Twas Sexism That Brought Down the Beast

Over at Hot Air, Captain Ed observes that "Sexism seems to be the topic of the day." Everyone--including Clinton--is talking about sexism and angry women.

But this is no big mystery. It's so she has something to blame when the race is over, Ed:

Clinton for the first time addressed what women have been talking about for months, what she refers to as the "sexist" treatment she has endured at the hands of the pundits, media and others. The lewd T-shirts [worn by the media?]. The man who shouted "Iron my shirt" at a campaign event [a journalist?]. The references to her cleavage and her cackle [from TV talking heads, no doubt].

"It's been deeply offensive to millions of women," Clinton said. "I believe this campaign has been a groundbreaker in a lot of ways. But it certainly has been challenging given some of the attitudes in the press [who refused to whitewash Democratic behavior on the campaign trail], and I regret that, because I think it's been really not worthy of the seriousness of the campaign and the historical nature of the two candidacies we have here."

The real issue isn't whether Clinton and her supporters blame sexism for her failure. That was always going to be the case. Just like Obama and his were always going to blame racism if his candidacy were to crash and burn (and there's always the general!). The real issue is whether Clinton can bring about dissatisfaction from women voters--and general election trouble for Obama--merely by declaring that "women are deeply offended."

Are women Democrats so weak-willed as to fall for that old Jedi mind trick? I mean, if it were Jessie Jackson or Al Sharpton or Jeremiah Wright telling blacks that they've been deeply offended, I expect most black Democrats would probably agree out of habit, if nothing else. But only recently have some women adopted Clinton as an icon of feminist dreams. They'll forget her just as quickly.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 12:48 PM

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