Marcia Pappas is pissed off. She’s pissed off at John Kerry:
Psychological Gang Bang of Hillary is Proof We Need a Woman President
January 11, 2008
by Marcia Pappas, President NOW – New York StateWe’ve all witnessed scenarios where, on the playground little girls are being taunted by little boys while both girls and boys stand idle, afraid to speak up or even cheering. Or, in the workplace males tease young and older female co-workers; make obscene gestures, inappropriate comments, laughing and expecting (often correctly) that everyone will join in. Then there was that movie where Jodie Foster portrayed the true story of woman who was ganged raped (sic) in a bar while others looked on and encouraged the realization. Still others pretended the rape didn’t happen. In short, gang raping of women is commonplace in our culture both physically and metaphorically.
This past week, we witnessed just such a phenomenon involving men who are afraid of a powerful woman. Hillary Clinton, in her quest for her Presidential nomination, has in fact endured infantile taunting and wildly inappropriate commentary. Indeed we have witnessed almost comical attacks by John Edwards who in turn sided with Barak Obama as both snickered at Clinton’s “breakdown,” which consisted of a very short dewy-eyed moment. Now John Kerry, who should certainly know better after his own “swiftboating,” has joined the playground gang.
But here’s the news. Every woman knows how it feels! (&c.)
Today she’s pissed off at Ted Kennedy (making it a clean sweep of Massachusetts Senators):
January 28, 2008
[from Ben Smith @ Politico]
NY NOW: “Betrayal!”
Whoa. The New York State chapter of the National Organization for Women attacked Ted Kennedy for his endorsement today with some real heat. The Times Union reported it first (writing, “‘Scathing’ feels inadequate here.”), and I confirmed its authenticity with the president of the organization, Marcia Pappas.I started to pick out the most eyebrow-raising passages but, that proved kind of hard, so here’s the whole thing:
“Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal. Senator Kennedy’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard. Women have forgiven Kennedy, stuck up for him, stood by him, hushed the fact that he was late in his support of Title IX, the ERA, the Family Leave and Medical Act to name a few. Women have buried their anger that his support for the compromises in No Child Left Behind and the Medicare bogus drug benefit brought us the passage of these flawed bills. We have thanked him for his ardent support of many civil rights bills, BUT women are always waiting in the wings.
“And now the greatest betrayal! We are repaid with his abandonment! He’s picked the new guy over us. He’s joined the list of progressive white men who can’t or won’t handle the prospect of a woman president who is Hillary Clinton (they will of course say they support a woman president, just not “this” one). ‘They’ are Howard Dean and Jim Dean (Yup! That’s Howard’s brother) who run DFA (that’s the group and list from the Dean campaign that we women helped start and grow). They are Alternet, Progressive Democrats of America, democrats.com, Kucinich lovers and all the other groups that take women’s money, say they’ll do feminist and women’s rights issues one of these days, and conveniently forget to mention women and children when they talk about poverty or human needs or America’s future or whatever.
“This latest move by Kennedy, is so telling about the status of and respect for women’s rights, women’s voices, women’s equality, women’s authority and our ability – indeed, our obligation – to promote and earn and deserve and elect, unabashedly, a President that is the first woman after centuries of men who ‘know what’s best for us.’”
As with many of these advocacy groups, different chapters wield varying influence in different states, and NOW isn’t the sort of political player in New York that, say, NARAL, is.
Still.
Screw Ben Smith. But the statement seems to be genuine. And what’s truly appalling about this sexist rant (from someone who throws “gang rape” around to justify her stereotyped hatred of the “enemy” — evidently, the male gender, per se — as casually as a sadistic school boy tears the wings off a fly) is that she seems to have carefully missed Caroline Kennedy’s endorsement of Obama on Sunday, in the New York Times. Or today’s — right before Sen. Kennedy’s speech! Golly. Did SHE betray all the women of America? Hmmm:
Over the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wish they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president. This longing is even more profound today. Fortunately, there is one candidate who offers that same sense of hope and inspiration and I am proud to endorse Senator Barack Obama for President.
I am happy that two of my own children are here with me, because they were the first people who made me realize that Barack Obama is the President we need. He is already inspiring all Americans, young and old, to believe in ourselves, tying that belief to our highest ideals – ideals of hope, justice, opportunity and peace – and urging us to imagine that together we can do great things.
My Uncle Teddy feels the same way, and I am proud to stand with him today. For more than four decades in the Senate, Teddy has led the fight on the most important issues of our time: civil rights, social justice, and economic opportunity. Workers, families, the elderly, the disabled, immigrants, and men and women in uniform – all have no stronger champion. He has stood with teachers, students and parents to improve our public schools and help with the high price of a college education. When it comes to fighting for quality, affordable health care, Teddy is in a league of his own.
As long we’re wallowing in the gutter:
On the other hand, if anyone can truly be called a traitor to her sex, it’s the NRO’s sleazy Kathryn Jean Lopez, who pounces, like a three-days’ hungry whore at the sight of a fat wallet:
Monday, January 28, 2008
“Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal.” [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
You have got to be kidding me. This comes from NOW’s N.Y. chapter and just has to be quoted in full:
[This she does, see above]
Hat tips: Times Union/Rush/Ben Smith.
One presumes that the “Rush” obeisantly and gratuitously prostrated to is the racist radio host and not the Butyl Nitrate poppers so popular in gay discos of the ’80s.*
[* Which, come to think of it, comes uncomfortably close to the long-standing rumors regarding the former's "Larry Craig-ish" lifestyle and preference for the closet, including the mysterious disappearance of police reports of "Jeff Christie's" arrest for public indecency in Pennsylvania back in the disco daze.]
RedState, ever the collective masters of dumbassery had this to say:
Betrayal of the Female Reproductive Organ
By ErickAs the Clintons and their supporters continue their destruction of the Democratic Party, we see the latest salvo fired from the thighs of ugly nags.
From the nether regions that see no men, New York’s National Association of Gals is out bashing Teddy Kennedy for endorsing Barack Obama instead of Hillary Clinton.
Why?
Because Hillary is a woman and she therefore deserves the endorsement. Check out the letter:
Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal. Senator Kennedy’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard. Women have forgiven Kennedy, stuck up for him, stood by him, hushed the fact that he was late in his support of Title IX, the ERA, the Family Leave and Medical Act to name a few. Women have buried their anger that his support for the compromises in No Child Left Behind and the Medicare bogus drug benefit brought us the passage of these flawed bills. We have thanked him for his ardent support of many civil rights bills, BUT women are always waiting in the wings.
Did his endorsement smack some witch up? Did it leave a black eye? Seriously?
Good grief this is overwrought.
Not so much as Tom Phillips’ blog catamite “Erick”s flaccid posting, but overwrought, indeed.
I GET that assholes like Erick at RedState and KJL at NRO are the enemies of women. On that part, I think that Ms. Pappas and I are in full agreement. But, as for the rest of this unholy sexist, stereotype-bashing mess?
Have we at long last no decency?
Guess not, actually.
Still, Emily Bazelon at Slate provides a good counterbalance to this madness:
Wow, NOW
“Whoa,” says Ben Smith of Politico about the New York chapter of NOW’s blast against Ted Kennedy for endorsing Barack Obama. Whoa is right. Also woe. Also wow. NOW NY calls the endorsement “the ultimate betrayal,” lays into Kennedy for his apparent past legislative sins, which the group previously “hushed,” and writes, “And now the greatest betrayal! We are repaid with his abandonment! He’s picked the new guy over us.” Lots more fury follows—enough to prompt John Dickerson to wonder if the name Mary Jo Kopechne was in the original draft of NOW’s press release.
So, that’s it—an endorsement of any candidate but Hillary is a betrayal of the feminist cause? I suppose the more sophisticated version is that interest groups expect the politicians they support to support them blindly in their time of need. This is their time of need, the NY NOW chapter argues, ergo, Kennedy should be with them. But that assumes that the feminist time of need equates with electing Hillary. Would most women, or even most feminists, agree with that? I just can’t. [more]
Courage.
UPDATE, January 29, 3:34 AM PST: Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic‘s Daily Dish managed to “scoop” me … er, precisely 50 minutes later than I posted this, Sullivan posting his “scoop” on 28 Jan 2008 08:21 pm (which is EST, I think, or 5:21 PM PST at the earliest). My piece was posted at 4:31 PM — 16:31 PST — or exactly 50 minutes prior to his discovery of the January 11 NOW-NY Press Release that begins this blog posting. Of course our posts DIFFER in their relative REACH, and inasmuch as mine is longer and DOESN’T trumpet that it’s a “scoop” in a Johnny-Catch-Up, mee-TOOOO! manner, of course.
One of the things I love about the internet: I’m just as quick on the draw as the hoity-toity, VERY WELL COMPENSATED bloggers, and often, as in this case, faster.
Slap iron, Sullivan. Yippie-yi-yo-ki-yay, dude.* [* ‘Dude’ in the original sense.]
Ain’t meritocracy grand?
UPDATE, January 29, 4:40 AM PST: 44 minutes late …
Kathryn Jean Lopez at NRO’s The Corner discovers the “smoking gun” a la Andrew Sullivan at 8:15 PM EST(?):
“Psychological Gang Bang of Hillary is Proof We Need a Woman President” [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Another great moment from NOW-NY.
Seriously? How did I miss this?
We’ve all witnessed scenarios where, on the playground little girls are being taunted [snip - see above]
It goes on. But I can’t. Where’s room for parody in the world, when you have liberal feminists?
Again, nice try, but 44 minutes late. As the man said: Close, but no SEE-gar.
Hart, on the timing of your posts, the bastards rip me off all the time. I’m rather convinced that Frank Rich reads me regularly and then lifts entire sections of my stuff which miraculously appear in the Sunday NYT. The sad thing about putting out for free, as we do, is that those who make a living off writing the same things just rip off the freebies and can do so without attribution or recompense.
On the post itself, it’s unfortunate that anyone who dares to support someone other than HRC is viewed as being “sexist” by the hard-core women’s groups. I disagreed with your post awhile back re Gloria Steinem (who I thought did make some valid points), but Pappas is way off the mark in her trashing of Kerry, Kennedy, et al.
The funny thing about the Democrats is that the divisions between gender and race which each camp is squaring off into (I keep thinking, “Westside Story” sans the music or the ability to dance) are just a preview of what’s to come this fall. Except this fall, it will be swift-boat style blizzard of attacks the likes of which we’ve never seen.