Tag: the war on woman
The War On Woman: Graham Says We Can’t Trust Hillary, Because Monica!

The War On Woman: Graham Says We Can’t Trust Hillary, Because Monica!

Misogynistic attacks on Hillary Clinton have been the norm for as long as she’s been in the public eye. From her fashion sense to her hairstyles to her public displays of emotion, endless criticism has been leveled at Clinton that few male politicians have had to endure. Sadly, the sexist shade isn’t only thrown by those on the right, nor is it limited to men. Male or female, right or left, Hillary always seems to be in the crosshairs of those who make comments about her that they’d never make about a man. Welcome to “The War on Woman.”

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Presidential also-ran Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) reached almost 20 years into the past to attack Hillary Clinton, by bringing up the completely irrelevant subject of her husband’s infidelity.

At a candidate forum in New Hampshire, Senator Graham tried to prove his commander-in-chief bona fides by declaring that he has experience working with both Hillary Clinton and her husband, which has shown that she is “the last person in the world you want to send into the arena with the Russians.”

His reasoning? Why, Monica Lewinsky, of course! Hillary Clinton’s husband lied about sex (as pretty much every married man engaged in an affair tends to do, regardless of profession, political leanings, or religious persuasion—in his defense, perennial swinging bachelor Graham hasn’t had much personal experience in the area), so that means Hillary Clinton herself lies about everything! “When Bill says, ‘I didn’t have sex with that woman,’ he did,” Graham insists. “When she tells us, ‘Trust me, you’ve got all the emails you need,’ we haven’t even scratched the surface.”

Putting aside all the Republicans in Congress—and even in this race—who have committed adultery in the past, one must wonder why Graham chooses to attack Mrs. Clinton, who, by all indications, never did any such thing. Would Senator Graham bring up a private, consensual indiscretion by any other opponent’s spouse back in the 1990s? Or is it only female candidates who are expected to take on the sins of their “better half,” as if committed by themselves? Even when one of Donald Trump’s ex-wives says he raped her, it is swept under the carpet, dismissed as irrelevant, and declared off limits for discussion. It’s positively distasteful to bring up private matters that went on between husband and wife!

Once again, Hillary Clinton, unlike any of the male candidates in this race, is considered to be half a person; merely an extension of her husband. Anything he’s ever done wrong is written in blood-red ink on her ledger, while his accomplishments—and indeed her own—are either diminished or discredited. Try as one may, it is nigh on impossible to find a correlation between this treatment and that of any other candidate for president. She’s not Hillary Clinton, former senator and Secretary of State… she’s the wife of Bill Clinton, who had an affair. What her husband did decades ago behind closed doors is more relevant than what she herself has done on the world stage since.

“As to the Clintons, I’ve been dealing with this crowd for 20 years. I’m fluent in Clinton-speak,” sniffed Graham, proving that to this crowd, there is no Hillary Clinton, accomplished lawyer, legislator, two-time presidential candidate, and diplomat. There’s only one-half of “the Clintons.” And as the female half, she doesn’t really count as a person in her own right.

Photo: Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), via Senate.gov

Video via Huffington Post

The War On Woman: McConnell Says of Hillary, ‘Gender Card Alone Is Not Enough’

The War On Woman: McConnell Says of Hillary, ‘Gender Card Alone Is Not Enough’

Misogynistic attacks on Hillary Clinton have been the norm for as long as she’s been in the public eye. From her fashion sense to her hairstyles to her public displays of emotion, endless criticism has been leveled at Clinton that few male politicians have had to endure. Sadly, the sexist shade isn’t only thrown by those on the right, nor is it limited to men. Male or female, right or left, Hillary always seems to be in the crosshairs of those who make comments about her that they’d never make about a man. Welcome to “The War on Woman.”

WarOnWoman

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The War On Woman: What ‘Royal Family’?

The War On Woman: What ‘Royal Family’?

Misogynistic attacks on Hillary Clinton have been the norm for as long as she’s been in the public eye. From her fashion sense to her hairstyles to her public displays of emotion, endless criticism has been leveled at the former First Lady, senator, and Secretary of State that few male politicians have had to endure. Sadly, the sexist shade isn’t only thrown by those on the right, nor is it limited to men. Male or female, right or left, Hillary always seems to be in the crosshairs of those who make comments about her that they’d never make about a man. Welcome to “The War on Woman.”

WarOnWoman

The New York Times’ Maureen Dowd, whose longstanding obsession with the Clintons borders on stalking, began her latest teen diary — er, op-ed column — with a question she would never aim at a male candidate: “Is Hollywood really ready to give a 67-year-old woman a leading role in a big-budget production?”

Wow. Ageism and sexism in one sentence! Way to go, Mo! But then she veers off into all-too-familiar territory:

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has echoes of various classic movies: “Single White Female,” with Hillary creepily co-opting the identity of the more trendy Elizabeth Warren; “My Fair Lady,” with Hillary sitting meekly and being schooled on how to behave by tyrannical Pygmalions (Iowa voters); “The Usual Suspects,” with Hillary’s hoodlums, Sidney Blumenthal and David Brock, vying to be Keyser Söze; and, of course, “How to Steal a Million,” a caper about a heist plotted by a couple that doesn’t need the money.

Oh, Maureen. Half the time you’re portraying Hillary as a “chilly, scripted, entitled policy wonk,” until it suits you to pretend she’s a bumbling bumpkin who has no skills—either social or political—or experience, and would never amount to anything without men pulling her strings. But Mo takes it even further, into really catty territory, by quoting a known misogynist, speculating about something that’s none of anyone’s business:

Sipping vodka at the Chateau Marmont, Bill Maher said he was not concerned, noting: “Who could have less to do with Bill Clinton’s sex life than Hillary?”

Pure class.

That brings us neatly to our next display of idiocy, this time from former Maryland governor and recently announced Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley.

Playing right into the hands of the entire GOP field, O’Malley dragged out the tired old “dynasty” trope:

Recently, the CEO of Goldman Sachs let his employees know that he’d be just fine with either Bush or Clinton. Well, I’ve got news for the bullies of Wall Street—the presidency is not a crown to be passed back and forth by you between two royal families.

Sorry, what? A grand total of two Clintons have held public office. So are Bob and Elizabeth Dole also a “royal family,” then? And are we really to believe that Bill Clinton—15 years after leaving office—would be in a position to “pass the crown” to Hillary in 2016? He’d have to have pretty long arms to pull that one off.

But this attitude also completely discounts Hillary Clinton’s long career of public service, independent of her husband, and casts her in the role of “wife inheriting power from her husband” (again, with 15 years having passed since the husband last had any power—while the wife has been a senator, a presidential candidate and the world’s top diplomat in the intervening time period).

You could throw this accusation at Laura Bush if she were running for president. You can certainly throw it at Jeb Bush. Both are members of an actual political dynasty, and neither has done much in the political arena. But Hillary Clinton? No. She has earned her stripes in equal (if not greater) measure to her husband, and if she wins the presidency, it will not be because he was elected to the same office 24 years earlier.

Photo: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton provides remarks on “Development in the 21st Century” at the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC January 6, 2010. (State Department photo / Public Domain)