{"id":13480,"date":"2007-11-05T10:40:58","date_gmt":"2007-11-05T15:40:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/13480.html"},"modified":"2007-11-05T10:40:58","modified_gmt":"2007-11-05T15:40:58","slug":"gender-card-nonsense-makes-a-comeback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/gender-card-nonsense-makes-a-comeback\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Gender card’ nonsense makes a comeback"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week’s inane discussion about whether Hillary Clinton played the “gender card” after the most recent debate seemed, thankfully, to be dying on the vine. The media was a little too excited to have a new narrative to bat around, but the truth is, Clinton never actually said sexism drove her Democratic rivals to criticize her. In fact, she said the opposite<\/a>: “I don’t think they’re piling on because I’m a woman. I think they’re piling on because I’m winning.”<\/p>\n

So, it’s over, right? The political world can move on? No such luck<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“John Edwards, specifically, as well as the press, would never attack Barack Obama for two hours they way they attacked her,” said Geraldine A. Ferraro, the 1984 vice presidential candidate who supports Mrs. Clinton. “It’s O.K. in this country to be sexist,” Ms. Ferraro said.<\/p>\n

“It’s certainly not O.K. to be racist. I think if Barack Obama had been attacked for two hours — well, I don’t think Barack Obama would have been attacked for two hours.” […]<\/p>\n

Ms. Ferraro said that she thought the debate and its fallout would rally support to Mrs. Clinton. (“I am not kidding,” Ms. Ferraro said. “I have been bombarded by e-mail.”)<\/p>\n

“We can’t let them do this in a presidential race,” she said. “They say we’re playing the gender card. We are not. We are not. We have got to stand up. It’s discrimination against her as a candidate because she is a woman.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Please. This is just so disappointing. Ferraro must<\/i> know better than to throw around such reckless charges.<\/p>\n

Now, Jason Zengerle suggests<\/a> Ferraro’s comments are part of an intentional strategy from the Clinton campaign. As he put it, Clinton has “turned to Fritz’s old running mate to play the gender card for her.” I seriously doubt that’s true. But either way, Ferraro’s comments are wildly inappropriate.
\n
\nI think Kate Michelman’s comments were largely on the mark.<\/p>\n

“It’s outrageous to suggest that it’s sexist for the other candidates to ask her tough questions or criticize her,” said Kate Michelman, a women’s leader and a supporter of Mr. Edwards. “To call it sexist is to play the gender card. Any claim of sexism is just a distraction from the fact that she did not do well in the debate, that she did not answer important questions on Iraq and Iran.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What would Ferraro have the rest of the Democratic field do, exactly? Clinton is the clear front-runner and her rivals are running out of time. If they don’t get aggressive, the race is all but over.<\/p>\n

But when Edwards, Dodd, and Obama question Clinton on the issues, they’re all misogynists? This is “discrimination”? Ferraro’s comments are insulting.<\/p>\n

For that matter, Ferraro is stepping on Clinton’s own message. The senator was spot-on last week: the Democratic field is going after her because she’s winning<\/i>. It’s not about gender; it’s about a 25-point lead.<\/p>\n

The sooner Ferraro’s irresponsible personal attacks on other Democrats go away, the better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week’s inane discussion about whether Hillary Clinton played the “gender card” after the most recent debate seemed, thankfully, to be dying on the vine. The media was a little too excited to have a new narrative to bat around, but the truth is, Clinton never actually said sexism drove her Democratic rivals to criticize […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13480\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}