Harold Meyerson.
That Clinton has impassioned supporters, many of whom link her candidacy to the feminist cause, hardly qualifies as news. And it's certainly true that along the campaign trail Clinton has encountered some outrageously sexist treatment, just as Barack Obama has been on the receiving end of bigoted treatment. (Obama has even been subjected to anti-Muslim bigotry despite the fact that he's not Muslim.) But somehow, a number of Clinton supporters have come to identify the seating of Michigan and Florida not merely with Clinton's prospects but with the causes of democracy and feminism -- an equation that makes a mockery of democracy and feminism.
No doubt.
Remember, Clinton supported the Michigan and Florida sanctions when she thought she'd coast to the nomination. And her main advisor, Harold Ickes, actually voted for those sanctions as a member of the DNC committee that levied them. But of course, neither Ickes nor Hillary could be bothered to uphold whatever democratic and feminist principles have magically appeared now that Clinton is desperately grasping at straws for the nomination.
People were freaking out over the RFK stuff, but really, the most infuriating part of this campaign is Clinton's lack of intellectual honesty. The shifting rationales. The constantly moving goal posts. The disrespect for rules and the intelligence of the public. Its rank dishonesty and purposefully flawed readings of history.
In short, the bullshit we've been subjected to the past four months. Had there been some intellectual consistency, then fine. But the "against it before it was politically necessary to be for it" bullshit has been unbearable.
Last August, when the DNC Rules Committee voted to strip Florida (and Michigan, if it persisted in clinging to its date) of its delegates, the Clinton delegates on the committee backed those sanctions. All 12 Clinton supporters on the committee supported the penalties. (The only member of the committee to vote against them was an Obama supporter from Florida.) Harold Ickes, a committee member, leading Clinton strategist and acknowledged master of the political game, said, "This committee feels very strongly that the rules ought to be enforced." Patty Solis Doyle, then Clinton's campaign manager, further affirmed the decision. "We believe Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina play a unique and special role in the nominating process," she said, referring to the four states that the committee authorized to hold the first contests. "And we believe the DNC's rules and its calendar provide the necessary structure to respect and honor that role. Thus, we will be signing the pledge to adhere to the DNC-approved nominating calendar."
You get that? Every Clinton supporter on the committee voted for the sanctions. The dissenting vote came from an Obama supporter. Clinton's campaign manager celebrated the decision.
Not a single Clinton campaign official or DNC Rules Committee member, much less the candidate herself, said at the time that the sanctions imposed on Florida or Michigan were in any way a patriarchal plot or an affront to democratic values. The threat that these rules posed to our fundamental beliefs was discovered only ex post facto -- the facto in question being Clinton's current need to seat the delegations whose seatings she had opposed when she thought she'd cruise to the nomination.
Exactly.
Clinton's supporters have every right to demonstrate on Saturday, of course. But their larger cause is neither democracy nor feminism; it's situational ethics. To insist otherwise is to degrade democracy and turn feminism into the last refuge of scoundrels.
Word.