Month: February 2016

Maureen Dowd, FEB. 13, 2016:

“Seeing Albright, the first female secretary of state, give cover to President Clinton was a low point in women’s rights. As was the New York Times op-ed by Steinem, arguing that Lewinsky’s will was not violated, so no feminist principles were violated. What about Clinton humiliating his wife and daughter and female cabinet members? What about a president taking advantage of a gargantuan power imbalance with a 22-year-old intern? What about imperiling his party with reckless behavior that put their feminist agenda at risk?

It rang hollow after the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings. When it was politically beneficial, the feminists went after Thomas for bad behavior and painted Hill as a victim. And later, when it was politically beneficial, they defended Bill’s bad behavior and stayed mute as Clinton allies mauled his dalliances as trailer trash and stalkers.

The same feminists who were outraged at the portrayal of Hill by David Brock — then a Clinton foe but now bizarrely head of one of her “super PACs” — as “a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty,” hypocritically went along when Hillary and other defenders of Bill used that same aspersion against Lewinsky.

Hillary knew that she could count on the complicity of feminist leaders and Democratic women in Congress who liked Bill’s progressive policies on women. And that’s always the ugly Faustian bargain with the Clintons, not only on the sex cover-ups but the money grabs: You can have our bright public service side as long as you accept our dark sketchy side.

Young women today, though, are playing by a different set of rules. And they don’t like the Clintons setting themselves above the rules.”

NYT: When Hillary Clinton Killed Feminism

First, let me say I’m stunned I read this call-out of the Clinton’s hypocrisy in the NYT of all places from none other than Maureen Dowd. This is tectonic and tells us the ground has just shifted on the left. That says  a few things:

1. The NYT in general and Maureen Dowd in particular no longer fear the Clinton’s power nor feel they will be punished for disloyalty by a Hillary Clinton administration. Because…
2. The NYT in general and Maureen Dowd in particular no longer see a  Hillary Clinton administration as a probability. They know the Hillary campaign is in flames and will only get worse.
3. Maureen is aware that something fundamental  has changed regarding the siren song of feminism. Once upon a time, Hillary could press the button that lit the overhead sign saying, “I deserve your vote because I’m a woman and it’s time we had a woman president!” and get applause and support across the board. It’s not working anymore. Hillary keeps pressing the button, women see the sign, but it’s having no effect. Young women in particular are flocking to, of all people, Bernie Sanders, who offers free college and more free stuff where that came from. Which brings me to the next stunning thing…
4. Maureen writes, “Bernie has a clear, concise “we” message, even if it’s pie-in-the-sky.” She knows this is a fairy tale. She’s worked and paid bills and seen the NYT teeter on the edge of bankruptcy and knows things need to paid for, and a plan for taxing ‘speculators’ is economically ignorant at best. If you’re realistically going to discuss providing free college tuition, you also need to discuss what you’re going to give up to get that, especially when you’re $19 trillion in debt already.

That young women are rejecting a pavlovian response to ‘I have a vagina, vote for me!’ is a positive development. That they aren’t asking rational economic questions about Bernie’s promises and appear to know nothing of the long failed history of socialism or even think to ask questions as basic as how much does this cost and how does it get paid for is not a positive reflection on our unionized, increasingly radicalized, government bureaucrat staffed educational system*. But it does show self serving design on their part, coincidentally enough.

(*) I haven’t got the slightest doubt that there are people in that system who genuinely want to provide a good education. However, those desires are overwhelmed by the social-political-bureaucratic tidal wave that imposes the conditions and the curriculum.

So Maureen knows things are looking grim for the Democrats. The vile Clinton syndicate is collapsing as we watch and she knows that while children and the government dependent might vote for Bernie, it’s going to be a hard sell to everyone else. Reading this op-ed in the NYT is like reading a critique of Brezhnev in Pravda. When one of the primary party organs has turned on you, change is afoot.