Image courtesy of Amanda
Did you know that Sen. Clinton is betraying the feminist cause? Luckily, Andrew Sullivan is around to tell us what’s what. Because, you know, he has a great record of standing up for feminist causes, and keeping the movement pure is high on his list of priorities.
What is Hil doing this time to betray the sisterhood? Well, she’s having her husband campaign for her. Who does that bitch think she is?
Someone please make him head of the Feminist Police Squad.
Seems to me it would make better sense to complain about male candidates using their wives as pure eye-candy in campaigns, rather than complaining about Senator Clinton making use of her partner’s talents. I mean, she’s the successful one, running for President and all that, but Bill’s an experienced politician in his own right who can contribute in his own right.
But I suppose to expect a lesbian couple who are both experienced politicians would be too much (unless maybe Bill could be persuaded into a sex-change?)
I think you should take Andrew’s criticism a bit more seriously.
There is no question that the feminist movement sold itself out during the Clinton years. At a time when the nation as a whole was in an extended learning process about such issues as sexual harrassment (and of course, it was the men who were mainly doing the necessary learing), at the very top of the liberal establishment was the serial sexual harrasser, possibly rapist as well, getting all the love and adoration from the women’s movement. And Hillary was the great enabler of all that.
There were very few more important factors in why so many men turned away from the Democratic party than seeing this hyporcrisy in action. When so many men were fearing (probably irrationally, no doubt) that they were in constant danger of losing their jobs if they happened to look the wrong way at a female co-worker – and to then see the big dog himself acting in ways they could only dream of (!), and getting away with it, and seeing all the feminists actually defending him – well, how could any rational person not find that to be downright repulsive.
No, the critcism is not that hillary has her husband campaigning for her. That is a ridiculous mischaracterization on your part. The issue is that Hillary has a long history of lying for her husband on the very issues that feminists claim to hold dear, of mobilizing support amongst feminists for a rapist and harrasser – and succeeding at it, of going to war against women who object to the harrassing, putting her own career and her husbands above the interests of women, especially “trailer trash”, and of marching herself up her own career ladder on her husbands coattails.
How could any feminist look at hillary clinton and feel proud?
Absolutely dead on right.
Absolutely dead on wrong.
It is one thing to say the women’s movement screwed up and therefore hurt the movement in the long run. I think even those who disagree can say that’s a legit argument. BUT it is quite another to judge a woman in her personal life and say she hurt the movement with her personal choice. That’s where a line is crossed.
How can I feel proud of Hillary as a feminist? Well, couple of reasons. I’ve seen no proof that she ever lied for her husband, as far as we know she was only lied to by her husband. Her public life and her public service has never been characterized by any major betrayal of a feminist cause. And I don’t want to hear she should’ve divorced him for “the cause”, that’s just total crap. It was no one’s call but hers. She made it, she has to live with it, and we don’t get to judge. Period. Her record stands and I believe at the very least she stands toe to toe with the other two candidates. I’m also not going to worry that the liberal base lost votes from men who were jealous and resentful that they couldn’t screw around on their wives or sexually harass the women in their lives.
It blows my freaking mind how the same people who make this tired ass argument about the Clintons somehow manage to deem the likes of John McCain and Rudy Guliani as American heroes without even managing to recognize their own bullshit hypocrisy.
at the very top of the liberal establishment was the serial sexual harrasser, possibly rapist as well
mobilizing support amongst feminists for a rapist and harrasser
I just LOVE how you go from “possibl[e]” rapist to a definite one in the same post.
When so many men were fearing (probably irrationally, no doubt) that they were in constant danger of losing their jobs if they happened to look the wrong way at a female co-worker
That says far more about those men than it does about Hillary, Bill, the feminist movement or the Democratic party if that was their fear.
That is a ridiculous mischaracterization on your part.
Mr. Kettle? Mr. Pot on line 1. He says you’re black.
Sully’s done a great job chronicling the racism (“drug dealer”) xenophobia (“Islamic Manchurian candidate”) and sexism (treatment of women who accused bill of rape and sexual harassment) of Hillary.
A few weeks back he pointed out how bill called obama a kid, not boy just kid, knowing it would go over the heads of most whites while annoying most blacks. He was trying to bait Obama into reacting like al sharpton, knowing such a reaction would turn off whites. Obama didn’t take the bait but that didn’t stop Bill from accusing him of crying racism anyway.
Now, this video, off Sully blog, adds some color to what Hillary is up to.
Jill, I gotta say, it did offend many women here in SC, who just cringed. If Bill had just campaigned instead of becoming Hillary’s ATTACK DOG, that might have been different. As it was, it looked like Hill brought out her pit bull to attack the black man. I knew it would backfire, and it did. I predicted Obama would win, but not by as much as he did.
I assume at least a few of the 27% of older white women Dems who did not vote for her, share this same opinion.
your confusing sex with sexual harrasment and rape
Obama’s rhetoric that for “10-15 years” the Republican party had the ideas, was a direct at attack on Bill Clinton’s presidency. The only valid way to attack that was to have Bill Clinton address it. If Gore had been president in 92-2000, and he had come out with an ad attacking Obama for H. Clinton, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. It is only because the current candidate is that president’s spouse we are having this argument.
I think it was a valid response, and it is certainly more refreshing to see such a use made out of a candidate’s spouse, than as smiling eye candy.
Manju, yeah… Bill also replied to Obama’s win by pointing out “Jesse Jackson also did well in South Carolina”–a handy-dandy way to reduce Obama to “the black candidate” instead of a serious Dem contender.
Also, a way to gratuitously bring race into it. Why didn’t he compare some other winning Democrat to Obama?
Um no actually I wasn’t. The Clinton’s marriage gets held to some higher standard than the other two I mentioned and if we’re going to start judging candidates by their marital decisions then the standard must apply to all. I guess that’s one way to start narrowing the field. Only problem is exactly who gets to set the standard because Hillary ironically is often slammed for staying in her marriage and often by the “value voters” crowd. Bottom line is even if you don’t believe the harassment or rape claims I think it’s safe to say Bill Clinton treated women (at least some of them) in his life like shit, but don’t forget he’s had alot of company in that regard. Therein lies the hypocrisy.
well, S.H., I thought you where addressing either Sully, who’s a libertine liberatarian, or J.Citizen and neither of them mentioned Bubba’s sex life.
be that as it may, i think its more accurate to say the Clinton’s changed the standards, thus mccain, and guiliani are off the hook, while in days of yore, men like gary hart had to kiss their political careers goodbye.
interestingly, the bar has been raised for sexual harassment allegations to be taken seriously, as schwarzenegger found out. hill-thomas would never happen today.
Okay let me try to be clear(er) here. I don’t think Hillary should pay for Bill’s sins, whatever they may be. Whether you believe he committed adultery or you think he’s a harasser or rapist, she still gets the blame. The main claim is always that Hillary let down women by not leaving Bill and/or demanding some public punishment of him, and that claim is made regardless of the extent of the charges. To me, it was Bill Clinton alone who betrayed women including her. It was her call as to how to repond and I don’t get to judge it, nor should anyone else. The assumption is that Hillary is some power hungry bitch who allowed her husband to rape and sexually harass women and particpated in the coverup so she could one day be president is just a tad bit of a stretch to me.
One last thing. At best the above are strawman arguments, reducing Sully’s critique of Hillary feminism, or lack thereof, to calling her a bitch. But who’s really introducing misogyny into the conversation?
this is the sort of bigoted politics Hillary’s campaign has used against Obama: calling him an “Islamic Manchurian candidate,” accusing him of attending a madrassa and being a drug dealer (not just drug taker, as he’s admitted, but a more racially coded accusation) under the guise that that’s what republicans are going to say about him, in contrast to the already “vetted” Hillary, they argued. even Teddy saw thru this.
Truth doesn’t seem to matter that much to the Hillary Clinton campaign, which sent out mailers in New Hampshire criticizing Obama’s “Present” vote on local Illinois anti-abortion bills, implying Obama did not support women’s right to choose. But in reality, the head of Illinois Planned Parenthood had specifically asked Obama and other legislators to vote “Present,” to deny Republicans a campaign issue. Hillary has beat this “Present” gong subsequently in debates.
Now, fundraisers for both Clinton and Obama have been associated with scandal: Hillary’s Norman Hsu, a fugitive from justice, now indicted, who bundled $200K in donations from a family headed by a letter carrier; and Obama’s Antoin Rezko, a real estate developer who sold Obama a ten-foot strip of the yard next door to his.