Want some examples?
When Al Gore's son was arrested for smoking pot, did anyone on the Right question where the Gores went wrong in allowing such poor decision-making in their child? No, it was the traditional hands-off treatment. Palin's 17-year old daughter, unfortunately, is the sole focus of incredible scrutiny.
While the MSM was 'dragged kicking and screaming' by the blogosphere into covering an adult Democrat politician's affair on his cancer-stricken wife, the MSM needed no encouragement to splash Palin's daughter's pregnancy. Not only that, but they're also discussing if Palin is still breast-feeding her 4-month old son, and demanding a paternity test to see who the father really is.
US Magazine has used two covers on recent issues, one with Barack and Michelle Obama, one with Sarah Palin and her son, Trig. The caption for the Obamas' cover: "Why Barack Loves Her". The caption for Palin's cover: "Babies, Lies, and Scandal".
The Washington Post last year ran a story on how tough it was for moms in Congress, painting them as very heroic individuals (most of whom were Democrats), and the response from the Left was almost entirely positive. With Palin, however, the MSM is offering cash rewards for damaging information on her personal life or employment history. Michelle Malkin summarizes the selective sympathy:
If a Democrat mom chooses public office, she's a patriot Wonder Woman imbued with Absolute Moral Authority on children's, health, and social welfare issues.
If a Republican mom chooses public office, she's the child-neglecting spawn of Satan who has no business debating any domestic public policy because of alleged hypocrisy.
Ain't feminism grand?
Malkin also writes about the four stages of female conservative abuse:There's something about outspoken conservative women that drives the Left mad. It's a peculiar pathology I've reported on for more than 15 years, both as a witness and a target. Thus, the onset of Palin Derangement Syndrome in the media, Democrat circles, and the cesspools of the blogosphere came as no surprise. They just can't help themselves.
Liberals hold a special animus for constituencies they deem traitors. Minorities who identify as social and economic conservatives have left the plantation and sold out their people. Women who put an "R" by their name have abandoned their ovaries and betrayed their gender. As Republican officeholders and conservative public figures who are women have grown in number and visibility, the progression of Conservative Female Abuse has worsened. The astonishing vitriol and virulent hatred directed at GOP Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is the most severe manifestation to date.
The first stage of Conservative Female Abuse by the Left is infantilization. Right-wing women can't possibly believe what they believe about the sanctity of life, self-defense, free markets, or foreign policy. They must be submissive little dolls of the White Male Hierarchy. Or, as a far Left (is there any other kind of Left in San Francisco?) San Francisco Chronicle columnist wrote of First Lady Laura Bush, they must be put in their place as "docile doormats" with no brains of their own. True to form, no sooner had John McCain announced Gov. Palin as his veep pick than jeers of "Palin = neocon puppet" sprouted across the Internet.
The second stage of CFA is sexualization. A conservative woman is not merely a sellout. She is an intellectual prostitute. Unable or unwilling to argue with them on the merits, detractors resort to mocking the physical appearance of their ideological opponents in skirts and denigrating them with vulgar epithets. MSNBC hosts insulted former GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson's accomplished wife and mother of two, Jeri Thompson, as working the stripper pole. Newspaper cartoonists Ted Rall, Pat Oliphant, and Jeff Danziger caricatured Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as a mammy, thick-lipped parrot, and Bush "House Nigga" armed with "hair straightener." New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd derided former GOP Florida secretary of state Katherine Harris for applying "her makeup with a trowel."
True to form, Dowd was first out of the box to snicker at Gov. Palin's beauty pageant past, ridicule her "beehive and sexy shoes," and compare her path to the vice presidential nomination as a "hokey chick flick." Joe Biden backhandedly praised her as "good looking." And left-wing bloggers worked overtime on lurid photoshops of Palin as a bikini model and porn star. At the Democratic Underground, a highly trafficked liberal website raising money for Barack Obama, members held a contest to come up with nicknames and posters to slime GOP Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin — and then to "spread [them] all over the 'net." Among the "nicer" entries: "Cruella," "Gidget," "Governor Jesus Camp," "VPILF," "Fertilla the Huntress," "Iditabroad," and "KILLER PYSCHO FUNDIE BITCH FROM HELL!!"
The third stage of CFA is demonization. When the Left tires of hurling whore insults, it turns conservative women in the public eye into nefarious creatures. Bill Maher called Laura Bush "Hitler's dog." George Carlin attacked Barbara Bush as "the Silver douchebag." A Huffington Post website member wrote of Nancy Reagan: "Like her evil husband, she has lived far too long. Here's hoping the hag suffers for several weeks, then croaks in the tub." Another added: "I feel no pity for the bitch who took delight in watching thousands die of a horrible disease and watching the poor having to eat out of dumpsters because of her husband's political beliefs."
True to form, rumors of Palin being a crypto-Nazi surfaced on the Internet and the fringe media. And liberal critics used her gun-rights record to smear her as bloodthirsty.
And the final stage of CFA is dehumanization. Conservative women aren't real women according to the liberal feminist establishment's definition. Remember when Gloria Steinem called Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison a "female impersonator?" Or when curdled NOW leader Patricia Ireland instructed Democrats to vote only for "authentic" female political candidates? Or when Al Gore's fashion consultant Naomi Wolf described the foreign-policy analysis of Jeane Kirkpatrick as being "uninflected by the experiences of the female body?"
Echoing the bottom-feeders in the liberal blogosphere, mainstream journalists and Obama water-carriers now question Palin's commitment to motherhood and even challenged her pre-natal care decisions in an effort to destroy her. Forget about questioning their patriotism. I question their sanity.
So do I. If you look at those four stages, you can already see all four represented in the last few days of Sarah Palin's life.For a more complete record of sexism leveled at Sarah Palin, go here.
Perhaps the most obvious question is: where are the feminists to defend Palin? Where are the bra-burning girl-power activists to defend the woman who might be the next Vice President of the United States? Where is Hillary Clinton? There is virtually no one defending Palin from these obvious sexist attacks, with the exception of a mild rebuke from Geraldine Ferraro. Otherwise, it's crickets. Does anyone else see the irony here? Just a week ago, we were talking about how wonderful it was that a woman came within a breath of the highest office in the land, but now, with a woman within a breath of the second highest office in the land, she's undergoing a full-scale assault on every facet of her life and family from the very same Left that calls itself tolerant and the party that calls itself the party of minorities.
My, what a shift, and the only difference is the political affiliation!
Some of the lower questions thrown around lately are whether or not she can handle an infant with Down's while being Veep and how she screwed up her daughter so badly that she got knocked up. Seriously? Were any of these things asked of any other candidate??
Rush Limbaugh spoke earlier this week about why, and it really is simple. The feminist Left has laid out a certain path to success for women, but Palin hasn't followed it at all. If anything, she's followed precisely the opposite path. So, if she achieves the success that the feminist left has promised the women of America without doing it the feminist Left's way, that means they're suddenly irrelevant.
That's why we see the double standards on full display - they're so desperate to destroy Palin that they're willing to do or say anything to discredit her. If she succeeds, their entire philosophy will be severely undermined, and they can't allow that to happen. What they don't understand is that Sarah Palin resonates with men and women all across the nation, and the more they intensify their attacks, the more sympathetic she will become.
I hope they do...it's their own political funeral. Make no mistake - Palin is smart, savvy, and tough. When one reporter asked if she could handle this level of game, she asked him if he knew the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull. Her answer: lipstick.
If Obama and Biden underestimate Palin, she's going to chew them up and spit them out, all while smiling that prize-winning smile and garnering mssive public support, until she's sitting behind a very big desk in Washington, D.C.
There's my two cents.
2 comments:
***"Isn't it interesting how things change? From the moment Sarah Palin entered the presidential election equation, the political world has been turned inside out and backwards: crusty old white Republicans are shouting about sexism, and the Democrats -- the party of minorities, remember -- is doing its best to destroy the first female nominee for high office in decades (and only the second ever). Perhaps the most illuminating thing to notice about the political storm raging right now is the gross double standard being openly displayed by the Left."***
Isn't this an indictment of both sides of this issue? If it's true that "crusty old" GOP men don't usually care/vocalize about sexism, but now are suddenly up in arms about it now that there is a GOP woman on the ticket, doesn't that smack of some political opportunism?
Also, is it really the Democrats that have done this? Even you acknowledged that Obama (the head Democrat) came out and said, in no uncertain terms, "back off" the Bristol stories. Is he now responsible for everyone on the Left? Especially after he's said kids are off limits?
Finally, how is it ok to play the "gender card" against attacks about her experience, ability, etc., but get so outraged when the "race card" is allegedly played by Obama?
Or, did I misunderstand, and are you saying that the family stuff is the only stuff that's sexist and everything else about her qualifications is fair game? If that's the case, then you can ignore the last question.
You have to admit that there are some questions about her experience, qualifications, controversies, etc. that people have a right to explore, regardless of her gender? Right? She IS running to be (to use an overused term) a "heartbeat away" from the most powerful office in the world. I mean Obama has had to deal with Madrassa (sp?) allegations, allegations he's a Muslim, whether he wears a flag pin, rumors about whether his wife said 'whitey,' and a number of other things. Surely, she should be open to questions about her mayorship (no idea if that's the right term) of a tiny town, or her involvement/understanding of national international issues, or her alleged use of the governor's office in a personal family squabble, or her pursuit of earmarks, or her support of the "bridge to nowhere" before her opposition to it, or her alleged connection to a secessionist party, or her off the cuff remarks that she wished someone would explain "exactly what the VP did all day," or her off the cuff admission that "I've been spending so much time on state issues, I haven't really thought about the Iraq war," or any number of other things that bear on her ability to take command of the United States. Those all would be topics for discussion of ANY vice presidential candidate, regardless of gender. Just because McCain made a risky pick who has some interesting skeletons (if they even amount to that) does not eliminate the right to question, and question strongly, her qualifications, right?
It is a bit of an indictment of both sides, and though I'd stake my claim that there is far more of a double standard on the Left, I surely won't dispute that there really are 'crusty old white Republicans' who think a woman shouldn't be the Veep.
While Obama himself did issue an appropriately stern statement, his followers on the left (especially in the MSM, which is overwhelmingly Democrat, as has been demonstrated before) have done nothing but ignore his words. As you say, I am not suggesting that Obama is behind these Bristol stories, even though he certainly benefits from them. What I am suggesting is that Democrats at large are behind them. It is Democrat politicians, as well as their mouthpieces in the MSM who are throwing the mud. He is not responsible for everyone on the Left, but it cannot be denied that Democrats are doing the trashing.
I do absolutely admit there are questions about her experience and credentials, and those are being thoroughly explored by the afore-mentioned trashers, as well as others. If there are any weaknesses to exploit, I have no doubt they will be exploited. I share the concern that she is relatively new to top-level executive experience (only two years as Governor), but it should be said that even that experience surpasses that of all three candidates running for Pres. and Veep. While I do think the 'heartbeat away' argument has some validity, that shouldn't be a showstopper. Building on her own experience, a couple years under McCain's wing will season her very, very well for a future run at the President.
She, like all politicians, can't be expected to know everything about everything. But, the role of the President is not to know things, but rather to make decisions. That's where her executive experience comes in, even back to her Mayoral days. Any position that required a final decision that had actionable consequences that affected large numbers of people is preparation for the President. That, combined with character and consistent policy positions, start to give us the measure of a person. It is those variables that we need to weigh as we measure Sarah Palin. We have the responsibility to ask those questions, and to require she answer them sufficiently. This is a requirement of any candidate, regardless of race or gender. I am not suggesting otherwise.
The point of this post is to show the double standard, especially as it relates to the supposed goal of the liberal feminist movement. They claim to want to see empowered women who find success, but they don't flock to the support of Palin because she is the wrong kind of successful women: one who didn't follow their rules. That's the real problem here, and that's what I was trying to illustrate with this post.
As always, thanks for your comments!
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