** UPDATE: It's not even close in the poll. 86% of people think misogyny is as bad as racism. Add in the 6% who think misogyny is worse, and that's 92%. So, why is nobody calling for Matthews' head on a platter again? **
Remember all the outrage this site directed toward Don Imus after his "nappy-headed ho" comment?
Well, I think people were right to be outraged. But I wonder if people consider blatant misogyny as bad a racism.
On the June 24 edition of the NBC-syndicated Chris Matthews Show, during a discussion about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), host Chris Matthews asked Kathleen Parker, a syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group, if "being surrounded by women" makes "a case for commander in chief -- or does it make a case against it?" [...]
For the record, I don't think there is anything wrong with asking the question, but when it is asked by Chris Matthews, you know he's angling toward something.
Asked by Time managing editor Richard Stengel, "What are you suggesting by asking does this diminish her as a commander in chief by being surrounded by women?," Matthews replied: "No, the idea that it -- well, let me just get historic. We've never had a woman commander in chief."
Wow, Matthews is quite the historian! "We've never had a woman commander in chief. I think Stengal was right, Matthews "suggests something" practically every time he barks a question. This time he was suggesting that women are unfit to be CIC. His squirmy argument that he was being "historical" doesn't pass the laugh test.
As a follow-up to his question, Matthews said: "But isn't that a challenge, because when it comes down to that final decision to vote for president, a woman president, a woman commander in chief, will be an historic decision for people. Not just men, but women as well." Turning to New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller, Matthews added: "Elisabeth, you're always thinking about these things." Bumiller referred to Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher -- women who were elected to lead Israel and the United Kingdom -- and said: "[W]e all remember these women.... I think we can get there." Matthews responded, "But we've got Patton and John Wayne on our side."
Matthews is an idiot. He claimed that he was being historical about his question and that we had never had a woman as commander in chief, yet he offers us John Wayne and Patton as examples of macho, manly, testosterone saturated ideals of what a Commander in Chief should be. The problem, of course, is that "historically speaking" neither Wayne nor Patton were ever, ever Commander in Chief. Amazing. Hell, Wayne never even served in the military.
This entire exchange isn't the tidy soundbite of "nappy-headed ho," but the idea it conveys - that women aren't fit for the highest level of office - certainly reaches the level of racism Imus peaked out on.
So we're left with the question, "Is misogyny as bad as racism?" If so, isn't it time for Matthews to go the way of Imus?