NY NOW raises eyebrows with talk of ‘ultimate betrayal’

January 29, 2008

When I saw an email yesterday with a statement purporting to be from the New York State chapter of the National Organization of Women, I dismissed it as a poor attempt at humor. The statement, claiming to be in response to Ted Kennedy’s endorsement of Barack Obama, was so over the top, and so hyperbolic in its claims, I assumed there was no way that any NOW affiliate would issue it to the media.

And yet, unfortunately, this statement is entirely legitimate. In its entirety:

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.”

It’s hard to overstate how misguided this is. NOW’s national office sought to distance itself from the state chapter’s comments, and given the content, that’s not surprising.

I don’t see any need to reinvent the wheel here, so I’ll just quote some insightful posts from some great women writers.

Emily Bazelon:

[A]n 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. And what does this narrow-cast way of evaluating a candidate really have to recommend it? I can’t think of anything on that score, either.

Ann Friedman:

This is completely unhinged, and frankly, mind-boggling…. All I can say is, NOW-NY does not speak for me. And it does not speak for all feminists.

Jill Filipovic:

Actually, The Ultimate Betrayal (TM) is more like when someone flies off the handle and makes outrageous claims in the name of feminism…. [I]s no one vetting this woman’s press releases? Do they not have a halfway competent PR person? Or does NOW of New York State actually stand behind this?

Hilzoy:

Leave aside the part about the “greatest betrayal” — surely someone, somewhere in the history of the fight for women’s rights must have done something worse than supporting a male candidate who is fully committed to feminism. As a feminist, I find it infuriating that NOW-NY, or any other organization, would presume to say that not supporting their favored candidate is a betrayal of feminism, at least in this case.

In some situations, I could see their point. If, for instance, Ted Kennedy had come down in favor of some candidate who had sworn to appoint only right-wing judges to the Supreme Court, or to oppose any federal funding for any abortion, or something, fine. Where the issues are clear and the candidates have massive differences on feminist issues, I don’t have a problem with feminist groups deciding that supporting a given candidate is not what feminists do. But that’s not the situation we’re in.

Clinton and Obama have gotten solid 100% ratings from NARAL and Planned Parenthood (Obama also gets 100 from the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association for 2005-6, while Clinton gets 93; she was 100 through 2004, however.) Both Clinton and Obama were with NOW 100% of the time in 2006; in 2005, NOW gave Obama a 91 and Clinton a 96. I was somewhat surprised to find that Obama did slightly better than Clinton on the Children’s Defense Fund’s ratings: Clinton has a perfect score until 2006, when she got a 90; Obama has consistent 100s…. It’s nutty to suggest that no feminist in good standing can support a candidate with that kind of record.

New York NOW clearly made a mistake on this one. One has to assume its press releases will be looked at a little more closely in the future.

Why does support for womens’ causes have to be furthered only by a female? Isn’t this a perfect case of reverse sexism?

  • Castor Troy,

    I think its more a perfect case of flying off the handle. Ann and Jill nail it (and Hilzoy’s facts are excellent support).

  • “Actually, The Ultimate Betrayal (TM) is more like when someone flies off the handle and makes outrageous claims in the name of feminism…. ”

    Isn’t that what NOW is all about these days?

  • So if Barbara Bush was running for president an endorsement for any other candidate but her would be a betrayal of women everywhere?

    “He’s picked the new guy over us.” This sounds like sour grapes for not getting picked for someone’s kickball team in grade school, not for a comment on a considered and weighty decision. I agree with Jill Filipovic’s take: this sounds like the ranting of a lone disgruntled chapter member and not a statement agreed upon by the group.

  • If I ever become a Republican, it is this kind of brainless hysteria from the left that will do it.

    Thank goodness the sensible people seem to far outnumber the occasional lunatic, as this incident implies.

  • I suspect someone will use the same type argument to go after Maxine Waters for supporting a white person. I think this is what Obama and Kennedy were talking about yesterday when they talked about division and old style politics.

  • Sounds like some kind of hormonal, PMS-rant–which is not the impression a feminist group should be aiming for! Yikes.

  • Hey, it wouldn’t be the first time NOW made a mistake – they were the ones who endorsed Joe Lieberman over Ned Lamont in the CT Senate race, something that surprised a lot of people, since Lieberman was the one who suggested that rape victims who were refused Plan B contraception should not panic – another hospital was just a short cab ride away!

    As a woman, what embarrasses me about the NY NOW statement is that it is so florid and so illogical that it does little more than reinforce the stereotype that women are all controlled by their hormones, prone to going off the deep end and not to be trusted on important national issues. If I’m Hillary Clinton, I’m in full mantra mode: “Please don’t endorse me, please don’t endorse me.”

    And, I’m sorry, but if Ted Kennedy was only being propped up by NOW, why would it want him to endorse Clinton? I mean, it reads to me like, “well, you, Ted Kennedy, were always disappointing us, and always coming up short, but we stuck up for you anyway” – that makes no sense to me, and makes NOW look like it was the one with the bad judgment.

    What a mess.

  • NY NOW says vote for anything with breasts, but I don’t see how that eliminates old white men.

  • So if Barbara Bush was running for president an endorsement for any other candidate but her would be a betrayal of women everywhere?

    Indeed it would. And if Barbara Bush was running with Laura Bush as her VP it would be a double betrayal and ignore twelve years of White House Experience®!

  • All I can thank is that whoever wrote that wants to do their best to make sure Hillary doesn’t get the nomination. Particularly if the rightwing media tries to make a big deal about it, and that message at all filters into the minds of independents who might vote for Obama. And I suspect women will be offended too, as if they’re not allowed to make their own decision on who they want for president and are forced to choose Hillary or be considered traitors. This was far worse for Hillary than if NY NOW had just endorsed Obama outright.

    Sometimes, it’s hard to parody someone because the parody sounds too much like the real thing. But in this case, no parody would have been this absurd.

  • BAD LINK – “And yet, unfortunately, this statement is entirely legitimate. In its entirety:”

    CB, you seem to be linking to an ACLU press release on voting rights…

  • The woman who wrote that release also called a recent debate between Edwards, Obama and Clinton a “gang rape” because Obama and Edwards both had the temerity to take Hillary on. This lastest screed comes as no surprise.
    If I were on the board of NY NOW, I would seriously start reevaluating this lady’s employment.

  • The women of Iraq have been reduced in the aftermath of the US occupation to utter penury, subjugation and despair. They were being impoverished and caught up in their national whirlwind of violence and death back in the days when Senator Clinton was still parroting White House talking points on Iraq from the Green Zone (which was not as long ago as all that).

    Does that count as a betrayal of women?

    Quite recently, progressives have raised money for Donna Edwards’ campaign, elected the first female Speaker of the House, hoped in vain for the victory of Segolene Royal in presidential elections in France and mourned the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

    I wonder if the author of this statement thinks the British left betrayed women by opposing Margaret Thatcher?

  • Apparently the author of the hit piece is Marcia Pappas, Pres of New York NOW. A neocon in feminist clothing? Or just an opportunist?

  • If Marica Pappas either wrote this release, or approved it before going out (or perhaps even worse, has no control over the chapter of NOW over which she presides and it was sent out without her knowledge or consent), then is it misogynistic to suggest the NY chapter of NOW needs a new damn president?

    Granted, PAPPAS might think it’s misogynistic to suggest that, but then again, her opinion WOULD be a tad biased…

  • NY, you say? It seems to me that HRC has some connections in New York. Could this have been a trial snowball that just never got rolling? It is ironic that the Clintonites try to label Obama as the ‘black’ candidate, while using every opportunity to exploit her gender.

  • Man, are the Obamaites a touchy bunch. The Obamaites can pillory Hillary but the criticism of Obama or his supporter is unforgivable racial attacks. LOL!!! The media has accused Kennedy of every crime and misdeed for over 20 years but now he is a shiny light for endorsing Obama as the agent of change.

  • How dare you point out the double standard.

    Personally, I’m all for equal rights. I think a woman should go out and work like the rest of us; pick up a tab at a restaurant, and open the car door for us.

    You can’t have it both ways. You’re either equal or not. Make up your mind.

  • wlgriffi – Criticism?!? She referred to this as “the ultimate betrayal” and “the greatest betrayal.” That’s not criticism. That’s hysterics. As others have said, this would make sense if Obama was some sort of anti-feminist or if Kennedy had even supported a Republican over Hillary. But Obama should be seen as a valid alternative to Hillary, even for feminists.

    This isn’t about Obama or Kennedy at all. This is about someone pretending that it’s betrayal to feminists to not support Hillary. I find it fairly disturbing that anyone wouldn’t see the problem here. We need to get out of the idea that it’s some ultimate insult if the Dem we want doesn’t get the nomination. Nobody here is defending Kennedy or suggesting he’s a “shiny light” as your hyperbolic comment suggests. But we’re going to have one of these two people as our nominee and it’d be best if we not burn bridges within our own party.

  • “Dems won’t admit it, but they are the Party of gender and race.”

    I mean, shame on you Democrats, for having the temerity to listen to, vote for and support anyone who doesn’t look like an albino prune. I mean Fred Thompson and the jowls? Rudy and the combover? McCain and his inspiring rhetoric? And the multiple wives? Sheesh, you damn Dems have a lot to learn.

  • The Clintons are going for another NH “crying” moment to get women whipped into a frenzy, so they’ll vote for Hillary on February 5th; only, you can only pull the “crying game” once, so here comes the NY Now attack to the rescue! Wounded female! Call in the reinforcements!

    Today in MA, one of the female legislators has gone on record complaining to so many of the men are supporting Barack Obama.

    As a fellow female, I am disgusted by this behavior. There are so many talented, accomplished, self-made women in America, and I think Hillary and her little minions are cheapening this election with this crap.

    She would not be US Senator or a contender in this race if she weren’t married to Bill, and now she’s playing the gender card to win. As Maureen Dowd of the NYT said recently, “It’s odd that the first woman with a shot at becoming president is so openly dependent on her husband to drag her over the finish line.”

  • Sue at #27, I agree with you 100%! I, too, am a woman, and I have found the Clinton campaign tactics insulting. It is apparent from Bill’s demeanor on the campaign trail that he wants a third term. What is this, Argentina? The Alabama of George and Lurleen Wallace? I look forward to the day when we elect our first female president . . . a self-made woman whose husband does not hold elective office. And there are plenty in politics– Gov. Napolitano, Gov. Gregoire, Sen. Cantwell, Rep. Kaptur . . . the list of capable women who could successfully lead this country without having been born or married into powerful families is too long to include in a blog post. I deplore dynastic nepotism of any kind; the use of a woman as an enabler for a shadow-government by her husband is a particularly insulting type.

  • If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it, is it still Hillary Clinton’s fault?

  • Big News

    Rasmussen’s new poll for CT shows Obama and Clinton are tied at 40% each. It’s the first new poll taken since he won SC, but BEFORE Ted Kennedy’s endorsement was announced. Also, prior to this poll, Hillary was leading by 20%.

    http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/connecticut/election_2008_connecticut_democratic_presidential_primary

    Hillary was supposed to have a lock on the NY tri-state (NY, NJ, CT), so if CT is in play, she may be in trouble in NJ and NY as well.

    The new Kennedy ads are coming out one after another in all the big states.

    Obama is making up ground FAST. Looks like Obama could pull an upset on February 5th.

  • it’s stupid bull dike shit like this that has made the Dems the minority party FOR A LONG FUCKING TIME.

    the idiots that spu this shit are giving big ammo to the repugs… shut the fuck up stupid assholes.

  • That’s terrific news, Sue! Sounds as if you and I are on the same page politically.

    I know, I know, this is not an officially “pro-bama” blog, but, hey, I’m an unabashed supporter.

    Lars, in response to your comment . . . while I understand your sentiment, you could express it in a less puerile manner– for example, “Extremist ploys by fringe organizations that misrepresent the interests of large swaths of the population only serve to fuel the Republicans’ ability to portray the Democrats as out of touch.”

  • Steve & The Caped Composer,

    …”Imagine Fortress Clinton’s walls a-tumbling down”…

    Lord I hope so!

  • “If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it, is it still Hillary Clinton’s fault?”

    Oh goodness no. Blame it on the crackhead negros or the right wing conspiracy. Oh poor Billery, poor, poor self pitying Billery.

    How dare the press report the truth and those awful 8 years of corruption, cum stained dress, perjury, impeachment, health care debacle, the missed opportunities, don’t ask don’t tell, lack of courage, triangulation, sexual abuse of young interns, travelgate, destroyed documents in Arkansas, allegations of rape by Bill, …. Arkansas bimbos in jail to save Bill’s ass, and on and on

  • Why they are so angry is beyond me. Kennedy endorses who he wants.
    I don’t get the part about Howard Dean and his brother. Dean is neutral and cannot endorse anyone and that is why he won’t Hillary or anyone else. So, that was so off the wall.
    Actually the letter is off the wall.
    It sort of reminds me of this one blog called Taylor Marsh. She is crazy like that when it comes to Hillary. Many people find it silly.

  • Senator Kennedy is like so many members of the boys’ club; he smiles and grins in your face, says what you want to hear, even occasionally acts like a pal or a friend and when you need him the most, he puts a knife in your back. Ted Kennedy and Carolyn need to retire from public life, as their main claim to fame is the Kennedy name.

    There is always an excuse to not support women in their endeavors and every opportunity is utilized to put Senator Clinton down. . she has been called a bitch, a whore, etc by so many and I don’t think most have a clue about her achievements or her plans to deal with the problems at hand; and as far as I can tell, most have never had a personal conversation with her. Calling a woman those awful names is equivalent to called Senator Obama a “n “, yet I hear nothing of a protest, but just use the n-word and all hell with break loose.. If a woman with Obama’s credentials decided to run for President, her qualifications as well as she would be disregarded as insufficient. The double standard is alive and well and the fact that so many women writers take exception is just par for course. Women are often their own worst enemies, which is why it takes so long to see meaningful progress and well-deserved respect. I can say this being a member of a healthcare profession which is 97% female trying to survive in an industry dominated by non-healthcare executive men [for the most part]. There is always some excuse, always. . .

    NOW has every right to complain and hopefully they will do a better job of financially supporting better politicians in the future. While I don’t like everything about Senator Clinton, she is by far the best, strongest candidate and has the political horse-trading skills to get the job done. I myself will support Senator Clinton . ..for the first time since Al Gore, I will be proud to vote for a candidate of exceptional quality and credentials.

  • Calling a woman those awful names is equivalent to called Senator Obama a “n “, yet I hear nothing of a protest, but just use the n-word and all hell with break loose.

    What the hell has Hillary been serving these people and how can we get it to stop? I remember quite distinctly when a woman referred to Hillary as a bitch when asking McCain a question, Democrats (including myself) came down hard on McCain for not correcting the woman’s actions. Even more recently, a conservative group came out with an attack group whose letters spelled C U N T, and Democrats denounced that too. In fact, I don’t know where I’ve seen Democrats sit by idly while Hillary is called these names, and the idea that this is happening is utterly offensive. Again, it’s as if we’re all Republican chauvinists because we prefer a candidate who isn’t Hillary.

    Beyond that, if the only reason feminist groups support Ted Kennedy is because they think he’s a do-nothing legacy who is only good for endorsing female presidential candidates, then these groups are vastly over funded and feminists really need to find a better place to put their money. These people are giving a bad name to special interest groups.

    Once again, I wonder if this is some sort of effort to get people to dislike Hillary. Whether or not that’s the case, I really can’t imagine this line of attack would get anyone to start supporting her.

  • As an old but no longer member of NOW it is just this kind of brainless thinking that led me to quit the organization. Now they will probably get all hysterical over what Hillary is terming a “snub” from Obama before the State of the Union speech. It is just this kind of silliness that causes problems when women want to show that they belong in the arena with men. Pull up your socks girls and concentrate on the issues. And why aren’t you shouting at Hillary for allowing Bill to run her campaign?

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