About the sexism directed at her. She's called attention to it, often using humor (such as when she cracked jokes about the "Iron my shirt" guys). But she's had to walk a very careful line. She's aware that she will be crucified as a whiner if she calls it out strongly (witness the reaction when she called out the "pimping out Chelsea" remarks). She also knows that even the mildest statement about it will be blown up into "Clinton thinks any criticism is sexist" territory.

So, she goes for humor. Which accomplishes the following: It makes the idiots perpetrating this self-evidently misogynist frat-boy shit look stupid, and it makes her look like she's in control of herself. And it still points out that it's sexist.

And because she is, in fact, calling attention to this behavior while not putting the focus on her own reaction to this behavior (which would allow the behavior to be dismissed, because if a woman is upset about something, it must mean she's oversensitive, not that the behavior is wrong), she keeps the focus where it belongs: on Favreau and on Obama. Who now has to deal with Favreau.

And Clinton comes out smelling like a rose if Favreau is fired, because she didn't call for his head -- she offered him a job at State, after all. But if Favreau isn't fired, then Obama winds up looking bad, because the focus remained on Favreau's behavior, not Clinton's reaction to it.

She fights for women and will continue to do so. When she went after David Schuster, oh the howling that ensued! She's not afraid to do what's necessary. In her situation and position, humor is a perfectly acceptable way to handle to the behavior of these clowns in this case. They look more the fools. Perfect.

Or rather, about her reaction, at all???

Brown's maneuver is classic aid-the-misogynists, -harassers and -rapists. Put the focus on the victim. What did the victim do? How did the victim react? Did she deserve it? Was she asking for it? Does she act sufficiently traumatized/offended/demeaned/dispirited enough to satisfy our craving for her debasement before we allow that the perpetrator's actions may warrant punishment?

Deflect, deflect, deflect attention away from the perpetrator, the symbolic effects on women generally ('member all those posts we had about the importance and transcendent nature of symbolism, folks?), and by all means possible away from the Obama campaign. No matter that Obama's included on his staff a person who feels entirely comfortable not only denigrating women in private, but in a world-wide public forum; no the REAL issue here is how Clinton reacted.

If that isn't in the primary CDS symptom compendium, I don't know what is.

Clinton didn't create or foster this situation. So why is she the one, of all the potential players, being held responsible for correcting it? For reversing the effects of sexism and misogyny for the whole freakin' world? For producing the perfect response, the response that will eradicate misogyny and free the world? Why the f*ck should she have to answer it at all?

Why is no one fretting and twisting about is Obama's response? He's the sexist fuckwit's boss. Of course this mental child should be fired, but Obama (or Emmanuel or some-fucking-one-elect) should at least have issued a statement disassociating themselves from this behavior. For bleeding jeepers' sake, during the campaign Obama et al criticized his opponents for statements that were never made against him. But here, not even a sotto voce tut tut from our Village friends. Nope, not gonna go there; the only way to go is to turn this around so it's somehow Hillary Clinton's deficiencies that are the issue.

This is far worse, in my mind, than Samantha Power's monster comment. And even though she's back in favor through the back door, at least she was out temporarily.

I don't give a damn what Clinton's reaction was. I don't care if she hired a band and sponsored a festival in Favreau's frakkin' honor. This isn't about her. Any woman's cutout could be in that picture. Why isn't the big drooling story about the eternal void of a reaction from every other major political figure in the United States, rather than nitpicking over Clinton's response?

After she shook the rafters of the Dem convention with her pitch for Obama and much more, what was the response from the pundits and bloggers? "Gates is trustworthy, but the Clintons cannot be trusted, they spell drama, she'll run a rogue State Dept that will unilaterally bomb Iran, she'll sabotage him so she can run in 2012" etc., etc.

The problem for Obama (should he chose to acknowledge it) is that giving the morons (Favreau or however you spell his name) et. al. a pass and handing them big, fat positions with big fat checks attached and a verbal slap on the wrist sends a message.
I said better what I meant earlier here:

"These idiots should be canned, they make Obama look bad by demeaning his own Secretary of State. If he doesn't discipline them (by firing them), he undermines her credibility in her position to other countries. Would Putin need to listen to a damn thing she says as having the authority of the President, when the President's own staff can mock her with impunity?"

What I should have added is that he also demeans her credibility in his cabinet position in this country as well. Versailles also can't help itself, they will see her as permanently irrelevant if this idiot gets away with demeaning her in this fashion. Every initiative she introduces or statement she makes will be followed with endless speculation, "is Obama on board with this?" "Is Hillary going off the reservation again?"

This is supposedly "No Drama Obama", why would he allow key staffers (like his chief speechwriter) to create the drama.

A usual suspect is unimpressed:

"Oh, and news flash - Putin doesn't give a damn what Obama thinks, never mind his SoS."

In other words, they can humiliate her as much as they want, since I used Putin as an example and he (in that writer's opinion) is supposedly completely uninterested in anything either Obama or Clinton propose. Demean at will.

Whatever, I would be shocked if they sweep this under the rug. I know if any of my employees did something similar towards another employee, I would can them without a nanosecond hesitation.

Oh, and news flash - Putin doesn't give a damn what Obama thinks, never mind his SoS.

Translation: Demean away?

is that