The Nature of Things

( Update : Gail Collins also wrote on this subject today , with her usual humor. Be sure to check out her column.) The odious Donald Trump just can't seem to stop insulting women. He is an equal opportunity misogynist. He insults women from his own political party as easily as he insults Democratic women, but, of course, his most extreme and downright bizarre insults are reserved for his probable opponent in November's general election, Hillary Clinton. Thus, in his victory speech after winning primaries in five states on Tuesday, he just couldn't help himself. The only thing Clinton has going for her, he opined, is the fact that she's a woman. If she were a man, he said, she'd probably only get 5% of the vote. He sneeringly chastised her for "playing the woman card." Well, Hillary Clinton is a woman and if anyone has a right to play that card, it would be her, after having devoted her professional life to trying to raise the status and improve the lives o...

The headline in Slate read "Is Hillary Clinton likable enough to beat Trump?"   I read it and felt my blood begin to boil! Does any media type ever ask the question "Is Trump likable enough to beat Hillary Clinton?" Indeed, does any media type ever ask such an insulting, demeaning question of any male politician? Admittedly, I haven't seen everything written or heard every broadcast political interview or pundit's analysis but I am not aware of any such question being asked of them. If you ever begin to think that our society has made progress in effecting equality of treatment between the sexes, all you have to do is watch and listen to the coverage of this presidential election season to see how very wrong you are. Sexism and outright misogyny still dominate. There is one rule for covering Hillary Clinton and another rule (or no rules) for covering any of the male candidates. She is always held to the stricter standard. As just one example, she is called...

Those readers who have followed the blog for a while will probably be aware of my sentiments regarding Hillary Clinton. I admire her tremendously and have written about her here on several occasions. I supported her campaign for the presidency in 2008 and I support her again in 2016. I support her because I believe she is the most qualified person in the race for the presidency. Indeed, I believe she is the only person in the race, on either side, who is truly prepared to be president. She's currently, of course, in a tightening primary race with Sen. Bernie Sanders, Independent, of Vermont. Throughout the campaign, Secretary Clinton has put forth detailed plans on many issues that concern Democratic voters. More recently, Sanders, too, has announced his plans for handling some of those issues, particularly health care and financial reform. I'm not an economist and I don't pretend to be able to fairly judge the merits of these respective plans. But my go-to guy on economic...

Hillary the Riveter. Hat tip to Daily Kos   for the image.

It was the moment that many of us had been waiting for since 2008. Hillary Clinton finally made it official. She is running for president. I wonder about the analysis, the thought process that went into her decision. Surely, she, of all people, knows what she is facing over the next nearly eighteen months. Her enemies will be throwing every piece of shit they can put their hands on at her. She will be called everything from a liar to a murderer. She will be deemed too old, too ugly, too fat, too female, (and, also, not female enough) too shrill, and all those other adjectives that ignorant people routinely throw at women in the spotlight to try to shame them and bring them down. Her hairstyles and her clothes will be scrutinized and criticized endlessly. God forbid she should ever wear a scrunchie! But she knows all of this because they've already been doing it to her. They've done it now for the more than thirty years that she has been in the public's eye. Yet she is still...

I've done my best to ignore the sleazy Anthony Weiner stories that have dominated the news over the last couple of weeks. After all, that is New York's business and I am fully confident in New Yorkers' ability to handle it. Besides, slimeball though he may be, Weiner's transgressions are personal and his actions have humiliated one woman. Here in Texas, we have the yahoos of  the Texas legislature and the chief yahoo in the governor's office seeking to humiliate and abnegate the entire female population of the state. If we weigh the two sins against women in the balance, it is easy to see where the greater guilt lies. One thing I haven't been able to completely ignore though is the extent to which certain female pundits have rushed to excoriate and blame Weiner's wife, Huma Abedin, in this affair, and, through her, to splash whatever mud they can onto her long-time employer and friend, Hillary Clinton. As an avowed admirer of both Abedin and Clinton , I am ...

This was the week that congressional Republicans have been panting for since September - the moment when they finally got to grill Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the attack on the consulate in Benghazi on September 11. They've spent the last five months appearing on Sunday television news shows denouncing the "cover-up" and "scandal" which they attach to that incident. They also spent several weeks maligning the secretary of state and implying that she was afraid to appear before their scary committees and so was faking the "Benghazi flu." In fact, of course, she was ill, but I don't think any of the maligners have yet acknowledged that or apologized. What they also haven't done - at least many of them haven't - is actually attend the briefings which the intelligence people have conducted to explain the facts of what is known about the attack. But then they are not really interested in the facts. They are interested in grandstand...

Any woman who goes into politics, regardless of her political party or philosophical leanings, must know, unless she's a total idiot, that she's going to be a victim of the double standard. The media and quite often the voters as well will look at her and the first questions that come to mind will be about her appearance. Is she pretty? Who does her hair? Where does she buy her clothes and what designers does she use? Is she maybe just a little bit pudgy? Not to put too fine a point on it, is her butt too big? Does she have wrinkles in her face? Does she ever appear to be tired? After all that, if there's any time left, they may consider what her stands are on "women's issues." Heaven forbid that she should have any opinions on the larger issues that face the country and the world! I can only imagine how very frustrating that must be for a serious woman with serious and informed opinions and well-reasoned views about the world. A woman like - oh, I don't k...

There is a long and very positive piece in The New York Times Magazine about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton entitled "Hillary Clinton's Last Tour as a Rock-Star Diplomat."   I read it with some avidity since Clinton is a hero of mine, one of the people that I admire most in the world. I am certainly not unique in being a Clinton-admirer. She is the most admired woman in this country, topping that list year after year and is arguably the most admired woman in the world. There are good reasons for all that admiration. Wherever life has taken her, Clinton has always worked to make the world a better, safer, more equitable place, especially for women and children. She has taken up the cause of women and children around the world and made elevating their status a prime aim of her professional life. By all accounts, she has been relentless in pursuing her passion for women's and children's rights. Everywhere that she goes in the world as Secretary of State - and sh...

Well, will wonders never cease? Maureen Dowd has managed to write a column about Hillary Clinton that seems to be completely snark-free. Dowd had become notorious over the years for her hatred of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Whenever she mentions either of them in a column, it is only to damn them. Her inability to give them credit for anything good has been just one of the symptoms of a columnist who has lost her perspective and has become more and more irrelevant. I mean, who even reads her anymore? But when I happened to read the first two sentences in today's column, I thought, "Hey, this is something different!" Dowd had written: Hillary Clinton has fought for women’s rights around the world. But who would have dreamed that she would have to fight for them at home?   She goes on to quote from Clinton's impassioned speech at the Women in the World summit that took place last Saturday in New York. Clinton said,  “Why extremists always focus on women remains a mystery...