The boys from the Misogyny Channel were in fine form last night during the Ohio Democratic presidential debate. Tim Russert and Brian Williams of MSNBC modeled their debate performances after last week's Saturday Night Live skit.
During Countdown, Keith Olbermann set up the debate with riveting questions such as: Which Hillary will show up at the debate? At some point in the coverage, I actually heard the term, 'mood swings.' Keith asked Hillary-hater Chuck Todd what phrases folks should look for when they played their debate drinking games. Chuck Todd suggested we should all have a drink every time we heard 'The Laugh.' Immediately, angry white males everywhere began making jokes about 'The Cackle.'
In case we didn't already know about Keith's most fervent hopes, the actual title of his show gave it away: Countdown Tuesday: The Last Debate. Yeah Keith, it's the last debate IF and only IF Hillary loses the March 4th primaries. And if that doesn't happen, we all know that you will be positively and adolescently crushed.
Despite the fact that the MSNBC misogynists and the rest of the pack journalists are continually framing the race as though Hillary has lost it, the candidates are in fact tied. But little facts like that do not stop the cable news channels from running 24/7 obituaries for Hillary's campaign. Obviously, when they repeat it often enough, and they do, undecided voters are persuaded go for the winner - or the lucky candidate that the media has declared to be the winner. To date, this has proved to be the well-documented pattern.
But that didn't stop Russert and Williams from behaving as if Hillary is the front-runner. The boys hurled a slew of 'gotcha' questions at Hillary, on NAFTA, job creation, the release of White House archives, etc. Hillary got to go first on the hard questions, and Obama got to say: 'What she said.' Can he do that when he is president? Repeatedly, Russert barked at and interrupted Hillary, while the Chosen One, Obama was free to ramble on forever.
Obama did get some tough questions -- tough questions about Hillary -- such as: "How were her comments about you unfair?"
According to Williams, they spent 16 minutes at the outset of the debate on the topic of health care. Hillary was passionate and aggressive enough for them to call her a bitch. Maybe that's why Obama kept shaking his head and smirking. It was disturbing. Repeatedly, he tried to interrupt her, but the bitch just kept talking.
Tim Russert could not keep the scathing hostility out of his voice. His body language was alarming. I thought he was going to lunge at her. Hillary was asked if she would deny that her campaign sent out the infamous photo of Obama in tribal garments. Clearly, you do not need evidence in order to challenge Senator Hillary Clinton, all you need is Drudge's word. No one asked Obama why he or his campaign accepted the word of Drudge.
When Hillary pointed out that Obama's campaign fliers misrepresent her position on NAFTA and universal health care, Obama made vague and unsubstantiated allusions to similar tactics by Hillary's campaign and added rather royally, "We haven't whined about it."
And we learned that the reason Obama hasn't held any meetings during his time as chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe is because he's been busy running for president of the United States of America.
Hillary made the point that electing a woman as president would bring about 'a sea change' in America. And we were reminded of why they hate her so. Later Chris Matthews wondered what she meant by that, no doubt envisioning the Coming Matriarchy. He dismissed the idea that a woman in charge would result in any change at all.
And finally, Hillary actually dared to point out the blatant media bias that women everywhere are griping about and in doing so, she delivered my favorite line of the night: "Maybe we should ask Barack if he's comfortable and needs another pillow." They already didn't like her, and the boys will surely crucify her for it, but they were going to do that anyway. And who knows, maybe women everywhere will find the courage to follow her example. To hell with what the boys think, sometimes you just have to be a bitch and say it.
This will be the clip that the boys play and replay.
It is time to retire the practice of having the media in charge of the debates. Tim Russert is the biggest asshole on the planet.
Photo via NY Times (transcript)
See the entire debate.
"[S]ome people looked at those clips of Hillary Clinton on Saturday and thought, perhaps, about the b-word."
Media Misogyny Hillary Clinton Barack Obama Feminist News Gender Politics Video Ohio Texas MSNBC Barack's Pillow
