The Men's Room

The Men’s Room

Another blog about Larry Craig? You wish.

It seems, though, that most of the mainstream media got stuck in the men’s room during their coverage of Craig’s indecent behavior and haven’t gotten out. Considering the media’s treatment of Senator Clinton’s bid for the Whitehouse, being stuck in the men’s room certainly seems to be the case. And while public restrooms can be sites of relief and satisfaction—perhaps on both literal and figurative levels, could we PLEASE at least move out of the stalls, wash our hands, and take a look at ourselves in the mirrors?

To say that the coverage of Clinton doesn’t smack of sexism is to say that racism no longer exists in America. We all know that both racism and sexism are alive and well and, much unfortunately, as American as apple pie. And whether we are supporting Hillary Clinton or not—I’m still undecided; there’s unquestionably a sexist undercurrent to the coverage of her campaign, her cleavage, her laugh, her “shrillness,” and her dress. Sorry—perhaps if John’s hair got more attention; Mitt’s make-up and sexy smile got even more attention; and pundits speculated—ad infinitum—whether or not Obama without a tie had to do with a strategy to appeal to female voters, I wouldn’t feel the need to raid the men’s room.

Leading the brigade is none other than Chris Matthews, who, night after night after night, morning after morning after morning (when he cameos on Today or Morning Smoe), seethes with hatred of Hillary. He repeatedly calls her shrill; he has—I kid you not—made issue of her laugh…and her cleavage; and he seems to book anyone on his show that would indulge him in his male castration fear disorder.

In fact, Matthews’ recent push for Obama seems to originate more from his hatred of Hillary than from a genuine appreciation of Obama. The same can be said for none other than Andrew Sullivan, who wrote an entire treatise for The Atlantic Monthly on why Obama can Kum Ba Ya and bring the country together—yeah, right. Again, much like Matthews, Sullivan also seems to anchor his argument more in his distaste for Hillary rather than in his alleged appreciation for Obama.

Matthews and Sullivan are just a few examples; the least said about the rest of the boys and their current fixation on Hillary's wrinkles, the better.

There’s no question that Hillary has glaring flaws and an electability issue, which the ever astute IC at Presidential Politics has examined in great detail. If we all are on the same page with equal opportunity, though, Hillary should get the same media treatment as everyone else, which brings me to my point: let’s focus less on the cleavage, the wrinkles, the laugh, the tongue-and-cheek comments about evil men, the wardrobe, the shrill tone, etc. Hillary Clinton may or may not be the best choice as the Democratic nominee for ‘08 but let’s allow the caucus goers to decide, not the mainstream media—from the men’s room.

THE HOLLOW MEN

THE HOLLOW MEN

If you heard one Republican apologist this week, you heard them all. It’s been like listening to a bad record skip all over the media with these stuffed men paying homage to their party rather than their country.

There were so many talking heads justifying, analyzing, talking about, explaining, parsing, explicating, comparing and contrasting why this administration does the things it does (pull down options):

A. Screw up.
B. Create a scandal.
C. Mismanage government, a war, and foreign policy.
D. Respond to a natural catastrophe.
E. All of the Above

Hell, let’s go with all of the above. It almost seemed like Karl Rove was re-mixing material for an RNC rendition of rapper’s delight. Can I get a beat for grandmaster spin, flavor munster Tony Snow? Hip-hop-hooray…ho…hey!...T-o-n-y…Snow…yea!

This all started with the latest scandal plaguing the administration: the politically-motivated firing of completely competent, Republican (yes, Republican) US attorneys who were apparently not aggressive enough in pursuing the political enemies of Chimpy Company: any and all Democrats. The first problem for these attorneys was that they were competent; only the incompetent & Republican survive in Chimpy’s world. The second problem was they wouldn’t do what several other stuffed people do: put party over country.

But let’s get our beat back: Enter Fab Five Fredo Gonzales, who’s really B-A-D with memorizing his rap because it’s become abundantly apparent he’s lied. So now that Fredo Gonzales might be getting whacked, as Franck Rich has beautifully noted in his column today, every RNC idol worshipper has booked appearances on every show imaginable to doublespeak this mess. Let’s take a look at the most and least tolerable performances to see which rap makes sense.

Andrew Sullivan on Olberman this past week gave Sullivan the RNC most tolerable performance, as Andy went where few RNC storm troopers go: Countdown. Seriously, it was a good interview—he got his dig in on Hillary. But rather than blister with the Republican colic, a disorder that paralyzes the likes of Michael Savage, David Horowitz and others, Andy admitted what most level-headed people know, including true conservatives: the conservative movement is almost dead thanks to Chimpy and Company, Ronald Reagan is rolling and crying in his grave, and Mann Coulter needs to stop calling people fags because there are many respectable gay republicans, like Sullivan himself. Like it or not, Sullivan made sense.

While Sullivan showed that some RNC troopers can be faithful to their country over their party, David Frum busted out from the American Enterprise Institute, the gansta’ spot of neoconservativism, to deliver the least tolerable, Vanilla Ice rap of the week. Ice-icing crap with his rap, Frum tried to spin his shit by fronting on Real Time with Maher. This was beautiful political theater, as Davey Fly Frum just stuck to the RNC rapper’s delight script: lie, lie, baby. The war isn’t as bad as we think, there’s nothing wrong with firing these attorneys and then lying about the firing of these attorneys, and Chimpy has every right to be a Darth Imperial leader in a democracy. Needless to say, Frum made no sense other than proving John Dean’s thesis in Conservatives without a Conscience: sometimes the blind just follow the blind.

Frum was perhaps the least tolerable performance among a group of hollow men—and many women—who don’t quite realize that we have to stop idolizing Mistah Bush who would rather end things with a bang, not a whimper.