Sexist Democrats?

As proud as Hillary Clinton is of her accomplishment as Senator and her husband as President, she is shameless enough to play the "sex card," even when her opponents in the poker game are all Democrats. From the NYT:

Some of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters are accusing rival candidates and the questioners of “piling on,” to use the words of the Clinton campaign, at the [last week's] debate, which rattled the Clinton camp. They noted that John Edwards had been especially critical of Mrs. Clinton.

“John Edwards, specifically, as well as the press, would never attack Barack Obama for two hours they way they attacked her,” said Geraldine Ferraro, the 1984 vice presidential candidate who supports Mrs. Clinton. “It’s O.K. in this country to be sexist,” Ms. Ferraro said.

“It’s certainly not O.K. to be racist. I think if Barack Obama had been attacked for two hours — well, I don’t think Barack Obama would have been attacked for two hours.”

Such a grilling could not have been aimed at her because she is the frontrunner, could it?

I suppose it was only a matter of time before Hillary capitulated to an archaic view of her gender: that she is not intellectually equipped to answer important questions. From her own mouth and from the pie-holes of her supporters, the view is constantly espoused that because Hillary has ovaries, different political rules apply.

My own take on why Clinton and her supporters feel the need to constantly establish the fact that she is, in fact, a woman is simple. Clinton felt the need to compensate for a poor debate; her supporters want the other contenders to treat her more gingerly in the upcoming debates so as not to tarnish her spotless pontificating. She is, after all, a member of the physically weaker sex so it follows naturally that her ideological scrutiny be less intense than that of her testosterone-filled competition.

The real question is whether or not Ferraro is living vicariously through Hillary's success. Does she believe that an affront to Mrs. Clinton's views and proposals is a challenge to the legitimacy of her own pathetic campaign 20 years ago? As a fellow woman, it should not surprise us that Ferraro supports Clinton, for, as she said herself, "We can’t let them [?] do this in a presidential race. They say we’re playing the gender card. We are not. We are not. We have got to stand up." Female solidarity is, after all, vastly more important than the issues to which "the first black President's" wife failed to provide strong answers. According to Ferraro, if Barack Obama was the frontrunner, his race would have prevented him from being asked important questions (of course, it's racist to ask questions of someone of a different color!). It's not like he (or Hillary Clinton, for that matter) is aspiring to become the most powerful man (or *woman*) in the world...