Media Matters: On the April 5 edition of MSNBC's Tim Russert, host Tim Russert asked Vanity Fair columnist Christopher Hitchens if "we [are] seeing the gender card played" by Sen. Hillary Clinton in response to calls for her to drop out of the Democratic presidential primary race. Hitchens replied: "Oh, well, if you call it a card. It's just another side of her terrible self-pity and self-righteousness. If it isn't one, it's the other." Hitchens further asserted that "if you think of women who really have been put upon by men and by male supremacy, like Benazir Bhutto, as well, you can't imagine her resorting to this kind of self-pity or suddenly decide to feminize herself in the most clichéd way, of such -- by welling up and sobbing." Hitchens later added: "I just think that if she knew how it made her look, sort of alternately soppy and bitchy, she'd stop it. But she can't help herself, can she? She just can't."
At the conclusion of the show, which included Atlantic senior editor Andrew Sullivan, Russert stated: "Thank you both for writing and thinking and talking with intelligence."
Hillary Clinton Media Bias MSNBC Politics Barack Obama Democratic Primary News Gender Sexism Misogyny Tim Russert NBC Male Media
