Sunday, February 24, 2008

Bash the Bitch

Bash the bitch is as American as apple pie and rush to judgement, so who are we to complain?
If it makes us "America haters" to say "Just a minute now" then so be it. Let all the ones partaking in bash-the-bitch wrap themselves in Old Glory, we'll call it the way we see it.
Here's what we see. A woman's trashed. For what she did?
Oh cookie, please, it's for being a woman.


Ava and C.I. explaining the basics in "TV: Katie Was a Cheerleader." Bash The Bitch is a popular game in America, it's a pile-on and it always revolves around women.

No one's ever supposed to notice.

It's not about criticism -- constructive or otherwise -- it's about a pile on. And it's so much fun to pile-on a woman, apparently, that once a few stones are being tossed, the whole country's searching for rocks to hurl. You saw it with Katie Couric whose "crime" was becoming an evening news anchor.

None of Couric's actions have been as embarrassing as Charlie Gibon's. But somehow there's been no move to pile-on with Charlie though, goodness knows, he's provided many reasons to. Charlie's a man and he's therefore immune to the pile-on.

Don't believe it? Well let's move away from Couric and note another woman, Judith Miller. No question, Judith Miller's 'reports' do not stand up. They didn't when they ran. She was a very bad reporter, to put it mildly.

But how did she become the stand-in for every 'journalist' who pushed the illegal war. Most were men, but they blend into the woodwork and their journalistic sins are largely forgotten. Miller's sins not only are not forgotten, they are inflated. If you doubt it, check out any blog that mentions Miller and wait for the comment to come in on her articles outing Valerie Plame. No such articles ever ran but the mistaken belief exists to this day. Just as the myth exists that Judith Miller single-handedly sold the illegal war.

As C.I. often wondered (such as in November 2006) were any of the others responsible ever going to be held accountable -- even at her paper -- "or are we all going to act as though Judith Miller wrote, edited, printed and delivered the paper of no record to every front porch?" Or, in September 2006, "No matter how much you hate Judith Miller, you can't pin it all on her. Not just because there were a lot of people aping her lead (in print, on TV, on the radio -- and she was not the Queen of All Media) but because Judith Miller was out of Iraq fairly quickly. The Times pulled her and put her on UN duty (around the time her friend David Kelly died). The so-called cakewalk walked on without her." If it were just Judith Miller, the illegal war would never have started. That much weight is never put behind one person's words, let alone one woman's words.

Miller deserves criticism. She deserves calling out.

Bash The Bitch isn't about that, though. It's never really about that.

It is about targeting women. One woman will be singled out and become the pinata. Her actions will be called out repeatedly. Look at any movie starlet in recent times. They're generally under 25 and their escapades are cause for national concern. But note that when an actor over 40 was arrested for being intoxicated, even when his series was shut down due to those troubles, it was never the source of commenting to the degree that a Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton was. In fact, some of you may be scratching your heads and wondering, "What actor got busted?"

Bash The Bitch was at play with Elisabeth Bumiller whose work in those New York Times columns ("White House Letter") was embarrassing. But embarrassing also describes the work of her male peers 'reporting' from DC. "Knee pads" and Bumiller were forever joined but what of her male colleagues? They skate away scott free.

Bash The Bitch involves a focus on misdeeds that is only applied to one person and that person is a woman. When that takes place the nation engages in group trashing.

Judith Miller? The Christ to be crucified for the sins of all journalists? Miller wasn't even the first reporter for the paper of record to offer up a non-existant link between Iraq and 9-11. That would be Chris Hedges in a front page article from October 2001. [You can also refer to Jack Fairweather's "Heroes in Error: How a fake general, a pliant media, and a master manipulator helped lead the United States into war" (Mother Jones).]

Bash The Bitch is taking place currently as well and the woman being singled out is Hillary Clinton.


As C.I. and Elaine have noted, Barack Obama is supposed to be the Sky Father come down to save us and you can't turn a meager resume holder into Big Daddy without tearing apart the woman vying for the same position. So it was Kill Mommy time. Not to do so would leave the impression that Barack was about as effective of the bulk of TV sitcom Dads.

Hillary had to be torn apart.

And the tearing started early. We've held Hillary accountable here. We've held the same standard for all. But what's very clear now is that certain elements had no interest in doing that from the beginning. Think of Cindy Sheehan being 'fixed up' with a meet-up of Hillary. When were Cindy Sheehan's 'peace' 'movement' 'friends' urging her to have a face-to-face with Barack Obama?

They weren't. And, looking back, that's very telling. To be clear, that's not a criticism of Cindy Sheehan. It is a criticism of those around her at that time who really weren't interested in ending the illegal war.

The Peace Mom goes to Washington. Shouldn't she have had face-time with the "Anti-War" Senator? Barack Obama was in the Senate then. He was supposedly against the illegal war. As important as it was for Sheehan to meet up with Hillary, shouldn't a meet up with Barack Obama have been arranged?

It wasn't. There's a reason for that. Before he got into the Senate, while still campaigning, Barack Obama was very clear to Elaine and C.I., at a fundraiser for his campaign, that he wasn't calling for US troops to leave Iraq. (They left without contributing after that exchange.)

The myth/fairytale is that Bambi was against the illegal war before it started and all the way through it. That's not reality. But for those who can't face reality, ask yourself how Hillary's record is worse than Barack Obama's?

The lie is he was always against it. His 2002 speech says it's a "dumb" war. If he believed the war was wrong when he got into office, then wasn't it a greater disgrace that he would repeatedly vote to fund the illegal war?

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse" applies to courts of law. In every day dealings, we often offer a pass for someone with the comment that they didn't know better. But Bambi's campaign rests on his "anti-war" stance. To buy into that unwavering stance, you have to accept that he was against the war all along. So knowing it was wrong, he has no excuse for consistently voting to fund the illegal war. If he came in opposed to the illegal war, it's a greater shame that he would vote to fund it. Buying the lie means buying into the belief that he knew better but still voted to fund it.

You don't hear that argument made -- though you should -- and it goes to the trashing of Hillary. She can and is ripped apart and he's given a pass. He votes in favor of what he allegedly knows is wrong and he gets a pass.

It's a trashing. It was meant to be a trashing. A few misfits in the 'peace' 'movement' wanted to take down Hillary. They wanted that long ago and they set the stage for it. That's why they never paired the Peace Mom up with the "Anti-war" Senator. If they were trying to accomplish something -- besides breed ill will towards Hillary, don't you think they should have set her up with Obama? Don't you think a joint press conference with the Peace Mom and the "Anti-War" Senator would have caught media attention?

Wasn't that the point?

It doesn't appear to have been the point when you look back. And maybe you should ask why that is?

Bash The Bitch only requires one woman (to be targeted) and a lynch mob mentality egged on by the gas bag set. Criticism of a woman does not translate into Bash The Bitch. It requires a feeding frenzy, an out of control mob among the gas bag set who are willing to churn out there "Off With Her Head" commentaries.

Being opposed to Bash The Bitch does not require that anyone stop critizing women or that they only criticize with the appropriate 'tone.' It does require that when you see the angry mob gathering around one woman, you step back to reflect on what's going on? You ask yourself whether or not the standard this one woman is being held to is a standard her male peers are also being held to?

If the answer is "no," then Bash The Bitch is being played.
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