Letters to the Editor

• DeloresFlowers

  [Read the article: The other 18 million]
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  "...And I do agree with you about Olberman's other comments coming from an innocuous place and I'm not saying that I took deep offense--he did apologize, unlike Ferraro, and I appreciate that--but my first unwanted thought when I heard that was of rape taking place in that back room. A female candidate--just like a black candidate--needs to be treated with a certain respect (and difference) that people just might not be used to. It's a new experience for people to see these candidates in these roles, so maybe it doesn't come naturally. Huckabee's comments about Obama were similarly tasteless--obviously not well thought out in terms of what they suggested...".

  I've followed your comments in Salon's letter columns during the time I've been reading Salon and I'm aware of [and respect] your stance(s) re this extraordinary Primary contest and other issues; you needn't have to explain, DeloresFlowers. I also agree--obviously--with you regarding the fact that while sexism has been present it never was a factor that torpedoed Hillary's campaign. My point was that, generally, seeing sexism or racism where neither exists trivialises those real issues. Olbermann's comment was this: "somebody who can take [her] into a room and only [he] comes out" is an idiomatic phrase that has had handy, perennial currency in politics, business, and in many a general social interaction where there are perceived loggerheads between parties and interests. Keith's mistake" [similar--but not quite the same--to the one made, in the early nineties, by an too-erudite-for-his-own-good white, D.C. school board member who used the term "niggardly" to describe a particularly parsimonious approach to the D.C. school budget with a particularly pernicious effect on its students that some board members were advocating] was not being sensitive enough to the implications you point out raised by the use of the second pronoun--but, again, that is hardly evidence of sexism on Olbermann's part.

  "...But you see the same danger is there right now for Olberman or the other t.v. progressive pundits. (I'm mad at Chris Matthews by the way for his comments about Hillary needing to learn to "obey" before she could be vice president...would he ever say such a thing about a man? To obey? It sounds like the old-school marriage vows. A woman must submit an obey...ugh!)..."

  Matthews and Olbermann are entirely different. Matthews is a flat-out sexist who has caused me to wince and bark at the small screen, more than once, from the time I began viewing him* on Msnbc when Hitchens and Pat Cadell were ganging up on the exceedingly insightful Regida Dergham to cutting off the likes of the professional Andrea Mitchell and Margaret Carlson while giving their male counterparts plenty of room to express themselves to his abysmal behaviour [deliberately] voicing those "obey" and "honour" remarks re Hillary's vice-presidential duties to Clinton backer, Lisa Caputo, the other day (the one thing that has always amazed me is how accomplished, professional women like news anchor, Kathleen Matthews, marry powerful, majority culture chauvinists like Matthews or how [the late] Betty Friedan, the seminally important feminist author and thinker of the 1960's and a woman you mention in your post, allows a schliemel like her long-time husband to smack her around like a pinata. Then many of those same [in terms of age, ethnic/racial background, and position] women turn around and attribute outright sexism or insensitivity promulgated by men they've been around--no, often chosen to be around-- their entire lives to a multi-racial, self-identified black guy who's run an exemplary, sexist/racist free campaign). Olbermann is nothing remotely like Matthews and his pique at Clinton (Olbermann was friendly with Hillary and many in the Clinton circle before this Primary season) is due to his understandable outrage over what he perceived as her underhanded, unprincipled treatment of fellow Democrat Obama and her playing the gender card in questionable, often trivialising circumstances [couching her complaints about the other, male candidates "ganging up" on her in terms of gender discrimination rather than admitting that she, as the front runner, had a "kick me" sign on her back that became neon-lit when she nonsensically backed Elliot Spitzer's politically idiotic license plan w/o inserting the caveat that while she understood Spitzer's desire to do something about non-insured undocumenteds driving New York's highways she didn't necessarily approve of his approach, and her intimations that gender bias was behind her getting debate questions first. I'm sure you can easily imagine what would have happened with Obama's candidacy had he gone into a snit-fit over Tim Russert's asking him about the racial views of Harry Belafonte, a man not of his generation or acquaintance].

  * In the interest of full disclosure, I often appeared on Matthews's show when I did commentary at CNBC's little sister network, America's Talking, in Secaucus, New Jersey, in the 1990's. Other than his trademark, hyperactive rudeness with his guests, his sexism wasn't as evident as it became when the networks transistioned to MsNBC and he started Big Footing it as el Primo Political TV Pundit.

  Permalink Friday, June 6, 2008 09:03 AM