Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Tearing Out My Hair



After reading this Maureen Dowd rant against Hillary. Dowd is overplaying her hand and comes across embarrassing. Perhaps the Washington press hate the Clintons, but that is not what this election is supposed to solve.

What I really don't understand is how Dowd is blind to the sexism in this description:

When I walked into the office Monday, people were clustering around a computer to watch what they thought they would never see: Hillary Clinton with the unmistakable look of tears in her eyes.

A woman gazing at the screen was grimacing, saying it was bad. Three guys watched it over and over, drawn to the "humanized" Hillary. One reporter who covers security issues cringed. "We are at war," he said. "Is this how she'll talk to Kim Jong-il?"

If one flash of tears disqualifies you from being the president, how about a history of alcoholism? Or how about the tears from men?

I also think that she is wrong about the reason why women might have voted for Clinton in larger numbers at the last minute. If they did, that is, which is not yet clear.

Dowd believes that it was all to do with Hillary playing the female-victim card. I believe that if there was a reaction to the event it was a reaction to the vicious sexism of so many pundits when talking about the issue. Had the media not chosen to focus on that one event we wouldn't have this whole discussion, by the way.