They’re not good at that.”
* Tony Hendra, at the bastion of quality political thinking known as Huffington Post, imagined, “Wednesday morning, a crazed grin splitting her Chucky-like cheeks, Clinton told her staff: “All my life I’ve felt I was a man trapped in a woman’s body!” No-one disagreed.”
* John Eskow , also at the HuffyPot, said, “Her cause is herself. Her feminism is a feminism of convenience. Her concern for kids — which surely once must’ve been real and profound — has turned into a breezy willingness to “obliterate” them. . . ”
* David Rees, yet again at the HuffyPot, titled his carefully researched article “Journey To The Center Of Hillary Clinton’s Mind: ‘Why Would I Drop Out Before Barack Obama Is Assassinated?’”
* And where do I start with MoDo? Blech.
* How about Mike Barnicle on MSNBC saying Clinton “look[ed] like everyone’s first wife standing outside a probate court. . . ”
* Bill Kristol on Fox News said that among the only people supporting Hillary Clinton were white women, and “[w]hite women are a problem, that’s, you know — we all live with that.”
* CNN’s Jack Cafferty likened Clinton to “a scolding mother, talking down to a child. . .”
* MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson announced that “when [Clinton] comes on television, I involuntarily cross my legs.”
* At MSNBC, Chris Matthews, repeatedly dismissed, insulted and belittled Senator Clinton. He said “I hate her. I hate her. All that she stands for.”
* Or how about MSNBC’s slimy Keith Olbermann whose many pontifications on Senator Clinton regularly veered into insanity, such as when he referred to what Democrats needed to force Senator Clinton from the race, and said, “Somebody who can take her into a room and only he comes out.”
And that’s only a partial media list as anyone who followed this knows by now. Obama’s campaign made good use of the race card when indirectly accusing both Clintons of racism. Obama also used sexist themes, saying Clinton was “likable enough,” “periodically lashed out” when she wasn’t feeling well and used his campaign’s music background to label Clinton a “bitch” not worthy of his time.
Now we come to Sarah Palin. So, what high falutin tactics on the political high road have we seen in her 4 days as a candidate?
Well, Andrew Sullivan questions whether Trig is Sara’s son. He wants proof from an obstetrician. He’s been flogging this story despite the utter stupidity of it. Here is what this ethically-challenged dude has to say today:
. . . what harm would it do to release the medical records showing that Sarah Palin delivered Trig on April 18 in Wasilla? This is not hard: there must be an obstetrician, medical records, and data that can easily refute this rumor. It is not out of the ordinary either: candidates routinely issue medical records. So let’s have them. And then we can move on.
(This is the bulk of the “story” if you want to go, do it. I refuse to link to this trash.)
Know what this is though? It’s a guy trying to justify his earlier bs by pretending that proof would allow everyone to “move on.” So, he’s doing the CYA dance.
However.
This is also a bullying tactic. He’s trying to get Palin to answer to him, no matter how ridiculous the charge. Just because he can. It’s so high school and he never grew up, did he?
In an amazingly snide piece, Richard Cohen at the WaPo gives another anti-Palin screed. Only this time she’s compared to Caligula’s horse. I kid you not.
One of the great sights of American political life — a YouTube moment if ever there was one — was to see the doughboy face of Newt Gingrich as he extolled the virtues of Sarah Palin, a sitcom of a vice presidential choice and a disaster movie if she moves up to the presidency: “She’s the first journalist ever to be nominated, I think, for the president or vice president, and she was a sportscaster on local television,” Gingrich said on the “Today” show. “So she has a lot of interesting background. And she has a lot of experience. Remember that, when people worry about how inexperienced she is, for two years she’s been in charge of the Alaska National Guard.”
It’s a pity Gingrich was not around when the Roman Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, better known by his nickname Caligula, reputedly named Incitatus as a consul and a priest. Incitatus was his horse.
Cohen, rediscovering his childhood love of mud pies and name-calling, is reducing all Palin’s experience to the level of a horse. A horse gets ridden, has no choice in where it goes with a bit between its teeth and is considered a “beast of burden.”
When reminded that Palin did have responsibilities as governor to use the National Guard if necessary, and that Alaska is closer to a potentially hostile power than other states, Cohen had this pithy statement:
Still, you have to admit that in all that time, especially since Palin became governor about two years ago, no Russian invasion force has come across the strait, maybe because she was in charge of the Guard, maybe because she herself is a hunter and an athlete. The record is unclear because no high-ranking Russian appeared on any of the weekend talk shows to say how they had considered an invasion of Alaska and then backed off when Sarah Palin became commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard. Who could blame them?
No one claimed Palin spent her time repelling invading forces across the Bering Strait. However, being aware of your neighbors is something everyone does, whether in the neighborhood or in geo-politics. It’s called “situational awareness.” Trying to make Palin look small because she knows exactly where Alaska is, is, well, kind of stupid. So is making fun of her for hunting. Everyone seems to think it’s hip for Obama to shoot some hoops while wearing a USMC t-shirt.
Alan Colmes has already questioned Palin’s ability as a gestating mother and asks whether she and her husband eloped. The first is unacceptable and the second simply stupid. Naturally, Colmes has taken these bits off his website. Must have been embarrassed. I doubt he grew a conscience.
Today’s NYT has a story about Palin as a mother that also references the famous “mommy wars.” I really hate this piece. It totally takes out her husband’s likely contributions as a parent and, quite frankly, outlines the subtle or not so subtle attacks to be lobbed against Palin for the rest of her political career. (Look for Michelle to talk more about “keeping house.”)
But since then, as mothers across the country supervise the season’s final water fights and pack book bags, some have voiced the kind of doubts that few male pundits have dared raise on television. With five children, including an infant with Down syndrome and, as the country learned Monday, a pregnant 17-year-old, Ms. Palin has set off a fierce argument among women about whether there are enough hours in the day for her to take on the vice presidency, and whether she is right to try.
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“When I first heard about Palin, I was impressed,” said Pamela Moore, a mother of two from Birmingham, Ala. But upon reading that Ms. Palin’s special-needs child was three days old when she went back to work, Ms. Moore began questioning the governor’s judgment. Partly as a result, she plans to vote for Senator Barack Obama.
——————–“You can juggle a BlackBerry and a breast pump in a lot of jobs, but not in the vice presidency,” said Christina Henry de Tessan, a mother of two in Portland, Ore., who supports Mr. Obama.
————————And upon hearing Monday that Ms. Palin had known of the pregnancy of her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, before accepting the vice-presidential slot, some wondered why she had not bypassed the offer in order to spare her daughter the scrutiny.
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“I know now that it was virtually impossible for me [former Gov. of MA Jane Swift] to take advice and make decisions when I was responding emotionally as a mother, not thinking rationally as a public official,” she wrote in an essay in Boston magazine.
See this? Watch for stories about whether Palin is a “good mother” who devotes herself to her family or whether she’s “selfish” and pursues her opportunities. No stories, however, on Palin’s husband and his parenting. Since he left his job to avoid conflict of interest issues in Alaska, it could easily be supposed he would become the caretaker parent. I see stay-at-home dads at the park these days; what’s the problem here?
I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. Discuss her positions on issues, discuss her experience (although how anyone could argue it’s less than Obama’s is beyond me) or discuss her appeal to voters.
Her family should be left out of it. Her kids should be left alone. Her body should be off limits to stupid pundits – particularly someone like Sullivan who has famously advertised for “bareback” partners despite his positive HIV status.
If Palin’s family is taken apart, Obama’s family should be as well. Get grandma out of her nursing home and ask her a few questions. Get Michelle’s OB to issue a statement about her children. Ask Michelle why she accepted a high paying job when she could have stayed home with the kids. Ask whether Barack is a fit parent because of his associations with Ayers and Rezko. Ask if exposing his daughters to a racist theology is good for their development.
Oh, yeah. I can see it now. Michelle as the “good mother” and Palin as the “ambitious” mother. Blech.
So, look for more “stories” like these. Look for Obama’s campaign attacking Palin along the same lines Hillary was attacked and along the lines of her family history. Look for these idiots to question her loyalty and love for her kids and her ability to handle a job despite the presence of her spouse. Look for them to reduce her accomplishments to ambition, lack of love for her children, small town politics, second tier state governor, not so successful hockey mom, shallow woman.
Look for these losers to cloak their attacks in concern about the “vetting process,” since that’s an indirect way to attack Palin. Look for them to call for her to drop out “for the good of her family.” For the good of her wonderful special needs baby who must surely need so much care Palin cannot rely on the child’s father and must leave public life.
Obama will probably pronounce her “likable enough,” don’t you think?
Unfortunately, it looks like John Lennon and Yoko are still right:
, the basis for the Best Motion Picture Nominee (Golden Globes) starring Brad Pitt.
, the novel by John Le Carre, a new motion picture starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth.
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* (Included in the 
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.by David Fredosso who wrote 2008's 
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