Feminist icon Gloria Steinem took to the stump on Hillary ClintonÂ’s behalf here last night and quickly proved that she has lost none of her taste for provocation.
| That means age hasn't made her any more coherent. |
From the stage, the 73-year-old seemed to denigrate the importance of John McCain’s time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. In an interview with The Observer afterward, she suggested that Barack Obama benefits—and Clinton suffers—because Americans view racism more seriously than sexism.
| Apparently there are segments of our society who never tire of either. |
Steinem also told the crowd that one reason to back Clinton was because “she actually enjoys conflict.”
| But we shouldn't vote for McCain because he was a professional military officer and a jet pilot, which would seem to imply that he... ummm... how shall I say this?... Enjoys conflict? |
And she claimed that if Clinton’s experience as first lady were taken seriously in relation to her White House bid, people might “finally admit that, say, being a secretary is the best way to learn your boss’s job and take it over.”
| So by that line of reasoning, Jackie Kennedy should have been sworn in when the original JFK was shot... |
Steinem raised McCain’s Vietnam imprisonment as she sought to highlight an alleged gender-based media bias against Clinton. “Suppose John McCain had been Joan McCain and Joan McCain had got captured, shot down and been a POW for eight years. [The media would ask], ‘What did you do wrong to get captured? What terrible things did you do while you were there as a captive for eight years?’” Steinem said, to laughter from the audience.
| I somehow doubt that. We've actually had a few women in that situation in the past few years. Steinem ignores that sort, though. |
McCain was, in fact, a prisoner of war for around five and a half years, during which time he was tortured repeatedly. Referring to his time in captivity, Steinem said with bewilderment, “I mean, hello? This is supposed to be a qualification to be president? I don’t think so.”
| Only if you desire courage, tenacity, and dedication in a president. I mean, hello? |
Steinem’s broader argument was that the media and the political world are too admiring of militarism in all its guises. “I am so grateful that she [Clinton] hasn’t been trained to kill anybody.
| And it was a real shame about that nice Vince Foster... |
"And she probably didn’t even play war games as a kid. It’s a great relief from Bush in his jump suit and from Kerry saluting.” To The Observer, Steinem insisted that “from George Washington to Jack Kennedy and PT-109 we have behaved as if killing people is a qualification for ruling people.”
 Kerry's salute made me gag just about as much as Hillary's did. Washington and Kennedy were willing to put their lives on the line for the nation, not as a political step but out of sense of duty.
Bush's jumpsuit or Hillary's pantsuit? I'll go with the former, thankew.
Gloria's basic orientation comes out in the final sentence of that mishmash. Killing people is actually a qualification for ruling them. Ask any two bit caudillo. It's seldom you get to warm the Seat of Power without stepping over a pile of corpses. Even in the instances where power's inherited, the piles of corpses are a requirement for keeping power. But here in this country, the one Clinton wants to rule, we don't have rulers. We're governed, not ruled. Government is a referee among free actors, not a dictatorial authority. Both Hillary and Obama would change that, which is why I wouldn't vote for either of them. |
Other Clinton proxies, notably Black Entertainment Television founder Bob Johnson and a New Hampshire campaign chair, Billy Shaheen, have generated controversies with their criticisms of Obama. By contrast, Steinem told me the Illinois senator was “an intelligent, well-intentioned person.” She added: “I would like very much to see him be president for eight years after Hillary has been president for eight years.” But she also opined that “a majority of Americans want redemption for racism, for our terrible destructive racist past and so see a vote for Obama as redemptive.”
| The Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965. It's been 33 years, by my count. An entire generation has grown to adultery without Jim Crow, and the institution had been dying for most of a generation before that. At which point do we move on to some other subject? |
Then, using a term for the mass killing of women, she added, “I don’t think as many want redemption for the gynocide. They acknowledge racism—not enough, but somewhat. They would probably be less likely to acknowledge that the most likely way a pregnant woman is to die is murder from her male partner. There are six million female lives lost in the world every year simply because they are female.”
World population is 6.6 billion. 6 million is less than 1/1000th of that, by my rough calculation. Figuring half the population is female, that would make 1 out of 500 females victims of sweaty, brutish male violence each and every year, which still seems high to me even though it includes the Muslim world.
I'm still not sure what "gynocide" has to do with John McCain. I don't imagine he approves of bumping off females because they're females. |
Steinem has been a Clinton supporter for several years—even though, as she reminded me, she protested against Bill Clinton’s welfare reforms outside the White House. Her support for the former first lady has become more high-profile of late. She penned a January op-ed for The New York Times backing Clinton and asserting that “gender is probably the most restricting force in American life.”
| And how can one argue with a blanket generalization like that, backed as it is by no evidence whatsoever and qualified by a waffle word? |
She was also one of the women’s rights activists who signed a Feb. 15 letter published on the Huffington Post that insisted, “It’s time for feminists to say that Senator Obama has no monopoly on inspiration.”
| UPDATE: The Clinton campaign sends over the following statement from Howard Wolfson: "Senator Clinton has repeatedly praised Senator McCain's courage and service to our country. These comments certainly do not represent her thinking in any way. Senator Clinton intends to have a respectful debate with Senator McCain on the issues." |
Yesterday’s event, billed by the Clinton campaign as “One Million for Hillary with Gloria Steinem,” was one of several appearances scheduled for the veteran feminist across Texas as Tuesday’s primary looms. It was held in a downtown music venue and was attended by around 200 people, the vast majority of whom were women. Before Steinem spoke, two Clinton campaign ads focusing on female support were shown, to applause.
In her speech, Steinem argued that there was a major sexist component to the murmurs from some quarters suggesting Clinton should abandon her presidential quest.
There is, she said, “a great deal of pressure at play for her to act like her gender and give in.” Several shouts of “No!” came from the crowd. Steinem went on: “It’s a way of reinforcing the gender roles, right? Men are loved if they win and Hillary is loved if she loses. … But maybe we shouldn’t be so afraid of an open convention that actually decides something. After all, it was an open convention in New York City that gave us Abraham Lincoln.”
Steinem’s speech offered, Letterman-style, 10 reasons why she was supporting Hillary. Most were serious, though one of the more flippant was “We get Bill Clinton as Eleanor Roosevelt.”
Steinem, like any good politician, also made sure to praise her surroundings. True to her own spirit, though, she did so in less decorous terms than any candidate for office would dare. Other than Austin, she said, “there is no community in the whole world that understands how to include everybody, how to be serious and have a good time at the same time, how to be fan-fucking-tastic” quite so well. |