You don’t need to study psychiatry in Vienna to conclude that Sarah Huckabee Sanders has got some profound issues dealing with other women and how men and women relate to one another in the real world. In her undying efforts to stand by her man, Donald Trump, and all the men of the White House, no matter what they’ve said or done, Huckabee Sanders has gone to war primarily with truth as she lies her way through each press conference, but also plainly with the members of her own gender.
In October, John Kelly railed against Congresswoman Frederica Wilson, calling her an “empty barrel,” and castigating her for revealing details of the conversation that her widowed friend Myeishia Johnson, had on speaker phone with Trump, when going to the airport to retrieve the remains of her late war veteran husband. Wilson simply told the truth of what she heard while a passenger in the limo. For that, Kelly went the extra mile in crushing her as an Enemy of the [trum]People, by slanderously stating that Wilson had bragged about talking Barack Obama out of money for a building in Florida, which she never had. Despite a Sun-Sentinal video showing that Kelly had it all wrong, Sanders doubled down and defended Kelly, beyond all reason, when the video clearly showed that Wilson did not say what Kelly said that she had said on the occasion in question. Nevertheless, she sided with The Man in the dispute, when asked if Kelly still stood by the comments he made, in light of the incriminating memo.
"Absolutely," Sanders replied. "General Kelly said he was stunned that Representative Wilson would make comments at a building dedication honoring slain FBI agents about her own actions in Congress, including lobbying former President Obama on legislation."
"As General Kelly pointed out, if you're able to make a sacred act like honoring American heroes all about yourself, you're an empty barrel," Sanders added. "If you don't understand that reference, I'll put it a little more simply: as we say in the South, ‘all hat, no cattle.'"
"There was a lot of grandstanding; he was stunned that she had taken that opportunity to make it about herself," Sanders said.
The reporter asked if Kelly would address the matter further since he was "wrong," and Sanders dismissed that claim.
"If you want to go after General Kelly, that's up to you," Sanders said. "If you want to get into a debate with a four-star Marine general, I think that's something highly inappropriate."
Parse that one out for a moment, as many did: it’s “inappropriate” even to ask a powerful man to account for his own words, or explain his own actions. Powerful men are a law unto themselves, apparently, in Sanders’ world; he who has the gold makes the rules, at least to her satisfaction.
There’s also a psychological term, “witch message,” which translates as a message which a person doesn’t recall being given consciously; but unconsciously, the idea was very definitely learned at some point. Sanders evidently got the information from somewhere that if a woman conflicted with a man 1. It was the woman’s fault, first, last and always; 2. a woman should always stand down from any conflict with a man, no matter how right she is, because women don’t have the same rights; 3. the male is the ultimate authority and has a divine right to a double standard. Any imperfection on his part can be explained away by “boys will be boys” whereas imperfection on a woman’s part can and will be held against her to the fullest extent possible. 4. When in doubt any ambiguity will always be construed in favor of the man and against the woman.
Yesterday’s White House press conference wherein Sanders flailed like a beached whale when asked to account for the White House’s handling of the Rob Porter scandal was a new low, even for Sanders, as recounted by Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post:
She dripped disdain.
She oozed contempt.
“If you were paying attention to what I just read to you . . .” she huffed, like an exasperated teacher reprimanding a classroom troublemaker.
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Watching the press secretary at Monday’s briefing, the words that came to mind were these: A new low.
Yes, a new rock bottom from the podium at the Trump White House press briefing.
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But she did it. Time after time Monday, Sanders stuck to her pallid script, repeating without elaboration the words she said the president had told her to say, expressing his supposed support for domestic violence victims, although just days before he seemed much more sympathetic to those accused of abuse, specifically his deposed aide Rob Porter.
Sanders has shown herself to be useless when dealing with Donald Trump’s cocky vulgarity. On those occasions, she’s not only the frustrated schoolmarm, she seems to hail from another planet altogether.
Sanders’s Monday performance brought to mind a similar instance from mid-December: Trump had tweeted about Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), calling her “a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office ‘begging’ for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them.)”
When asked in the briefing whether that didn’t sound an awful lot like sexual innuendo, Sanders turned the tables, telling the reporter, “Your mind is in the gutter.”
You might think that as one of the most visible women in the Trump administration, Sanders would bring some credibility — maybe even sympathy — to bear on subjects related to respect for women.
In fact, it seems to bring out the worst in her.
Raj Shah, who filled in for vacationing Sanders last week, said that the White House, “Could have done better,” in its response to the Porter debacle, a comment which allegedly annoyed Trump. Sanders was back to her usual defiant obfuscation on Monday, meeting Trump administration wrongdoing with a double dose of indignation and attack upon the media, which seems to be the only formula that the White House press office knows how to maintain.
Colbie Holderness, Porter’s ex-wife, said in a piece in the Washington Post with regards to Sanders, that she “expected more from a woman.” She’s not the only one. Even Republican Women For Progress were none too thrilled with the White House’s fumbling of this particular ball.
"All of these women—Huckabee Sanders, Conway, Ivanka—have the potential to be better role models and positive voices for Republican women and women in general," Jennifer Pierotti Lim, the co-founder of Republican Women for Progress, told Newsweek. "I think there’s still time for them to come out as role models and be voices of reason within this otherwise unreasonable administration. We're crossing our fingers."
Her co-founder, Meghan Milloy, said if the women of the White House spoke out against domestic abuse with a unified voice, it could "send a message that women are an important group to this administration"—a message women have yet to hear.
But Setmayer said any gestures now would be too little, too late.
"You never have a second chance to make a first impression, and theirs was full-throated support for Porter and not believing his accusers," Setmayer said. "It would be disingenuous if they came out now and said they stand against domestic violence. No one wants to hear that now."