Maybe he didn't see the same guy's sign where he said he wished Hillary had married OJ. Not that that, of course, would prove anyone hates women. Because I'm sure he was only kidding and you know women have no senses of humor.

I don't know why so many alleged lefties feel the need to deny misogyny and sexism. I certainly don't deny racism. Sure, I deny that most Hillary voters are racist, but that's not the same thing as denying racism or even that some people aren't and won't vote for Obama because he's black. Of course, some people, even some democrats, won't vote for him because of that reason. Just as some won't vote for Hillary because she's a woman.

Whether Hillary wins or not, this has been one educational election. Most of what I've learned has been extremely depressing, but that doesn't make it any less necessary to know. Because it's easy for even us feminists to forget there are still a lot of people out there who hate women and even more willing to cover for them.

manifesting itself as misogyny?

I think a lot of the attacks on Hillary are just plain old ClintonHate taking the form of sexist attacks because it is still socially permissible to do so.

OTOH - Attacks on Obama that take the form of racism are not permissible, at least not on the left.

------------------------------------------------
“Pain heals, chicks dig scars, glory lasts forever” - Shane Falco

has always had misogynistic underpinnings going back to Arkansas and her refusal to take Bill's name.

Check this out:

Women voters are not factored into the decision making of the Democratic National Committee. The DNC is concerned that black voters will protest and stay home if Senator Clinton gets the nomination, even though she is the stronger and more electable candidate. But the DNC doesn't worry that white women, three times larger than the combined black vote, will stay away from the polls if Mrs. Clinton does not get the nomination. They expect the white women of the party to fall in step and vote for Mr. Obama in the general election.

For one thing, the DNC is wrong; AAs of all groups are the highest in wanting Hillary on a joint ticket. Granted, as VP, but that hardly argues for the deep antagonism needed to get them to sit this one out. For another, I'm betting, although from purely anecdotal evidence, that the DNC has fund-raising issues, and that perhaps the campaign to re-register as an Independent, and send you torn-up party registration to the DNC, might be having its effect.

Now, this article is framed in the post mortem mode, which is the only genre in which discussion of the Obama Movement's misogyny and manipulation of Clinton hatred is permissible, but I don't accept that the race is over, so I'm happy that the shift in narrative permits a little truth to emerge from the wave of truthiness.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

With teh evil Clinton supposedly vanquished, the media is willing to cover how angry many women are with the party, which hopefully someone is listening to and doing the math. You know, I understand the Math is very important in some parts of the party. Well, here's some - no democrat gets elected without women voters. Not as dog catcher, not as mayor, not as president. No women, no win.

See vastleft's 3PM reply comment…here.

She would've gotten it done 12 hours earlier.

and I have no problem debating you, this is dishonest:

Sure, I’m a racist, and misogyny doesn’t exist

At least, if you're attributing that to me in any fashion.

We can continue a discussion, but not like that, I'm afraid. That kind of rhetoric doesn't help either candidate or their position and supporters.

... claimed that I'm committing "hate speech," and you've also repeatedly failed to address my rebuttals to same.

Perhaps you meant "hate speech" toward Obama in a totally non-racial kind of way, in which case I apologize for assuming you were intimating that I was a racist, and that I'm instead some other kind of presumably more wholesome kind of hate-speaker.

(Quoting myself from comments elsewhere) "I’m particularly offended by carpetbaggers (in my case, people who moved here from cities in other states, to live out their fantasy life in Idaho) telling me I am racist and uneducated (”you locals”) and that I must expiate the sins of the nation (slavery) by voting for Obama.

My Swedish immigrant grandparents were railroad workers, not privileged landowners. My mother was the first person in our family to go to college. I’m a farmer (with a master’s degree in fine arts, take that, creative classists).
I don’t feel it is my responsibility to give up Social Security, Roe V Wade and universal health care so these “wish I had been a hippie” guys with 401k’s can deal with white guilt, or feel hip and young. If Obama were a strong fighter for labor, healthcare, equal rights for all, a true safety net for the elderly and sick, or if he had a stronger track record than being a friend of Oprah’s, I would give him a 2nd look.

But that he’s not, that he has this weird obsession with religion (we should make nice with Evangelicals—No, wait! religion is the opiate of the bitter!–no, wait, God called me to be president!), and that he is friends with a guy who thinks it’s great publicity to be photographed stomping on the flag—-I think Obama’s an opportunist who would sell out Democratic ideals in a heartbeat."

In turning over in my mind the depth of their need to convert me, I am reminded of married friends who try to get me to marry, Christian friends who are alarmed at my aversion to human sacrifice (Communion), potheads who tell me weed couldn't possibly be bad for you because it is herbal, neighbors who think I should let them farm my land since they are men, and meat eaters who tell me my being a vegetarian won't bring down the beef industry.

I think they are really trying to convince themselves, and are made uneasy because I don't shore up their thinking.
Here's a newsflash: women don't exist as a raw resource for or to validate men, the democratic party or anyone else. We actually exist as individuals. We will vote accordingly, without guilt, no matter how inconvenient to their wants.

... while your context-setting is quite apropos, in this case, Steve has specifically called me out for "hate speech" against Obama, which I think one might reasonably infer carries at least a hint of being an accusation of racism.

Even if not, Steve has passed on several opportunities to pull back from the slander of accusing me of "hate speech," when I have merely been guilty of having strong and issue based skepticism about a particular Democrat that one is seemingly not allowed to have concerns about.

it's okay to abuse others, and cry foul when the slightest push back occurs.

What does that remind me of? Oh, yeah...

It's OK, if you're a Republican.

"I think we are in one of those times right now, where people feel like things as they are going, aren't working, that we’re bogged down in the same arguments that we’ve been having and they’re not useful. And the Republican approach I think has played itself out.

"I think it’s fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10, 15 years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom. Now, you’ve heard it all before. You look at the economic policies that are being debated among the presidential candidates, it’s all tax cuts. Well, we’ve done that. We’ve tried it. It’s not really going to solve our energy problems, for example…so some of it’s the times.”

BTW, while I don't love this whole statement, it's hardy a traitorous moment. I think the way the HC campaign, and you, presented it was unfortunate.

...generally used to describe the words used by neo-Nazi skinheads, the KKK, and militant anti-gay fundamentalists, anti-immigrant nationalists, etc. Audio's no dummy and knows this. Everybody in the freakin' blogosphere knows this. Little wonder that VL was offended when his/her commentary was labeled thusly. To accuse someone of using hate speech is to call them a racist. No other interpretation is possible. None.
But perhaps Steve did not intend to call VL a racist but simply got caught up in the rhetorical heat of the moment and made an abysmally poor word choice.
Hmmmmmm?

Now you're "officially pissed off." You don't say why "now," exactly, and you act like it's supposed to impress us. OK, you're heroically pissed off. Next.

You say that, unlike me, you directly respond to my points.

Here are my four points, which I've been quite consistent about throughout our exchanges:

1. It was completely uncalled for, and frankly slanderous, for you to write a blog post accusing me of hate speech
2. Your subsequent definition of hate speech was absurdly inaccurate
3. You claimed (sans examples) that I was "misrepresenting or blatantly mis-interpreting [Obama's] speech"
4. In another post, you claimed (sans rationale) that misogyny is a virtually non-existent social wrong

Now, where are we on those four points?

1 & 2. More than a week-and-a-half after your original accusation, you offer the most grudging imaginable retrenchment from your "hate speech" claim, calling your inflammatory charge a "small" matter and signaling that you're generously conceding the point in part to prevent "future whining." Mighty big of you, sir.

3. Finally, this morning you clarify where you thought I had willfully misled (which until today was your definition of "hate speech"). What was my sin? Referencing a widely cited quote that's completely consistent with Obama's basic frame of bipartisanship and recurring praise for Reagan — a quote that you admit you don't like much either (why must you be such a h8r, Steve?).

From Audacity:

P. 31. That Reagan’s message found such a receptive audience spoke not only to his skills as a communicator; it also spoke to the failures of liberal government, during a period of economic stagnation, to give middle-class voters any sense that it was fighting for them. For the fact was that government at every level had become too cavalier about spending taxpayer money. Too often, bureaucracies were oblivious to the cost of their mandates. A lot of liberal rhetoric did seem to value rights and entitlements over duties and responsibilities.

…by promising to side with those who worked hard, obeyed the law, cared for their families, and loved their country, Reagan offered Americans a sense of a common purpose that liberals seemed no longer able to muster. And the more his critics carped, the more those critics played into the role he’d written for them—a band of out-of-touch, tax-and-spend, blame-America-first, politically correct elites.

In what way did I distort Obama's meaning about the "party of ideas"? He repeatedly suggests that both parties are guilty of comparable sins, that both parties are to be respected, and that Reaganism was more or less a rational response to the bureaucratic bloat caused by tax-happy Democrats.

Late last month, Obama said this on Fox News:

Well, I think there are a whole host of areas where Republicans in some cases may have a better idea.

He proceeded to misrepresent the GOP's contribution (LOL!) to environmental policy. Damn, Obama's a hate-speaker misrepresenter, too! This shit is contagious!

4. You still haven't explained why, and on what basis, you wrote a post that claimed that there is no misogyny practiced by anyone except those with a particular extreme mental condition. To wit:

There is one essential difference between Clinton and Obama that hasn't been talked about. And that is, while there are some who feel women are not as good as men, no one in today's society, except for sociopaths, hates women.

Yet there are still those in this country who hate black people.

And lest you experience another dictionary malfunction, here's how Merriam-Webster defines misogyny: "a hatred of women." No ifs, ands, or "sociopaths-onlies."

I'm a busy person, too, so I don't have time to waste on your protestations about what a noble debater you've been, nor your disappointment that the responses here have been more nuanced than you'd expect.

Steve, baby:

• You painted me as a racist or something near-as-might.
• You took it upon yourself to categorize misogyny as a second-class social problem.

Your responses since then don't do you proud or show you to be the fairminded progressive you consider yourself to be.

I again proffer the theory that it's become simply gauche in the leftysphere to be skeptical of Obama, and that one who raises legitimate issues and, IMHO, some well-earned snark, about him is de facto treated as illegitimate and hateful and someone who must be voted off the island.

Ironically, I had voted myself off the island before I encountered your ill-considered posts.

Good day to you.

I made a bad choice of words, I'll admit that.

Otherwise, I stand by my basic points, stated over and over and over...

Misogyny is bad.

Racism is bad.

Clinton has campaigned in ways I find unattractive.

Obama has campaigned in ways I find unattractive.

Dlinton has potitions I disagree with.

Obama has positions I disagree with.

Misogyny toward Clinton doesn't make her a better candidate.

Racisim toward Obama doesn't make him a better candidate.

That's really all.

Sorry to have wasted your time.

* You painted me as a racist or something near-as-might.
* You took it upon yourself to categorize misogyny as a second-class social problem.

That past is pure bullshit.

misspelling

Other than being completely accurate.

1. You did accuse me of hate speech -- a term replete with implications of prejudicial intimidation -- and you have never properly apologized for both your "word choice" and your defective reasoning in searching for whatever similar accusation you actually intended because I made the unacceptable (to you and many others) decision to criticize Barack Obama

2. You did write a post that said that misogyny barely exists (i.e., it's only the province of sociopaths). You have yet to acknowledge that that was a thoughtless and errant position to take, especially in view of the ample evidence of misogyny even in our own political circles.

The rest is just noise.

In my original blog post, I probably should have said "trash talking" or something similar to make my point.

And VastLeft, if you go re-read my original blog post, in which I quoted you, you'll see that I supported your point made here:

Make the case for your candidate and/or against the one you like less. But if you want the next four-to-eight years to be even a little better than what we’ve just had, stop all this “I’m too good to vote for the second-best Democratic option.”

Pretty please, with “for fuck’s sake” on top.

That was really the entire point my original blog post made, and that's why I quoted you, because you made a wonderful summary to top what I wrote.

Everything else that followed was IMO, distraction and missed my point.

And I'm sorry I didn't look up "sociopath" in the dictionary before I used the word. I'll submit that many words are used in a vernacular sense, and I'm guilty of that. And I'm not a mental health professional, so I was using what I felt was an accurate lay definition.

But I stand by that point. I'm 58 years old. I was aware of Selma, and Montgomery, and clearly remember Wallace standing on the steps of the school. I remember Medgar Evars, I remember ML King. And I also remember when women couldn't do many of the things they can today, when they were held down by a male-dominated society. But by your own definition above, that's hardly misogyny, just institutionalized sexism.

So yes, as I have stated over and over again, I consider racism and misogyny both really bad things. Which is worse, I don't know. I still think that I've seen more racist murder and hate crime than I have misogynist.

I also consider not supporting virtually any Dem against virtually any Rep to be a crime. And on that point, I think we agree.

Otherwise, I think we got pretty far off course here, I'm sorry about my part in that. I hate to see liberals at each others' throats, and that was part of my thesis at my original blog post.

Thanks for caring enough to take the time to engage in discussion.

... fellow progressives.

But there has come to be a protocol in much of the blogosphere in which "unity" exists only insofar as one is uncritical of Obama. I've seen it again and again and again.

Even with those who aren't dyed-in-the-wool Obama partisans, the same rules seem to apply.

Unless one starts dropping C-bombs (and sometimes not even then) does anyone seem to get much flak in most circles for saying anything and everything negative about Hillary -- with little concern about how untrue or unfair those criticisms might be.

But criticize Obama and you're a hater, you're unglued, or, even in your latest offer a "trash talker."

I simply happen to have strong and well-documented reasons why I'm hoping against hope (so to speak) that our last Democratic alternative to an Obama nomination can pull this off. That doesn't make me a hater or a trash talker. It makes me a loyal Democrat who thinks our frontrunner is a weak choice, someone who has done anything to ask for my vote and someone who has outrageously wasted a gift for oratory by spewing a pleasing but deeply dishonest and disempowering view of the American political situation.

I got into blogging because I sought to join the media critique furthered by reality-based people. I'm getting out, more or less, because truthiness has hit my side of the aisle something fierce, and I'm expecting to have to eat my concerns about it at least into November.

Peace.