The last word on the gender card

Via Bitch Ph.D., Digby posts the absolute bestest thing anybody has written on the Hillary Clinton candidacy ever. Here's a snip:

Every presidential candidate, and most other politicians, since 1980, have been bowing and scraping before this constituency. But for some reason, the hunting trips and codpieces and brush clearing and all that metaphorical crotch measuring isn't considered playing "the gender card." It's just considered the normal political pander to an aggrieved minority vote: the poor white males who've been treated terribly by all those powerful women and minorities and gays. What could be wrong with that?

I'm sorry, but this is truly sexist crap. Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney are out there one upping each other on who will be the most macho sadists among the crowd of warring GOP thugs. Hillary goes to her alma mater and says that her education at the women's college prepared her to do battle with the political boys club and the gasbags' eyes roll back in their heads and they start drooling and whining that she's broken the rules.

Well boo f----- (this is a family newspaper! -- a.z.) hoo. The rules are changing. Get used to it.

Half of this country is female and they've noticed, in case these manly men haven't, that presidential politics is a very exclusive a boys club and we don't find it all that odd to mention it. Certainly, if it's ok for politicians to literally walk around with a codpiece to show their masculine bona fides, I don't think it's out of line for a female candidate to speak to a younger generation of women at her college and take a little bit of pride in the institution and her own accomplishments --- since she does happen to be the first serious female contender for president in the whole history of the country. Excuse me for thinking she has the damned right to do it.

All these squirming little fools who talk about how they have to "cross their legs" whenever they hear her voice, or hallucinate that she's "acting like a little girl" or any of a dozen other ridiculous, sexist responses to Clinton are revealing far more about themselves than they are about her. If anyone's playing the gender card it's them --- and it's a picture of a quivering little boy crying in the corner because he doesn't want to share his toys with a girl. Tough. Eat some pork rinds and stfu.

If you read one thing tonight, this has to be it. Get over there.

Comments

[sooey]

Why the last word? It matters that the strongest contender for President is a woman because if she doesn't win the nomination, it's because the Democrats think she can't win the Presidency - BECAUSE she's a woman.

It's not her politics that will lose her the nomination, it's the politics of gender.

[johnnykap]

Hillary's accomplishments? And they would be? Uh, let's see. An advocate for women and children for 35 years. Do you realize how meaningless that is? She got her law partnership because her husband was guvner. She was first lady because of Bill. She won her senate seat because he cheated on her. And if she wins the presidency, it will be because she cried crocodile tears. Yeah, she's a real icon of feminism. I thot feminists were supposed to achieve things without being propped up by men. And of course her husband did more to set back the cause of feminism than anyone I can think of. That was really his sole accomplishment in 8 years.

[Marky Mark]

johnnykap,

Clinton is highly accomplished. She was valedictorian of her class at Wellesley and went on to Yale Law School. I believe she worked with the Senate Judiciary Committee investigating Watergate. It's unfair to attribute these real accomplishments to her husband. The fact that she and Bill found each other and forged a partnership has to do with the fact that both saw the same commitment to common causes and excellence in the other.

Her work post-school included pro bono work and she also raised a family. Her duties as First Lady were real and meaningful.

That she'd be the first President to come from the Senate since JFK doesn't make her unqualified. Lots of other Senators have been credible candidates and ultimately nominees of their party, such as Kerry. And Obama is a Senator too but with much less time or seniority.

And as for Bill, were you better off under him or under Dubya, the least intellectually curious President in decades? not to mention that he was patently unqualified to be his party's nominee in 2000, a fact that was clear then and cannot be questioned given his miserable performance.

Fun to disagree with you again JK!

[johnnykap]

MM, I am much better off under Bush than under Clinton, however, I am not crediting Bush for any success I have had, nor should anyone credit Clinton for any of their success. To blame or credit a president for your personal situation is something liberals do, not conservatives. As for Bush's lack of curiosity, he was in a book reading contest with Rove and within the first 8 months of that particular year (2006), he had read 60 books. Hardly an accomplishment of an uncurious person. Bush was a businessman and governor prior to becoming president and you state he was unqualified, yet Hillary, who has no legislation of any import passed with her name on it, is considered highly accomplished by you. You state that Hillary went to Yale. Bush has degrees from Harvard and Yale. It would appear that you aren't being very objective in your observations about these two individuals.