Mean Girls Attack Palin
November 23, 2010
by The New Agenda
|31 Comments
Watch as Judith Miller and Liz Trotta attack Sarah Palin – off mike – they think.
Notice that the men do not say a thing. Shock perhaps as the claw come out?
Why is it that women feel to need to diminish other women? Who are Judith and Liz aiming to appeal to exactly? Junior high school is over!
And this to Barbara Bush: Are you serious? You simply can’t be. Your think your son is more qualified than Sarah Palin? For real?
“Who are Judith and Liz aiming to appeal to exactly?”
The guys who are sitting there saying nothing. Same as Tina Fey. She was derided as the smart ugly chick among Librul Dood Nation for YEARS … until she knifed Palin in the back. Now, she’s a Maxim cover hottie.
Women who knife other women int he back are doing it to appeal to men. Judith, Liz, and Tina are mudwrestlers, nothing more and nothing less. Nothing gits the boyz all hot-n-botherd like when a woman rips into another woman’s hide. You don’t even need a mudpit and a bikini.
And our daughters see this, and they learn. Oh yes, they learn.
Janis, I agree with you that what you described plays out all the time. But in this case the men seemed very uncomfortable and I have seen men totally back off when women attack each other.
I think there has to be another element at play here. What I see is the absolute delight that these two women(who do not have name recognition) take in mocking a more powerful woman. It’s competition. Women have limited power and we are horrified whenever a woman who is not our BFF supersedes us. What I feel here is anger at the patriarchy except that this anger morphs into hatred of other women.
Is this the same or different as what you described? I’m honestly not sure.
Well our daughters do learn but what do they learn? They learn that women in Corporate Media are a bunch of kiss asses and aren’t worthy of respect. I don’t think they generalize this to women in general because there is a certain otherness to media that establishes it as a fake world. Of course for kids who only have media as a cultural reference the situation is sad.
“They learn that women in Corporate Media are a bunch of kiss asses and aren’t worthy of respect.”
They also learn that if they want one of those jobs, they’d better sharpen their knives. On other women’s bones.
Or maybe they were just critising her because they think her show is not very good? Women can critise the things other women do and say you know. Its not bitchiness its called freedom of speech and sometimes its just true. The men probably looked uncomfortable because this was a Fox show and Palin is a Murdoch favourite they were just being the usual Corporate good boys.
libby,
I agree with you on one aspect. It is certainly appropriate for female commentators to be critical on policy, etc of female politicians.
This video is not that. It is girls whispering about another girl in a mean way – it’s junior high school. The men aren’t chiming in, IMHO, because they are being professional.
Yep ok Amy you can put that interpretation on it I agree and I suspect jealousy may have played a part in their comments. I still think the men are Corporate lackeys though.
@Janis & Henrietta, You are both correct. As a woman who has a female partner, worked in mostly male jobs, having four younger brothers and being closest to my grandfather as a parental role figure, I have viewed the femme de la femme carnage all my life. I grew up in a military town during the Vietnam era when prostitutes were symbols of local power. I mean the ones who seemed to control their sexual prowess through domination. I learned how mean women could be. And, men are afraid of that kind of sexual “mud wrestling”. Any man who gets in the middle is risking being demasculated. I mean, if a man cannot control his own power, for certain he cannot control one woman not to mention two
I don’t want to be a mean girl myself, but that is Judy Miller, the one who wrote so much about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, information that later turned out to be false. Then she went on expose Valerie Plame while she was working undercover for the CIA, putting her life in danger. Judy went on to spend 3 months in jail for refusing to disclose her sources on the CIA story.
I guess it’s a matter of opinion, but Miller is partially responsible for the faulty intelligence that got us into the Iraq war that has now cost thousands of American lives.
This is the woman who sits in judgment of Sarah Palin and finds her lacking??
Good memory Yttik, Miller is a mouthpiece of Rove and he doesn’t like Palin because she comes from outside his sphere of power, she is uncontrollable. Rove also works for FOX news channel and probably got Miller the job because she is his loyal lackey.
What will girls learn?
Girls are smart and I am sure it is clear to them that the most important thing Corporate News women bring to the job is their pageant persona. So only girls with that pageant need would chose the profession. There are other more legitimate sources of journalism than Corporate media for girls with intellectual skill sets.
Frankly I think if the men in the group had been “bad mouthing” Palin during the break we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Just another situation where it is okay for the good old boys to be critical of political figures but if women do it they’re considered the “mean girls” (it can think of another commonly used word but won’t use it).
I am much more concerned about the type of women we are pushing into the linelight. If they were all blondes we would be hearing lot of dumb blonde jokes! Come on Palin, Angles, O’Donnell is that the best we can do? I think it’s time we put some ladies out there that people can respect and not merely ridicule.
“Girls are smart and I am sure it is clear to them that the most important thing Corporate News women bring to the job is their pageant persona. So only girls with that pageant need would chose the profession.”
Bingo.
“Frankly I think if the men in the group had been “bad mouthing” Palin during the break we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
B. if you think that, you are not familiar with this website at all. I suggest you familiarize yourself with it.
“I think it’s time we put some ladies out there that people can respect and not merely ridicule.”
Look, if they could rip Hillary fucking Clinton apart, there is NO “lady” they can respect. Hiram Monserrate slashed his girlfriend’s face, John Edwards proposed to his fuckbuddy, Blago pled not guilty, and The Preznit His Own Self can’t even pronounce “corpsman” properly. And you have the nerve to demand that we need respectable LADIES? Where is this universe of respectable MEN they are competing against, because it’s not this one.
“But women will do our cause no good at all if we shout ‘sexism’ everytime a women loses. Voters reject female candidates sometimes simply because they show themselves to be woefully uninformed (O’Donnell and the Constitution) make ludicrous statements that they cannot back up with facts (Angle), refuse to take part in the public vetting process by refusing media questions and make poor campaign decisions that make the electorate doubt their ability to run anything.”
First let me thank Libby for her intelligent, well written comments ..that was the point I originally was trying to make but (apparently upon reading Janis’ comments) I must have missed the mark.
We definitely need more woman in the political arena, but to support a woman simply because we believe this situation needs to be corrected is foolish, especially if that woman comes across as being incompetent. In supporting her incompetence we destroy any credibility that women are viable candidates for political office.
B,
All this post does is call out the strange sort of hatred women sometimes show each other. These women are not saying anything substantive about Palin. It’s just very catty. If they were criticizing Palin about immigration policy viewpoints, etc. that would be totally relevant and fair game. But this is not.
It’s a basic thing that they do at New Agenda – stand up for women who are attacked with sexism – whether or not we like their political positions, etc. Some of us here like Palin, some of us don’t. I don’t know what else to say.
“In supporting her incompetence we destroy any credibility that women are viable candidates for political office.”
Well, one problem is that women running for office already have hardly any credibility. We can’t destroy “credibility” that the culture doesn’t allow women to have anyway.
But also, since when is incompetency a barrier for males who run for public office?? Our government is full of incompetency! Men are always presumed to be competent. They don’t even have to prove it. Alvin Green got less press questioning his alleged competency than any of the women who ran for office in 2010. In fact, he got volunteer lawyers and campaign managers who gave their time because they believed he had a civil right to run for office.
Janis, to add to your list of dung-heap male politicians that our society seems to “condone”:
Eliot Spitzer – sleep with a prostitute and get your own show on CNN.
Joe Biden – Show bigotry toward Asian-Indian Americans, make gaffe after gaffe about US History and the invention of the television, say the F word in public to emphasize your happiness or unhappiness, and you get to become Vice President.
Women have to have a PhD, MD, and a law degree; speak a minimum of three languages; have the US Constitution MEMORIZED (where a man can get away with singing the Preamble they learned on School House Rock); be married with AND without children simultaneously because who the heck will take care of the children if she has them?; Be religious but not religious; have great hair, great skin, great curves, and firm bosoms but not be pretty; have saved the Whales, the polar ice-cap, and cured the world of small pox; has to understand every single science aspect of issues such as Global Warming, exoplanets, Nanotechnology, uranium enrichment, and Laser Fusion; have never had sex or have multiple partners or have only one partner or appear to have had multiple partners but no sex or appear to be someone men want to have sex with;…I could go ON and ON and ON about what a woman has to be in order to be “qualified” where a man just has to be a man and he’s passed the test.
Well why don’t we put all the Liberal women who find Angle, Palin, ODonnell, etc. embarrassing but want to see qualified women candidates on a committee to find those perfect women candidates for the Democrats to start running? Maybe Emily’s list can take time out from running ads against women who aren’t running for anything to support the perfect Democrat women candidates.
For my part I am a Parity Person. I want to see half of the competent motivated people in Congress be women. But since there is obviously no standard for competence for men in politics I would also like to see half of the incompetent people, complete wack jobs, and Corporate sellouts be women.
Here is another example of a male candidate who should have been in prison not serving in Congress.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.....k_incident
While Kennedy was vacationing that weekend, his wife was confined to bed because of her pregnancy. She later sat through her husbands court hearing for three days, then had a miscarriage. Does this guy meet your oh so high standards for Congress men? What about your standards for Congress women?
The Bush’s support Mitt Romney, and that should be all new republicans like myself need to know. Obama is another Bush only with spending supperpowers. Mitt Romney will be no better than either of them. I left the democrat party to become a republican because of Sarah Palin and her newly shaped republican party. Voting the will of the blue blood “New World Order” Bush elites will be the biggest mistake hopeful new republicans can make. Palin is the only one who can take down Obama. Soggy Mayonaise and Cucumber Sandwiches like Mitt Romeny or Tim Pawlenty don’t stand a chance in this age of white male self-loathing. And they would both be establishment cocktail party republicans. Enough of them, bring on the momma grizzlies!
Juliette: I find your use of the term “Blue Blood New World Order” interesting and accurate. Obama, Bush and Romney are Blue Blood establishment candidates and there is not difference between Republicans and Democrats they both have Corporate Masters (actually they aren’t even Corporate American Masters they have zero loyalty to America). Another thing that to me seems like the 1940′s under the Nazi’s is the way Liberals turn a blind eye to the misogyny of 2008 and 2011 and blindly follow the Obots where ever they go. Then they imply that women candidates deserved the misogyny aimed at them because they were embarrassing or not perfect enough in the face of profound imperfection in political men. Just like people ignored the death camps in the Nazi New World order. And yes, I do feel the dis-empowerment of women and girls is a life and death situation for poor women and girls. And of course it is a life and death situation for countries and men too however men don’t care about that as long as they go down with what they perceive to be more power than that other guy.
“Well why don’t we put all the Liberal women who find Angle, Palin, ODonnell, etc. embarrassing but want to see qualified women candidates on a committee to find those perfect women candidates for the Democrats to start running?”
Exactly. Every left-wing woman who comes here and tells us that there are just squillions of FABULOUS women they can support so they don’t have to call 911 for Sarah Palin when she’s getting gang-raped … how come they never name these women who are supposedly so fabulous?
It’s “some of my best friends are black” all over again. There’s just TONS of faboo left-wing women candidates running for me to vote for! What? Well, I don’t actually know who they are or anything, but I’m sure they’re out there! And someday I’ll find out who they are and vote for them, really! Unless I don’t like their hair. Or they look like my mom. Or that bitch in high school who stole my boyfriend. Or unless someone makes up a convincing enough lie about her sleeping around … or making money one time … or getting a B in law school … But someday there will be a woman candidate I can support! Now, excuse me, I have to go vote for John Edwards.
Oh — one more thing:
” … find those perfect women candidates for the Democrats to start running?”
And how about standing up to the shithead MALE Democrats who let us down again and again? What Big Name Feminist was it who whittered on in 2008 about how we’ll just have to hold Obama’s feet to the fire? I wonder now if she’s rushing over to protect Little Lord Fauntleroy from women like The New Agenda who are actually doing the holding?
They will go out of their way to attack women of the other tribe, but they will never, never, never under any circumstances at all stand up to the men of their own tribe. They do not have the guts. When conservative Chistine O’Donnell says one dumb thing fifteen years ago, they are on her like stink on sauerkraut, but when a Democrat male stabs choice straight through the heart, it’s “Now honey, Mommy’s going to count to three! One, two, three! *pause* Okay sweetie, Mommy’s going to count to three agaaaain!”
These women do not have the guts to stand up to ANY MAN. And they call themselves empowered! They skitter in fear away from Republican men, fellate Democratic men … and save their knives for Republican women only, who are merely seen as alien bitches they can bring down, because they know deep down inside they do not have what it takes to bring down a man, no matter how evil and womanhating he is, no matter how many promises he goes back on, no matter how many female bodies are buried in his basement. They are spineless and they know it, so they soothe themselves by ripping Republican women apart to reassure themselves that they aren’t complete doormats.
This is why women need to go cold turkey on criticizing women candidates. Just vote for the women. It’s the only thing that will work, and it’s the only thing that left-wing feminism is truly afraid of.
I think conservative feminism will go that route eventually as well, sadly. It’s not a left-versus-right wing problem. It’s a female problem. Women will never truly stand up to men, not as a whole. We haven’t done it for the last million years, and it’s because we haven’t got what it takes.
I’d love to throw down a challenge to Emily’s List to mention only names of Democratic women candidates that they support, and no one else. From now on, they do only positive ads and supportive articles about left-wing women they like. Let’s see how long they hold out before they can’t stand it and start kneeling for left-wing men and bringing out the knives on the conservative women. And this is an organization whose stated purpose to to get more left-wing women elected! And even THEY won’t fucking be able to do it!
Here’s proof — I bet most left-wing women here (and again, I SUPPORT LEFT-WING CAUSES OKAY? I’m pro-choice, pro-welfare state, pro-environment, atheist, and think climate change is real) can name five conservative women from five states who they talked endless dishy trash about during the midterm elections and whose guts they hate on toast.
Sharron Angle. Christine O’Donnell. Nikki Haley. Sarah Palin (whoops! She wasn’t even running for anything!). Meg Whitman.
Okay, left-wing women who refuse to vote for anyone who isn’t perfect. Name five Democratic women who you know as well as you know those women upstairs, and who you support as fervently as you hated them. Five Democratic women from five different states who you can dish on with as much detail and passion. Know everything about their college days? How many nannies they had and where they were from? What their position on immigration is? How many kids they had? Whether they ever cheated or their husbands ever cheated on them? (Oh sorry, I forgot. That’s a reason NOT to support HER.)
No, no, no! No running off to Google, now!
Five. Five liberal chicks who ran for office as governor, senator, or congresscritter. You can’t, can you? Because supporting liberal women isn’t what you’re about. Plus, it’s not nearly as much fun as trashing the bitches you don’t like.
Yes, I’m in a crappy mood. I’m sick of this goddamned garbage. Either talk up the women you claim to like, or STFU and stop pretending you support any women at all. I have HAD IT with this happy horseshit.
BTW, you know who probably CAN name five liberal women in five states who they support? Amy and the rest of the chicks at TNA. Who are all conservative, and bad, because they Like Sarah Palin, and aren’t real feminists.
“The New Agenda seeks to achieve safety and opportunity for all women by addressing issues which unite us and by advancing women into leadership roles”.
Initially I stopped by this site hoping to find some haven from the polarization, hostility and lack of respect that seems to be so pervasion in the political arena at this time in history. Having survived the 2008 campaign season of negative ads and mudslinging waged by all parties I was seeking to find an arena where constructive discussion could take place to determine what course of action needs to be taken in an effort to change what is most certainly a “broken system”. Sorry to say I did not find it here.
Bess: “But since there is obviously no standard for competence for men in politics I would also like to see half of the incompetent people, complete wack jobs, and Corporate sellouts be women”. My thought; what a sad waste of a vote….which is probably how half the incompetent people got into office to begin with.
P.S. My list of Democratic women I would find myself supporting in their political aspirations. Note there are no Republican names here since that is not what was asked for, although I have voted for Republican women in my home state.
Kirsten Gillibrand-New York
Amy Klobuchar- Minnesota
Barbara Mikulski-Alaska
Linda Stender-New Jersey
Donna Edward-Maryland
Diane Farrell-Connecticut
Christine Cegelis-Illinois
Lois Murphy-Pennsylvania
Well maybe these women will go somewhere in spite of their party affiliation. Of course I can’t vote for any of them at this time but the Dems are going to have to work hard putting women into office in order to ever have any women who they can run for national office. And they need to stop pulling women Governors to be token women in the Obot administration because it destroys their farm team. Don’t get me wrong, I would prefer to vote for competent women candidates and then competent men candidates but I don’t always get what I want. I am absolutely opposed to the Liberal Democrat double standard for women candidates so when i hear them start their mantra of predictable lies about conservative women I disengage. Which is too bad for them because I used to send money to the Dems and Emily’s list. I do still support Cantwell and Murray my two Senators however.
The Dems are greatly in need of some self reflection regarding misogyny. They also need a purge of misogynists. Self reflection is painful and shallow people avoid it. But the sexism Democrats unleashed in the 2008 election and continue to display with pride has set women back 50 years. There are few Democrat women who have any credibility left because they have so happily joined in the chorus of “she’s not perfect enough”. The discussions that go on here do not stick to the politically correct boundaries set by Liberals but there is no way for Liberals to talk themselves around in their usual circles and become pro woman and relevant. So until Liberals become comfortable outside of their safe political correctness the problems Dems have with 52% of the population can’t be dealt with.
By the way Liberal Dems, you can not win elections by only talking to your purist selves. You have to convince the middle to vote for you to win. You have to get dirty by associating with the unanointed and politically incorrect.
Bess: “But since there is obviously no standard for competence for men in politics I would also like to see half of the incompetent people, complete wack jobs, and Corporate sellouts be women”. My thought; what a sad waste of a vote….which is probably how half the incompetent people got into office to begin with.
So B., you see no inherent value at all in simply having half the government be women, as if that were a victory in and of itself?
You literally see no difference between the following worlds:
1) a world with war, poverty, government incompetence, and an almost exclusively male government, and
2) a world with war, poverty, government incompetence, and a half-and-half government?
You wouldn’t at least want to live in the second world?
You don’t think that just getting to the second world wouldn’t cause things to improve for everyone?
You would rather live in World #1 where your daughter gets the message every election season that her disgustingly unshaved snatch will become evening news fodder if she aims a little too high, just as long as the rare women elected align perfectly with you?
You really don’t see an inherent value in and of itself to a government that is half women? Jesus on toast.
Thoughts: Misogyny exists in all parties, no one has a monopoly on it. Step outside your political box…talk to “liberals”, independents, conservatives, libertarians, republicans, democrats whatever labels you can care to use and you will realize that negative comments were made by everyone during the 2010 elections! Sorry to say no party walked away from this past political process without dirt on their hands.
The concept of political correctness is not necessarily a term I adhere to. “Political correctness” is a term, probably invented sometime in the 80′s as an effort to sensitize people to “others” outside their immediate comfort zone, cultural understanding and perhaps an attempt to be inclusive of all. It sought to develop language and ideas that would minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, disability, and age-related contexts. It gave rise to legislation for the physically challenged, created equality in education in the form of Title IX to mention two items. For when a society does not look out for its own sometimes government must act. Also the idea of “political correctness” did, to some extent, begin to create ideas and language to address the issue of sexism. As is true in most counter-cultural movements the pendulum swung perhaps a little too far at time…but (PC) did initially intend to correct some societal problems. Granted there are many who see the term (PC) as largely critical. This is evident by the creation of the “politically incorrect” handbook that came out at a later date. I think for most people the concept of “politically correct” has lost some of its glitter…who’s to say if that’s good or bad.
Personally I do not deem people to be either politically correct or incorrect; rather honest or dishonest, compassionate or lacking in compassion. In many cases our society is too dualistic, things are not always “either” “or”. I tend to read and listen to all points of view and draw my own conclusions. I am an independent voter….without party affiliation…I look at a persons’ voting record, their qualifications, their accomplishments and how they present themselves to the general public. Some do a better job at that than others. Attacking others is IMO much like pointing the finger at others…what’s the old expression when you point a finger…one finger at the person you attack and the others at yourself! The question becomes how can we get folks to stop trying to affix blame and work together?
B. Skri..
Barbara Mikulski is from Maryland. the senator with a similar name from Alaska is Republican with a first name Lisa ??Murkowski (even after the write in campaign I can’t spell her name)
Yes there was plenty of sexism to go around in the 2008 election and no party is immune. But the vast majority of it came from the Liberal media and directly benefited Obama and the Democrat party should have stood up and demanded a stop to it on behalf of their candidate Hillary but they did nothing. In contrast look at how they responded to racism in the 2008 election most of which was imaginary.
I probably should have used the term “Democrat catechism” instead of “Democrat political correctness”. So the ideas behind the Democrats catechism will have to be examined before they can become pro woman. That means you can’t have a man like Ted Kennedy as a legendary party hero and be pro woman. You can’t sell out women’s reproductive health in the health insurance reform bill and be pro woman. You can’t run a corrupt primary process against the only viable female candidate for President and be pro woman. You can’t pull funding from the female candidates for Congress in your own party and be pro woman. You can’t tolerate overt sexism within your party towards women candidates pf any party and be pro woman. The Dems are not pro woman. This statement goes against their self image and against their catechism and so it will be considered politically incorrect, never the less it is true.
As far as getting folks to work together. If you mean within the Democrat party, I don’t think it is possible. The Dems lost the trust of many women voters because of their sexist behavior in 2008. That was a really stupid move on their part because women are 52% of the population and vote in higher numbers than men. It is a lot harder to regain peoples trust than it is to maintain it and unlike men, women have long detailed memories. Add to this the fact that I don’t see any reflection on sexism within the party or any remorse. IMO the Dems stupidly wear their sexism with pride. Another problem is the Dems are into victim based politics and I don’t see myself as a victim.
I do think both parties are owned by Corporate masters and while many voters can’t articulate the problem they sense something is off. So an independent candidate like Hillary or Bloomberg could unite people around a middle road aiming to serve The People in 2012. Because Obama used sexism to get elected I will never vote for him regardless of who is his VP.
Mean girls attack palin.. Super
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