McCain was asked why his staff had even scheduled a fundraiser with Williams, who in 1990 joked that rape was like bad weather: “As long as it’s inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it.” McCain was visibly agitated. He furrowed his brow, fidgeted with his notes, blinked rapidly, scowled, squinted, scoffed and grimaced before answering.
"After canceling a fund-raiser to be held at the home of Texas Republican oilman Clayton Williams, Republican presidential candidate John McCain will not be returning $300,000 raised by the controversial oilman.
During an unsuccessful 1990 bid to unseat late Texas governor Ann Richards, Williams remarked that women should give in while being raped. “As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it.” Williams also said he would campaign against Richards like you would a cow on his ranch, “head her and hoof her and drag her through the dirt,” said Williams.
Democratic National Committee spokeswoman, Karen Finney, called Williams's comments, “not only outrageous and disgusting, they degrade our values as Americans.” Finney continued, “Senator McCain should know that you cannot expect the American people to trust you if you say one thing when you stand on the stump and turn a blind eye to this kind of language when you think no one will notice.”'
"Gloating, unshackled sexism of the ugliest kind has been shamelessly peddled by the US media, which - sooner rather than later, I fear - will have to account for their sinsRead on gentle readers, read on. Up to the part where we wind up with a weak candidate against McCain, who gets elected.
History, I suspect, will look back on the past six months as an example of America going through one of its collectively deranged episodes - rather like Prohibition from 1920-33, or McCarthyism some 30 years later. This time it is gloating, unshackled sexism of the ugliest kind. It has been shamelessly peddled by the US media, which - sooner rather than later, I fear - will have to account for their sins. The chief victim has been Senator Hillary Clinton, but the ramifications could be hugely harmful for America and the world.
I am no particular fan of Clinton. Nor, I think, would friends and colleagues accuse me of being racist. But it is quite inconceivable that any leading male presidential candidate would be treated with such hatred and scorn as Clinton has been. What other senator and serious White House contender would be likened by National Public Radio's political editor, Ken Rudin, to the demoniac, knife-wielding stalker played by Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction? Or described as "a fucking whore" by Randi Rhodes, one of the foremost personalities of the supposedly liberal Air America? Would Carl Bernstein (of Woodward and Bernstein fame) ever publicly declare his disgust about a male candidate's "thick ankles"? Could anybody have envisaged that a website set up specifically to oppose any other candidate would be called Citizens United Not Timid? (We do not need an acronym for that.)
I will come to the reasons why I fear such unabashed misogyny in the US media could lead, ironically, to dreadful racial unrest. "All men are created equal," Thomas Jefferson famously proclaimed in 1776. That equality, though, was not extended to women, who did not even get the vote until 1920, two years after (some) British women. The US still has less gender equality in politics than Britain, too. Just 16 of America's 100 US senators are women and the ratio in the House (71 out of 435) is much the same. It is nonetheless pointless to argue whether sexism or racism is the greater evil: America has a peculiarly wicked record of racist subjugation, which has resulted in its racism being driven deep underground. It festers there, ready to explode again in some unpredictable way.
To compensate meantime, I suspect, sexism has been allowed to take its place as a form of discrimination that is now openly acceptable. "How do we beat the bitch?" a woman asked Senator John McCain, this year's Republican presidential nominee, at a Republican rally last November. To his shame, McCain did not rebuke the questioner but joined in the laughter. Had his supporter asked "How do we beat the nigger?" and McCain reacted in the same way, however, his presidential hopes would deservedly have gone up in smoke. "Iron my shirt," is considered amusing heckling of Clinton. "Shine my shoes," rightly, would be hideously unacceptable if yelled at Obama."
Evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, American men like to delude themselves that they are the most macho in the world. It is simply unthinkable, therefore, for most of them to face the prospect of having a woman as their leader. The massed ranks of male pundits gleefully pronounced that Clinton had lost the battle with Obama immediately after the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, despite past precedents that strong second-place candidates (like Ronald Reagan in his first, ultimately unsuccessful campaign in 1976; like Ted Kennedy, Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson and Jerry Brown) continue their campaigns until the end of the primary season and, in most cases, all the way to the party convention.
None of these male candidates had a premature political obituary written in the way that Hillary Clinton's has been, or was subjected to such righteous outrage over refusing to quiesce and withdraw obediently from what, in this case, has always been a knife-edge race. Nor was any of them anything like as close to his rivals as Clinton now is to Obama.
The media, of course, are just reflecting America's would-be macho culture. I cannot think of any television network or major newspaper that is not guilty of blatant sexism - the British media, naturally, reflexively follow their American counterparts - but probably the worst offender is the NBC/MSNBC network, which has what one prominent Clinton activist describes as "its nightly horror shows". Tim Russert, the network's chief political sage, was dancing on Clinton's political grave before the votes in North Carolina and Indiana had even been fully counted - let alone those of the six contests to come, the undeclared super-delegates, or the disputed states of Florida and Michigan.
The unashamed sexism of this giant network alone is stupendous. Its superstar commentator Chris Matthews referred to Clinton as a "she-devil". His colleague Tucker Carlson casually observed that Clinton "feels castrating, overbearing and scary . . . When she comes on television, I involuntarily cross my legs." This and similar abuse, I need hardly point out, says far more about the men involved than their target . . .
"Momentum has disappeared," said Dante Scala, a political scientist at the University of New Hampshire. "Except for that one stretch between February and March where Obama won 11 in a row, momentum has really taken a backseat to the demographics . . .
"I think there's concern . . . that his coalition has big holes in it. He hasn't consolidated the Democratic Party and he isn't any closer than he was after, say, Super Tuesday. That voter bloc, the white working-class voters, they are in places that Democrats need to win. Without Pennsylvania, without Ohio, the electoral-college map gets difficult for Obama . . .There are general election concerns there."
The increasing rejection of Obama by voters is a measure of his declining legitimacy. People who once thought they would gladly vote for him, like me, are now implacably opposed to him. He is no longer legitimate in our eyes. He has not sought legitimacy, which would mean facing up to oposition and allowing himself to be challenged, questioned, and probably be found wanting by some people, but has opted to pursue power at any price.
Participating in and profiting from the media hatred of the Clintons, throwing out accusations of racism to try to forestall criticism and inflate AA vote counts, encouraging people to be "Obamacans" not Democrats, the "Democrat for a Day" strategy, engaging in intimidation and threats to extract caucus votes, aggressively trying to monopolize money specifically to silence alternative voices, and treating voters who do not choose him first with contempt.
Lack of legitimacy means relying on force to win. If you have to bully people to make them be quiet, you have lost legitimacy. If you have to remove votes from the contest in order to win, you have lost legitimacy.
May 22, 2008 - McCain Leads Obama In Two Of Three Key Swing States, Quinnipiac University Swing State Poll Finds;
Clinton Has Big Leads In Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania ---
FLORIDA: Clinton 48 - McCain 41; McCain 45 - Obama 41;
OHIO: Clinton 48 - McCain 41; McCain 44 - Obama 40:
PENNSYLVANIA: Clinton 50 - McCain 37; Obama 46 - McCain 40
"This week I ran 100,000 trials for both Obama/McCain and Clinton/McCain matchups.
The results:
Obama wins 37.1%, averages 264.7 EV
McCain wins 61.3%, averages 273.3 EV
Electoral tie 1.6%
Clinton wins 99.0%, averages 290.7 EV
McCain wins 0.8%, averages 247.3 EV
Electoral tie 0.2%
This week is both the strongest Clinton has been, and the weakest Obama has been, since I've started running this simulation."
Seat Mi/FL
Now, on to the policy questions, because, as racist, bitter, old, low-info, etc., . . . as we are, we actually care about substance:
- take privatization of SS off the table
- prosecution of the Bush crime clan
- promotion of women’s and LGBT’s rights
- progressive economic policies
- universal health care
- repeal of no child left behind, no merit pay plan
- out of Iraq / no bombing of Pakistan
- reinstate habeas corpus
- commitment to appointing progressive judges on SCOTUS, no waffling
- commitment to repeal the partial birth abortion law, no waffling
- no telco immunity
Have I forgotten anything?
Oh yeah, stop abusing / insulting us . . . incredibly, it does not endear BO to us.
One, there is no crisis with Social Security, which is something progressives understand. There are many crises around the world, including fiscal ones in this country. But Social Security is fine.
Two, politically speaking, Social Security was the issue upon which Bush's momentum in 2005 crumbled because of a large progressive organizing effort.
That Obama is using the need to shore up Social Security as an attack on Clinton, well, this makes me want to say that I'm disappointed that Obama is abandoning the politics of hope.
On another level, I just feel bad for progressive Obama supporters. It's simply awful to watch a person that you thought was great and progressive betray and embarrass you for political gain, and move into a more authoritarian direction.
A lot of Obama supporters at this point will become much quieter since there's little that is positive to say, which will allow the more ardent types to occupy more of the conversation. That's really unfortunate, but it's just a reality that Obama has given up his role as a participant in the progressive conversation.
He'll be back as he's too giant a figure to leave permanently. But his campaign at this point is leaving him not just scarred as a Presidential figure, but as a political figure in general. He has just shrunk dramatically in stature.
