The flaming of Ed Rendell for alleged sexism seems to me to be pretty absurd:
Politicians are supposed to watch what they say – especially when a nearby microphone might be on.
But, yesterday in Philadelphia, Gov. Ed Rendell made some blunt remarks that could be construed as insulting, if not sexist, about Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, chosen for Homeland Security chief by President-elect Barack Obama.
A spokesman for Rendell downplayed any controversy, saying that Pennsylvania’s governor “meant no disrepect.”
Rendell’s words were picked up by an open microphone at the podium of the National Governors Conference, held yesterday morning at Independence Hall.
“Janet’s perfect for that job,” Rendell is heard to say. “Because for that job, you have to have no life. Janet has no family. Perfect. She can devote, literally, 19, 20 hours a day to it.”
Campbell Brown devoted one of her segments to it, and, as usual, I spent the entire time watching her lower jaw move while she spoke. There is just something different about the way she talks, and I can not figure out what it is.
At any rate, I am failing to see the sexism here- what Rendell said is true of a man or a woman, and had nothing to do with Napolitano’s gender. You may think he is an asshole (and you would be right) for asserting that people with no family have “no life,” but the only way to interpret sexism is to pretend it is 1958 and that Ed is asserting that women should be home, pregnant, and in the kitchen, and that only women who are single and without child could capably handle jobs.
Ask anyone who was in the military if they could tell a difference in their work week when they had a married CO or a single CO (male or female). I know which ones had me in the motor pool at 10 pm on a Friday night and then again at 6:30 am on Saturday morning and at noon on Sunday after services. Pro-tip: It was not the married CO.
Otherwise, there is no sexism here. On top of all that, it seems pretty silly to accuse the guy who spent the better part of a year and a half working his ass off to get Hillary Clinton elected President to be a sexist.
Paddy O'Shea
Greta Van Cistern has been puling about this on Fox News almost endlessly. Maybe it’s an attempt to divert attention from the big RNC announcement today? They’re issuing their accounting of GOP presidential campaign expenditures today, and included in there will be the official dollar amount Sarah Palin spent on her fancy city clothes.
Of course, as everyone knows, criticizing Sarah Palin over her clothing purchases is sexist, too. And if you don’t agree with me on that you are trying to take away my freedom to express my opinions.
Ash Can
This old-school feminist sees no problem with Rendell’s remarks. It’s just another "controversy" manufactured by the media mouths in their ongoing effort to justify their jobs.
Zifnab
When Barack Obama chose not to take Hillary Clinton as his running mate, he was being a giant misogynist. In fact, his entire campaign was the political equivalent of throwing Clinton down a flight of stairs.
Now he and Rendell and the racists and misogynists down in Pennsylvania are going to work poor Janet to death because she’s a woman with no family, further illustrating why it is important – from a feminist perspective – not to be a working woman in todays modern world, but to marry and settle down and raise a family instead.
Clearly, the GOP is laying the foundation for its resurgence. Protecting those poor battered women that will immediately flee the Democratic Party once they realize what monsters the Angry Black Man and his posse of street thugs and hooligans really are.
Brian J
By saying she has no life because she’s unmarried and has no children, he’s saying she doesn’t have the same responsibilites many others have. He’s right of course and not remotely sexist for saying it. This would give her a lot more time to devote to the clusterfuck that is the DHS.
joe from Lowell
If the tape doesn’t go ont to include Rendell saying Napolitano should go fix him a steak, this whole thing is completely bogus.
Joshua Norton
Such tender hot house orchids! How delicate their senses.
In the real world where the rest of us live, shit like that is said all the time. I work at a very competitive law firm. If you do "have a life" and can’t work a lot of extra (billable) hours, you might as well forget about making partner (or probably having a job after the next review).
smiley
If it’s not sexist, it’s certainly a double standard. Chertoff and Ridge are both married with children. No one questioned their ability to do the job because of that but people did question Palin’s ability to be VP because she has 5 kids.
Tom65
Sometimes an asshole is just an asshole.
John Cole
He said she was perfect because she was single and could devote extra time to her job. That is not the same thing as saying someone with a family could not do the job.
Jeebus.
Mrs. Peel
Ah, the revisionists have arrived. Sorry. They mentioned the conflicts might arise because of her need to devote the proper time to looking after a new born baby with special needs. Like McCain’s age, a perfectly proper concern.
Try again. Maybe I need to add you handle to my pie filter.
Xenos
@smiley: I think part of the problem for Palin was that she had a special needs newborn, and the First Dude does not strike anyone as an ideal parent for picking up the slack.
Tymannosourus
@smiley:
It’s not a double standard, either. People Napolitano’s age without a family are an anamoly. And everyone knows that–man or woman–someone without a family can devote themselves completely to their jobs, and I think that that is what he was driving at.
And the Palin thing. I loved this argument during the campaign: "people have been criticizing Palin because her daughter is pregnant!"; "people are questioning her ability to be VP because she is a mom!" When we all know that no one credible was really saying this, but it was just the right wing projecting their own criticisms on to the MSM.
Cassidy
@John Cole:
The problem appears to be that it was even brought up. A male of the same age, qualifications, and personal life would not have even had this brought up.
Zifnab
No one? ORLY? No one questioned the abilities of Ridge and Chertoff? You have that in writing? Had Napolitano been up against Ridge or Chertoff for the job back in 2000, I might have gone with Napolitano because she had no family life. I might also have gone with Napolitano because she isn’t an incompetent boot licker.
Certainly, I didn’t hear Ed making any comments about Sarah Palin’s fitness for the VP office in relation to her family life. Of course, "the people" who made those comments will go unnamed. But we’ll just attribute the quote to the Governor because… well… it helps make our point.
So with that in mind, I have to agree with the MSM. Because the end game here is painting Democrats as misogynist. I think its painfully obvious that Janet hates herself, Rendell beats his wife, and Barack Obama hates women.
TheHatOnMyCat
Napolitano has a family, and a life. She just doesn’t have a husband, or children. She’s a lesbian, and she has a partner, and she has other relatives.
Rendell’s remark almost certainly referred to Napolitano’s lifestyle, not to her gender. Which in my view makes the gaffe much more obnoxious than it would have been if it were just "sexist."
Karen
There was no sexism there, but proof that he appears to need his own Tony Blair, to shut him up before a live mic.
Mrs. Peel
It’s still not a "gaffe". Stuff like that is a reality. Single people (including teh gays) are assumed able to cover for the people who need time off and holidays to be with their children. It’s a fact of life.
GSD
This is an outrage! How DARE Rendell say something like that.
I demand accountability on this matter. I recommend a commssion and an investigation headed by Patrick Fitzgerald because he is single and has no life and can dedicate all of his time getting to the bottom of this scandal.
-GSD
syl
Call me crazy, but this sounds like great news for John McCain!!
acallidryas
@13
Exactly. I haven’t listened to every remark ever made by Rendell, or every remark ever made about Ridge or Chertoff. But I didn’t even know anything about their family status, which is how it should be, because I don’t think anyone brought it up. And generally, there is far more concern about how much time women devote to their families than men. They’re still expected to be the primary caregiver, and it’s a problem. Or does everyone slamming those offended honestly think that women and men have the exact same family expectations in this day and age?
TheAssInTheHatOnMyCat(Formerly Comrade Tax Analyst)
It’s a sexual signal, John…she wants you…hell, she wants all of us guys…
Now THAT’S a "sexual remark". See how easy it is to tell the difference?
TheHatOnMyCat
Spoofalicious.
Does that mean that Republicans can ask gays to cover for them, without incurring God’s wrath?
Keith
Pay no attention to Campbell Brown; she’s next year’s Lou Dobbs but with a smaller (physical and metaphorical) head.
r€nato
it was a clumsy thing for Rendell to have been heard saying publicly. End of story. Not sexism at all.
I hope someday soon that Janet Napolitano can stop living in the closet. She has kept her private life well-hidden from the press, and while I don’t think that all aspects of a politician’s life should be publically known, surely it would be nice to know if she’s happily partnered.
Michael Demmons
I like Campbell Brown, generally. But I think she had such a hit with the McCain campaign "sexism" thing where they wouldn’t let Palin do interviews that now she feels the need to look for sexism everywhere.
I cringed when I saw her accusing Rendell of sexism. I thought she looked like an idiot – stretching for a story.
John Cole
This may be a blind spot for me, then, as I am an outlier. Growing up, my father was the main cook, grew gardens, likes to paint the house and wallpaper, is crazy about housecleaning, has thousands of Santas he decorates the house with every Christmas, likes to iron, and handled the floral arrangements at the church.
My mother also did her share of the chores, but preferred to watch sports of play with the dogs and read rather than garden and my father’s other ‘leisure’ activities.
Plus, my parents were both college teachers, so no one was solely in charge of the four kids. Whoever was not in class was the one who took us to the doctor.
With that in mind, I may not have the normal view on things here. And before the jackasses start, no, my dad is not gay. He is German. Unless and until you have lived in a house with a full German who insists on washing floors on his hands and knees because mops don’t get things clean enough, who insists on seeing vacuum cleaner lines on the carpet or they are not clean, who cleans the insides of the light fixtures every week, and who scrubs (and I mean scrub, not wash, scrub) the front porch every Saturday morning, you just will not understand.
MIchael Demmons
@TheHatOnMyCat:
That’s not so "spoofalicious" as you might think.
At my job, married couples can work at home if they need to for family reasons.
I can’t.
Mrs. Peel
Probably not. According to them, they can work 1,000 hours a week and still have time to raise familys with "good christian values". They have not need for time off. That’s just for slacker soc ial ists.
Besides if they took time off, it would cut into their stealing.
Zifnab
@TheHatOnMyCat:
No no. It means Republicans are more willing to work overtime.
TheHatOnMyCat
Absolutely. It’s time for men to start nursing their babies.
Michael D.
@TheHatOnMyCat:
I didn’t know that.
smiley
Jeebus and how. I questioned whether I should click on submit. I guess I didn’t express myself very well. My point was merely what Cassidy said.
@Cassidy:
Laura W
Word.
Every time I switch over to her during KO I try to figure out who or what she reminds me of. She sort of looks like Mary Louise Parker because of her super pinched and skinny nostrils. But the jaw thing…sort of reminds me of how it feels and looks when you do cocaine (not that I know from personal experience.)
But I think she reminds me/us of some person we can’t place. I’m determined to crack this Great Mystery.
Shit. The sound of one cat puking in the other room. Gotta go….
ppcli
Sure it would have. I remember people used to say this kind of thing about Ralph Nader all the time (back when he was the noble Corsair-unmasking, consumer protection crusader, before he became the deranged Bush-electing loose cannon.) "Sure, he wears green socks with clocks on them that he bought at Woolworths, but that’s because he’s just so married to his cause that he doesn’t care about anything else." People said quasi-admiringly of David Souter that he had no life outside of the law and that this was a measure of how he was born to be a Supreme Court justice.
.
Canadians on the board (or at least, those who like me are rocketing toward old geezerdom) will remember this sort of thing being said about Winnipeg Centre NDP MP Stanley Knowles ("his whole life is devoted to his role as conscience of Parliament" etc.) These are just the ones that come to mind after thinking for one minute.
.
People also talk admiringly about Paul Farmer’s sacrificing "having a life" in exchange for his commitment to his various international health organizations. Words like "saint" get thrown around in this connection. The only criticism I’ve ever heard of Farmer is that occasionally people will point out that he is a parent, and that it might kind of suck to be his kid.
John PM
@GSD: #18
Unfortunately, Fitzgerald recently married, and I suspect we may soon see little Fitzgerald’s running around trying to take out the Illinois political combine. Even given that, I would expect that Fitzgerald would still be able to work under the table anyone else in the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Northern District of Illinois.
TheAssInTheHatOnMyCat(Formerly Comrade Tax Analyst)
An Obsessive-Compulsive German…OW! I think we’re all lucky and should be grateful he had a home to work it off on.
r€nato
@Michael D.:
at this point it is just gossip in Arizona, but I think there’s more than a bit of truth to it.
I mean, when was the last time you met a politician who wasn’t eager to show off his/her family? It’s practically mandatory to be married with kids and have them appear publically as much as possible.
Either Janet is a workaholic with no love life, or she’s deeply closeted.
I’m betting on the latter.
Keith
OT, but get the man a Scooba for x-mas. Now *that* thing can clean some floors!
TheHatOnMyCat
Pretty widely known, although not as well outside of Arizona. Here, it is pretty much common knowledge.
We’ve spoken of it numerous times here on BJ. The GOP tried to use this issue against her in the last election (2006) and she ended up winning reelection with about 2/3 of the vote. In a red state with large Catholic and Mormon demographics.
Nicole
@John Cole:
That’s quite obvious. Unless they are ironic Santas.
Brian J
Yes, but Obama seems to have a demand of, um, how do you say, competence for managing the department, and as I said above, it doesn’t seem to be in tip top shape right now. Thus, heading it would require more time than other departments might.
Xenos
Sounds like my German mother-in-law, who in spite of having her right arm amputated cleans the floors on her knees and irons her husband jockey shorts. As for me, dirt belongs on floors – where else should you be putting the dirt?
TheHatOnMyCat
Well, that bites. I fully support equality in all laws and rules that govern family and civil union partnerships, no matter what they are called.
In my view, people should be able to establish the existence of a family (such as would qualify for, say, FMLA eligibility, or next of kin rights) by simple declaration.
But I’m an extreme liberaltarian in this area.
Danton
Let’s substitute one cabinet member for another:
“Bill Richardson’s perfect for that job,” Rendell is heard to say. “Because for that job, you have to have no life. Bill has no family. Perfect. He can devote, literally, 19, 20 hours a day to it.”
Sexist?
John PM
@John Cole: #26
@TheAssInTheHatOnMyCat(Formerly Comrade Tax Analyst): #36
Oh, I get it. My wife is descended from good German and Polish stock. She learned her fastidiousness/OCD at the feet of her grandfather, a general in the Army during WWII. She will come home after we have had our cleaning service clean the house and rearrange everything that is even a tiny bit out of place. Every piece of paper in our house is labeled, filed and cross-referenced for easy access. Her favorite activity is creating Excel spreadsheets. I am constantly amazed that she was able to overcome my Irish slobbiness and agreed to marry me. I think I have had a positive effect on her over the years, but then she will ask me to reline all the shelves in the kitchen.
r€nato
for some reason, Janet largely gets a pass from the local media on being a lesbian. Nobody talks about it publically, nobody looks into it.
Even in the last election in which she ran – in which the GOP was running a 4th-stringer social con because nobody else wanted to run against her – they didn’t push the gay angle very hard, at least not openly. Perhaps in their right-wing churches but not in the media.
Maybe in our society, being a lesbian carries a lot less stigma than being a butt-fucking, cock-sucking gay man. I don’t know why people spend so much time thinking about how others have sex and being disgusted by what their imagination conjures up, but there it is.
DanR2
Glad to hear I’m not the only one completely fascinated with Campbell Brown’s Howdy Doody jaw.
Mrs. Peel
Because it makes their naughty parts all tingly when they think, talk and write about it all the time.
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
She has a heavy jaw, it seems to carry about three pounds more weight than everyone else carries.
Michael D.
@Danton:
No.
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
I don’t think it’s sexist, but if he’s implying that lesbians have no life, I think he’s being idiotic.
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
It takes more than that to make me tingle.
TheHatOnMyCat
Her opponent made a splash out of the idea that Napolitano was not prepared to understand the problems of families in Arizona because she "had no family". It was whatever you call one step beyond dog whistle. He tried to get traction with the covert gay-bashing but ran into epic fail. The people just didn’t care. Janet has a reputation here for getting things done, being fair, and being practical.
The press’ position on the thing seemed to be, if her opponent is not going to say the G word, we aren’t either. It’s not our job to police lifestyles. If she wants to come out, or he wants to call her out, then we’ll talk about it. Otherwise, not.
The two largest newspapers in this state are the one in Tucson, which is solidly Dem in its editorial history, and the Phoenix paper, which is a Gannett paper, which is … for lack of a better word, just fiercely bland.
Punchy
This is my favorite flavor of ice cream. And I just love the white, brown, red color symbolism that represents the early inhabitants of this fine country.
Tymannosourus
@Punchy:
I thought the Exact. Same. Thing. And when she got nominated, and then I remembered how I used to avoid the strawberrry part when I was a kid.
TheHatOnMyCat
No, Man Love.
TheHatOnMyCat
By far the oddest thing about Campbell Brown is her eyes, which remind me of Jennifer Wilbanks.
She is just an odd looking person. I don’t ascribe any particular meaning to it. Any more than I do to the appearance of the much more bizarre Wolf Blitzer.
Punchy
Agreed. Of course they have a life. It takes up a lot of their time to plan and pull off all those tickle fights, play 3 rounds of naked Twister, and then shower off all that sweat and…..uh…..hold on–back in a minute….
Cyrus
@acallidryas:
Well, some people have claimed that they do hear about nonexistent personal lives of politicians who they wouldn’t be familiar with based on their office alone. Personally, I didn’t know about that, but I do know about the personal lives of Barney Frank and Charlie Crist. What do they have in common with Napolitano, I wonder?
Ah, dammit. I was trying to defuse the charge of sexism, but I wind up introducing charges of homophobia. Whoops.
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
Neopolitans are people from Naples (I know, I used to be one).
Napolitano is currently a PHOENICIAN.
Tymannosourus
Dammit Cole! I used to think she was nerd-sexy before, now I went and watched her video criticizing the governor and all I saw were facial ticks and weird lips.
I think you owe us (me) a post about Marissa Miller or something now.
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
Now THAT sounds like fun! ;)
Kira
Napolitano’s being in the closet is a persistent rumor that’s been kicking around since the last Gubernatorial race – her opponent implied she was a lesbian (and in a rather heartening result, for this Arizona lesbian, Napolitano won the election handily.) She claims to be married to her job; she has had the same female roommate for years and years, but says it’s nothing more than it seems. Since she does indeed put an amazing amount of effort into her work, I’m inclined to believe her. Asexual workaholics do indeed exist.
Also: hearsay, I know, but my then-girlfriend, who was invited to a party with the Governor because her mother’s a state attorney, asked Napolitano whether she was a lesbian and says that the "no" looked pretty sincere and natural to her.
Regardless, I don’t think it matters to her job performance. She’s done an excellent job in Arizona, she has sky-high approval ratings for a reason, and I am still depressed at the prospect of losing her veto power over the lunatics in our legislature. So much for education and research funding….
Back on topic: to say that a person without a family can therefore spend all the time they need to at work is possibly true, certainly callous (wrt those people in this thread who note that they’re expected to fill in for their married colleagues), but not overtly sexist. The sexism comes in the implicit assumption that a woman with a family would devote her time to her family instead of putting in the necessary effort at her job. A man with a family is assumed to be able to leave childcare duties to his wife. Has anyone suggested that, because President Obama has two young daughters, his family responsibilities will distract him from the Presidency? Would you worry about his focus on the job even if he had a Down’s syndrome infant in his family?
No, because the primary burden of childcare is assumed to fall on the mother. Which is sexist. This is what people who object to this clip are objecting to: the stereotype that a woman with a family will put her family before her job. The comment itself is pretty innocuous, but because it references that sexist double standard, it becomes suspect.
I am, however, bemused by the fact that our pundits have suddenly Discovered the horrible concept of sexism in public discourse. What a brave new world they are investigating. Maybe someone should give them a reading list.
(Seriously, after the sexism directed against both Clinton and Palin, regardless of the fact that one was a pretty good candidate and one a theocratic, authoritarian wackaloon, I find the MSM’s sudden ability to bay at every hint of double standards a little irritating. Not to mention belated.)
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
Is the wedding off now or is he still planning to go through with it even though he didn’t get picked for VP on a losing team?
Brian J
No, not really. If you want to criticize Rendell for something, it should be his idea that a person with relatively few attachments can devote most hours of her day to a job. You could describe that as discriminatory, but it’s a stretch.
Brian J
This reminds me of that section in Al Franken’s Lying Liars book about Sean Hannity’s obsession with the idea of fisting.
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
I was with you up until this point, Kira. Clinton brought it on herself.
Cyrus
@CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII:
Actually, he’s still engaged, yes. Or at least, I remember checking on election night, and he was still engaged then. So insinuations about him are scurrilous and not even well-founded. I was partly joking, and partly shouldn’t have said it, and partly talking about the perception of homosexuality rather than the fact of it since some people are weighing in that Napolitano isn’t either.
Tymannosourus
Whatever you think of Bill Maher, he was right about this wrt Palin: ‘why does every criticism of her have to be boiled down to a criticism of her as a woman, and thus sexist?’
Indeed, this applies to this whole topic. Just because a remark was made about Nap’s family situation, it doesn’t mean it had anything to do with her sex. Much in the same way that any criticism levied against Obama isn’t a criticism against him as a black man.
TCG
Gov Nap is a known workoholic.
This is all Rendel was referring to.
OldHoya
For what it’s worth, when I was at a high pressure law firm I did hear senior partners praise more junior male partners with similar remarks. "Bob is great. His job is his life. The guy must sleep in his office. I wonder if his wife still knows his name." etc., etc.
It was just small talk. Geez.
demimondian
To some extent, it’s irrelevant whether Napolitano is lesbian or not. I certainly heard Rendell’s reference as referring to her sexuality. (Not least of all because if her roommate is her lover, she’s actually not single, and does have a family.)
Esther
Ha, John, I didn’t even have to read the remainder to know what was coming. My parents are both children of German immigrants and I spent many a weekend during my childhood scrubbing floors and walls among other things. We lived in Southern Arizona and all the desert dirt and dust drove my mother crazy.
Regarding the topic at hand, I don’t find the comment to be sexist at all.
Hawise
Circus Maximus MMVIII- the only way that Clinton could bring sexism against herself is to possess a gender. Political commentators using her voice, dress and body shape against her was hardly something that she "brought on herself." You can disagree with her politics, political style or administrative capabilities without using sexist pejorative language.
Rendell may not have intended his remark to be sexist and I doubt that he even realized that it is inherently sexist. It was meant as a backhanded compliment and it is that which is the slap in the face. A married woman with children is presumed to be tied to the children, a married man with children is presumed to be able to shunt off his share of parenting on the wife. Each relationship is different in reality but it is a presumption that is commonly held in HR departments around the world. A man can take a job that involves a lot of travel because the wife will take care of the children, a man can take a job where he may have to move alot because the wife will sacrifice her career to move with him, and so on like a bad fifties sitcom or an episode of Mad Men.
Tsulagi
@John Cole:
Oh, I hear you about the anal German part. On my paternal side I have German and Tsalagi (Cherokee to you ignorant palefaces).
My great-grandpa emigrated here from Germany. When I was 7 I spent most of my summer vacation living with him and great-grandma. At the start of that “vacation,” he informed me it would not be all aimless fun and games. I was to learn the German language.
That sucker (he was a great guy) had me read Goethe’s Faust in the original German to him out loud. He was insistent and meticulous in correcting my pronunciations. My homework was to translate with a dictionary words I didn’t know. Faust at freakin 7 years old.
I didn’t finish Faust during that vacation. But by the end I got hooked on the book as it had that pact with the devil thing going so I finished it at home. G-grandpa wasn’t dumb.
Blue Raven
As a feminist and a bisexual, I think those remarks were just fine. The words he used mean she’s a workaholic. End of meaning.
lutton
Speaking of wives, let’s not forget Ed’s. You know, the federal judge.
Adrienne
No, but that would be because we already KNOW who actually IS the primary caregiver in the Obama household. Michelle has made it VERY clear. Now, if Barack was running around touting his special needs children and his decision to have them and take care of them as a qualification for office (like Palin) I WOULD worry about it.
To me, when a person is in politics (male or female), I assume that the other parent is the primary caregiver. If they give me reason to suspect otherwise by trumping it up, I’m gonna be suspicious of your ability to keep your focus. You really CANNOT be THE primary caregiver in your household and fully focus on your job if you are a politician. It’s not possible.
Punchy
Sprechen zee how? HOW.
TheHatOnMyCat
There is no way this parses to "Janet is a workaholic."
The foundation of the blurb is "Janet has no family."
Rendell does not say that she works 20 hours a day. He says that she CAN work 20 hours a day because, you know, she has no family.
The man is a governor, one has to presume that he can form a sentence. If he had intended to say that Janet is a workaholic and would be perfect for the job, I think he would have said something like this:
Can we see the SUBTLE difference?
(eyes roll like a slot machine)
TheHatOnMyCat
Sorry about the blockquote problem in the last post, but the site crashed apparently while I was editing it. I should have known better than to think that this thing would work for five whole minutes in a row.
Emma Anne
I was with you up until this point, Kira. Clinton brought it on herself.
I can’t agree with that. Hillary did things that invited criticism, yes, but the proper response doesn’t include sexism.
Calouste
@Cyrus:
Well…. This is Charlie’s sixth engagement, and it would only be his second marriage (and his first only lasted a year or so). There seems to be definitely something about him that makes women have second thoughts.
passerby
Punchy@55
Napolitano:
I lol the other day when you wrote this and chuckled again today. Do you think Circvs gets the joke of it?
OT: The National Christmas Tree is well and truly hideous and Bush looks like he had himself a good cry. His eyes are kinda puffy. He and Laura were actually holding hands as they walked out to light the tree.
jrcjr
I doubt Rendell gives a shit.
I lived in Philly while he was mayor and I remember him opening up a neighborhood pool. All the local personalities were there in their ties, except Rendell, who pulled on his trunks and jumped in with the kids. the kids were jumping all over him trying to dunk him, while he was flinging them around. That’s how I’ve seen the guy ever since: big bear of a guy in yellow trunks yelling and laughing with a bunch of kids. Who could really care less about his "gaffes".
btw, when did she leave Concrete Blonde?