Hill’s for women – when convenient
Yesterday, while President Trump was on hand for the swearing in of America’s first female CIA director, Hillary Clinton was endorsing a rich, straight, white male over his liberal lesbian opponent.
Hillary Clinton has announced she’ll be heading out on the stump for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in his re-election bid. His opponent is progressive activist — and actress — Cynthia Nixon, best known as Miranda on “Sex and the City.” And yet Hillary is #NotWithHer.
This is the same Hillary Clinton who has repeatedly insisted that the No. 1 obstacle in her presidential races was sexism. The same woman-card politician who launched the Clinton Foundation’s “No Ceilings” initiative.
Her motto at the time: “Let’s get cracking!”
Now it’s apparently “Wait your turn.”
So what happened? Good question. Maybe it’s the same thing that happened to Sen. Liz “I Am Woman Hear Me” Warren when she voted against Gina Haspel to be America’s first female top spy. Out of 17 Democratic women in the U.S. Senate, 15 of them voted against Haspel’s nomination last week, a clear “no” to ceiling-cracking.
Several of Warren’s #MeToo colleagues blamed their opposition on Haspel’s troubled record with torture and rendition in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. And that’s certainly a legitimate issue, one that kept Republican senators like John McCain and Rand Paul from backing Trump’s CIA pick.
Or rather, it would be a legit point if Warren hadn’t voted for Obama’s CIA pick John Brennan — who had a far more senior position during the CIA’s waterboarding era than Haspel did. So, what — torture’s OK when guys do it, but not gals? Too much “Grrl Power”?
Liz isn’t alone. New Hampshire’s Maggie Hassan, New York’s Kirsten Gillibrand, California’s Dianne Feinstein and several other Democratic female senators were OK with Obama’s waterboarder, then threw Gina Haspel overboard.
For simpleminded men (redundancy alert!), it’s tough to follow the reasoning. I’m so old, I remember when simply voting against Hillary Clinton was prima facia proof of sexism. Now Hillary herself is voteblocking a prominent liberal woman — and a feminist activist at that — on behalf of a powerful white man?
To be fair, it’s not the first time. Liberal women have an amazing ability to dump their core argument — sex is determinant and a sufficient reason to vote for someone — when it’s politically inconvenient. (See Palin, Sarah.) And it’s possible to imagine liberal female voters backing a man in a race where the guy was the true believer in progressive ideals, while the woman was a tired, corrupt, money-grubbing hack who had ridden her far-morepopular husband’s political talents to the top.
Hypothetically speaking, of course.
But that completely madeup example doesn’t apply in this case. Haspel was widely viewed as highly qualified. She even got the support of the top Democrat on the Senate Intel Committee. And Andrew Cuomo is at best a run-of-the-mill Northeastern liberal. Not my flavor, but certainly nothing special, particularly with regards to issues important to ceiling-breaking, powerfighting, #WithTheSis feminists like Hillary.
If I were a liberal woman living in New York, one who had done my duty by voting for a carpetbagging U.S. Senate candidate named Clinton, then backed her for president — twice — despite her glaring lack of accomplishments, I’d be annoyed with Hillary’s decision to go out of her way to work against Cynthia Nixon.
It’s not like Hillary had to get involved. In fact, the Clintons aren’t exactly in demand this election cycle. “I see the Clintons as a liability,” progressive Democrat Paul Spencer told The New York Times. “They simply represent the old mind-set of a Democratic Party that is going to continue to lose elections.”
He should know. He’s a candidate for Congress … in Arkansas.
America has a message for you, Hillary: You go, girl! No, really. Just go.