Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Misogyny on the left

Sarah Palin’s Breasts and Andrew SullivanJennifer Rubin -

Matthew Continetti, among others, aptly detailed in his book The Persection of Sarah Palin the media’s Sarah Palin hate-fest, which raged throughout the campaign. That campaign — the media’s, not Palin’s — included not a small amount of hyper-sexualized language and imagery. Her reappearance at the Tea Party Convention has set off a new round of such slobbery commentary. Andrew Sullivan, for one — who gained much notoriety for his his gynecological scavenger hunt during the campaign — has left off where he began with what should be, but no longer is, shockingly offensive droolery about the former governor and Republican vice presidential nominee. He bellows:
It was the most electrifying speech I have heard from a leader of the GOP since Reagan.
She can electrify a crowd. She has the kind of charisma that appeals to the sub-rational. and she has crafted a Peronist identity – utterly fraudulent, of course – that is political dynamite in a recession with populism roiling everyone and everything. She is Coughlin with boobs – except with a foreign policy agenda to expand Israel and unite with it in a war against Islam.
Do not under-estimate the appeal of a beautiful, big breasted, divinely chosen warrior-mother as a military leader in a global religious war.
Clearly he is a man obsessed with Palin and her physique and who cannot resist the urge to degrade and reduce her to a sexual object. For those who portend to offer serious criticism of Palin, and there is legitimate criticism to be had, this should serve as a blinking red light: Go Back! Don’t do it! Don’t humilate yourself in the process, nor reveal yourself to be in the grip of some misogynistic thrall. Stick to what she says and how she says it, not the size of her breasts. For the sane and serious commentator, that should be easy enough advice to follow. But then not all bloggers fit that description.

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