Is it their blonde hair color, or is it their having the temerity to ask uncomfortable questions that generates such anger from men like Donald Trump and Newt Gingrich? Both Hillary Clinton and Megyn Kelly seem to get under the skin of these misogynists better than anyone else on the planet. And both women seem to do it without hesitation and without needing to point fingers for emphasis. They do it with a sure-footed poise that is a wonder to behold.
Unless forced to spend time in the waiting room of the dealership where my car is serviced, I don’t watch much of what Fox News Channel broadcasts (car dealers usually provide great coffee and crappy television). But last week’s confrontation of Newt Gingrich by Megyn Kelly was one of those clips that made the rounds on news sites and social media. A little looking unearthed the entire eight-minute segment.
While The Kelly File likely won’t be taking up space on my TiVo anytime soon, it was hard not to be impressed by this woman’s skill and determination to discuss what she wanted to discuss, and not settle for a walk through the alternate reality that Newt was describing. She skillfully brought him back to a discussion of the harm that Trump may be causing down-ballot races regardless of how Republicans may have outpaced Democrats in early voting in a few states. She mentioned that Donald Trump has been sinking in the last 40 polls—Newt responded that polls are not always accurate because of that one time way back in history when the “liberal” Detroit newspaper said that the Republican candidate was going to lose, but he won the governorship of Michigan anyway. Or something like that.
Before Megyn Kelly could complete her question that began with the words “If Donald Trump is a sexual predator,” Newt Gingrich interrupted to berate her for using inflammatory language to make claims that were untrue. (Newt Gingrich said that with a straight, albeit angry, face.)
Newt has never had my respect, even before he began the impeachment process against President Bill Clinton while he himself was carrying on an adulterous affair with a congressional aide. The whole Contract with America was such an obvious con that he had to stage its signing in front of the Capitol building.
Little did he know that he was only preparing the way for Donald Trump. HIs antics, including the federal government shutdown of 1995/1996 (which created the opportunity for the Clinton/Lewinsky affair to begin) because he had to exit from the back of Air Force One on the flight to Yitzhak Rabin’s funeral and his use of his GOPAC as a slush fund, have much in common with the notoriously thin-skinned Republican Presidential candidate who is raking in money from his own campaign. It is a shame that Trump picked Pence over Gingrich as his running mate. Like a massive, 10-car pile up, a Trump/Gingrich ticket would have been irresistible viewing.
As it is, Gingrich displays much of the same behavior that Donald is known for while he acts as a Trump surrogate. When Megyn called him on the reality of the sinking polls that are reflecting Trump’s comments about “grabbing women by their genitals,” he diverted the conversation by suggesting that the Clinton campaign had close ties to a sexual predator. He then challenged her to say the words “Bill Clinton” and “sexual predator.” His insistence on her use of his vocabulary was reminiscent of Donald Trump insisting that Hillary Clinton use the words “radical Islamic terrorists.” Not because no other words would do, but because there is a great deal of control vested in whoever chooses the terms.
Both men appear to hate and fear turning over control of anything to a woman, whether it is word selection or the Oval Office. Women, to them, are objects to be rated, reprimanded, interrupted, corrected, or groped.
Megyn Kelly has been dealing with a lot of that lately—at least since she asked Donald Trump the first question at the first debate between some of the Republican presidential candidates. Trump attacked her essence as a woman, suggesting that having her menstrual period caused her to ask him such an unfair question about his verbal abuse of women.
There was a time, not too very long ago, that jobs requiring judgment were closed to women because it was felt that their hormones would get the better of them once a month—opportunities were withheld, unabashedly, because women menstruate. And here was Donald Trump, rattling that cage in 2015, suggesting that Megyn Kelly was being mean to him because she was a woman and was bleeding from some orifice. Not because he was an asshole who earned the question that many women wanted answered, but because Megyn Kelly must be menstruating and unable to control her emotions.
Earlier this year it came out that Roger Ailes, president of Fox News Channel, had been sexually harassing women who were employed by the network. Triggered by a lawsuit filed by anchor Gretchen Carlson, additional women came forward to claim that they too had been harassed by Ailes. Within two days of Megyn Kelly’s report to the Murdoch investigators that she had been harassed by Ailes early in her career at Fox, Ailes resigned from the network.
How does all of this make her a strange bedfellow of Hillary Clinton’s? Well, it certainly isn’t a matter of politics. While those of Hillary Clinton are well known, the political views of Megyn Kelly aren’t so clear-cut, although, considering her workplace, it is a safe bet that she leans conservative.
Nor is it a matter of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Taking on Roger Ailes, Newt Gingrich, and Donald Trump while working for Fox News is an admirable endeavor as far as liberals are concerned—or it would be, if her differences with them went further than the way women should be treated.
No, it is in the treatment that she has received, and how she has responded to it, that closely parallels what we have seen from the next president of the United States. They both held steady, refused the bait, and did their jobs serenely and competently. And they both made the men challenging them look like the utter fools that they were being.
The thing about sexual harassment is that it knows no political boundaries. It is the one thing that every woman can relate to whether she wants to build a wall or a bridge, or just walk down a street without being told to smile after some jerk compliments her ass.
So chalk up one more life lesson from this eternal election season. There are things that unite us as well as things that divide us. For women, there is a sense of “enough is enough”—we are neither your children nor your playthings. We are your equals and we are tired to death of waiting for power to be shared. Some of us will even cross party lines on Nov. 8 because there are things that are more important than political party.
The future we create for our daughters is one of those things.