I Know You Are but What Am I?

I don’t want to join the not-so-civil War of the Sisterhood that is now raging in the media and the blogosphere. But the snowballing polarization of women’s views has drafted me into it.

Leave it to the Republican Party to blindside Democrats with their divide-and- conquer coup. Setting aside for a moment the cynical sub-text of choosing an unqualified Vice Presidential candidate on the strategic basis of her sex, McCain has so undermined the woman’s point of view that it is pulling apart like a zygote separating into twins. Which half of the view is more viable?

Sarah Palin apologists claim she is the victim of a “Shock-and-Awe” sexist attack launched by the angry left.

Mooseshit.

Voices from the Left, Middle, and even occasionally the Right have attacked Ms. Palin's views because she (1) condones the war in Iraq as “God’s Plan” for America; (2) is dedicated to repealing Roe V. Wade and thereby aborting our reproductive rights; (3) does not believe global warming is man-made and wants polar bears removed from the endangered species list even as the ice cap melts beneath their paws; (4) claims to be against earmarks even though just this year she sent Sen. Ted. Stevens, R-Alaska, a proposal for 31 earmarks totaling $197 million, more per person than any other state (www.nytimes.com). I doubt that a single disappointed Clinton supporter would lend one second of sympathy to Palin if she were a... he.

Would anyone claim that an interviewer had been “mean” to Joe Biden?.

Would anyone feel sorry for Joe if the interviewer uncovered his lack of knowledge about a policy vital to his party’s record?.

Would any members of the opposition party cry foul if Joe were asked to explain his inconsistent positions on key campaign issues?

Palin supporters contend that I and other feminists can’t critique her views, her record and her weaknesses without being labeled sexist. There is no Presidential race in broadcast history that hasn’t examined candidates and their running mates from every angle, including the one normally visible only during a colonoscopy. Why should Ms. Palin get a girl-pass?

I am offended by those who defend Ms. Palin against all criticism and lump every negative observation about her into the Sexist bag… and I am enraged when Republicans pretend they can’t tell the difference between sexism and legitimate inquiry. I agree that remarks such as Bill Maher’s, “Palin thinks the Bush doctrine is a rule against the removal of pubic hair” are sexist. But that doesn’t mean I can’t point out the real issue: Palin didn’t know what the Bush doctrine is. And it doesn’t mean that, once it was explained to her, I can’t recognize the implications of her vehement defense of pre-emptive strikes against other nations. CRITICIZING HER FOR THIS POSITION IS NOT SEXIST.

From exactly what jar of Pablum is the Right trying to spoon-feed us? Republicans are now claiming to have “liberated” women from the “fear politics” of losing our reproductive freedoms, as if such a loss were a preposterous notion. Here, in McCain’s own words, is his position on the choice issue: "If I am fortunate enough to be elected as the next President of the United States, I pledge to you to be a loyal and unswerving friend of the right to life movement." (Statement by Sen. McCain read by Sen. Sam Brownback at the March for Life in Washington, DC, January 22, 2008.)

Before dismissing McCain’s statement as pacification of the GOP base, remember that he: Voted anti-choice 125 out of 130 times in his Congressional career; Voted for the global gag rule, which prohibits federally funded family-planning clinics from giving women full information about their reproductive-health options; Voted for and co-sponsored the Federal Abortion Ban; Voted in favor of anti-choice Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Chief Justice John Roberts. Google it and weep, ladies.

Yesterday on This Week with George Stephanopoulous, RNC Victory Fund Chair Carly Fiorino scoffed that American women are no longer one-issue voters. Meaning, since we don’t have to worry about the “fear politics” of Palin’s position on choice, we also don’t have to worry about her position on, say, the environment. (Palin aggressively opposed the "clean water initiative" on the August ballot in Alaska, favoring instead foreign mining company desires for fewer government regulations controlling their toxic effluent into salmon streams. She has supported oil and gas drilling plans anywhere in Alaska, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the central Arctic, the entire Arctic Ocean, and in fish-rich Bristol Bay and Cook Inlet. Source: Seattlepi.nwsource.com)

But even more annoying in the She-Said/ She-Said arguments was when, on the same Stephanopoulous show, Ms. Fiorino claimed that Sarah Palin responded to corruption in Alaska by raising her hands and crying out, “Enough!”

I don’t care if Republican candidates appear in the upcoming Presidential debates wearing blackface and touting their community organizing credentials. I don’t care if Democrats and Republicans meet in secret at the end of the day and drink toasts to Absolute Power with human blood in champagne glasses. I don’t care if Obama grabs his fake rubber face by the chin and pulls it up to reveal a green mass of tentacles the day after he wins the election.

The stakes in this election are too high to lose sight of the critical issues: I want my reproductive rights. I want to protect our environment and curtail global warming. I want tax breaks for the working class as well as for the rich. I want Neo-cons to reclaim our national prestige from the latrines of Abu Graib where they dumped it. I want my state and your church to remain separate. And I am much more likely to get one or more of these results with Joe Biden in the White House instead of Sarah Palin.

Does that make me a sexist?

I know you are, but what am I?