For months, Hillary has been trying to emasculate Obama with the sort of words and themes she has chosen, stirring up feminist anger by promoting the idea that the men were unfairly taking it away from the women, and covering up her own campaign mistakes with cries of sexism. Even his ability to finally clinch the historic nomination did not stop her in that pursuit. She did not bat her eyelashes at him and proclaim him Rhett Butler instead of Ashley Wilkes.
Evidently Maureen Dowd doesn’t think so, since she’s relying on the fact that ongoing drama must sell newspapers! If a groan-inducing Gone With the Wind reference (or suggestion, even!?) is the best she can do to smear Clinton and make Obama look bad in the process, I’m not that worried about the crypto-conservative overtones. (John McCain is being anointed?)
Her suggestion about Clinton hoping that Obama will be assassinated isn’t much better. I’s a bad joke that’s been on everyone’s lips since rumors went around that Clinton would accept a running mate offer, but coming from Dowd’s acidic pen, so often poised to puncture female candidacies, it loses most of the humor. Blech, I’m going back to sleep for a few weeks at least — someone wake me up when all this “race vs. gender” crap is over and people actually start focusing on beating the old white establishment guy.
On a more positive note, what Jill just said.
UPDATE: On a less positive note, this point of this post is that Maureen Dowd’s column is salting wounds (and possibly the earth) and, as zuzu said on Shakesville, doing her best to stick a shiv in both candidates. At this point it seems like the most vocal and angry supporters in either camp are ALL starting to have that effect. Especially on people like me who really don’t care which candidate won — because they’re almost entirely indistinguishable in any way that I think really matters and that you can really talk about without sounding like a jerk.
So the point of this post, and the following discussion, is certainly NOT to engage in even more intra-partisan across-the-lines sniping and hostility. There’s been plenty of that already, so don’t be surprised if I delete your post like I already did to a dozen off-topic ones, including some of my own. (If you are the author of one of those posts, they’re all in moderation, so you should be able to retrieve the text if you really need it.)
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I thought that the Clinton assassination stuff was due to her RFK remarks. Though even if she hadn’t said that, I can see the jokes still going around. Honestly, don’t those jokes go around a LOT when it comes to second-in-command? (Though I don’t doubt that the misogynist vitriol directed at Hillary so frequently is capable really exaggerating the phenomenon.)
Cara — my point was more that Dowd is repeating that rather grim and nasty joke with a straight face.
Holly, I got that much. I was really just talking about where the “joke” originated, as I got the impression in the post that you thought it to have originated at discussions about her being a possible running mate, and I thought that it was the RFK remarks. Sorry, I’ve been latching onto details and quibbling a lot lately without even realizing I’m doing it.
Honestly Holly, what constructive conversation were you expecting to stem from posting a [typically] petty and mean Maureen Dowd column?
I really think that this has been a big problem this entire primary. The candidates are almost identical on their policy positions so this is where we end up. We’re all cranky and tired, and I’m not really sure how we go about healing or unifying or whatever we want to call it. How about an op-ed blackout? I know thats whats on the menu for me.
I suppose I was hoping that maybe people could condemn the kind of bad, petty behavior that Dowd provides a shining example of, and then talk about how to discuss things and move on instead? It’s a negative “what not to do” exemplar, one would think.
An op-ed blackout does sound like a good idea though; too many columnists are like flies on shit when there’s stupid political drama.
That’s cool, don’t worry about it! The joke in question is the more recent one about why Hillary is willing to be a running mate, and it’s definitely fused onto the RFK remarks to form “she wants him in office and then dead!” I mean, come on, Dowd. It’s momentarily funny as a very sinister joke out of a dark world, but not as “theory #2.”
At some point, intentional or not, talk of fence-mending becomes picking at scabs.
People need distance. How about a week of zero Obama and Clinton talk?
Even Maureen Dowd thinks that Hillary hoping Obama will be assassinated is beyond the pale, but if it were to happen, wouldn’t Hillary want to be in position? I call it the We Are Marshall strategy.
And Maureen Dowd has used Gone With The Wind analogies several times. A month ago, Dowd was comparing Hillary to both Blanche DuBois and Scarlett O’Hara.
I think there is a huge amount of room for a feminist critique of Hillary’s campaign as anti-feminist. However, Ms. Dowd is not the one to do that and this is not the time for it.
Oh for gosh sakes Dowd hates the Clintons, and will now hate Obama.
Dowd is becoming less relevant with each passing day. She hates women, wants all the boys to like her, and has less integrity than a snake.
In many ways she’s just Annie C. (or Michelle Malkin) with a better vocabulary.
I read Maureen Dowd’s column this morning, ruining a perfectly good cup of homemade iced coffee, and said aloud “Fuck you, Maureen Dowd.” That is all the response I think she rates.
Also, what Margalis said.
Dowd hates Democrats, period. Women are consistently framed as too ‘masculine’ and men as ‘feminine’– remember John Edwards’ haircut? She’s a nasty, unpleasant piece of work. And I agree, her sad attempt to fan the flames between the camps is annoying at best.
I love how Maureen Dowd can simultaneously attack Clinton for being too masculine and Obama for being too feminine. You’d almost think she hates all Democrats and will say/do anything to tank the election
/sarcasm, obviously
Can we please stop referring to suggestions that Obama may be assassinated as “a joke”?!?!
I mean… really. As often as the mainstream feminist blogs get all up in arms over products, television shows/movies, etc. that employ misogyny as a source of humor and proclaim: “VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ISN’T FUNNY”– you’d think that it wouldn’t be asking too much a that we stop referring to the threat of violence against Obama as a FUCKING JOKE.
Can we please stop referring to suggestions that Obama may be assassinated as “a joke”?!?!
I mean… really. As often as the mainstream feminist blogs get all up in arms over products, television shows/movies, etc. that employ misogyny as a source of humor and proclaim: “VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ISN’T FUNNY”– you’d think that it wouldn’t be asking too much a that we stop referring to the threat of violence against Obama as a FUCKING JOKE.
Fence mending has begun.
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