How stupid does Howard Dean think we are? This stupid:
SEELYE: Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic Party, who says he was slow to pick up on charges of sexism because he is not a regular viewer of cable television, is taking up the cause after hearing an outcry from what he described as a cross-section of women, from individual voters to powerful politicians and chief executives.
“The media took a very sexist approach to Senator Clinton’s campaign,” Mr. Dean said in a recent interview.
“It’s pretty appalling,” he said, adding that the issue resonates because Mrs. Clinton “got treated the way a lot of women got treated their whole lives.”
Mr. Dean and others are now calling for a “national discussion” of sexism.
Truly, that’s pathetic. For the past sixteen years, journalists could say any damn thing they pleased about major Democrats—especially Clinton, Gore and Clinton—safe in the knowledge that Dem Party figures would never care enough to complain. Now we learn why this long roll-over occurred: Party leaders like Howard Dean weren’t regular viewers of cable! How were they supposed to know about the vile things being said? None of us are geniuses out here, but that “explanation” is even insulting to us. Dean would have been much better off if he’d simply said nothing.
He’s calling for a discussion now! Just in time for it not to matter!
Convenient timing. After Hillary suspended her campaign, after years of abuse. Thanks for insulting the intelligence of millions of Clinton Democrats, women, and men who love women with a blockheaded, cockapootie, lame to the 10th power, contemptuous excuse. Between the Democratic party and the GOP, voters have a choice between stealthy corruption and in-your-face corruption. What a world!
Just when we need the Democratic party to act like adults, they morph into vindictive teenyboppers spieling CDS fibs and a lust for kewl, cold cha-ching.
And it gets worse. Organizations like NOW that should have been on the front line when the sexist puke first started to hurl at Sen. Hillary Clinton have finally decided to act on the issue. NOW (irony alert!) and Emily's List will launch email campaigns aimed at "cable channels when they see sexism." Plus, NOW, says its president Kim Gandy, will create a "Media Hall of Shame" on the Internet to raise awareness of "sexist language" in the news.
NOW is starting a campaign! Just in time! Seventeen months later! And by the way, could Gandy possibly have less of a clue? Almost surely, Michelle Obama will not “be the recipient of the same kind of attacks that Hillary was”—at least, not from the media players named in this article. (Good!) The fact that Gandy doesn’t understand this fact means that she’s been snoring soundly for the past many years.
Or that she’s playing it dumb.
La-dee-dah! As a lapsed member of NOW--I didn't see the benefit of, you know, actual results--I have to wonder what's in the water that has made women's orgs so complacent, so out of touch with women?
I can appreciate a woman's right to choose as important turf to protect. But you know what grinds women down to dust every working day of the week? Unfair, stagnant wages and loss of benefits, discrimination, and underground sexism in the workplace. Get a clue, people. Get out of your offices and go talk to women on the street, in grocery stores, at doctor offices if they are lucky to have insurance.
And...
If Obama losing in November means Howard Dean and the new--we don't need no steenking working class--coalition pushers will exit the DNC, the incentive to reject the party's Anointed One just multiplied.
Hat tip to Bob Somerby.
POSTSCRIPT: Thanks, Joseph! My eyes were opened wide during this campaign season.
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