WP, Eugene Robinson on the "bitch" matter: Rhymes with Front-Runner

[DeepModem Mom]

Rhymes With Front-Runner
By Eugene Robinson
Friday, November 16, 2007; Page A33


Hillary Rodham Clinton in Des Moines on Saturday. (Yana Paskova/Getty Images)

"That's an excellent question" normally doesn't make the list of utterances that can get a candidate in trouble on the campaign trail. But this presidential campaign isn't what anyone would call normal. John McCain gave that anodyne response Monday at a "town hall" event in South Carolina when an elegant woman, of patrician bearing, posed this question about a possible Democratic nominee: "How do we beat the (expletive)?"...

***

It was just an odd little moment, among many, in an odd campaign. In the end, I think it tells us less about McCain than it does about Clinton's unprecedented candidacy -- her unique strengths and her unique vulnerabilities. As the first woman with a legitimate shot at being elected president, Clinton has brilliantly navigated the minefield of gender. A year ago, the conventional wisdom was that voters, especially men, might perceive a woman as soft or weak and thus worry about how she would perform as commander in chief. Today, her Democratic opponents attack her as too hawkish, and few doubt her ability to command.

Yet she has also found a way to speak to women, or at least to Democratic women, in a "just us girls" tone that manages not to come off as cloying. Her Democratic rivals face a problem that a Republican opponent would face in the general election if she were to get the nomination: how to attack her without seeming either sexist or ungallant. They still haven't quite figured it out; the recent damage to her campaign was self-inflicted.

But there's another side to the rhymes-with-rich episode. What would possess that nice-looking Republican lady in South Carolina to phrase her question in such a vulgar way?...I think some of the Hillary-hatred arises simply because she's a woman -- and because that vulgar word, the one that rhymes with rich, is always available to describe a woman who gets a little too powerful, or acts like too much of a smarty-pants, or exudes a bit too much authority. That word isn't just a put-down, it's also a pointed question: Just who the hell does she think she is?

The answer, at the moment, is that she's leading the Democratic field. Her candidacy, like Barack Obama's in a different context, is forcing the nation to confront old assumptions and prejudices -- forcing us to decide just who the hell we think we are....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/15/AR2007111502030.html?nav=hcmodule

[asha]

1. ugly to the bone and inbred with fried hair.

I live in sc,and that was one ugly bitch,all slumped up and the fried hair from hell.

[Me.]

2. I Disagree

I think the incident spoke volumes about John McCain

[DeepModem Mom]

5. I agree -- McCain was WRONG here. He had to have strength as a war prisoner...

but this incident recalls for me his weakness in failing to defend his family, to take Bush and Rove to task for victimizing his wife and child -- in South Carolina. He wouldn't stand up to the questioner, who was so clearly out of bounds. His political ambition seems to trump all.

[Me.]

6. Not Only That

But McCain used to make some pretty ugly jokes about Hillary and Chelsea when the Clintons were in the WH, at public dinners no less. I lost all respect for him, prisioner or not, then because he betrayed himself as one nasty guy. The incident the other day, with that smirk on his face, just confirmed it.

[DeepModem Mom]

8. I had forgotten that Chelsea remark, in particular. Looks like this is a pattern with McCain. nt

[Bitwit1234]

3. I am not putting South Caroline.....remember that

but I do a lot of genealogy research. I have found that in most of the southern states, and a lot of my ancestors settled there from the usual state of Virginia. Most of them, in the 1800's married first cousin to first cousin. Which leads to the fact that they have their own set of rules. There has been proven that first cousin marrying first cousin, causes no harm genetically. But with such intermarrying with families, some of the beliefs are only solidified. They don't like outside thinking.

My relatives in Virginia first cousins married each other, those that stayed. Some of our ancestors moved to PA and MD and that didn't happen. But those that stayed, did.

[DinahMoeHum]

4. With Hillary, though, the "B-word" could become an acronym. . .

"Boys, I'm Taking Charge Here"

:P:P:P

[DeepModem Mom]

7. Good one!!! nt