Sherry Chandler » The Media and Misogyny
The Media and Misogyny
Too little, too late, on CNN Howard Kurtz examines the question with a panel of (gasp!) women journalists. He predicts a backlash. Ya think?:
Link via Tennessee Guerilla Women.
I do not have cable tv, let alone HBO, so I did not watch Recount, but Jane Smiley did and she came to conclusion that Al Gore was right to concede because, in part, it allowed the Republicans to show themselves:
Winning to them trumped every other consideration. It is also evident that they learned from their “victory” in Florida that bullying was the way to go, and so they attempted to use the same strategy and tactics in Iraq. The last eight years show that ethics, law, and human decency meant nothing to these Republicans. And their current pleasure in the depiction of their own rottenness shows that they have learned nothing.
I would like to be a fly on the wall in the room where John McCain is watching Recount. In the course of the next few months, knowing that bullying, cheating, and subverting the election might or might not work, he will have to make a choice. He can run an honorable campaign and lose or a dishonorable campaign that shames him. Does he watch Recount and see Warren Christopher as a “wimp” and James Baker as “tough”? Or does he watch Recount and feel the humiliation that every Republican should feel? He is the carrier of the Bush poison now. The sooner he recognizes it, the better off the nation will be.
My thought? Maybe the Democrats should examine their own house.
Link courtesy of Avedon.
Aside: Kurtz can’t resist a bit of blame the victim in his Washington Post venue:
Somewhere in Hillary’s inevitability phase, the trailblazing nature of her effort got lost. She became the establishment candidate, the return-to-the-’90s candidate, and the wow factor–which has always surrounded Obama–simply faded.
Simply faded? How about was stomped on and crushed and still wouldn’t die? See Avedon below.
Update: Over at Suburban Guerilla, zuzu asks Obama supporters how they’re going to reach out to disgruntled Clinton supporters in the event that Obama is the nominee. Interesting lot of replies. Go read. (Short version: they got nothin’)
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4 Comments
1. koshembos replies at 27th May 2008, 5:13 pm :
I like Jane Smiley’s writing, but can’t say the same about her political views. Gore conceded and that’s it. To say that he was right to do is to ignore the crimes and the tragedy that followed.
Not surprisingly, Obamists have no preparation for reaching out. So far Obama practiced pushing groups out of his new coalition and supported his fans to abuse everybody else. As they say, they don’t have a bone of reaching out in theier body.
2. Helen Losse replies at 28th May 2008, 11:51 am :
That’s a powerful video, Sherry. Truth just keeps coming at us.
3. sherry replies at 29th May 2008, 6:30 am :
I am thinking way behind the curve of my own posts, Koshembos, but I woke up this morning enumerating all the ways this Smiley essay is ridiculous. I am in total agreement with you that she ignores the crime and tragedy that followed on Al Gore’s resignation.
We can never know what an Al Gore presidency would have been like but Smiley seems to assume that he would have been completely ineffectual at countering the right-wing.
It also assumes that the American people, who soundly rejected the impeachment nonsense, would not have rejected the right-wing if the catastrophe of the Bush years never happened.
Worst of all, it seems to say that the deaths of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people and the total ruin of the cradle of western civilization are worth it to prove the Republicans evil and incompetent so that we can replace them with what? Morally superior Democrats? The superior competence of Democrats? So far in this primary, I haven’t seen such superiority demonstrated.
4. sherry replies at 29th May 2008, 6:34 am :
Okay, Helen, maybe I do know some Truth with a capitol T.
I try, but fail miserably, to keep in mind the Dylan lyric that “I become my enemy in the moment that I preach,” which I have always taken as a warning against self-righteousness. I have a lot of preacher in me for all my avowed agnositicism.
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