Who’s Not Qualified?
By Anita Finlay ("Ani") on September 23, 2008 at 8:45 AM in Barack Obama, Current Affairs, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Sexism
In yesterday’s WSJ, Cleta Mitchell, Washington lawyer and former Oklahoma legislator ponders the bias in the snobbish Charlie Gibson’s ABC interview of Sarah Palin:
There it was. Boom! First question out of the box from Charlie Gibson to Gov. Sarah Palin, using the “Q” word. The word that every actual or aspiring professional woman constantly asks herself: Am I qualified?
That’s what he wanted to know, peering down over his glasses at Governor Palin, shaking his foot impatiently, as though dealing with a bothersome child. Are you qualified?
Like all women, Sarah Palin knows this attitude exists. She took it in stride and nailed her response.
It is not that we don’t want to assure qualified people are the ones who get the jobs. It is offensive for Charlie Gibson to ask that question of Sarah Palin only because neither he nor his colleagues of the “mainstream media” talking heads have ever posed that question to Barack Obama.
Ms. Mitchell points out quite correctly that women suffer not from being under qualified, but from lacking confidence in their own qualifications. And with pretentious sexists like Charles Gibson asking the questions, such doubt seems endemic. Women doubt women and insecure men, to protect their own turf, teach women to doubt themselves.
Women always think that if they have one more piece of paper, or one more degree, or a few more years of this or that experience, then they will finally be “qualified” for whatever next thing they are seeking. My advice has always been to forget the additional piece of paper or the few more years of whatever it is they think they need to meet some undefined and elusive definition of “qualified.” Instead, I’ve said to look at their male competition and ask this question: Can I do a better job than he can? And if the answer is yes, then forget the paper and the extra titles and go for it.
Since Governor Palin actually has more executive experience and governing experience than anyone else on the ticket, she is going for it: the Vice Presidency.
But we know that if a woman actually has the audacity to stand up and fight for the job as Senator Clinton did, an eminently qualified candidate by the way, she gets the endless negative media drumbeat, deriding her at every turn and saying “what does she WANT anyway?”
Uh, the Presidency, I think.
The fact is if ANYONE dared to ask Senator Obama if he was qualified to be President, EVERYONE would be screaming RACISM from the highest hill.
While the liberal media demanded to know how on earth Sen. John McCain would select someone of Sarah Palin’s “qualifications” for the job that is “one heartbeat away from the presidency,” they never bothered to ask the same question of the person whose heart would actually be beating in the Oval Office on Jan. 21, 2009.
This is the very definition of sexism, according to the feminist mantra.
After eight years of liberal hysteria accusing Vice President Dick Cheney of running America’s foreign policy from his second chair position, one would think the left-wingers would be cheered by a Republican ticket where a President McCain’s VP isn’t likely to be fodder for those same accusations.
And it is more than a bit ironic that the Democrats have now nominated a ticket in which Barack Obama’s dearth of experience and qualifications, particularly in foreign affairs and national security, are bolstered by his choice for Mr. Cheney’s successor, Sen. Joe Biden.
We have already had eight years of an unqualified man in the number one position, namely George W. Bush. This, more than anything else accounts for the fact that Senator Obama just can’t break 50% in this ‘no lose year for the Democrats. People do not trust that he understands their needs or that he can actually do the job.
So Obama gets Joe Biden to act as his Dick Cheney? No one raises an eyebrow? Two weeks ago, Senator Obama still did not know that Russia has veto power at the U.N. Security Council. And they are worrying whether Sarah Palin is qualified?
Hilarious.
Ms. Mitchell points out that from childhood, “it is an inherent male trait to assume he knows.” Men are always more deferential to other men in the workplace and make a woman “earn it.” Why doesn’t the man have to “earn it” too? I take people as I find them – I never assume someone’s gender makes them more or less qualified to do anything.
This is the icing on the cake:
Many of the questions posed by the liberal media to and about Sarah Palin are illegal in the American workplace to be asked of prospective female job candidates and would get a person asking these questions fired on the spot. “Who will take care of your children while you are working?” “Can you work here and be a good mother?” “Isn’t it a bit of hubris for you to think you are qualified for this job?”
Oh, I see. Gov. Palin suffers from hubris? Isn’t hubris Obama’s problem? He assumes he’s qualified for the job whether he is or not, but no one ever calls him on it. He only served 143 days in the Senate before running for the toughest office in the world. No executive or governing experience. Very little legislative experience.
Why are these “are you qualified” questions not forthcoming for him?
Ms. Mitchell calls the Obama campaign on its hypocrisy and its failed strategy in trying to undermine Governor Palin:
The Obama campaign was wrongly jubilant (at first) at the Palin nomination, believing that it would take off the table the question of Mr. Obama’s “qualifications” to be president. The opposite is true. Just as I’ve advised all those women, all these years, capable women should be compared with their actual male competitors, instead of some elusive ideal of what “qualified” looks like. Now the nomination of Sarah Palin has put a face on that male competitor and turned the tables on the claims that Mr. Obama is qualified for the nation’s highest office and the leader of the free world.
And even if Sarah Palin is as “unqualified” as the left would have us believe (a claim most Americans have already rejected), then former congresswoman Bella Abzug’s lifelong goal has been achieved. She used to say that she was “working for the day when a mediocre woman could get as far as a mediocre man.” So every time the Obama campaign slams Sarah Palin’s “qualifications” and “experience,” the residue of those attacks lands squarely back on their own candidate.
Sarah Palin has raised the bar for Obama. Let’s see if Charlie Gibson & Co. will start asking him about his hubris at thinking he is qualified for the position as leader of the free world and review their collective failure to ask him that question before now.
Ms. Mitchell, I wouldn’t hold my breathe if I were you. It is quite clear that the media is intent on bending the rules and helping Senator Obama to ascend to the Presidency in any way they can.
While I might appreciate the benefits of such media bias in my candidate’s favor, if I were an Obama supporter, I would also be insulted by such favoritism.
This treatment would indicate to me that they have no more true faith in my candidate than those who are opposed to voting for him.
Isn’t that racist, too? Aren’t they secretly saying that he can’t handle it? That is horrible. Why aren’t his supporters outraged?
If the media and the DNC really felt the Senator Obama were ready and qualified for the Presidency, they would come at him and grill him on every policy and character question imaginable – confident that he could withstand the test.
Truly, isn’t that what we all need to know?
by Ronald Scott
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