But this has just been beyond the pale. The pathological obsession of the media with Clinton and their atrocious coverage, using barely veiled or openly sexist angles has been astounding.

Isn't Hillary one of the 50 or so most powerful politicians in the nation, regardless of gender? Didn't she win two big elections in NY? One, solidly, by about 12 points and the second, after leading every poll against her male opponent by wide margins, by about a 30 point landslide?

1. REQUIRE both biological parents to support a caregiver for 2 years, AND

2. REQUIRE both biological parents to take 2 years off per kid. Time off would have to happen before age 4.

if dad is gone / useless as parent / who knows, mom still has to contribute to support of some caregiver.

We already have a system in place to chase deadbeat dads (needs lots of fixing and tweaking), so we can fix it for moms.

o.k. here is ANOTHER statement to peee lots of people off. Mommy's baby daddys maybe. We KNOW who the mom is. Duh.

Little Kids ain't cars or t.v.s or boats or skis in the closet - they need constant HUMAN attention and care and love and care and care and time and time and time, so let's REQUIRE that that time will happen.

Why REQUIRE the dads - cuz now we'll get MORE attention to funding for parent helping kids cuz DADS are gonna be stuck taking care of their own seed, OR they're gonna be doing something to help the community (cleaning the playgrounds?) for NO money for 2 years.

Let's get real -- when you are outta the job market for 4 years your rolodex is filled with cobwebs, you're back almost to ground zero for job hunting, your income takes a hit ...

make it so guys are outta work, they'll see what women go through, and ... somebody will figure out changes to the job market, or, at least, men and women will be competing on the same playing field!

That being said Hillary has had to deal the a lot of  gender politics.  I'm tempted to say of her own making, but that is completely unfair.  I think Barack Obama better understood how his race can and would be played and positioned him self better.  The issues with race are more apparent.  I think Hillary has had a lot more problems with her gender, and Chris Matthews is sexist.  From the way he always has to point out how attractive women, calls them cuties, in a professional setting it's insulting.

While I think white women, on average, have greater opportunities for obtaining a good education and training than people of color of any gender, I think that women (of any race) face more hurdles in the job world than men (of any race).  For those who disagree with me, let me provide this observation, and then ask a question.

I just graduated law school and started work at a pretty high powered corporate firm.  Our entering class is half men/half women.  Already, most of the women in my class are planning their exits.  Why?  Because they want to have kids, assume they will be the primary caregivers, and reason that they will have to end (or at least seriously sidetrack) their careers in order to provide for the kids while their husbands press forward with their careers.  And, I might add, most of the men here seem perfectly fine with that setup (and remember, these are the younger generation of men and women, many of whom think of themselves as rather progressive when it comes to "social issues.")

That's my observation, and here's my question.  How many of you who are in your 20s and 30s see things going the same way for you and your spouse/significant other?  

Besides the point, I think that Clinton just has a problem with young women who don't think it's that big a deal to have her as our first female president.  A different female sure (me?), but not Clinton.  She's also running up against people who are tireed of the same two families holding the presidency.  And yes, she's running against the media who are either distorting or magnifying everything.  

Take her outburst at the debates on Sat.  All the media sites liveblogging the debates said the same thing, "Oh, that's going to be replayed over and over again.  She's got to recover from that."  Monday rolls around and what are these channels playing?  To tell the truth, by the end of the debate, I had forgotten about her outburst for a moment.  

But Steinem is so incredibly wrong on this front.  White women are more often "given" much more leeway, advantages and opportunities than any minority regardless of gender and if anyone should know that she should.  For someone like Steinem to actually say that is laughable and insulting. Look at feminism, as a movement.  Did Steinem ever have to face police dogs, fire hoses and be scared of lynching to get equal rights for women?  

"Let me tell you something," Mr. Obama countered on Sunday, "the real gamble is having the same old folks doing the same old things against and expecting a different result. That is not an approach we can afford."

The New York Times, February 21, 1967
C.I.A. Subsidized Festival Trips
Hundreds of Students Were
Sent to World Gatherings

A New York freelance writer disclosed yesterday that the Central Intelligence Agency had supported a foundation that sent hundreds of Americans to World Youth Festivals in Vienna in 1959 and Helsinki, Finland, in 1962.

Gloria Steinem, a 30-year-old graduate of Smith College, said the C.I.A. has been a major source of funds for the foundation, the Independence [sic -- Independent] Research Service, since its formation in 1958. Almost all of the young persons who received aid from the foundation did not know about the relationship with the intelligence agency, Miss Steinem said. Ironically, she said, many of the students who attended the festivals have been criticized as leftists. The festivals are supposed to be financed by contributions from national student unions, but are, in fact, largely supported by the Soviet Union.

Miss Steinem said she had become convinced that American students should participate in the World Youth Festivals after she spent two years in India.

"I came home in 1958 full of idealism and activism, to discover that very little was being done," she said. "Students were not taken seriously here before the civil rights movement, and private money receded at the mention of a Communist youth festival."

Hears of Funds

Miss Steinem said she had talked to some former officers of the National Student Association, who told her C.I.A. money might be available to finance American participation in the seventh postwar festival scheduled for Vienna in the summer of 1959.
The former association officers had had ties with the C.I.A. while serving the association, which last week conceded it had taken money from the intelligence agency since 1952.

"Far from being shocked by this involvement, I was happy to find some liberals in government in those days, who were far-sighted and cared enough to get Americans of all political views to the festival," Miss Steinem said. She noted that most Americans who had attended various festivals were sympathetic to Communist policies.

The Independence [sic] Research Service, originally called the Independent Service for Information on the Vienna Festival, was organized with headquarters in Cambridge, Mass. It concentrated, Miss Steinem said, on disseminating information about the festival and urging young persons who espoused flexible, but non-Communist, foreign policy views to attend.

Miss Steinem was a full-time employe of the service till following the Helsinki festival in 1962.

About 130 youths who had made contact with the foundation did attend, although few of them received significant financial help, Miss Steinem said.

Recruits for Festival

Before the Helsinki festival in 1962 the foundation again recruited young teachers, lawyers, scholars, linguists and journalists -- most of whom would consider themselves very liberal Democrats -- to attend.
The Independent Service financed a newspaper, a new [sic -- news?] bureau, cultural exhibits and two jazz clubs during the festival. However, its most important work was to convince youths from Asia, Africa and Latin America that some Americans understood their aspirations for national self-determination, Miss Steinem said.

Miss Steinem insisted that the C.I.A. had never tried to alter the policy of the foundation.

"I was never asked to report on other Americans or assess foreign nationals I had met," she said.

Miss Steinem noted that since the foundation was started in "the post-McCarthy era" the Federal Government could not openly finance the foundation. Overt government support would also have "alienated" youths from other countries who were suspicious of the United States, she said.

"The C.I.A.'s big mistake was not supplanting itself with private funds fast enough," she observed.

Make that an apologist for the CIA too.

The CIA's strategy has always been to divide and conquer social movements that threaten the oligarchy. Steinem first worked by infiltrating student movements, then worked for the CIA by invoking feminism when it worked to divide. If you don't believe it, go back and check the funding and staffing of MS. Magazine when it was founded. Nothing new with her game. In this race where one candidate is a black man, another is a white woman, and a third is calling for social justice, why wouldn't we expect an old CIA hand to try to stir up things further?

Will the media slur a candidate who threatens the status quo? You bet. And the CIA, the police force of the status quo, will do its best to destroy any threat to its masters.

Today, in Dover, Francine Torge, a former John Edwards supporter, said this while introducing Mrs. Clinton: "Some people compare one of the other candidates to John F. Kennedy. But he was assassinated. And Lyndon Baines Johnson was the one who actually" passed the civil rights legislation.

The comment, an apparent reference to Senator Barack Obama, is particularly striking given documented fears among blacks that Mr. Obama will be assassinated if elected.

I'm sure I will hear the excuses spare me.  If she can't elevate her campaign beyond this, how can she ever elevate our country. Politics doesn't get much uglier than this.  I hope this is a gaffe and was unintentional, but it comes in a trail of remarks deriding historical figures.  

That it provides a legal basis for attack on the most subtle, most pervasive, and its most institutionalized form of prejudice that exists. Discrimination against women solely on the basis of their sex is so wide spread that it seems to many persons normal, natural, and right.

Ok, so the comedy needs some work but the thought process is solid.  It would have been a good light hearted response to a couple of jackasses, that would have played much better in the MSM as opposed to what was perceived as a frustration response to a couple of jackasses.

This race is not about who is toughest or the biggest hawk, it is about changing the perception that Hillary is cold.  

She would have taken high road, embarassed the hell out of the men (they would have taken a beating in the press) and she would have received some positive press for a change.