"As Media Matters notes today, many critics loudly objected to her ritual feminizing of male candidates...

Dowd has a deeply depraved tendency to indulge in "twisting gender stereotypes around" far more often when writing about Dems than Republicans. And she often does so in a way that dovetails very neatly with GOP efforts to sow doubts about Dems' manhood."

********
Hi Greg--

I don't disagree with this at all, but I do think that Clinton campaign operated in much the same way--using very similar memes--and I'm not sure why they have gotten a pass on it.

The Clinton campaign increasingly treated Obama as less of a "man" than Hillary:

It began fairly subtly, with things like Tom Buffenbarger introducing Hillary in Ohio on February 19 by referring to Obama as a "thespian" and stating, "I've got news for all the latte-drinking, Prius- driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust fund babies crowding in to hear him speak! This guy won't last a round against the Republican attack machine. He's a poet, not a fighter."

Then in April the North Carolina governor said that Hillary made “Rocky Balboa look like a pansy" and a local labor leader described Hillary as the candidate with "testicular fortitude.”

Finally, in case any of this had been too subtle,
James Carville implied that Obama wasn't man enough to stand up to the Republicans and noted that if Hillary gave Obama "one of her cojones, they'd both have two."

Clinton supporters and a self-flagellating media have been quite thorough in exposing, cataloging, and decrying the sexism in the media that cut against Hillary, but I haven't seen analysis to date of how Clinton surrogates themselves played into the Dowdian sexism of emasculation used against their Democratic male opponent.

I don't see how these Clinton themes differ substantively from the ones Maureen Dowd uses against Democratic men, which you and others have decried.

Posted at June 23, 2008 1:40 PM in response to Times Public Editor Hammers Maureen Dowd's Coverage Of Hillary

"The context is in what she was saying about the length of contested primaries, braniac [sic]."

My point was that she was not being asked about the length per se, so that response seems to be a non sequitur.

"She said she didn't know why people were trying to push her out, and went on to point out that her husband and RFK were still in a [sic] contested primaries until June."

And the fact that we lost the '68 election in November doesn't help her see the answer to the question about why people would like the wrap up the primary and focus on the general? Really?

BTW, I didn't blame RFK for Nixon's election. My point was simply that if you would like to suggest that there is no conceivable downside to a prolonged nomination process, perhaps you should try to make your point using an example in which your side doesn't lose the general.

Posted at May 26, 2008 4:21 AM in response to Hillary Hits Critics For Taking Her RFK Assassination Remarks "Out Of Context"

Greg, can you help me understand something? In the article you cite, the Hillary camp is insisting that her reference to the RFK assassination is being taken "out of context." What is the proper context for that remark? Clinton supporters and some media sources are acting as if she had been asked if other primary campaigns had ever lasted into June before. But that wasn't the question she was asked; the question was WHY people would want to see the race concluded. It was a "why" question, not a "when" question. She was specifically asked if she "bought" the party unity argument. Responding effectively to the question she was asked would have required showing NOT that other races had lasted into June, but rather that the extended divisiveness of such races had not negatively impacted the outcome of those races for Democrats. That was the context, and given that context, a reference to RFK's assassination seems strained, if not bizarre. Surely people who remember the tragic assassination in June also remember the election of Richard Nixon that followed it. The Democratic defeat in 1968--and all its attendant consequences for the nation--seems to directly undercut the point Hillary is trying to make, underscoring instead why some of us find her unwillingness to concede so alarming; we'd like to win this election. 1968 was a very strange example to have chosen if she had intended to assuage our concerns.

Posted at May 26, 2008 2:16 AM in response to Hillary Hits Critics For Taking Her RFK Assassination Remarks "Out Of Context"

I'm with Tena here. In addition to all the things that make both "Bill in '92" and "RFK in '68" poor analogies--the very different starting dates and voting sequences in those primaries--how does the '68 analogy work even if you try to give it the most generous interpretation possible?

Hillary was asked if staying in the race hurt party unity, and she invoked the 1968 election as a defense? In addition to the tragic assassination of RFK--which she inexplicably explicitly chose to reference--has she forgotten how '68 worked out for the Democrats? My recollection is that the divisions and demoralization in the party paved the way for a Nixon victory. Isn't concern about a consequence similar to THAT exactly the reason folks are nervous about her interminable lingering this year?

Of all the things I am prepared to believe about Hillary, one is not that she is stupid. So, if she wasn't evoking sinister subliminal "stuff happens" imagery, what then was her point? That elections have dragged on into the summer before and look how well those worked for us, 'cause we're all real proud of the Nixon legacy? WTF?

Posted at May 25, 2008 5:30 PM in response to Hillary Hits Critics For Taking Her RFK Assassination Remarks "Out Of Context"

I'm disgusted by Pat Buchanan, too, but take it easy on Keith and Rachel, would you? I may be wrong, but I don't think I ever see Pat on Keith's show. I'm thinking he's not welcome there. (Can anyone confirm or refute that?)

And Rachel, she's my hero. She counters the voices of the likes of Pat Buchanan, Joe Scarborough, et al. with a combination of clear thinking, solid information, and wicked humor better than anyone else on MSNBC.

Watch Rachel and Keli Goff give it back to Pat in another of his racist hall of fame moments on MSNBC:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o45G2actM8I&feature=related

Posted at May 15, 2008 1:16 AM in response to Edwards: "Democratic Voters Have Made Their Choice, And So Have I"

Whoops--I meant this to be a reply (addition) to the discussion above about the Hardball YouTube Carol linked to...

Posted at May 15, 2008 12:50 AM in response to Edwards: "Democratic Voters Have Made Their Choice, And So Have I"

My message to MSNBC:

First, kudos to Chris for the way he handled Buchanan's repugnant racism on Hardball tonight--by simply pulling back the curtain so that MSNBC viewers could see the truth--when he asked Pat if he shared MLK's vision of justice and unity. Pat couldn't bring himself to agree even with that. I'm not surprised, having read his "A Brief for Whitey," one of the most disgusting screeds to come out of this era.

I made excuses for and tolerated Pat Buchanan until the day I read that blog post. The cruelty, the brutality, of the ideas he expressed there made me truly sick to my stomach. There's just no excusing that kind of bigotry in 2008; it is unacceptable.

Chris, Keith, and Shuster have all apologized on air for real or imagined (exaggerated, anyway) slights to women, or more precisely, to Hillary Clinton. And honestly, as a woman, I was pulling my hair out myself this week watching Mika try to wrest control back from Chris (deep in reverie about the relative merits of Sara Jessica Parker versus Grace Kelly) so that she could deliver the news. But Pat's comments are on a whole different level of egregiousness, and I just don't get why three commentators have apologized to the Clinton campaign and yet Pat Buchanan gets to comment about Barack Obama on air every day with impunity, totally immune to consequences or accountability for a level of racism far more toxic, in my opinion, than the things other commentators have had to apologize for. What, does he have pictures of someone at MSNBC in flagrante delicto?

Chris, hang in there, and don't let him get away with it. MSNBC, show a little consistency in what you tolerate from your pundits, even when the campaign itself is not haranguing you. Pat's antique ugliness just does have any place on a major network in this day and age.

Posted at May 15, 2008 12:43 AM in response to Edwards: "Democratic Voters Have Made Their Choice, And So Have I"

Can anyone explain to me why it is that in all this media analysis Pat Buchanan's palpable bias seems to fly under the radar? I'm a fifty-year-old white woman, and I do notice it when women are slighted (though I look for patterns and try not to overreact to a single comment). That doesn't blind me toward other forms of bigotry, however.

Like most of the right-leaning pundits on MSNBC, Buchanan has shilled for Hillary since the beginning--perhaps sincerely, perhaps for his own political motives. But he comments on Obama on multiple shows on a daily basis with complete impunity, even though his racism seems to me to be more overt than any commentator's sexism (which I'm not denying also exists, though I just don't see it in Olbermann).

Can anyone point to anything Olbermann has ever said or written about women that compares to Buchanan's response to Obama's Philadelphia speech on race?

(Yup, according to Buchanan, Sean Bell's family and fiancee ought to be on their knees at this very moment, thanking God for the good fortune of being born black in America and for the opportunity that slavery has given them for material prosperity and personal salvation!)

Check it out for yourselves:

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?print=yes&id=25634

Here's an excerpt:

A Brief for Whitey
by Patrick J. Buchanan
Posted 03/21/2008 ET

"What is wrong with Barack's prognosis and Barack's cure?

Only this. It is the same old con, the same old shakedown that black hustlers have been running since the Kerner Commission....

Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America.

Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to. [Editorial interjection from your poster: Um, didn't Obama go out of his way to acknowledge just that? Now back to Pat...]

This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.

Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American."

Am I really the only one this offends?

Posted at April 26, 2008 11:19 PM in response to Keith Olbermann Apologizes For Crack About Hillary

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/12/12/post_235.html

Clinton N.H. Official Warns Obama Will Be Attacked on Drug Use

DOVER, N.H. -- Billy Shaheen, the co-chairman of Hillary Clinton's campaign in New Hampshire, raised the issue of Sen. Barack Obama's past admissions of drug use....

Billy Shaheen contrasted Obama's openness about his past drug use -- which Obama mentioned again at a recent campaign appearance in New Hampshire -- with the approach taken by George W. Bush in 1999 and 2000, when he ruled out questions about his behavior when he was "young and irresponsible."

Shaheen said Obama's candor on the subject would "open the door" to further questions. "It'll be, 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?'" Shaheen said.

*************************

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/bet-chief-raps-obama-in-sc/

January 13, 2008, 2:39 pm
BET Founder Slams Obama in South Carolina
By Katharine Q. Seelye

"COLUMBIA, S.C. — Robert L. Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, who is campaigning today in South Carolina with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, just made a suggestion that raised the specter of Barack Obama’s past drug use...

He then added: “And to me, as an African-American, I am frankly insulted that the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Hillary and Bill Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues since Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood –­ and I won’t say what he was doing, but he said it in the book –­ when they have been involved.”

Posted at March 6, 2008 10:53 PM in response to Report: Obama Adviser Calls Hillary A "Monster"