Liberal sexism on display

In a story about Rep. Michelle Bachman's bid for a House leadership position, the liberal newspaper Politico decides to use a photo (at right) of her applying makeup. They wouldn't do that to a male politician getting TV makeup. The sexism is obvious.

Separately, listen to Chris Matthews try to abuse her on MSNBC. As background, in October 2008, Rep. Bachmann called on the media to report on the candidates with unsavory and anti-American views. At the time, of course, they couldn't do that because their candidate was Pres. Obama. Two years later, Matthews is still hounding on her on that. (Apparently, the media see a call for honest reporting as being the same thing as "McCarthyism.") After politely ignoring the taunts, she zings him back:


WELCOME to readers of Shot in the Dark.

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of Democrats practicing sexism:
•Feminists attack a woman while ignoring an issue important to women
•Pelosi: Sexism in the House
•Majority Leader Reid declares: men are abusive.
•It was all about the racism and sexism
•MSNBC's sexist attacks on Sec. Rice and Obama's sexist attacks on Hillary
•DailyKos opposed to treating Hillary "fairly"
•Two examples of sexist stereotyping
•Sexists in the Senate
•A Democrat opposes sexism
•Media sexism backfires
•Salon has a sexual fantasy about Palin as a dominatrix
•Sexist attack on Palin or merely an example of Obama's "silver tongue"?
•Dem Gov says Dem primary voters are sexist and racist
•What is the victim status of your identity group?
•Dems urged to vote their gender

Tammy Bruce exposes the myth of liberal "tolerance"

Tammy Bruce, former president of the Los Angeles chapter of NOW, was a long time liberal. Now, she is an openly lesbian Tea Party supporter. Writing in the UK Guardian, Tammy Bruce explains what it is like to be "out, proud, and conservative":

I was asked: what is it like to be gay and conservative?

After all, those conservatives hate the homos, don't they? It must be very, very difficult for me, one concerned reader noted, to be among the intolerant and hateful. . . .

The real story of bigotry and intolerance is the fact that it lives and thrives on the left. As a gay woman who spent most of her adult life pushing the cart for liberal causes with liberal friends in a liberal city, I found that sexism, racism and homophobia are staples in the liberal world. The huge irony is liberals spend every ounce of energy promoting the notion that they are the banner carriers of individualism and personal freedom, yet the hammer comes down on anyone who dares not to conform to, or who dissents even in part from, the liberal agenda.

Think about what would happen if you did act up? If you dared to say you like Sarah Palin, or admire Margaret Thatcher, or think global warming is a hoax, or think Bill Clinton is a sexual predator, or that George W Bush isn't to blame for everything, or that Barack Obama has absolutely no clue what he's doing, you know there would be a price to pay. Odds are that your "liberal" friends would very liberally hate you. [Emph. added]

PREVIOUSLY on the ways in which liberals lie to themselves:
•The New York Times and the art of self-deception
•Lie to me
•Lying as a political strategy
•Lies that feel good
•Environmentalists more likely to cheat: being a liberal means not having to follow the rules
•Once I have my opinion, I'll tell you what the facts are
• AFP photo deception?
•In South Korea, liberal dreamers meet reality

Al Gore was trained by Bill Clinton

It is amazing how often preachers and politicians get caught in sex scandals and, according to the National Enquirer, Al Gore, archbishop of global warming, is no exception as two more accusers appear:

The ENQUIRER reports in an exclusive bombshell exclusive that police have investigated charges from TWO MORE WOMEN who claimed they were abused by former VP AL GORE!

The allegations come hot on the heels of an ongoing Portland, Ore., police investigation that reopened after The ENQUIRER exclusively revealed accusations by a licensed massage therapist who says Gore groped her in 2006.

Hat tip: Instapundit.

PREVIOUSLY on the dishonesty and hypocrisy of environmentalists:
•Environmentalists more likely to cheat: being a liberal means not having to follow the rules
•The ever-increasing energy use of Al Gore's mansion

PREVIOUSLY on global warming and its profiteers:
•Ethanol subsidies in perspective
•Global warming whitewash: Penn State and the Michael Mann
•Global warming's profiteers
•Penn State to investigate its global warmist Mann, or not
•Climategate: laws were broken
•The collapse of the UN IPCC's credibility
•Yet another UN IPCC Glacier-gate scandal
•UN IPCC claims of melting Himalayan glaciers exposed as fraud
•UN IPCC responds to Climategate with wild accusations
•Surprise: EU's carbon trading riddled with fraud
•Ma'am Sen. Boxer for and against climate whistleblowers.

Gov. to require racism in the financial industry

At RealClearMarkers, Diana Furchtgott-Roth reports on the financial regulation bill currently proceeding through Congress:

What one finds when reading congressional legislation is invariably surprising. Take the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill, for instance, . . . . I was searching the bill for a provision about derivatives. What did I find but Section 342, which declares that race and gender employment ratios, if not quotas, must be observed by private financial institutions that do business with the government. [Emph. add]

RTWT. Hat tip: GatewayPundit.

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of Democrats and racism:
•Obama ally: "I hate white people...."
•Bill Maher explains how "real" blacks act
•Democrats move to their comfort zone
•Black students, harassed for "acting white," get $150,000
•“You can’t vote against healthcare and call yourself a black man.”
•"The city wasn't ready to hire a white police chief."
•A prominent black politician says the white incumbent cannot properly represent black voters.
•San Franciscans discriminate against blacks.
•"He's not black and he can't represent me, that's just the bottom line."
•NAACP defends racism.
•Stanford finds Democrats are racist.
•Obama nominates a racist.
•Leaders acknowledge Democrat base is racist.
•"That's just how white folks will do you." ---Barack Obama.
•Dem says Dem primary voters are racist.
•Dems accuse Bill and Hillary of racism.

Racism/sexism quick roundup

1. MSNBC and CNBC personality Donny Deutsch called Republican Senate candidate Marco Rubio a "coconut." Mr. Deutsch claims:

I said "coconut" meaning simple, goofy, bananas...wasn't even aware it could be a racially charged word

"Coconut" is an anti-Latino/Pacific Islander/Filipino slur and Mr. Deutsch just happened to use the word when referring to a Latino?

2. On the sexism front, Sen. Reid has determined that:

Men, when they're out of work, tend to become abusive'

3. On Tuesday’s Countdown show, host Keith Olbermann accused both tea partiers and Fox News of racism. He said this despite the lack of racial diversity among primetime hosts at his network.

4. Last month, you may remember Chris Matthews commenting on Pres. Obama's State of the Union address: "I forgot he was black." John Hinderaker observes:

One of the differences between liberals and conservatives is that many liberals are obsessed by race, while conservatives, in general, rarely think about it.

5. Mass murderers, black conservatives: what's the difference? Not much, according to one of the Washington Post's blogs. Jim Hoft explains:

The Washington Post’s “The Root” blog posted a piece on “Black Folks We’d Like to Remove From Black History.” The list lumps noted mass murderers Idi Amin, Robert Mugabe and John Allen Muhammad along with Clarence Thomas, Alan Keyes and Michael Steele. They forgot about Condi.

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of Democrats practicing sexism:
•It was all about the racism and sexism
•MSNBC's sexist attacks on Sec. Rice and Obama's sexist attacks on Hillary
•DailyKos opposed to treating Hillary "fairly"
•Two examples of sexist stereotyping
•Sexists in the Senate
•A Democrat opposes sexism
•Media sexism backfires
•Salon has a sexual fantasy about Palin as a dominatrix
•Sexist attack on Palin or merely an example of Obama's "silver tongue"?
•Dem Gov says Dem primary voters are sexist and racist
•What is the victim status of your identity group?
•Dems urged to vote their gender

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of racism:
•Black students, harassed for "acting white," get $150,000
•“You can’t vote against healthcare and call yourself a black man.”
•"The city wasn't ready to hire a white police chief."
•A prominent black politician says the white incumbent cannot properly represent black voters.
•San Franciscans discriminate against blacks.
•"He's not black and he can't represent me, that's just the bottom line."
•NAACP defends racism.
• Stanford finds Democrats are racist.
• Obama nominates a racist.
• Leaders acknowledge Democrat base is racist.
•"That's just how white folks will do you." ---Barack Obama.
•Dem says Dem primary voters are racist.
•Dems accuse Bill and Hillary of racism.

It was all about the racism and sexism

I listened to a few minutes of Rachel Maddow last night and she was sure that Brown won because Massachusetts voters are anti-female. In the video below, MSNBC commentator Donnie Deutsch continues on that theme explaining that Brown won because he was white and male and Massachusetts voters found "comfort" in that:
The transcript:

“We’re going back to basics, we’ve obviously had our first African American president we’ve had the female candidates and whatnot you look at him he looks like the candidate, the traditional view of the candidate, and is there a visceral comfort in that for people? I’m just curious from real kind of sociological point of view.”

Hat tip: GatewayPundit.

Over at Politico, Jeannie Cummings and Erika Lovley similarly blamed Coakley's loss on a "glass ceiling" for women in Massachusetts.

Voters say the election was about Obamacare which is not popular even in the only state that voted for Geo. McGovern for president. It is understandable that liberals would find more comfort in believing that the election was about sexism. In a state with so many left-wing Democrats, there might even be some element of truth to that belief (see the links below).

PREVIOUSLY on Democrats practicing sexism:
•MSNBC's sexist attacks on Sec. Rice and Obama's sexist attacks on Hillary
•DailyKos opposed to treating Hillary "fairly"
•Two examples of sexist stereotyping
•Sexists in the Senate
•A Democrat opposes sexism
•Media sexism backfires
•Salon has a sexual fantasy about Palin as a dominatrix
•Sexist attack on Palin or merely an example of Obama's "silver tongue"?
•Dem Gov says Dem primary voters are sexist and racist
•What is the victim status of your identity group?
•Dems urged to vote their gender

PREVIOUSLY on the Massachusetts Senate race:
•Some Democrats waking up and smelling the coffee
•Obamacare: some still want to do a kamikaze run
•Mass. focus group says it was all about healthcare
•Massachusetts Senate race results live blog
•Where has the laughter gone?

A Democrat opposes sexism

Writer-producer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, a self-proclaimed liberal Democrat who achieved public notice as an advisor to Bill Clinton, said this of the current liberal-media sexism:

Bloodworth-Thomason and others seemed especially critical of the way MSNBC -- and other media -- has attacked Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin while demeaning her supporters.

"We should stop the demonizing," she said, adding that Democrats have been worse than Republicans as far as personal attacks on candidates are concerned. "It diminishes us," she said of her fellow Democrats.

Democrats and their Sex-Symbol-in-Chief

ABC News reports on Sen. Obama:

The rain pouring down, his jacket off, his white dress-shirt clinging to his body, Barack Obama played to a crowd ....

That does sound more like a romance novel than a news report, doesn't it?

The New York Times wrote a similar sounding report about Al Gore during his 1988 run for the Democratic nomination:

If politics is the art of pleasing different groups of people simultaneously, Senator Albert Gore Jr., Democrat of Tennessee, seems to have chosen the right profession. ....

Mr. Gore is solidly built, dark and indisputably handsome.

In Sept. 2003, the (UK) Independent saw then candidate Sen. John Kerry in the same light:

Construct your identikit Democratic Presidential candidate and you would come up with someone pretty much like John Forbes Kerry. Handsome, tall and intelligent. Jutting jaw and gravitas by the bucketful.

The weird thing about Democrats sexualizing their presidential candidates is that they also see US presidents as father figures.

Media sexism backfires

Hugh Hewitt writes that, at least for the callers to his radio show, the media attacks on Palin are backfiring:

Since the day John McCain selected Palin as his running mate, I have spoken with only women callers to my radio show. For the past week I have limited callers to those who are calling a radio show for the very first time. All the lines have been filled every hour of every day. Caller after caller wants to discuss their affection for Sarah, their willingness to work for her and contribute to the RNC and to share stories of like-minded women in their families and among their friends.

Each new attack on Palin brings increased enthusiasm for her. Take, for example, the astonishing report from by Los Angeles Times reporter Andrew Malcolm that a "senior Canadian doctor is now expressing concerns that such a prominent public role model as the governor of Alaska and potential vice president of the United States completing a down syndrome pregnancy may prompt other women to make the same decision against abortion because of that genetic abnormality. And thereby reduce the number of abortions." This is just one of many brazen attacks on the decisions of Sarah and Todd Palin on how to raise and care for their family. Nothing remotely like it has ever been seen in modern politics, and the disgust level is growing as a result.

That Canadian doctor who wants to abort down syndrome children seems to be part of a liberal trend to re-embrace eugenics.

More liberal sexism

What hang-up causes liberals to imagine a female political figure as a dominatrix in some sexual fantasy? The above illustration is from the (very liberal) Salon magazine. Puma Pac sees this as part of a pattern, going back to similar illustrations of Hillary in '93.

For whatever they are worth, Puma Pac has possible explanations for these fantasies: "Some might suggest these folks were a little too close to mamma to grow up to be functional men, if you know what I mean. Still others might suggest it’s an intimacy-issues thing, the result of being cuckolded by empowered, irritated, unsatisfied wives."

Sexism update

The Democrats may not have found a way to attack Gov. Palin's politics, but they can point out repeatedly, that she is a woman. For example, today Democratic Congressman Russ Carnahan introduced Sen. Biden at a campaign event with:

“There’s no way you can dress up that record, even with a lot of lipstick,”

The New York Times reports on on a similar jab from Sen. Obama's latest appearance in Lebanon, VA:

“John McCain says he’s about change, too — except for economic policy, health care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy and Karl Rove-style politics,” Mr. Obama told his supporters here. “That’s just calling the same thing something different.”

With a laugh, he added: “You can put lipstick on a pig; it’s still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change; it’s still going to stink after eight years.”

It would be reasonable to think that Obama's "lipstick on a pig" comment referred to the Sen. McCain's policies instead of Gov. Palin gender except for two things (1) the crowd reaction to that line is so out-of-proportion strong (horribly clipped youtube video here) that they appear to have recognized it as a reference to Gov. Palin, the 'pit bull with lipstick', and (2) it is followed by the line about "old fish" which, in context, becomes a clear allusion to Sen. McCain's age.

Always trying to avoid the appearance of bias, the headline on the NY Times story did not mention Obama's making a gaffe or even a controversial statement. Instead the story was entitled "Feeling a Challenge, Obama Sharpens His Silver Tongue." By contrast, even the AP understood that the lipstick remark was about Palin, not policies.

PREVIOUSLY, during the primaries, Democrats were well aware that their party was filled with sexism and racism.

RELATED: More debunking of anti-Palin myths and lies here on libraries and here on the bride-to-nowhere.

RELATED: Biden questions Obama's judgement.

Sexism watch

On MSNBC, Rachel Maddow spoke about Sec. Rice's latest diplomatic initiative with the country that the Bush administration has previously convinced to renounce its nuclear weapon program as follows:

But first, the headlines breaking in the administration's 50 running scandals: "Bushed." ... And number one: "Pillow Talk with Terrorists-Gate." Who's holding talks in Libya today? The highest-ranking U.S. official to do so since 1953? That would be Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

For liberals, a diplomatic initiative is reduced to "pillow-talk" when a woman is involved.

MORE: Tammy Bruce, a former president of the Los Angeles chapter of NOW, reviews sexism in the Democratic party's primaries (hat tip: Instapundit):

The rank bullying of the Clinton candidacy during the primary season has the distinction of simply being the first revelation of how misogynistic the party has become. The media led the assault, then the Obama campaign continued it. Trailblazer Geraldine Ferraro, who was the first Democratic vice presidential candidate, was so taken aback by the attacks that she publicly decried nominee Barack Obama as "terribly sexist" and openly criticized party chairman Howard Dean for his remarkable silence on the obvious sexism.

Concerned feminists noted, among other thinly veiled sexist remarks during the campaign, Obama quipping, "I understand that Sen. Clinton, periodically when she's feeling down, launches attacks as a way of trying to boost her appeal," and Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen in a television interview comparing Clinton to a spurned lover-turned-stalker in the film, "Fatal Attraction," noting, "Glenn Close should have stayed in that tub, and Sen. Clinton has had a remarkable career...". These attitudes, and more, define the tenor of the party leadership, and sent a message to the grassroots and media that it was "Bros Before Hoes," to quote a popular Obama-supporter T-shirt.

LOOSELY RELATED: Charles Martin has collected the existing rumors and charges against Sarah Palin here.

Katie Couric weighs in on victimology

During the primary season, Democrats struggled with the issue of whether to 'vote their race' or 'vote their gender.' For some the issue came down to whether racism or sexism was of greater concern. As Haaretz reports, prominent liberal Katie Couric now adds her opinion:

I find myself in the last bastion of male dominance, and realizing what Hillary Clinton might have realized not long ago: that sexism in the American society is more common than racism, and certainly more acceptable or forgivable. [emph. added]

Hat tip: M. Calderone.