The rumor has it Chelsea Clinton is circulating Robin Morgan’s reprise of her famous Goodbye To All That essay from 1970. Robin Morgan is an ardent Hillary Clinton supporter, and a radical feminist.
In this essay, she excoriates those who attack Hillary Clinton, and makes a spirited argument for her candidate.
I am a feminist. I’ve always believed every intelligent man is a feminist at heart. As go the fate and fortunes of women, so goes the fate of men as well. In this response, I would have it made known Robin Morgan speaks for herself, and I neither support nor attack her positions, beyond what I write here. I will often rephrase Robin Morgan in the interests of clarity, unless otherwise cited, all quotes are from the essay itself.
Robin Morgan enumerates many disgusting caricatures of Hillary. Consider these all-too-common criticisms of Hillary: "too ballsy but too womanly, a Snow Maiden who’s emotional, and so much a politician as to be unfit for politics. Hillary is "ambitious" but Obama shows "fire in the belly." (Ever had labor pains?). When some idiot yelled "Iron my shirt" at an HRC rally, consider what would have happened if a racist idiot shouted "Shine my shoes!" at Obama. It would’ve inspired hours of airtime and pages of newsprint analyzing our national dishonor."
Morgan sneers at the Young Kennedys supporting Barack Obama, pointing out Sen. Ted Kennedy supports Clinton, making the ubiquitous Chappaquiddick crack. No, Ms. Morgan, Ted Kennedy is in the Obama camp, especially after Hillary made those ill-advised comments about JFK's civil rights legacy. I have said elsewhere Obama wishes to be seen in the same frame as John Kennedy, but in fairness, Bill Clinton’s picture with John F Kennedy went into heavy rotation when Bill was running for office.
Morgan waxes wroth against Carl Bernstein, for the "thick ankles" crack, and Roger Stone’s new 527 Hillary-attacking organization "Citizens United Not Timid" (that’s C.U.N.T). There’s John McCain answering "How do we beat the bitch?" with "Excellent question!" Over and over, Morgan draws parallels between misogynistic attacks on Hillary with empty tu-quoque comparisons to "black bastards" and suchlike.
Morgan has a point. Obama doesn’t have to endure such attacks. But are all such attacks on Hillary Clinton misogyny? Many of them are, and more is the shame of it. Obama is the fresh new face, supported by young people born in the 1970s who don’t understand the ugly face of racism. But many are not misogyny, Morgan does not cover these more substantive attacks.
Hillary Clinton is the most-hated figure in politics today. Lots of people passionately hate George Bush, but the vile attacks on Hillary, the Hillary nutcracker, metal spikes between her thighs, the South Park episode featuring terrorists inserting a bomb into Hillary’s vagina: these have no parallel, not even in cruelty of the Bush Haters. There’s something insidious and pervasive to these attacks, and nobody seems outraged.
Robin Morgan attacks the latent misogyny in much of the mainstream media. It’s not hard to spot: the cute little dingbat newsreaders, the consistent under-representation of women on talking head programs, Chris Matthews’ forced and entirely insincere apology about his sexist remarks. There’s a pattern of condescending stupidity in the press coverage of women, anyone can see it. More women vote than men.
John Lennon was right: "woman is the nigger of the world" It’s time someone said it out loud, used the N word in its rightful context. This country has come to terms, to some limited and inadequate extent with the problems of race, but feminism remains a quandary we have not fully addressed. Women’s issues are profoundly different than the issue of race: women are mothers, women are wives. The issues of reproductive rights remain a battleground: a continually sharpened axe used to divide us politically. I will be plain: abortion is a woman’s issue. Only one man has any say in the issue at all, the father, and he usually gets none. Women have been second-class citizens of this society since its inception, and for all the gains made in law, only reproductive rights remains a battleground, a fight led by the same religions which will not put women in their pulpits.
Robin Moore says Obama has to pass as white and Hillary as male. It is at this point where her otherwise-sound argument goes off the rails in a slow-motion crash and the hiss of steam bursting from her vitriolic boiler. As there is no point in discriminating between the races, there is no point in discrimination between women and men politically. Biology has no place in the ballot box, though I’m certainly glad to see a woman in the race. A strong woman is not acting "male" nor is a rah-rah politician "acting white" when he appeals to white voters. Many erstwhile Republican women like Hillary Clinton. If we must cast stones at Hillary, let it be on the basis of her "acting Republican" in her votes for the Iraq War and other issues anathema to Democrats in general.
Here are a few things I’d gladly say goodbye to. Goodbye to blaming people for sexual peccadilloes. Goodbye to the glad-handing, ambitious bastards who will say anything to anyone at any time to get elected.
May I also wish a goodbye to the 1970’s, please and thank you. Goodbye to strident nastiness which says 'man-hating' is an honorable and viable political act. Goodbye to the Woman Vote, the Black Vote, the Hispanic Vote. Goodbye to calling comparing Chelsea Clinton to the "the alcoholic, neurotic manner of the Bush twins!" It’s all bullshit: Morgan doesn’t like the Hillary nutcracker doll. I have this reservation about attacking the wives and children of politicians, Morgan crossed a line there. Goodbye to the stupidity of once-revolutionary feminist retreads dancing, lit by the flickering of burning straw men.
Hillary Clinton is arguably more qualified than the other candidates. But I will not have my reservations about Hillary Clinton’s many political transmogrifications reduced to "She’s better qualified. (D’uh.)" Hillary Clinton may not have been a cheerleader for the varsity football team, but she was an ace rah-rah high-kickin’ sis-boom-bah cheerleader for this goddamn war in Iraq, and still is. And still won’t own up to it. I’d find Hillary Clinton a whole lot more palatable if she’d quit weaseling her way around her shortcomings and distortions.
No, Ms. Morgan, you are not among the women who brought this country equal credit, better pay, affirmative action, the concept of a family-focused workplace. That would be the much-hated Dead White Males who enacted the Fourteenth Amendment containing the Equal Protection Clause in 1868, proposed by John Armor Bingham, a Republican from Ohio. The patient work of thousands of men and women of good will has built the superstructure of equality, and the 1970s did little to advance it. Ravening protests and damnation of men did nothing. It is because of coprophagous women like you that America still has a bad taste in its mouth about Women’s Liberation. As for pornography, it grows viler and more acceptable by the minute. Women are ever more degraded, ever more exploited, ever more accustomed to enhancing their bodies with plastic surgery and disgusting tattoos. The legacy of your struggle for equality never once considered woman’s greatest asset, the mystery of her role as friend, lover, mother, grandmother.
Hillary Clinton, for better or worse, is a politician. She began her political life campaigning for Republicans, converted to the Democratic Party, and became a fine lawyer. Her 1973 paper on children’s rights remains quoted to this day. I cannot read her mind, but this I know for sure, over time: the heartfelt slogans of my youth have become cheap mantras. Enlightenment is an ongoing process, but Robin Morgan has not evolved.
Morgan says "Me, I’m voting for Hillary not because she’s a woman—but because I am."
May I reply: may this country be preserved from biological politics.