I’ll think twice when Coretta Scott King’s family condemns it.

Precisely. Nobody but the family really has any right to decide what’s appropriate and inappropriate at the funeral. And if indeed Democrats were trying to score cheap political points at the funeral, it’s no more appropriate for _Republicans_ to score cheap political points in the aftermath of the funeral.

It’s their call. Not O’Bierne’s, not Bush’s, and not any political party. But I sure as hell hope that my friends and family honor my beliefs and my activism at my funeral.

Democrats (and liberals) come across as obsessed and childish and bad-mannered people who would stoop so low as to use a funeral to score cheap political points. Even my independent-minded friends thought it spoke very badly of Democrats.

This will probably hurt Democrats’ image with the public and hurt them on election day. And because of this, it was just a stupid thing to do.

Yeah, instead she’s being castigated for not following the same party line you do. Big improvement, there. Women’s choices are valid and powerful…as long as the women, you know, say the right things while making the choices.

I have no objection to “harsh words” being directed at O’Beirne. I might disagree with the harsh words; might defend her against ‘em, but harsh words are part of the game. Calling human beings vermin is not “harsh words”. It’s dehumanization.

My motive here is not to score points or to make Jill feel bad for (again) internalizing the anti-humanist sentiments of her packmates. My motive is to see a minority viewpoint remain relevant and contributory to the overall discourse. Feminism has things of value to add to the cultural conversation. Those ideas will not be heard when their spokespeople marginalize themselves by using language that, by common assent to standards of decency, has been ruled out of bounds. The larger community is already predisposed to blow off what feminism has to say; using the language of dehumanization will simply turn that predisposition into a dispositive predecision to ignore. I don’t want to see that happen.

Dostoevsky, via Solzhenitsyn, taught us that “the line between good and evil is drawn not between nations or parties, but through every human heart.”

Dehumanization is evil. Please don’t be evil.

However, the question of “what’s right and wrong” and the question of “what plays in the sticks” are two different questions.

And the question of, “How might our opponents twist this to their advantage through self-serving dishonesty” is yet a different question.

“In Women Who Make the World Worse, O’Beirne rails against the late Betty Friedan and the feminist agenda, while as a baby-boomer herself, she became one of the glaring beneficiaries thereof when she abdicated motherhood of her two young sons in 1986 to become a Washington insider.”

I think it’s making the point that by the sexist calculus Friedan spent her life struggling against, O’Beirne is a deeply irresponsible woman whose children should be put in foster care. The fact that O’Beirne is able to be a “Washington insider” without being castigated for not being a Cleaver-esque housewife is evidence that O’Beirne should be a wee bit more grateful to the Friedans of the world.

I think that when you find yourself declaring that ideological opponents are subhuman, you need to take a big step back and get some perspective.

Oh, Robert. I want to say, “You’re so much smarter than that,” but then, that’s why you keep pretending you can’t read, isn’t it? O’Beirne doesn’t deserve harsh words because of her ideology. She deserves them because of her hypocrisy. She’s made a career out of spitting on the women who made it their mission to allow women to have careers. And, gee, talk about politicizing a eulogy.

And you’re buying into it, and accepting that patriarchal framing of O’Beirne’s (complex) life trajectory, just because you disagree with her about some things?

I think that when you find yourself declaring that ideological opponents are subhuman, you need to take a big step back and get some perspective.