A Broader View

 

With the mental acuity and epistemological finesse that is frequently her trademark, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd skewered the faux feminists who were campaigning against Arnold Schwarzenegger in favor of the donkey incumbent. Dowd railed against people like Hillary Clinton and Ann Richards whose lips were shackled when it came to trashing the muscleman’s groping.

Hillary Clinton couldn’t say anything, having defended her Predator-in-Chief as the victim of "a right-wing conspiracy." And it was Richards who said in defense of Slick Willie just a few precious years ago, "If we try to retire every man from office who's done what he did, we wouldn't need affirmative action."

Dowd wrote, "Feminism died in 1998 when Hillary allowed henchlings and Democrats to demonize Monica as an unbalanced stalker, and when Gloria Steinem defended Mr. Clinton against Kathleen Willey and Paula Jones by saying he had merely made clumsy passes, then accepted rejection, so there was no sexual harassment involved."

What’s so significant about what seems such an obvious if pointed truth is that Ms. Dowd has for years been tarred as liberal. For a liberal to declare the death of feminism is deliciously important, since most conservatives would be ignored on the subject. She better watch out or she’s gonna wind up on someone’s black list.

Oops. Can’t say black list. That’s racist.

That may be hyperbolic but it’s not far off. A while back, a San Francisco Chronicle columnist apologized for offending a reader when she reported being in a black mood. The supplication by the writer was most regrettable, epitomizing as it did the guilt-run-amok obsequiousness of liberals in extremis.

The other day, as part of a panel discussing the Racial Privacy Initiative, I was virtually assaulted by a professor who roused the audience by demanding reparations for all whose skin color was black. People who want -- who demand -- that they be compensated for the suffering of their forebears are not interested in a healthy society but in getting grease for their squeaky turns. If they truly cared, they’d ask for the children instead of themselves, just as honest pols would demand the same standards of their allies as they do their enemies.

If we’re ever to get our society back on track, we’re gonna have to give up the notion that every woman, every personofcolor, every disadvantaged has a legitimate gripe. Yes, there is racism and sexism and ageism and every other kind of discrimination in our society, but these issues are not resolved by tilting the table unevenly in the every other direction.

And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.

 

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