Hillary the bitch.
Over the past week as the country obsessed about Imus and his insults, it became clear that this sort of trash talk and cruelty passing as humor had gone too far.
On radio, the purveyors of this type of behavior are the right wing talk show hosts. It was also interesting to look at who bore the brunt of their insults and who didn’t. People like to say that Imus insulted everyone, yet he is not on record for hiring someone specifically to do Jewish jokes or gay jokes or catholic jokes. He hired someone to do "N" jokes. Across the board, the primary targets of this locker room humor were black people and . . . Hillary Clinton.
This is not to say that women were not insulted. However the only ones they dared to insult by name were Democrats -- Boxer, Pelosi, Lee, Waters to name a few. But everybody insulted Hillary.
Last night as I watched Bill Maher, out of the blue, Dana Carvey stood up and yelled something about Hillary Clinton being a cold bitch. He got his laugh, and they moved on. I was hoping that Bill Bradley who was sitting next to him would take the opportunity to ask him why he thought that was funny. Instead he was silent. They all were, including Maher.
I wonder what would have happened if Carvey had said that Laura Bush was a simple-minded bitch, or after Katrina, he thought that Barbara Bush was a ruthless and insensitive bitch, or that Bush’s twin daughters were drunken sluts. I wonder if the panel would have just sat there in silence or, if Maher would have moved immediately to disassociate himself from those views. Or, if Bradley would have used that opportunity to discuss civility on the airwaves.
It seems de rigueur for every damned pundit, comedian, or talk show host to insult Hillary at some point, or to call her a bitch.
Why? And why do they get away with it?
Tucker Carlson, described her as "castrating, overbearing and scary." What about her causes him to fear for the safety of his testicles? And really, what is it about castration when strong women appear on the scene. Chris Matthews wondered whether Nancy Pelosi would castrate Steny Hoyer. Only a therapist could explain their instinctive us of this word.
Glenn Beck called Clinton a "stereotypical bitch" whose voice drives him crazy. I'm sure conservative women have also put in their two cents.
And on, and on.
Personally, I think that these people know exactly what they are doing and just how far to push the envelope. I guarantee you none would dare call Laura or Barbara Bush names. Why? Because they know that the Republican management of their networks parent companies would have them off the air in seconds – maybe permanently. Free speech or no free speech.
Hillary, on the other had is fair game to them all, and somehow, someway, that has to stop.