Letters to the Editor

• Why Scherer Shouldn't Have Written This Article for Salon, and Why Salon Needs to Think About It

  [Read the article: Hillary is from Mars, Obama is from Venus]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  I'm sorry that Michael Scherer's intent was misunderstood.

  I know what he meant, academically. My husband is a very nurturing, sensitive fellow. I'm a hard-charging type. On the gender continuum, I've got some extra maleness, and he's got extra femaleness. I think that's what he was saying about Barack and Hillary, and that, inherently, is not a criticism.

  But..."manliness" is always an issue in political positioning. The Republicans have attempted to stake their claim on the macho factor in so many of the recent elections.

  Last election we had John Kerry being media-emasculated by having a rich wife, and John Dean by having a wife who wasn't going to quit being a doctor and be first lady, and John Edwards by being prettier than his wife. All the while, Bush chopped wood at Crawford, swaggered around, and talked about "gettin' the evil-doers."

  Now we have Coulter calling Edwards a fag, and Edwards' pricey (read "only girls pay big bucks for haircuts") haircuts as a major issue, and Dowd calling Obama "Obambi." Gender and gender images and roles are a standard weapon in campaigns.

  Scherer's article has come in a line of pieces at Salon that have criticized Obama. Most notably was Debra Dickerson's piece claiming that Obama's not really black, and he's not African-American, he's "African-African American" and therefore doesn't deserve support from the Black community. Then there was the one accusing Obama's campaign of attacking Al Sharpton, with facts coming from another blogger. And so on. There have been too many other articles to recount.

  And of course, Scherer came on the heels of Camille Paglia's 8-page manifesto lauding Bush, attacking Al Gore and discounting the science behind global warming, among other right-wing talking points.

  So in that sense, Scherer's article can't stand alone at Salon, it's seen by regular readers as part of an overall pattern, one overseen by the editors, that is commissioning and/or approving various articles that attack or deconstruct different aspects of Obama, and that promote right-wing, conservative opinion in Salon headline articles.

  America is in a very difficult place right now, and many of us feel that the upcoming election is a near life or death struggle. If the Democrats don't win the White House in 2008, then this strange new un-American America we live in is going to solidify, and I probably won't ever see a return to a truly democratic (little d), respected, rights-respecting America in my lifetime.

  Salon is not an unbiased newspaper, it's a magazine, and one that has always -- at least until more recently -- had a liberal perspective. And longtimers like me look to Salon to help frame the political discussion.

  But the rightwingers do too. They are watching Salon like hawks, trying to find things to use, to promulgate, to try to take down Democratic voters, candidates, ideas, etc.

  And Scherer's article unfortunately lobbed them a very easy softball.

  But in the charged environment of the 2008 campaign, and given the role that Salon plays, Scherer's article is very easily turned into: "Obama's a girly man, Hillary's a butchy women."

  And to the hoi polloi that gets their information from such simplistic/sensationalistic soundbites, that means neither is electable, which of course is ridiculous.

  But America is ridiculous right now.

  How many people still think Saddam had WMDs, or that he engineered 9/11?

  Salon needs to go back to the drawing board, as an online magazine and as a player in the political discourse, and rethink what sort of role it really wants to play.

  Is Salon simply an agent provocateur, exploring things for academic, sensationalistic, or page-view-promoting reasons?

  Or is Salon still an online "Salon," bringing together the liberal, intellectual, arts-oriented readers, the mission it set out to fulfill more than ten years ago?

  Only Salon can decide, really, and for our sake as readers, I hope they get their vision back...

  Permalink Thursday, July 12, 2007 08:00 AM