Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Zelda Miller Announces:


"No" Doesn't Mean "No" Anymore.

Zelda Miller is the love child (as it used to be genteely put) of Zell Miller and Veruca "I Want It Now" Salt.

Zelda is unhappy that Senator Hillary Clinton is not the Democratic Nominee for President this year.

Very unhappy.

Very, very unhappy.

In fact, Zelda has made it quite clear for the last two years – in an ever-escalating tone of air-raid-siren-loud rage -- that any choice other that Senator Clinton

would not simply be a disappointment, but would be illegitimate.

Poor Zelda.

Two years ago, Zelda was very happy.

Very, very happy.

Two years ago, Senator Clinton had $200 million in the bank, had virtually every state party organization locked up, and was absolutely, mortal-lock, bet-the-rent-money inevitable.

Which was a good thing, because for a certain wing of the women’s rights movement, Senator Clinton was their movement’s apotheosis.

Of course, before Senator Clinton, Representative Nancy Pelosi was the apotheosis of women’s right movement.

And before Representative Nancy Pelosi, Senator Carol Mosley Braun was the apotheosis of women’s right movement.

And before Senator Carol Mosley Braun, Representative Geraldine Ferraro was the apotheosis of women’s right movement.

And so forth.

But it turned out that each of these previous apotheosi were merely politicians. Weak, flawed, compromising politicians.

And so it fell to Senator Clinton to Redeem The Movement.

The equation was simple: a Hillary Clinton -- the proxy for generation, who Suffered For Your Sins under Limbaugh, Died under Cheatin' Bill, but was Reborn as the Junior Senator from New York -- was entitled to be President.

E-n-t-i-t-l-e-d.

From the Huffington Post:

Leon Panetta, Bill Clinton's former White House chief of staff, was tasked by the Obama campaign this summer with soothing ruffled feelings and helping Hillary loyalists to get over their sense of loss. It has been a demanding assignment.

"There is a sense of entitlement that almost seems to be inbred," Panetta said. "They are convinced Hillary is the one who should be assuming the mantle and it's tough to crack that."
...


And, conversely, if Senator Hillary Clinton did not Ascend to her rightful place in the White House, the women's rights movement as we know it would collapse and fall into the Stygian darkness where it would be gobbled down and horribly digested by Old Ones forever and ever.

Or something.

And that would suck.

So Senator Hillary Clinton had to become President Hillary Clinton.

Had to.

Had. To.

Therefore...

Therefore...

Therefore...

...by the commutative properties of "Because I deserve it", any outcome which did not result in a President Hillary Clinton must be illegitimate.

And in that moment -- in the firing of that political synapse -- a Cult was born.

In the firing of that political synapse you can actually see people like Zelda go mad -- madness, in this case, being defined as founding a movement on two, mutually exclusive and mutually annihilating premises, and then lobotomizing that part of your brain which can perceive blatant contradictions.

Premise Number One: Senator Clinton is a strong, smart, competent and powerful woman in her own right who is every bit up to the job of President.

Premise Number Two: Regardless of what Senator Clinton says; regardless of how many times or how vehemently she protests and tells these people "No" -- they know better.

They know that she wants it.

Really, really wants it.

Of course, these people did not come here from space. They were locally grown, at sites like Taylor Marsh, which was a veritable rutting ground for every unhinged conspiracy and the most intractable of the PUMA.

Her site became an object lesson in what happens when you hitch your wagon to a mob. When you drive your traffic up and feed your media ambitions by flicking yummy medallions of red meat to crazy people until your blog becomes a freakhouse.

As the race heated up and her candidate began to lose, Taylor Marsh willingly let her site become a nest for head-cases, and in the thousands and thousands of comments that accreted there every week, it became insufficient to slam Senator Obama merely over matters of policy or experience.

Instead, the Marsh Mob sprinted Full Shrieking Rove into the darkness and never looked back.

And once they had completed the transformation of Senator Hillary from candidate to Goddess, anything that stood in her way -- opponents, arithmetic, the rules of the game which the candidate herself had already agreed to, her staff's own previous statements, her staff's many, ruinous fuckups, the fact that Brand Clinton comes groaning under a farrago of baggage that some of us are just damned tired of carrying -- stopped being legitimate grounds for having a different opinion or a loss at the polls and started being attacked as Conspiracy and Heresy against the Apotheosa, Queen of the Aggrieved Ladies of a Certain Age.

And once that cultish worldview became legitimized and every asylum day-room muttering became a fungible means to serve that end, there ceased to be any baseline of are-you-fucking-kidding-me? below which the crazies would not go.

Obama became a mobbed-up, empty-suit who was being operated like a Predator drone out of the Kennedy compound.

"Rezko" became a scary, swarthy pejorative (like those other "O"-suffixed scare-words -- "C-h-i-c-a-g-o" and "n-e-g-r-o" -- that have been deployed to freak out the rubes and waterheads) without bothering to notice that the trial of Antoin "Tony" Rezko went to the jury weeks ago. And among all of the many assorted witnesses, co-conspirators and unindicted dodgyfolk from both parties who fell out onto the floor when prosecutors vigorously beat that dirty rug, guess whose name was never mentioned as having ever even been suspected of doing anything wrong?

But of course inside the Clown Car a lack of evidence only “proves” that the evidence must have somehow been covered up or destroyed!

Which, in turn, “proves” that this Dean/Kennedy/Soros/Illuminati/Masonic/Lord Kinbote/Red-Headed-League conspiracy runs even deeper than we feared!

"Bill Ayers" went from being a casual acquaintance to a mad bomber with whom Obama plotted in basements.

Obama was an "abuser".

The "fix was in!"

The DNC was mere stalking horse for the Dean/Kennedy/Soros/Illuminati/Masonic/Lord Kinbote/ Red-Headed-League cabal that secretly ran all media and strong-armed good people into voting for this devil against their will!

Obama was a Sekrit Fanatic; a smooth talker who will mesmerize America until he gets into office and then will destroy the country "just like Hitler did!"

"Democrat" Taylor Marsh merrily elbowed her way into the national discussion by sowing this whirlwind.

Ah, but then the wind shifted. And when it did it turned out that Taylor Marsh was down with snagging a paid media gig waaaaay more than she was down with The Cause.

Having spent months and months and months amping up her traffic by feeding The Horde (and reminding everyone who would listen that she would make a supergreatterrific host on, say, Progressive Radio) she suddenly had no fucking clue where all of these scary goofs had come from, or why they weren’t all aboard the Unity Pony Express?

Locally, we had people like Delmarie Cobb, who is a political consultant and Clinton Supporter. I have cruelly tarted up for entertainment purposes the questions that were asked of her, and pared down her remarks to a series of snips (or dramatized them, teevee movie-style), but it’s a pretty fair take on the tone interview, and the entire interview is available here, on a Chicago Public Radio program called “848”.


Q: …to someone outside this process this sound effing nuts. Hairsplitting with a cyclotron. Reading gender or racial coding into every fart and sigh, when this is really just about two side that just got done with a long, hard, knife fight.

A: ...Ted Kennedy...

...Jimmy Carter...

...she got 18 million votes and you got 17 million...

...he is going to need those "Clinton Democrats"...

...many people believe that the best way to punish the DNC for "being in the tank with Obama" is to not give them money...

...its how the process was done. ...not speaking out on Florida and Michigan...

...superdelegates were supposed to wait...

…It was OBVIOUS they were in the tank. Howard Dean needed to speak up and he never did…

…But the "media" and many Obama supporters continue to disrespect Senator Clinton in many way and until "those things" are resolved, her supporters are not gonna go his way.


Q: But if you listen to Obama's public speeches, public statements by his surrogates, they are full of effusive praise for Senator Clinton. The recite her entire resume. They talk about her campaign being full of Teh Awesome. It looks to a not-driven-berserk-with-rage person an outsider perhaps like he's courting her supporters. Why is it you feel disrespected?

A (rough translation): Well just yesterday when that evil, terrorist-loving monster was asked why he hadn't surged in the polls, he said it was because of the long primaries. And everyone knows that this is Sekrit Code for "because that Hillary didn't drop out and go back to the kitchen! And if I lose its her fault!"

Q: So you hear strange voices in your head something very different than, say, and a-political person might hear.

A: TRUE! nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why WILL you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How then am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily, how calmly, I can tell you the whole story.


Oh, wait. Never mind.

That's the opening paragraph from the Tell-Tale Heart.

Suffice to say, like a whole lot of Confederates after the Civil War…or hundreds of thousands of Germans after WWI…or millions of Americans after Vietnam, it was completely inconceivable that they could have just lost.

It was such a primal affront to their sense of destiny and identity that a comforting, redemptive lie had to be manufactured.

They had to have been...betrayed somehow.

Sold out.

They needed to be the innocent victims of evil plots. And there needed to be a villain skulking in the shadows wanton and terrible enough to elevate their loss to the level of noble martyrdom. Like the Savior, the South or the Fatherland, they would one day rise again and take back what was rightfully theirs.

Meanwhile, comforting lie in-hand, they were free to finger their grievances -- real or imaginary, slight or large -- like a rosary. Free to filter Friend from Foe through the scrim of their comforting new delusion.

What truly disturbs me about these people is not their passion. Not their policy positions. Not whatever “Pay attention to me!” pageant they want to stage in Denver.

Not even that they have reduced themselves to the level of tantrum-throwing parody who would rather burn the whole toy chest to the ground rather that let that uppity man from Chicago

play with Hillary’s Dream House.


Fine. Whatever. We’ve all been dumped or divorced or fired or widowed or betrayed or left at the altar or left for another. We all know how it feels. And we’re all sinners here; all flawed little monkeys who have, at one time or another, nursed the rage teat down to its bitterest lees.

No, what truly disturbs me is how blithely they are willing to cast aside one of the most fundamental tenets of women's rights: That “No” fucking well means “No”!

That they willing to infantilize and ultimately ignore Senator Clinton because it inconveniences them to treat her as a competent adult who actually means what she says.

That they are willing rob her of her humanity -- to bludgeon her into a talismanic object -- in order to nullify her right to say "No".

Exactly 60 years ago, another pack of PUMAs -- this time a large group of very cranky white men -- bolted from the Democratic Party because they were furious with where it was going and how they were being treated.

They were called “Dixiecrats” and in their platform they proudly “oppose[d] and condemn[ed] the action of the Democratic Convention in sponsoring a civil rights program calling for the elimination of segregation, social equality by Federal fiat, regulations of private employment practices, voting, and local law enforcement.”

At the time, Democratic Party leaders were terrified that the loss of the Dixiecrats would cost them the Presidency in 1948.

Turns out it didn’t.

In the end, the Dixiecrats became Republicans, and, in the process, destroyed the Party of Lincoln, hollowed out its corpse, and turned it into the Party of Jefferson Davis. And despite its deep and infuriating flaws, the Democratic Party is a better, finer, more humane organization by several orders of magnitude for having rid itself of those thugs and klansmen.

And whether there are a million of them, or 250...

From Barsoom

PUMA follies

by kos
Fri Aug 15, 2008 at 09:31:04 AM PDT

Oh man, those PUMA jokers are hilarious! Their lofty and self-aggrandizing proclamations do nothing but set them up for one bomb after another.

Remember when they talked big about their planned RBC protest, and this many showed up? That didn't deter them! They decided to have a conference, and oh and it was going to be the bestest, most exclusive and lavish conference ever! Brooklyn blogger Kevin K at rumproast has the side-splitting story, which begins with the usual bombastic rhetoric.

Dear PUMAs,

The 2008 PUMA Conference Committee is ready to ROAR with these incredible conference deals! For the amazing price of $250, you will receive the following:

Lodging at a FIVE STAR hotel – the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C. for THREE nights (Thursday, Friday and Saturday)
Breakfast on Saturday and Sunday.
Lunch on Saturday.
AND it also includes the price of the conference itself.
Mind boggling, crazy good isn’t it?

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE YOU REGISTER:
After the first 250 people register at the $250 price, IT IS GONE. As we are under tight time constraints with the hotel for numbers and commitment at this time, once you register there will be NO refunds. (Please reread that sentence before you register.)

If we do not have 250 registrants, we will be refunding monies MINUS the PayPal Fee (approximately $7.50).

...


so too will we be a better Party once this generation of PUMAs are gone for good.

Because in their fevered insistence that, however much Senator Clinton may object and protest, they know she secretly appreciates what they are doing -- that they, not she, knows what is best for her -- it has become impossible to hear any difference between the creepy, ego-maniacal rationalizations of a PUMA and the creepy, ego-maniacal rationalizations of a stalker.

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

Excellent.

After watching Olbermann's special comment last night, the one word that stuck in my head was that it was now Grampa that's acting like he's entitled to the presidency.

It's annoying.

Anonymous said...

The remaining Clinton supporters remind me of nothing so much as the Ellen Jamesians.

Their "movement" has become more important to them than any ideals for which their candidate may have once stood, and the object of their supposed reverence looks on them with horror at what is being done in her name.

Of course, Hillary was a bit more complicit in the formation of her deranged cult than the unfortunate Ms. Ellen James was in the formation of hers, but we are where we are.

Anonymous said...

Zelda is a bad egg.

Anonymous said...

DG- Your insight that this movement is ignoring the word "NO," which is most sacred to them, is the key. Much in the same way that chistopaths who ignore rule #1 "Thou shall not kill" to support wars, and the associated mayhem, have demonstrated their separation from their own professed values. This root incongruity is always the basis by which sane people can recognize moral terrorists. Thank you for providing this clear and incisive insight.

Fran / Blue Gal said...

What US Blues said.

1. Hillary is our leader.
2. We love Hillary.
3. Hillary supports Obama?
4. To hell with Hillary we'll nominate her ourselves.

Return to point one with no irony or, let's face it, respect for the woman who inspired us in the first place.

I suspect this is a very small minority of Hillary supporters. The MAJORITY of Hillary supporters do NOT want McCain to be President. Like their leader, they will vote Democratic. The PUMA's are a sliver, and are not Democrats, were never Democrats, but rather zealots of some other order. The sad thing is, as you point out, they do not respect their candidate's wishes. I suspect we will not miss them in November.

Anonymous said...

Drifty tell us how you truly feel..

blue gal. how can we miss what we never had...

Anonymous said...

That was pure, unadulterated genius.

Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Righteous take-down. You are spot-on about Dr. FrankenMarsh; it's been pretty amusing watching her try to keep the monster she helped create at bay.

Anonymous said...

Deconstruction and dissection GENIUS, Driftglass. As usual.

While I am certain a lot of the looniest PUMA types are deep, triple-cross fronts from something funded by the RNC and Rove Worms, I have such HILLARY OR NUTHIN' types in my circle of friends and family. They are NOT being financed by the Dark Lords; nor are they jockeying for a high-paid media gig ... like squishy woman T. Marsh.

Hmmm. Doesn't that make them simply STOOOPID? I've been telling them for months that Real America don't need 'em. (Like your more deftly phrased 'What Makes the Party Stronger' example with the Dixiecrat Defection.) BUH-BYE!

So, they've stopped talking to me. Ahhhh, another benefit!! :-)

Anonymous said...

This article really speaks to me personally. I lost my best friend to the puma movement. When I say "best friend" I mean that - someone I would trust with my life, with my child's life, with all my deep dark secrets (if I had any :) I admired her as a woman and as a human being, and loved that we shared so many core values. And then two months ago she became a puma and someone I didn't understand anymore. Within a matter of days, this woman I highly respected began spouting off about Obama being a Muslim and taking the oath of office on the Koran and dozens of other things that can easily be proven wrong if one takes the time to research. But she made it clear that she didn't want to correct her ideas of Obama - she took great pleasure in hating him. Literally, hating him. And I was stunned. Because this woman who I would have sworn was one of the most rational, thoughtful people I know transformed into someone fueled entirely by emotion. And no logic I could use would penetrate this wall. She believes the pumas are fighting against sexism, but doesn't see that their fight for one woman is abetting sexism against ALL WOMEN if McCain gets elected. She is willing to put up with 4 years of a terrible Republican president if it means Hillary has a chance in 2012, but doesn't see that policies McCain will put in place and justices he will put on the courts will impact us all for much longer than 4 years. I could go on, but you all know the inconsistancies of puma-think already.

I read theories put forth in articles like this that try to explain what drives the pumas but don't recognize my friend in any of them. I have had to acknowledge that this means I never *really* knew her at a fundamental level. And she didn't really know me, either, because she thought I would support her in this.

I agree that the Democratic Party will be better off without pumas in the long run. And so will I. But, damn, the short run really hurts.

Anonymous said...

katrina:

Never underestimate the allure of letting one's racism and xenophobia all hang out, when one has an ostensibly non-racist and non-xenophobic excuse for letting it all hang out.

Brilliant as always, driftglass.

Anonymous said...

Fuck entitlement.
This isn't the Rethug party where you get handed the crown through nepotism.

Go ahead, vote for the 'my wife is a trollop/cunt' candidate instead. Say goodbye to abortion rights.

Anonymous said...

Brilliant take down as always Driftman. And your summation was perfect. " No means no!"

Cirze said...

Dg,

Astounding analysis.

Brilliant encore.

What US Blues, Blue Gal, Katrina and everyone else said.

As a feminist from the 60's who met Betty Friedan, Florence Kennedy, et al., and learned my lessons early on from them, it threw me for a loop to be treated so badly (talked about abusively) and then abandoned by my current "feminist friends."

And many progressive men too whispered to me the "seekrit Mussssssslim" stories (didn't I know?) that astounded me at their naivete or purposive misrepresentation.

The whole situation just saddened me at first, and then infuriated me at the proclaiming of McCain as a better candidate than Obama (even from Big H, who was clearly eyeing 2012 as her triumphant return moment).

Thanks for putting the "No" into words. It's not just her "No" (if really was "No") that wasn't listened to; it was the people's "No" in S.C. and everywhere else it occurred. Seeing B&H negating the voters' desires (while claiming that they knew best what the voters really wanted) was the best education I could receive during this election cycle.

And I'm still a "feminist."

Suzan

Anonymous said...

As Jim Ward said on the Steph. Miller Show........ they might be PUMA's........ but they ain't Cougars.

Phil said...

Do Not make eye contact, walk, run, drive away as fast as possible and if necessary, throw half eaten McDonalds sandwiches out the window to facillitate your escape.

Anonymous said...

Well, since the whole thing is predicated on removing that pesky Y chromosome from politics, then why are the PUMAs not supporting the Green Party, with two women on the ticket.

Oh, that's right - Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente are women of color.

Regards,

Tengrain

Anonymous said...

Katrina, it's simple about yer friend.
And Others Have Said it.

She's a racist.
Pure and phrellin simple.

And most of the PUMA's are too . . .

And we don't need their votes as Drifty sums up.

Drifty, once again . . . da bomb. Well done, hoss.

And thanks. *G*

This election is SO all about racism . . .

And more important, it's about BEATING THE SHIT outta that racism, and beating it back, so the Confeds, NeoCons and all their orc like henches are beat into the hellfires of Mordor as it all melts down and good things emerge . . .

We don't beat that shit down, we'll NEVER beat the 1% down, who are ruining the lives of the rest of the 99%.

Harumph.

Unknown said...

That was a wonderful connection to Gene Wilder's outburst in the great first Willy Wonka film.

Anonymous said...

I suppose it's all a testament to how unhinged politics has become in the U.S. over the past 30 years.

To say nothing of certain politicians behaving in demonstrable bad faith, recklessly setting loose some very ugly forces that can't be quite as easily recalled when they begin to prove inconvenient. As the Clintons have rather nicely shown us all, DLC/corporate style Dems are every bit as bad in this regard as the Rethugs.

Anonymous said...

Drifty, you said it all. I have tossed a Puma "friend" under the bus after I dared refuse her demands that I support her ever-lovin' gal, Hill. I'm not feminist enough....whatever.

You just can't fix stupid nor fix women who blame men for their misfortunes. Obama became that man in their eyes.

Anonymous said...

Zell is unhappy with the savaging of Hillary by all the Obama-ite misogynists because:

she went to the trouble of rudely elbowing Zell's tongue out of the way with her own (like Charles Barkley going for a rebound) while she was massaging george bush's war-enlarged prostate gland for lo, these many years.

And, in her little primary morality play, doing the same thing again, only this time, the recipient was:

John "me'n him 'r' gooood c'mander-in-chief material" McCain.

I marvel at the diehard Hillary supporters, as they go through the weekly ritual of dragging her out of the closet like she was an inflatable beach toy and getting out the bicycle pump to give her another chance to try to do an end-around at the democratic convention, to miraculously snake the democratic nomination.

Given the zeal that some of her supporters and fellow victims are STILL showing, it's amazing that when she suspended her campaign, she was $30 million dollars in debt. :o)

You'd think that the only people supporting her were sleeping under an overpass and embracing a bottle of Chateau de Ripple.

And, speaking of expensive libations, that noted, hard-working progressive, The Duchess of Cornwall ( :o) ), has been righteously ripping Obama for not doing more to retire Hillary's campaign debts.

As someone who sent him $60 hard-earned bucks, I would like to meet the Duchess face-to-face to inform her that I would rather deal with the eternal wrath of both she and the rest of the triangulators, than I had live with the knowledge that Obama was giving a centime of my money to help pay leftover salary duns from the two engineers, Howard Wolfson and Mark Penn, who helped drop the Coronation Express into that ravine, where it lies, for historians and bluegrass songwriters to write paeans and eulogies to. :o)

Only, I would say it to them more definitively.

As in:

"You can all go piss up a rope!"

Anonymous said...

Blue Gal is spot on. My 2c, we can take our chances with a big turnout with a candidate who kicked the living shit out of ALL of the goopers combined, in red-state Virginia.

Jill said...

Oh, Drifty, Drifty, Drifty...have I mentioned today how much I adore you?

I'm reading this on Joe Biden Day, and I can hear the gnashing of Hillarion teeth even this early on a Saturday morning.

What I've never understood is how these women latched onto someone like Hillary Clinton as a feminist icon -- a woman whose Senate career is entirely attributable to her husband's position as a former president, a woman who put her own ambitions on the back burner to marry the handsome, charming, brilliant guy who could have had the prettiest girls on campus and chose her.

Funny...I don't hear a lot of these women mourning for Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, a former judge and Great American who singlehandedly TRIED to make this country see that two elections were stolen. No, the only one who matters to them is Hillary.

They don't want to know about the brilliant lawyer with her own career who managed to juggle that career, being the wife of a rising star in politics, and raising two apparently terrific little girls in Chicago. But then, Michelle Obama is a BLACK accomplished woman. So I guess she doesn't count, when compared to The Sainted Hillary.

The commenter who mentioned the Ellen Jamesians is spot-on.

Anonymous said...

Beware of any faction of an organization wishing the organization ill will, if turns out the faction can't control it.

Cirze said...

What Larue said and quadrillioned!

And Jill, thanks so much for commenting on the much-admired (but little commented on in the MSM) grace and lifework of Stephanie Tubbs-Jones - a woman for all (political) seasons. I have been bereft and frankly puzzled since her mysterious death (and I guess after the Paul Wellstone funeral fiasco there will be no formal wake or large-scale celebration of her life making the evening news), and beating my head up against the glass ceiling that she worked so hard to banish, to try to understand how little the Hillarybots have to say about the meaning of her achievements for the feminist movement and her obvious place alongside the other notable women who have changed history by their accomplishments.

No respect for anyone but H?

Suzan

Kerry said...

Late to the party on this one, Driftglass, but I've sent many people links to this post in recent weeks because it is breathtakingly brilliant and I'm sorry I didn't say so earlier. But thank you. (I've only recently discovered your blog and am mystified why I've been so out of touch as to not run across it before.)

A couple further thoughts that have been bugging me in recent days:

1) The diehard Hillaryites, who become enraged if anyone suggests that perhaps keeping the White House out of the hands of McCain/Palin is a wee bit more important than nursing their hurt feelings over Hillary losing the nomination, also believe that any Obama supporter who points out that OUR feelings got bruised during the primaries as well is "SEXIST SHUT UP SEXIST!" (If you're a woman Obama supporter, like me, you are of course a gender traitor AND a sexist. Duh!)

Point out the ways the Clinton campaign consistently used xenophobic and racist framing and dogwhistles, not to mention the condescending ageist framing from second wavers Gloria Steinem and Robin "young women support Obama because they're dumb whores who just want their boyfriends to fuck them" Morgan? "SHUT UP BECAUSE SEXIST THAT'S WHY!"

Point out that sexism is hardly the reason that Hillary Clinton chose not to compete in caucus states (unless it's sexist for a woman to trust Mark Penn more than her own judgment, which is a good question!), then "OMGWTFBBQ?!?!? SEXIST SEXIST SHUT UP SEXIST SHUT UP SEXIST THAT'S WHY!"

And like all good emotional blackmailers (by which I mean "narcissistic sociopaths"), you can only get back in their good graces and win their all-important sexual favors, er, votes if you promise to never, ever say anything about your feelings again. Because feelings are legitimate and of primary importance and must never be pooh-poohed -- as long as those feelings are THEIRS.

Everybody else's feelings don't mean shit to them.

2) For a group of women who are seeking "empowerment," their path is pretty damn passive, and I don't mean just because they have staked so much on the vicarious satisfaction of a victory by a female candidate. The rhetoric on a lot of putatively feminist sites is "Well! Obama has to prove himself to ME!" Translation: "I'm just gonna lay back here, all supine-like and passive, just like Sleeping Beauty, until he awakens me with a kiss!" Never mind that his positions on issues are nearly identical to Hillary Clinton's and certainly miles closer to hers than John McCain's. HE has to court THEM. They don't put out for just anybody!

And of course, it's not THEIR fault if by not voting or voting for McCain, Obama loses. Making an informed choice -- even if it feels like a lesser of two evils (which it clearly isn't in this case, but for sake of argument, let's say) between two candidates as part of one's civic and social responsibilities is something only grown-ups with an active sense of agency would do, not aggrieved victims.

The funniest thing is that they keep insisting that Obama didn't do enough to protest sexism in the campaign. Um, okay. Maybe he didn't. I didn't think that was part of his job description, but whatever. I don't remember him making blanket statements about the age jokes about McCain or the Mormon jokes about Romney or the hillbilly jokes about Huckabee, either. But why is it the job of the man running against her to swoop in and defend the honor of Lady Fair Clinton? And isn't it all too easy to imagine that, if he HAD made the equivalent of his speech on race and focused on gender, the Forces of Grievance would have been outraged at him for "patronizing" her and assuming that she needed defending. Let alone the whole tricky thing of "speaking for" an oppressed group, rather than "speaking from" that group.

(Don't even bother asking for examples of when Barack Obama used gender as a wedge issue the way that the Clintons used race. You know why? "BECAUSE SHUT UP SEXIST OMG STFU SEXIST SEXIST SEXIST!")

And for someone so offended by sexist media, Hillary Clinton sure plopped herself down to have a nice discussion with rightwing hateful wingnut Richard Mellon Scaife when it suited her purposes. Methinks the lady protested too much. ("SHUT UP SEXIST SHUT UP!")

Then again, as a black person in America, Barack Obama should realize that he is responsible for everything, everywhere, all the time, and he should apologize for his very existence. Especially when it gets in the way of a white person's political ambitions.

Thanks for letting me rant. And for providing such clear-eyed perspective in these crazy days.