Howard Dean Finds Some Lung Power On Sexism – Nine Months Too Late
By Anita Finlay ("Ani") on November 24, 2008 at 10:36 AM in Barack Obama, Current Affairs, George Bush, Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Sexism
At a Presidential Election Analysis forum at Smithsonian Associates, Howard Dean finally found some grit and an earnest attitude on the “untold story” of sexism in this presidential campaign. [H/T cameoanne at Partizane.com for offering up this video in her great post, Too Little, Too Late.] And she sure got the title right.
Now he chooses to lambaste sexism in the media? How convenient. When there’s not a damned thing we can do about it in this election. As if this kind of disgusting behavior wasn’t evident back in January? Watch the video at the 3:45 mark and listen to how effectively he speaks out about the sexism that Hillary Clinton endured, and later, Sarah Palin as well.
The hypocrisy is staggering. Where was his outrage when it counted? And as Dean himself correctly points out here, we are talking about electing a woman president and the panel leading the discussion is made up of five men. Diversity, anyone?
On a personal note, as a campaigner for Hillary, aside from making hundreds of get out the vote phone calls, I, like many others, were lobbying super delegates, canvassing, protesting media, calling my Senators and Congressman and, among other things, calling the DNC. I phoned, sent hard copy letters, emailed the DNC website and Howard Dean personally. In other words, I got in touch with that man every way I could think of about 30 times since March when I saw the writing on the wall.
I spoke with his rather snooty young assistant on a number of occasions. I begged her – you guys are supposed to be neutral. At least give both sides a fair chance. Dean came out on TV to complain about race baiting (when the only race baiting was coming from the Obama camp, frankly) but never said a word about sexism. This young woman had the nerve to deny Dean’s TV appearance to me. She basically said, Daddy likes them both the same, we are neutral, like Sweden.
Yeah.
Another young man at the DNC, with whom I spoke several times, was so obviously biased, I was tempted to tell him that he ought to remove his Obama button while he’s at work.
At the mugging that took place on May 31st in the RBC meeting in Florida, the bullet-sweating Dean, upon seeing what a mess he had created and how furious Hillary’s supporters were, made some cursory comment about the fact that there may have been some sexism in the campaign.
On another date, after the primary had been forcibly ended in June, he said he really never knew there was any sexism because “he didn’t watch cable television.”
Shame on him.
He didn’t need to restrict himself to cable, believe me – there was plenty happening on ABC, CBS, and NBC daily. The snickering and derisive coverage was endless. Never mind how many media types were screaming for Hillary to get out since the end of January when the race was basically a tie. Has any male candidate ever been treated so disrespectfully?
Howard Dean saying something now is the equivalent of complaining we shouldn’t falsely accuse women of being witches and burn them at the stake, after they have already died.
Wow, that Howard Dean surely is a progressive guy.
If he had stood on a soapbox about it and called the media out on the carpet, the public might have actually taken a second look. We wouldn’t want that, now would we?
No, there isn’t anything we can do about it now, except keep the issue front and center and keep making noise, although I am sure there are many who would rather we didn’t.
Both parties are guilty of this surely – they pick the candidate they want and do everything to tip the scales in that guy’s favor – look at the Bush/McCain situation in 2000. All our voting and campaigning and money raising must be just a technicality.
If so, I wish Howard would have sent all of us the memo.
Might have saved a lot of time and grief.
by Ronald Scott
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