There's (Still) Something About Sexism
November 24, 2009 4:19 pm ET by Morgan Weiland
It is truly amazing that Time allowed Mark Halperin to publish the following caption and image on his blog, The Page -- no matter how briefly (the site has since pulled it down):
Maybe Halperin thought it was really clever to echo a scene from a late-90s romantic comedy, but it isn't. The image and all that it suggests -- yes, her hair is supposed to be held up by semen -- isn't supported by any facts provided by Halperin in his post. The page to which he links doesn't have anything to do with semen, romantic comedies, or hair gel. In fact, it's a statement from Sen. Mary Landrieu's (D-LA) Communications Director "on motion to proceed timing" on the Senate's health care reform bill.
In other words, it's part of a broader, sexist right-wing narrative that the U.S. Senator from Louisiana is, as Glenn Beck put it yesterday, "a high-class prostitute" engaged in "hookin'" -- all because she lobbied Senate leadership for expanded Medicaid funding for Louisiana in the Senate health care bill in what was characterized by the media as an exchange for her "yea" vote to proceed with floor debate on the bill.
Not to be left out, Rush Limbaugh got in on the action yesterday too, declaring that Landrieu "may be the most expensive prostitute in the history of prostitution."
These types of backwards, sexist remarks are what we have come to expect from Beck or Limbaugh, but this is truly a new low for Halperin, and, by association, for Time. As my colleague Julie Millican pointed out last week, the other weekly news magazine -- Newsweek -- has a sexism problem that it needs to address concerning another female politician.
So let this serve as a word of warning to those media figures like Halperin who like to think of themselves as separate and apart from -- perhaps I should say above? -- right-wing bloviators and pot-stirrers like Beck and Limbaugh: When you engage in baseless, sexist smears of women politicians, you are no different than the side-show commentators. Maybe you're worse -- at least they don't purport to be journalists.
This is the kind of filth you'd expect from el Fathead or Beck, but now TIME Magazine?
Amazing. Just goes to show how deep the corporate media hold on America is. Brazen, frat-boy, trash is now routinely dispensed by the supposedly "trusted" sources of corporate media.
Those funds were being requested by her Republican Governor Jindal by the way to fill a major gap in the Louisiana budget.
"Selling your vote" would be voting against health care reform because you are being paid millions of dollars into your personal campaign fund by the insurance industry lobby (i.e. every Republican and most of the "centrist" Democrats).
Landrieu did not sell out on that cloture vote, and regardless, using that image would be in poor taste for even hate radio pundits, let alone members of the mainstream media. It's a new low for Halperin.
considering the affairs they have been caught in (Sanford and Ensign) and the other guy who was a customer of a hooker? (Vitter)
We expect useless drivel from POV, and he never fails to deliver.
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Mum Is The Word
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It has so happened that the Times and Newsweeks (and Business Weeks and Peoples and etc) periodicals, and the Name-of-Record newspapers, and the 'networks' of massmind broadcasting -- TV, cable/dish, and radio, (even today despite Maddow et al. and so-called 'progressive' formats to the contrary), have ALL come to be NO DIFFERENT from and EXACTLY EQUAL-the-SAME as the hate-hawking snide-show talk pox as Rash Lamebrain BECAUSE (all those 'media') have NOT ENGAGED, NOT confronted and NOT condemned and EXcommunicated the big fat idiot and every imitation lamebrain all these years.
Yeah, if engaged in the same antisocial unAmerican hate-bombing as the mental-challenged rightwingers, then those media are no different and are as hateful. And hated.
And also, if NOT engaged, if NOT naming and defaming Lamebrain at the outset (1988), then too those household-name media do NOT distinguish and in silence have NOT distinguished themselves as any different.
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In other words, it's part of a broader, sexist right-wing narrative that the U.S. Senator from Louisiana is, as Glenn Beck put it yesterday, "a high-class prostitute" engaged in "hookin'" -- all because she lobbied Senate leadership for expanded Medicaid funding for Louisiana <cut>
In other words, even though she is doing exactly what Louisiana elected her to do (lobby on behalf of Louisiana), she is considered bad. (I will leave out the sexist comments)
But we do.
And the people who have the power to change that system want to keep it just the way it is.
Res ipsa loquitur.
And why do you think res ipsa has any relevance here? What exactly is speaking for itself??
The Oklahoma law requiring the details of every abortion to be posted on a public website
Kyl's recent quip during a Senate committee meeting that he doesn't "need maternity care."
Chris Christie, Republican gubernatorial candidate from New Jersey, equates preschool to babysitting.
The National Republican Congressional Committee saying Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should be "put in her place."
Bob McDonnell in Virginia in his college thesis, written when McDonnell was 34 years old-- calls working women detrimental to families.
30 Republican senators voted against an amendment to allow a woman to sue for rape.
John Derbyshire --We’d be a better country if women didn’t vote.
And Limbaugh on Mary Landrieu--"may be the most expensive prostitute in the history of prostitution"
And Beck-on Landrieu-- "We're with a high-class prostitute"
And now this--from this Dick halperin.
Nothing about Ensign, Coburn pimping for him, Sarah, Beck pimping their books and bumper stickers==not to mention every republican in the Congress pimping their vote for insurance companies and drug companies.
Think about it: Really bad tornadoes in Missouri? They will get more. Hurricanes in Florida? They will get more. Major ice storm in Arkansas (like last winter)? They will get more if they need it.
I'm happy she did this. At least it does some good for the people that need it, for a change, instead of welfare for the wealthy.
They are sexist creeps that don't want women to do anything constructive, or show competence.