Late Night: Palling Around With Terrorists

Let’s face it. Obama is soooooooo amazing, so special, so unique, so awesomely fabulous that he can get away with anything. Is there any limit to the strange and creepy people he could hang around with before the media would send a stringer to Chicago to do some actual research? Probably not.

This is an open thread.

How low can they go?

As noted in the previous posts, the young woman in Pittsburgh lied to the police about being attacked.  That story is disgusting, but this is worse:

Earlier today, John Moody, executive vice president at Fox News, commented on his blog there that “this incident could become a watershed event in the 11 days before the election. If Ms. Todd’s allegations are proven accurate, some voters may revisit their support for Senator Obama, not because they are racists (with due respect to Rep. John Murtha), but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee.

“If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting.”

(emphasis added)

Let’s see, 20 year-old female McCain volunteer tells police she was attacked because of the “McCain” sticker on her car.  Initial reports treated the story as true, the McCain campaign expressed sympathy, some people on both sides expressed skepticism.  Others who believed the young woman felt that the very real misogyny emanating from Obamanation was to blame, but no one I saw proclaimed that Obama’s “quest for the presidency was over.”

Today the young woman recants, and admits she lied.  Her motive for lying has not been reported, but she is obviously disturbed.

Media conclusion:  It’s all McCain’s fault.

Of course Teleprompter Jesus isn’t even held responsible by the media for the things he himself does and says, let alone what one isolated supporter does.

It turns out her pants were on fire

Those of us who gave her the benefit of the doubt can officially feel foolish:

At a news conference this afternoon, offiicals said they believe that Ashley Todd’s injuries were self-inflicted.  

Todd, 20, of Texas, is now facing charges for filing a false report to police.

Todd initially told police that she was robbed at an ATM in Bloomfield and that the suspect became enraged and started beating her after seeing her GOP sticker on her car.

Police investigating the alleged attack, however, began to notice some inconsistencies in her story and administered a polygraph test.

Authorities, however, declined to release the results of that test.

Investigators did say that they received photos from the ATM machine and “the photographs were verified as not being the victim making the transaction.”

This afternoon, a Pittsburgh police commander told KDKA Investigator Marty Griffin that Todd confessed to making up the story.

No explanation has been offered for why Ms. Pinocchio made her false report in the first place, but I’m sure all the real victims of misogynistic violence and intimidation are really grateful to have their credibility diminished by this young woman.  Stories like these provide “reasonable doubt” in the minds of juries.

I hope they throw the book at her.  I’m sure Obamanation is celebrating, although they shouldn’t be. 

If they show up here to gloat they won’t stay long.

UPDATE: Comments closed

Friday: If Obama doesn’t condemn misogyny, we will resist

Heidi Li has a post up today about the pernicious effect of unchecked misogyny:

Some people have asked me why most mainstream media does not report on the misogyny that I claim has been and continues to be fully evidenced this political season. Answer: misogyny sells. That is, of course part of the the problem, and part of why we need our top political leaders to object, over and over, to misogynistic portrayals of women.

Just as Nixon and Reagan tapped into racial resentment in the American electorate to bring us decades of Republicans in the White House, Democrats have tapped into misogynism to win it for Obama in 2008.  In both cases, the antagonism, prejudice and bad behavior had been held in check by societal norms but was released when the candidate and the media gave silent approval.  It isn’t possible for us as a society to change the way people think.  That happens over time.  But it *is* possible for us to reinforce rules of acceptable behavior so that we all live together in some kind of detente that keeps people from getting hurt, either emotionally, financially or physically.

The Obama campaign and the DNC has done away with all that.  They know that “misogyny sells”.  For men and women who feel helpless to change their own circumstances, misogyny gives them a place to direct their anger and take power.  Women become the convenient scapegoats like the stereotypical African American “welfare queens” who didn’t exist or German Jews after the Armistice at Versailles.

But misogyny goes even farther than this.  Misogyny is rooted in our great religions.  It prevents women from ascending to positions of power in the Catholic Church.  It has been used in churches for millenia to make sure that women know that their bodies do not belong to themselves.  It has only been in the last century that women, through advances in pharmacology, have been able to break the “biology is destiny” cycle that kept them relegated to second class citizenship.  In the last 50 years, women have struggled mightily in the workplace for economic livelihood, self-fulfillment and respect.  Anyone who wants to know what that early period was like should watch AMC’s Mad Men to see what unchecked misogynism is like.

Even before the election of 2008, those of us in male dominated careers still have a tough time of it.  We see the “Chris Matthews Effect” on a daily basis.  Men have a very difficult time acknowledging the accomplishments of women and women have a tendency to reinforce the notion that our achievements are based on luck or some personal connection instead of hard work, intelligence, insight or creativity.  We struggled with male professors who gave their time and praise to our male colleagues.  We often find ourselves criticized for being “difficult to work with” or not properly deferential when we challenge male colleagues at work.

The misogyny that the Obama campaign, the DNC and media have unleashed is going to be very difficult to put back into the bottle after the election is over.  There has been only one good thing to come out of all of this.  Women are now more aware than ever that the issue of abortion has been used as a political football by both parties as a way to control women voters.  The Democratic party has been revealed to take no real interest in the wishes of women.  18 million voters, many of them women for Hillary Clinton, were easily dismissed and their votes relegated to the circular file.  It was *expected* that they would just fall in line and hand over their power in November.  This actions taken during the primaries and the convention show us the deep rot of sexism that runs through the party.  They are so used to taking us for granted that they feel they don’t need to try to win us over and they have no comprehension of the damage they have done to their most faithful constituency.

Republicans, on the other hand, know that if you want to win, you have to rely on all of your players.  John McCain may have fought the inclusion of a female on his ticket and maybe he’s not entirely comfortable with it.  But you have to admire the courage it took to do it.  He’s a little like one of the baseball team owners who relented to give Jackie Robinson a crack at the big leagues.  If McCain and Palin win this election, things will never be the same.

That is why we resist the Democratic party this year.  We want real change and we’re not going to get it with Barack Obama as president after he has unleashed the monster of sexism that lurked beneath a thin veneer of comity.  It is on his shoulders to do something about it.  We hold him personally responsible because misogyny sells and he has reaped the benefits all season long at our expense.

She doesn’t eat puppies either

From the Associated Press:

Sarah Palin is blaming gender bias for the controversy over $150,000 worth of designer clothes, hairstyling and accessories the Republican Party provided for her, a newspaper reported Thursday.

“I think Hillary Clinton was held to a different standard in her primary race,” Palin said in an interview with the Chicago Tribune posted on the newspaper’s Web site Thursday night. “Do you remember the conversations that took place about her, say superficial things that they don’t talk about with men, her wardrobe and her hairstyles, all of that? That’s a bit of that double standard.”

Palin, who is John McCain’s vice presidential running mate, said the clothes were not worth $150,000 and were bought for the Republican National Convention.

Most of the clothes have never left the campaign plane, she told the newspaper.

“It’s kind of painful to be criticized for something when all the facts are not out there and are not reported,” Palin said.

“That whole thing is just, bad!” she said. “Oh, if people only knew how frugal we are.”

News of the purchases of designer clothes, largely from upscale Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus, contrasts with the image Palin has crafted as a typical “hockey mom.”

McCain was asked several questions on Thursday about the shopping spree — and he answered each one more or less the same way: Palin needed clothes and they’ll be donated to charity.

“She needed clothes at the time. They’ll be donated at end of this campaign. They’ll be donated to charity,” McCain told reporters on his campaign bus between Florida rallies.

I waited eight years for this election, now I can’t wait for it to be over.

(h/t Britannia)