It's the Politics, Grannies

A day in the life of the Democratic Party: yesterday, Barack Obama spoke in a synagogue in Boca Raton, proclaiming his eternal fidelity to the Jewish state. It seems that some of my tribesmen fear that, given his background and ethnicity, Obama might be less supportive than Hillary (or John McCain) of Israel’s on-going ethnic cleansing. But the publicity his speech got, at least on NPR, paled before the news about “Clinton Supporters Count Too,” an organization of Hillary fans up in arms about what they regard as the “misogyny” of pundits, and the anti-Hillary bias of Democratic Party leaders. These good women, it seems, have vowed to stick with Hillary to the bitter end – even to the point of not voting for Barack Obama or holding their breaths till they faint or something similarly “mature.”

They have a point. After all, what does it matter that Hillary set back the cause of universal health care for a generation, permanently marginalized the very idea of single payer, not for profit, health insurance, voted to authorize Bush’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and, looking forward to the next few months, his longed for war against Iran; or that, to the extent she gained “experience” being Bill Clinton’s wife she helped him dismantle the New Deal, wage a war (in Yugoslavia) as illegal as any Bush War, kill about a million Iraqis through sanctions, drop bombs recklessly on helpless people whenever it seemed politically expedient, and on and on. All of that pales before the fact that a few pundits, most of them from Fox News, have made a few sexist remarks -- or that the voters have had the temerity to deny these women’s grand-daughters a role model to show them that they too can grow up to be Whores of AIPAC.

Much of what CSCT cites as evidence is indeed objectionable. But some of it is true. [There’s a certain parallel here with most of Reverend Wright’s “outrageous” comments.] For instance, CSCT is especially exercised over Chris Matthews’ remark, on “Hardball” on MSNBC, that Hillary is where she is because of how she withstood Bill’s philandering. Surely, that’s at least part of the story; the other part is how she got her vaunted “experience” being a First Lady, an official wife. I pointed out long ago that, by that standard, Mamie Eisenhower would have been an even better candidate. Be that as it may, isn’t it odd that second wave feminists – not just the ones who won’t vote for Obama if they don’t get their way, but sensible ones too, like Pat Schroeder (on NPR this morning) – can’t praise Hillary’s “qualifications” enough.