Saturday, January 13, 2007

Senator Boxer is Right

Senator Barbara Boxer is taking some flack for her remarks to Condoleeza Rice over the Iraq war. She made what seems to me to be a self-evident statement:
"Who pays the price? I'm not going to pay a personal price. My kids are too old, and my grandchild is too young," to serve, Boxer told Rice. "You're not going to pay a price, as I understand it, within immediate family. So who pays the price? The American military and their families.''
None of these personal facts is a state secret; and yet everybody is yelling, "Cat fight!" and making noises about "vicious feminine politics". Tony Snow even said that it was "a great leap backward for feminism.'' Feminism is not a subject on which I normally consider Tony Snow an expert, somehow.

What this really demonstrates is the fact that the news media (not to mention the Bush White House!) still doesn't regard women as real participants in the political process, and I'll prove that. Imagine it's 1973. The U.S. Secretary of State is Henry Kissinger, who is single; and that exact remark is made to him by Senator J. William Fulbright, who at that time was 68 years old, 2 years older than Barbara Boxer is today.

I have no idea what Fulbright's family was like, but given his age, he could quite possibly have said something like that to Kissinger about the Vietnam War; and no one would have said a thing about it. If you don't like Fulbright in the role, pick any senator from the 70's who opposed the Vietnam war and was in his middle to late sixties, with children and grandchildren.

This whole flap is because one female politician stated a series of obvious facts to another female politician; if one man had said it to another, or if Senator Boxer had said it to a childless man, it wouldn't have made the news. Senator Boxer is refusing to apologize, and she should refuse to apologize; if stating facts is offensive, we're all in trouble. The furor is being stirred up by the Bush White House, which is trying to devalue Senator Boxer's statements by labeling them a woman's opinion.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous7:05 AM

    If there is one thing the current administration is good at it is using the "echo chamber" to get it's message out and cloud the issue. At least we are starting to see some people waking up. Anyone who hears the statment will know what is up, and the more who realize Bushco is blowing smoke the better.

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  2. Yes, and what really fried me about the whole mess was the way they made it not just a "female" issue but a Democratic female issue: see how this nasty Democratic woman is attacking our noble Condoleeza Rice, a Republican woman who is above these petty tactics.

    I don't remember who made the remark, but on some radio show I heard the other week, someone commented that Condi Rice never actually does anything, especially on these diplomatic jaunts she's been making. The speaker said something like, "She goes, she talks to people, she leaves, nothing happens." I've been watching her since and have seen nothing to contradict this.

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