I’ve noticed two completely opposite and equally wrong ideas floating around lately. One proposes Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin as teammates running together on the same ticket while the other encourages the idea that they are archenemies.
Hillary Clinton is a loyal Democrat and a political moderate. On foreign policy she is center-right, on fiscal policy she is a centrist and on social policy she is center-left. One can speculate that her “real” ideology is somewhat more liberal but her statements and voting record are the evidence we have to go on.
Sarah Palin is a conservative Republican. Exactly how conservative is hard to tell. Her public stance on foreign policy mirrors that of John McCain, but prior to being picked at his VP nominee she never really expressed any foreign policy at all. On fiscal policy her record shows she is a low-tax, small government conservative. On social issues her views are conservative but she has shown little inclination to enact them into law.
While it is conceivable that Hillary and Sarah could someday work together on some issues or projects, the idea that they would be running mates is pure fantasy. Last year made clear that Hillary will not leave the Democratic party no matter how badly she is treated, and Sarah would never be welcomed there even if she wished to join.
On the other hand, while it is possible that Hillary and Sarah may one day face each other in a presidential campaign, as of right now they are not rivals. They are members of opposing parties, but they are not opponents.
So when you see something like this from Time’s interview with Sarah Palin:
At one point during the campaign you said Hillary Clinton whines a little bit too much about being in the public eye. Do you now sort of sympathize with her?
What I said was, it doesn’t do her or anybody else any good to whine about the criticism. And that’s why I’m trying to make it clear that the criticism, I invite that. But freedom of speech and that invitation to constructively criticize a public servant is a lot different than the allowance to lie, to continually falsely accuse a public servant when they have proven over and over again that they have not done what the accuser is saying they did.
it means nothing. Sarah wasn’t criticizing Hillary. The interviewer asked the question (misquoting Sarah’s original statement) and Sarah answered.
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The Confluence 
No matter how you slice and dice it, Sarah Palin prettry much accused Hillary of whining about criticism and that didn’t do her or other women any good. (I know she used the word “perceived”).
Given the question she received a couple of days ago from Time, she could have clarified her “perceived” criticism of Hillary’s “whine”, but she proceeded to repeat it, and when on do differentiate between that and her own “justified” whine. Sarah Palin herself could have said to Jay Newton Small that she was being misquoted but she didn’t. She immediately said “What I said was, it doesn’t do her or anybody else any good to whine about the criticism.”
Keep in mind she made her original remark when Hillary Clinton was in the being savaged like nobody ever had in the history of this country, and just repeated it a couple of days ago.
If such remarks were made by ANYBODY but Sarah Palin, NO ONE here would be parsing it and say “it means nothing” or that it was “a distraction created by the press”.
Let’s replace Sarah Palin in this context with Giuliani, Romney and tell me what the reax would be. Let make it even more fun and replace Palin in this context with Obama.
If it were Giuliani or Obama, the context would be completely different. She was careful to say that Hillary has been put through the ringer, but that in her opinion as someone who faces the same double standard, she would handle it differently. It’s not at all helpful to say we should throw up our hands and just accept the different treatment and not draw attention to it, but it was pretty carefully phrased by someone who is facing the same situation, and not comperable to someone who’s adored by the press and not subject to these types of double standards shooting his mouth off purely to be STFU.
Quit hating
Whatever!
As Obama and Palin have, for now, been treated completely differently by the press, the comparison is not apt. The Obama children’s parentage and accusations of incest have not entered the public discourse or MSM coverage.
I was surprised that she didn’t pick up with the “perceived” angle since when she or Hillary confront dishonest, personal attacks on her and her family as women they are represented as whining, but when men do the same they are seen in a more favorable, “standing up for their family” light. It’s a double standard, plain and simple. And I for one am sick of it.
Can’t give it up can you? Well, who gives a rat’s ass for more of this opinion?
It is amazing. With Hillary we were constantly having to try to defend the claims that what she was saying could really only be found between the lines. With Obama we were constantly dealing with “no, no, the words only make it look like that’s what he said, but what he really meant was….”.
Palin is being treated the same way Hillary was treated. What she is actually saying just isn’t newsworthy, so let’s look between the lines so we can justify the hate.
Palin said nothing more than, “when women try to defend themselves against sexism, they are called whiners, so it’s really best not to point these sexist things out.” It’s much like, when a man tells you what to do, he’s leading, but when a woman tells you what to do, she’s nagging.
*shrugs* she wasn’t calling Hillary a whiner, but she really was taking the same line the Cokies etc are trying to shut her up with now, ie, hey, as women we do get slammed harder and nobody likes it when that gets pointed out, so just deal with it.
*shrugs* she wasn’t calling Hillary a whiner, but she really was taking the same line the Cokies etc are trying to shut her up with now, ie, hey, as women we do get slammed harder and nobody likes it when that gets pointed out, so just deal with it. That’s not that helpful.
I disagree with the premise that if someone takes issue with Palin’s response in Time mag, that means the person is a “hater” or sees Palin and Hillary as enemies. Palin equivocates when asked to show some solidarity on the issue of the increased scrutiny that women get in national politics. She gets mired in theoretical dichotomies between “criticism” and stuff that is beyond the pale, when sadly the stuff that she thinks is beyond the pale is the very stuff that all too many people unfortunately consider criticism she should be able to take. That is the problem with the notion of being able to avoid the “perceived whine.” Obama can go out there and say “Lay off my family” without the public debate centering on how he is whining or being perceived as whining and so forth. But, when Hillary or Palin essentially say the same, it becomes an issue of stop whining, stop using your children to score political points, etc.
Exactly. Even Dick Cheney told everyone to back off and leave his daughter alone… And everyone backed off.
Anyone who cares about gender equality should be calling this sh!t out and should stop focusing on whether Hillary or Sarah “properly” phrase their responses. We should have one, united response: Cut the cr@p!
If Todd were to grab a microphone and tell the media to leave his children alone, we’d probably see them back off. They want to get her so angry she screams, then they can call her all sorts of names.
If Todd stepped in they’d make a point that Sarah couldn’t handle it on her own, her husband had to step in. It’s been amazing to watch the push back against Hillary and Sarah. A lot of folks, mostly men but women too, are just not ready to wrap their heads around the simple notion that a woman can run a country. And the riot of misogynistic vitriol (to the point of attacking children!) is heartbreaking to endure, even secondhand.
Re-reading that quote, she is speaking for all politicians. Criticism is fine but not lies like she and Clinton went through and no one was lied about like Clinton and Palin. Obama’s Troopergate brought Palin down and David Brock’s Troopergate/Paula Jones brought down the Clintons. The first time she told Clinton not to whine, she didn’t know what she was in for. She actually sounded like women Obama supporters.
See my blog for details of Troopergates 1 & 2. So Clinton received federal charges of “perjury” and “obstruction of justice” for a stupid blowjob. Palin was guilty of “abuse of power” because she did not feel safe around her intimidating brother in law. Her sister filed a domestic violence order against him. She and Todd wanted him fired many times. Liberal and conservative men will lie, do anything to take down women.
exactly, bb 😛
Oh good Im not crazy.
From a quick google search:
My oh my! It seems inflation has struck the term “whining”, lol!
I think Sarah’s original comment, that it will be “perceived” as whining, is true. I also wish she had been more forceful on followup, and believe she wimped out to some degree. I think she was chicken.
But I give her a pass on that. Why? Because what she said, while somewhat cowardly, was not terribly egregious. I think she was just trying to get away from that question. And given the venom and hatred with which this woman has been savaged, I’m not going to get on my high horse that in one interview she did not stick her neck out even further, and make of herself a bigger target. If you are not in another woman’s shoes, it is pretty easy to make statements about “what she should have done”, and how many more hits she should have been willing to take “for the cause”.
To really ream Sarah apart for this is, IMO, not much different than what some are saying she did to Hillary. I.e. sitting at some remove and opining over just how much abuse another woman should be willing to endure.
I’ll no more harshly judge Sarah for that than I will the rape victim who just can’t bring herself to testify, even though she knows it will help other women. For God’s sake, people, she’s a human being, not just a “standard bearer for the cause”.
Exactly – and today both LA Times and NYT continues going after her. Will it never stop?!
I don’t know how neither she nor Hillary Clinton manages to keep going despite the pile-on. Or their respective families for that matter. It is truly horrendous.
It’s the dream of thinking that though there are many things that divide HRC and SP, the things that they have in common – sisterhood, motherhood, womanhood, public servant for the greater good- might unite them and bring back the true spirit of our country.