By now, you may have heard about a question that Republican presidential hopeful Senator John McCain was asked out on the campaign trail recently. A woman (!) in Hilton Head, S.C., asked McCain simply, "How do we beat the bitch?"
For the moment, I'm going to put aside my disgust that any sane person could refer to another candidate using such a derogatory term, let alone express it out loud in a public forum. (Hey, question-asking woman - you want a cookie for your incisive political analysis? What an f-in idiot...) And I won't comment on the irony of the fact that it was a woman who said this about another woman, yet another piece of evidence supporting the argument that it's "mean girl"-type tactics as much as the evil patriarchy that keeps women in their subservient place.
Let's just address Senator McCain's half-baked response. Sure, he looks somewhat taken aback, but not at all appalled as he should be, considering the blatant impropriety and obscenity of the question. In any public Q&A, you get inappropriate questions. One of the marks of a good politician is the ability to handle those questions by appeasing the anger of the questioner without going too far to the extreme. I won't pretend it's easy to walk that line ... but I have personally seen Rep. Mel Watt point-blank tell constituents that, for instance, he's not going to support an impeachment inquiry against President Bush or VP Cheney. Real leaders aren't afraid to tell their supporters what they don't want to hear.
But after however-many years in the public eye and a previous presidential campaign, McCain should know better than to brush off a question like this. His response was a golden opportunity to strike a blow for mature political discourse, and he whiffed it.
If I'm McCain's media person, this is what I'd hope he says here:
Rude woman: How do we beat the bitch?
McCain: Pardon me??? [coupled with suitably appalled expression]
Rude woman: How do we beat the bitch? [accompanied by a few more scattered sniggers from the crowd]
McCain: I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean. [Because it would be bad, you know, to admit publicly that you hear "bitch" and immediately think "Hillary Clinton." This is one of those times it's best to play dumb.]
Rude woman: Hillary. [Maybe a few more sniggers, though starting to sound a mite uncomfortable.]
McCain: You mean Senator Clinton? [Pause for icy stare at Rude Woman, during which time audience is silenced by the power of McCain's awesome integrity] Well...[launch into discussion that poll he talked about, which no one remembers because in real life it was preceded by McCain's tacit calling of Sen. Clinton a bitch.]
See? This is much better. It makes McCain not look like a misogynist dick, or at least a man who's afraid to call out a misogynist dick. Now the story is not "McCain a misogynist dick," but something more positive.
C'mon people, this isn't rocket surgery. I still fail to understand why so many candidates think I should hire them to run my country when they don't have the judgment to navigate a simple frickin' Q&A.
And since when did words like "bitch" become appropriate public commentary? I hope the kids in that woman's church see that clip. Sweet Baby Jesus, I hope she's proud of herself. I'd love to hear what choice descriptions she has for the candidates who are racial minorities. Does she call Barak Obama "the n-word"? I'll bet good money she doesn't call Rudy Giuliani "the adulturer."
And - though Hillary Clinton is not the Democrat candidate I support - what exactly makes her a bitch? Wikipedia defines "bitch" as "malicious, spiteful, domineering, intrusive or unpleasant" - I've never met her personally, so I can't comment on her personality. What in Clinton's public actions puts her in the "bitch" camp? She's never, to my knowledge, just as a for instance, told a Senate colleague to go f@ck himself - something I would characterize as malicious, spiteful and domineering.
So, is it just being an unapologetically powerful female that makes Clinton a "bitch"? Because if so, I believe that to be true of a number of politically conservative women, too. Or is it okay to start calling Senator Elizabeth Dole a bitch, too? (Probably not, since she hasn't actually accomplished anything.) How about Margaret Thatcher? Or the late Tillie Kidd Fowler, once the highest-ranking woman in in the GOP? I hope not, she was a personal hero of mine...but if we're painting one strong woman with the "bitch" brush, why make an exception based on political philosophy, right?
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