At the exact moment Jon Favreau is receiving high praise in pre-inaugural media puff pieces, the 27-year-old chief speechwriter for President-elect Barack Obama . . . finds himself in a minor mess over a photo from a recent private party showing him groping the breast of a cardboard cutout of Hillary Rodham Clinton as an unnamed pal wearing an "Obama staff" T-shirt kisses and feeds her beer.
. . . Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson danced to a similar tune at the 2004 Super Bowl. Fraternities have been closed for less.
The provocative party pic uploaded to Facebook for a very short time was soon discovered and printed in The Washington Post then disseminated across the Internet and featured prominently on Politico, Gawker and the Drudge Report.
The photo may be viewed here.
If the photo had exposed a Republican offender, there'd already be a full-bore media scandal and cascading resignations. . . . Yet so far there is no groundswell of feminist rage in the District of Columbia. The unnamed co-conspirator thrusting the beer bottle into the mouth of the designated secretary of state isn't yet a household slur. Instead, with the accused being a member of the protected Democratic class, we only have a quick peripheral debate. The mainstream media headlines soften the story's implications: "Obama speechwriter Favreau learns the perils of Facebook" (CNN). Next time, don't share your coarseness with the world. It's the technology's fault.The aggressive iconography of two young drunk men taking advantage of a life-size cutout of a woman - especially a powerful one - would bring an elite college campus to a standstill, force a housecleaning of a Fortune 500 company, ground the Air Force Academy and would, in most cases, ruin the career of a Republican staffer or elected official. Every sexual harassment training manual makes exceedingly clear that this type of behavior is intolerable. If only former President Bill Clinton could offer his sage advice on sexual harassment and put this conundrum to rest. . . .
The National Organization for Women, which last struck issuing news releases on why Sarah Palin isn't a real woman, refused to comment on the Obama speechwriter incident.
When NOW's press secretary Mai Shiozaki was reached Friday, she first claimed not to have seen the Favreau photograph. But when called later, she offered two reasons for not weighing in: "I haven't looked into it" and "I have a 5 p.m. deadline. ... I am already late." . . .
The "Feminist Law Professors" blog adds this pointed observation:
If this is supposed to be excused as a “youthful indiscretion” because Favreau is “so young” then I think Obama’s judgment in continuing to rely professionally on someone so “young” and irresponsible and offensively sexist can reasonably be questioned.