From the second finest source of news in North America:
“Hillary Clinton officially running is a breath of fresh air,” said RNC deputy vice-chair Robert Gilligan.
“For almost eight years now we’ve had to rely on thinly veiled questions about Obama’s citizenship and him “being different” than the average American. Now we can look forward to finally switching gears with thinly veiled questions about the time of the month or her “emotional state.”….
At press time, Republican voters who once asked Obama to release his birth certificate were busy embracing Canadian-born Ted Cruz.
PurpleGirl
If the Republicans are going to now speculate about HRC’s emotional state, I think I’m going to hibernate for the next 18 months. I’ll vote for whoever the Democratic candidate is because I just don’t vote Republican (never did, never will; they don’t represent my economic interests).
From where I sit, it seems that Republican politicians have extremely sensitive feelings which are hurt so easily, who’s the emotional one…
doppelganger
Isn’t she in her late sixties? I don’t think monthly periods are an issue any more.
germy shoemangler
“Time of the month”?? Doesn’t that stop being a problem after a certain age? They’ll probably say it anyway.
Belafon
OK, a thought: Clinton should have made her campaign logo a big red dot. And when people ask what it means, she can respond, “Well, I am a woman.”
Gene108
@PurpleGirl:
Women are always emotional. If someone got a girl mad her first instinct is not to punch him, in a demonstration of strength, which if successful will get your foe to bow down to you superior might.
Girls just want talk, talk, talk about their feelings.
Clearly women have a “crazy” approach to conflict resolution.
/sarcasm
boatboy_srq
While I’m far more interested in seeing a Democrat run who could win enough votes (and HRC is certainly that), there’s a part of me that wants to see the Dems rally behind a lesbian Latina candidate – just to watch the GOTea freakout.
Belafon
@boatboy_srq: As long as she’s Jewish.
boatboy_srq
@Belafon: Wicca. That’d really send them over the edge.
MattF
It’s only a teeny bit ironic that if you want a dozen examples of “male prima donna” you just have to look toward politicians on the R side of the political spectrum. Their “time of the month” is “always and forever.”
Frankensteinbeck
I don’t think it will be thinly veiled. Racism is much more publicly unacceptable than misogyny. Of course, instead of not being racist, the racists just find excuses to claim that they have some other motivation. Societally, people don’t feel nearly as obligated to hide misogyny, which is why you hardly had to scratch ‘ethics in journalism’ to see the gender hate pour out.
I think you’ll see open discussion of women-are-weak tropes on major news networks, and openly misogynistic rhetoric from Republican politicians. On the flip side, I think you’ll see a lot less fanatical opposition. They’re not nearly as scared of women as they are of blacks. You’ll see about the same number of Republicans shooting themselves in the foot thinking they’re smarter than any woman and can outmaneuver her with ease.
SatanicPanic
Hillary running means that Republicans will need to counter with Sarah Palin. It’s the best strategy and one I hope they don’t adopt it because we’ll surely lose.
Violet
On the Today Show this morning Andrea Mitchell referred to Hillary’s bus trip to Iowa as her “mystery tour.” Our media is a disaster.
Belafon
@Violet: Hillary is an unknown. What we really need is someone who’s had some experience, at least as a senator or Secretary of State.
Gin & Tonic
@Violet: Well, everybody and his dog said the first thing she was going to do was drive to Iowa, and then she drove to Iowa. Can’t get much more mysterious than that.
srv
I’m waiting for a bunch of lesbian bimbo eruptions and the return of her black helicopters.
You people have no idea.
Cckids
Larry Wilmore’s Nightly Show last night was pretty much all Hillary, & was good. His audience roared when he said ” so, Hillary announced she’s running “.
It was an interesting insight into how Hillary is viewed. The end, with the panel that is usually “keeping it 100” was changed to “Hill or Bill”; a variety of situations in which they had to choose who they’d want to respond. One was “staring down Putin”; all panelists instantly said “Hillary- she’s got that look. Don’t mess with her. ”
Fun show.
boatboy_srq
@Belafon: WIN.
cmorenc
@Gene108:
A well-known difference between refereeing a competitive-level men’s soccer game vs a competitive-level women’s soccer game is that in a men’s game, if some incident happens (e.g. a hard foul) where one player gets really pissed off at his opponent about it, if shit’s going to happen it’s going to blow up almost immediately, IN A WOMEN’S COMPETITIVE-LEVEL GAME however, the game can be going along seemingly smoothly, without any sort of problematic incident, when *BLAM!* out of the blue a player will commit some mysteriously unprovoked bit of gratuitous rough nastiness against an opponent – and the underlying cause will turn out to be delayed retaliation for some incident that happened quite some time ago, often in a previous game or even a previous season. POINT IS, women in contact sports are much more prone to patiently bide their time, often even a long time, waiting for a moment to exact retaliation on an opponent, whereas men are much more prone to blow up immediately over it against the perp. A famous story is a girl’s HS varsity game where girl from team A abruptly takes out girl from team B for no apparent reason, and when the ref asks A what that was about as he’s red-carding her, she replies “that girl was on our club team back at U-13 but dumped our team to play for a rival club”.
In case you think this observation is something cooked up by sexist male refs trying to mansplain women soccer players, this observation (and the story) is something I’ve heard from high-level female (FIFA-level) refs at a soccer referee clinic.
boatboy_srq
@srv:
This is different from the last six years how, exactly? Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose has never been more apropos.
Hill Dweller
It looks like feckless Senate Dems are going to provide enough votes to override a potential veto of Corker’s bill sabotaging the Iran negotiations.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@cmorenc: I don’t, simply because I’m married and have discovered that women never forget anything.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@MattF: Once a month, some women act like men act all the time. -Robert A. Heinlein
Richard Mayhew
@cmorenc: Completely agree.. in the men’s game, if there is a nasty tackle, and you survive the next thirty seconds, the game will flow. In a top tier women’s game, who the hell knows when the retaliation will occur…
Game going to shit story time:
2nd minute of the game nasty tackle by White against Blue. The game flows for the next 86 minutes as White is up 4-1. I think I’ll pass my assessment no problem as we are getting close to the 90th minute. All of a sudden there is a 3 red card fight … WTF as White was playing lazy possession with nothing happening.
My assessor told me that I should have gone red in the 2nd minute on an orange card foul instead of the yellow, as Blue did not think there was sufficient justice in that yellow. I failed that assessment.
Jeffro
@Belafon: I’m surprised the logo isn’t an H with crosshairs on it…but that would be divisive, I guess…
MomSense
@Frankensteinbeck:
I think racism is much more acceptable on the right however there is a different kind of racism on the left and we tend to get quite offended when called on it and go to great pains to deny it. I think something similar is true on the left when it comes to misogyny. It presents differently. The real fun for us in the lefty/progressive coalition will be dealing with intersectionality because not all of us experience racism and misogyny the same way and I hope we can learn how to be as inclusive as possible given that there will be growing pains.
Richard Mayhew
@cmorenc: My best women’s soccer retaliation foul:
Reasonably competetive State Cup level U-18 women’s game in early May. Game is being played at 8:30 on a Saturday morning. Two teams are very skilled, well coached, and tactically sound, so I’m running my ass off, but at the 80th minute, I think I have under 10 fouls called or advantaged for the entire game, and absolutely no cards and no one close to a card. The game is a pleasure.
White keeper punts the ball slightly pass midfield, the White forward goes up as if to challenge for the ball. However her eyes are level, and she is swinging her head to line up the defender instead of searching for the ball. She then swings her elbow into the face of the Green defender, and gives Green one hell of a black eye.
Green is on the ground, White player says “Enjoy prom tonight bitch” and started jogging off the field before I could get the red card out.
I asked the White captain, a player I’ve reffed a dozen times over the years, what the hell that was about:
“Oh, Green started dating her ex-boyfriend a couple of months ago…..”
rk
@PurpleGirl:
I was going to do that regardless of Republican speculation. What choices do we have. I’d have liked someone like Elizabeth Warren or someone who gives Hillary a run for her money. But absent that I’ll just be ignoring everything till election day. The only thing that concerns me is something coming out about Bill Clinton’s libidinous escapades. Because I don’t see him as the type who’s kept it in his pants for the last 16 yrs. I’m thinking a string of lovers in the background willing to sell stories to the tabloids. That kind of stuff will make the media go crazy and distract completely from her campaign. I hope she’s had Bill on a tight leash all these years.
Paul in KY
@SatanicPanic: I agree. Sarah Palin would be the worst candidate for us. Gee, I hope they don’t wise up & run her.
Cermet
@MomSense: Wow, you really added … absolutely nothing. Keep up the useless posting.
jibeaux
Okay, this is labeled open thread so I’m just going to leave this non-monetary bleg here to do with as you will. If you’re on facebook and have 30 seconds, I’d love for you to go to The Tuba Exchange page (Durham, NC) and scroll down to about the fifth video called “band commercial” lowercase, and “like” it. You can watch it if you like. This is a middle school that’s about half free & reduced lunch, and they made a video entry to win a tuba, it costs something like five grand. They are in second place, the winner is judged by likes on their video, and the school that is ahead seems to have gotten a little complacent so we have a chance. I would be most pleased. I vote for your pets when you ask me to, people, I do! Thank you for listening.
MomSense
@Cermet:
Shall I run my posts by you first for your approval?
Cacti
@germy shoemangler:
Of course they will. This is the party that distinguishes between “legitimate rape” and “bish had it coming”.
ETA: Their knowledge of female anatomy ranges between benign to malicious ignorance.
Gin & Tonic
BTW, Hillary’s announcement video is considered NSFW in Russia, because it shows a gay couple holding hands and talking about marriage. Seriously. Several TV broadcasters give it an 18+ rating.
catclub
@Frankensteinbeck:
This does not at all agree with my memory of 2008 after Obama was nominated. I think the racism has ramped up over the years.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Hill Dweller: Damn, they make it hard. Yesterday I got a dead-tree mailing from the DNC and I thought, maybe it’s time to get back to them. Now, I’m thinking maybe it isn’t. Like they give a shit about my fifty bucks, either way.
WaterGirl
@Cermet: I thought it was a thoughtful post, but I guess that doesn’t appeal to everyone.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I remember when Hillary got choked up during the primaries, the nastiest reaction I saw came from MoDo, who cited an anonymous female colleague as saying it proved she was weak. MoDo really should have left politics with Dumbya.
Josie
@Hill Dweller: This makes me so angry, especially because I have two Republican senators – Cruz and Cornyn (ugh and double ugh) – so I can’t even call anyone and rant at them about it. Our Dem senators should be ashamed of themselves.
Belafon
@jibeaux: I’ll have to look at it when i get home.
MomSense
@WaterGirl:
He probably missed the differing interpretations of the Arquette acceptance and the firing of Jill Abramson. I don’t know if you are on twitter or not but the other day Planned Parenthood tweeted in response to HRC’s announcement and it set off a bit of a kerfuffle. I guess the most diplomatic way I can say this is that there are some major unresolved issues from HRCs 2008 campaign within our Democratic coalition and I hope we can all be as understanding with each other as possible.
Bobby B.
The TPP is going to be hustled through congress tomorrow but Hillary doesn’t talk about it so let’s not ever say a word about it.
mai naem mobile
@SatanicPanic: i was listening to a local drive time pop station this AM. They mentioned the Sarah Palin photo with the guy with the woody. This was not a progressive talk station – just regular pop station. Yeah, I think Snowbilly Snooki is over as a possible political candidate.
Betsy
OT, but only somewhat:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/14/us/politics/kelley-paul-has-a-task-to-make-rand-paul-more-approachable.html
Oh God, not *another* story about how the candidate’s wife is going to smooth off his rough edges and “humanize him” on the campaign trail.
Can we PLEASE move beyond this? The idea that “Women Exist to Make Men Human” is so offensive.
In spite of the headline, women do not “have a task to do” in this regard. Ever.
Mike in NC
What is Connie Chung up to these days? Still remember the time she interviewed Newt Gingrich’s mother and tried to coax her into calling Hillary a “bitch” on national TV.
gene108
@Frankensteinbeck:
I doubt they’ll change.
(a) Fanatical opposition has been a winning strategy for them, and (b) their policies are not popular, so better to have “plausible deniability” that your policies may not suck, since they are not the law of the land, than to enact them and get people pissed off.
Calouste
@Richard Mayhew: That sounds like assault.
gene108
@Betsy:
I still remember the freak out in the media, in 1992, over the fact Hillary did not exist to just “smooth off his [Bill’s] rough edges”, and she dared to have a career all her own and life outside of being the political wife.
It’s interesting, in some regards, how some things are still, with regards to the role of spouses.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: Not on twitter but I am aware of the tweet and the kerfuffle. I was not very pleased with the tweet myself.
I agree with you about the unresolved issues, and the stumbles right out of the gate from HRC and supporter and surrogates aren’t impressing me too much. I think trying to understand will go a long way,but only if that effort comes from both directions. Did you see The Obama Diary yesterday? I quoted a whole chunk of it in the evening thread and linked to it as well. I think it would have made Barack Obama proud.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@MomSense:
FWIW, I agree with you. The whole incident with the Obama Diaries website getting attacked after Hillary’s announcement really, really didn’t help. Hillary seems to realize that there are fences to be mended — hopefully some of the grudge-holders from 2008 can likewise be convinced.
Calouste
@Betsy: As a GOP political wife, she has the task to make her husband appear human, and suck up his tantrums and indiscretions . That’s part of the package, see Jenny Sanford. Of course, considering that Kelley Paul has been knowingly married to this asshole for 25 years, I assume she will be as good at that task as the Marchioness de Mittens.
catclub
@gene108: I was also thinking the fanatical opposition will be even greater. In 2008 there was at least some shame that the Bush admin had botched so many things. Now there is just pent up outrage at not owning the presidency for the last 8 years. Plus, they were spoiling for a fight against Hillary in 2008 and disappointed not to get her then.
I think they will piss off a LOT of women in going overboard against Hillary.
schrodinger's cat
Is this a real newspaper or the Canadian Onion? With GOPers I truly can’t tell the difference between what is parody and what is real.
WereBear
Har! I believe not.
It’s bad enough to be “ruled” by a black MAN. But a woman in any higher hierarchal capacity? A WOMAN President? To these homo not-sapiens sapiens?
I’m not in any way diminishing the institutional impact of racism — it is far worse, in many ways. But misogyny is older and deeper and more visceral.
They are going to lose it over this one, too.
Cacti
@Betsy:
“I can’t be sexist, I married a woman” seems like the sexist’s equivalent of “some of my best friends are black”.
chromeagnomen
well, if you click through to the link, it’s pretty obvious that the beaverton is a parody site, but if you didn’t, you’d be perfectly justified in thinking the post was a legitimate one.
cmorenc
@Richard Mayhew: That’s an even better story (“enjoy prom night bitch”) than the classic one about retaliation in a HS game against a girl who jumped ship on her fellow club-team mates at U-13 for greener pastures at another club.
This is not to say, however, that the women’s game lacks any players with short rather than long fuses in exacting retaliation, as notorious as the women’s game is for the latter type of delayed retaliation. Yesterday I had an otherwise unremarkable, relatively low-skilled women’s JV game where late in the second half a rather beefy player on the visiting blue team committed a classic hip-check foul against an opposing home white team opponent-in-possession, spilling said white team player hard to the ground on her butt. White team player immediately jumps up and starts running directly at the perp like an angry rhino, unmistakably intent on getting physical with the blue player if she gets there, but fortunately I was close enough to the incident to bring the white player enough to her senses with hard whistle blasts that she backed off before she got close enough to start wailing and whupping on the blue player; I gave her a YC – usually women’s JV games go by without any cards (unlike boy’s JV games).
Nevertheless, PREDICTION: these two teams will play each other again later this season @blue’s place, and it’s near-certain there will be a different set of refs there reasonably expecting a boringly easy rec-level JV game, and there will be some out-of-the-blue incident where #9 white will exact her revenge against the perp. I could tell by the expression on #9s face as the game ended and the teams lined up to shake hands that she had definitely NOT gotten over her bad feelings toward her opponent, but knew that now was not the time (yet) to do anything about it. Not yet.
Frankensteinbeck
@WereBear:
Yes, but I think they’ll lose it in a different way. With Obama it’s ‘The brown horde has arrived! We must stop him!’ With Hillary it will be ‘What does a woman know?’ One makes them desperate to block anything he does and destroy his legacy. The other focuses more on insults. There will still be both, just like Obama got plenty of ‘You lie!’ moments.
@catclub:
It agrees with mine. Racism is the major motivation of the GOP, and they still tried their damnedest to find ‘we’re not racist’ codes like ‘retaking our country’. Birtherism was a code for racism, just such a desperate one that it was pretty obvious. The outliers actually saying ‘nigger’ in public remain outliers.
@MomSense:
See, that’s the thing. It’s not racist actions that’s unacceptable. It’s being labeled racist. Rush wants to yell ‘nigger’ so bad he can taste it, but he can’t. He’s too afraid of the backlash. He has no problem with ‘slut’ and ‘feminazi’. And yes, this is a ‘whole society’ thing, and exists on our side too. Their side is driven by it, though.
MomSense
@WaterGirl: @Mnemosyne (tablet):
I really hope we will all be co-fence menders.
MomSense
@MomSense:
Their side is completely driven by it. I’m pretty sure Santorum started to say it a couple times and stopped himself mid slur.
MattF
@Betsy: The ‘secret weapon’ meme.Veeeery secret.
Brachiator
@Frankensteinbeck:
You must have been out of the country during the Obama administration.
Bobby Thomson
@Hill Dweller: not feckless. Just treason. And not a surprise. The new minority leader’s primary loyalties are to a foreign power. It’s all about the House.
SiubhanDuinne
@jibeaux:
Done!
SWMBO
@jibeaux: I had trouble getting it to take my “like”. Had to refresh the page and scroll down again before it recognized it.
Betsy
@Calouste: Didn’t Jenny Sanford leave him and take his kids and most of his money? If so, er, ah, good for her, I guess.
Death Panel Truck
@jibeaux: Done.