That's what happened.
It's a useless magazine -- one badly written, badly edited and that remains an eye sore despite the glossy pages.
Now it's pulled a stunt that's outraged a number of people (the number will grow as people hear about it -- not "see it" because NO ONE reads Ms. magazine anymore).
The stunt?
What's a whore need to do? Sell it, sweetie, sell it.
So they've splashed Barack on the cover and that's offensive enough and as desperate as when GQ made Julia Roberts their first cover woman. But hey, GQ's nothing but a fashion spread with a few words tossed in, Ms. was supposed to stand for something, right?
At Corrente, Shainzona shares these thoughts:
It's time for Ms. Magazine to fold its tent and slink silently into the night. If they pretend to represent women and their issues, I fear for my daughter, granddaughter and all women of the world.
Shame on them. Really. Shame on them.
It is time for them to close shop. We noted that months ago and we'd be as outraged but we were prepared for it and you should have been as well. Ava and C.I. documented it. They wrote about the inner-office e-mails Ms. magazine circulated -- during the Democratic Party primary -- calling Hillary a "bitch," a "c**t" and so much worse -- yes, Virginia, there is worse than the c-word.
Ava and C.I. told you about how Ms./Feminist Majority Foundation's Feminist Wire (sometimes Feminist Wire Daily) did nothing to call out the sexism during the Democratic Party primary. After little Davy Shoo-shoo got suspended by MSNBC, Feminist Wire finally had a write-up. After. (For saying Hillary was apparently pimping out Chelsea.)
Ava and C.I. told you repeatedly how Ms. refused to call out the sexism and how Ms. was staffed with liars like Michele Kort who were destroying the magazine.
Ava and C.I. told you all about how, after ignoring the sexism Hillary faced day-after-day, the magazine suddenly wanted to let someone weigh in on the Barack and Hillary campaigns. Who wrote that piece? If we said "self-loathing lesbian, fatty division," could you guess?
If you guessed Donna Brazile, you are correct. The Barack supporting Brazile -- busted on CNN by Campbell Brown and getting snipping with Campbell after. Big Momma's Mouth, Donna Brazile.
So it's no surprise now that Ms. put a man on the cover or that the man is the sexist pig Barack.
They put him in a t-shirt that reads, "This is what feminism looks like."
Well, what? You expected them to put Michelle Obama on the cover?
The same trashy Michelle who declared in November 2007, on the campaign trail in South Carolina, that if someone couldn't keep their 'home' in order, they couldn't be president. The term for what Michelle did is: bitchy.
The same Michelle who, when asked if she was a feminist, ran with these comments, "You know, I’m not that into labels. So probably, if you laid out a feminist agenda, I would probably agree with a large portion of it. I wouldn't identify as a feminist just like I probably wouldn’t identify as a liberal or a progressive."
Don't fret it, Michelle, we'd never mistake you for a feminist.
We'd never mistake your husband for one either. And for so many reasons not limited to his repeated use of the word "sweetie" to refer to women. Let's go to the woman who emerged as one of the bravest of 2008, Marie Cocco. From her "Obama's Abortion Stance When 'Feeling Blue'" (Washington Post Writers Group):
Obama says that these women should not be able to obtain a late-term abortion, because just "feeling blue" isn't the same as suffering "serious clinical mental health diseases." True enough. And totally infuriating.
During the recent Obama pander tour -- the one in which he spent about a week trying to win over conservative religious voters -- the presumptive Democratic nominee unnecessarily endorsed President Bush's faith-based initiative, a sort of patronage program that rewards religious activists for their political support with public grants. Then in a St. Louis speech, Obama declared that "I let Jesus Christ into my life." That's fine, but we already have a president who believes this was a qualification for the Oval Office, and look where that's gotten us.
Obama's verbal meanderings on the issue of late-term abortion go further. He has muddied his position. Whether this is a mistake or deliberate triangulation, only Obama knows for sure.
One thing is certain: Obama has backhandedly given credibility to the right-wing narrative that women who have abortions -- even those who go through the physically and mentally wrenching experience of a late-term abortion -- are frivolous and selfish creatures who might perhaps undergo this ordeal because they are "feeling blue."
Ms. chooses to ignore the above. Ms. chooses to ignore that George W. Bush appointed more women to his cabinet than Barack Obama has currently (his cabinet is unofficial until the Senate confirms the nominees).
"That's what feminism looks like!" gushes Ms. Really? You mean like this:
Seen but not heard?
Michelle Obama joined Senator Barack Obama at a rally Sunday, but she did not speak. That was hardly unusual, particularly because Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. was on hand to intorduce the man at the top of the Democratic ticket.
But Mr. Obama went on to offer an explanation anyway.
"Michelle decided she wasn't going to speak today," Mr. Obama told a crowd in Detroit. "She just wanted to sit there and look cute. That's O.K. It's O.K. with me!"
Mrs. Obama smiled, but it was unclear if it was O.K. with her.
You go, Sister Baracka!
Barack makes the girls at Ms. feel so good about themselves, they just feel like frolicking and, let's be honest, they feel like marketing hatred.
Closet-case Donna Brazile gets a column. Where's the out-proud lesbian in the pages of Ms. writing about that? Search in vain for that woman.
Good thing because no proud lesbian could work for Ms. these days. Rick Warren, the homophobe, will be the religious authority at Barack's inauguration and Ricky hates the gays -- male and female. He hates the women period.
As Reclusive Leftist explains:
When Rick Warren was invited to preside at Obama's Inauguration, I wrote that his selection was an insult to women everywhere. Warren is an antediluvian sexist who believes that women were put on earth to obey their husbands. His Christianity is a front for male supremacy; his biblical "literalism" a patchwork of cherry-picked verses. If his noxious doctrine were merely an intellectual exercise, it would be offensive.
But it's not an intellectual exercise. There are real-world consequences.
As Nina M. points out, Warren doesn't believe battered women have the right to seek a divorce. "God hates divorce," says Warren, with the confident affability of a 250-pound man who's never cowered in fear for his life:
It's not like you can escape the pain… You don't -- you don't escape the pain. And I'd always rather choose a short term pain and find God's solution for a long term gain, than try and find a short term solution that's going to involve a long term pain in life.
Actually, you can escape the pain -- and the fists and the knives and the drunken rages and the loaded guns. But somehow I don’t think that’s what Warren is talking about. I suspect none of those things are quite real to him, just as women aren't quite real to him -- not as full human beings, that is.
That's right, Ms. magazine supports homophobia and domestic abuse now. That's what their brand of 'feminism' looks like. What a proud, proud moment for them.
[For more on this topic, see Heidi Li's "This is just incredible."]
[Ty note: Link to Heidi Li fixed 1-12-09. Thanks to Debra for e-mailing to say it wasn't working.]