"this is her real recent genius."

Oh, please.

Er, this Tina Fey riff is about as "feminist" as Sex in the City. Which is to say, it's not. But if this popcorn is what makes folks suddenly "aware" about the obstacles faced by women in power, then so be it.

However, as a piece of propaganda, it's better than Gloria Steinem's in the NYT. At least Fey is smart enough not to bring race into the picture.

However, I be damned if Fey can be allowed to co-opt "bitch" for HRC. A bitch would have used every weapon in her arsenal to undermine the Iraq invasion vote. She would have consistently questioned the planning. She would have demanded competence.

The true bitch of the Dem party is probably Barbara Boxer.
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I know bitches, I am one, and HRC is no bitch.

Well, bitch or no bitch, Hillary did question Bush's running of the Iraq war from the moment it was started. She spoke out in the senate about the management of the war and questioned it at the armed services committe....often getting insulted for her pains (e.g. May 2007).

Obama was in charge of the oversight committe of an even more important war - the 'good war' in Afghanistan - and he never held a single hearing.....imagine the arrogance, he just assumed he would never be questioned about it!

And he was pretty darn right, 'coz most of the media and his supporters are just going around saying 'yes, yes, yes' to anything he says and seem to ahve left their brains somewhere....

May 2007 was four years after the start of the war. What was she doing at the beginning of the war besides apparently NOT reading the intelligence report and voting in favor of the war?

Yes, Clinton has said she "regrets voting for the war "and said she was "mislead". Really, Then why did she turnaround and sign the same type of legislation authored by Leiberman and AIPAC (who wrote/sponcored the first bill giving bush authorization for war in Iraq) to designate Iran as a sponcer of terrorists? If Clinton was a man, by this point, she would have gone the way of Chris Dodd, but because she plays into the belief that American women seem to have that they are "victims" they support "Hil" no matter what. Poverty, disease, war, no no gender, and certainly white American woman are hardly the archetypal representation of a true victim, try going to Darfur! Hypocrisy they name is feminist.

Hillary voted for the war in 2002 for the same reason that other Democrats did -- because the Republicans whipped the electorate up into a high state of blood lust, and made the vote a test of one's patriotism the month before the election, and because -- quite frankly -- few Democrats doubted, in their heart of hearts, that the war would be as quick and bloodless as the Bushies were saying it would be, and anyone who voted against it -- and particularly anyone who planned to run for president -- was afraid of looking stupid and unpatriotic in hindsight. It was really tough for someone in Hillary's position not to vote for the war in 2002. But if you want to lead the country, sometimes you have to do tough things. She didn't.

I sympathize w/ chevalier's complaint.

However.

Obama has talked about how he sought HRC's counsel upon his entrance into the senate as someone who went in w/ unearned notoriety. She advised him to keep his head down, follow the rules, and defer to seniority. Neither of them, as junior senators, minority party members, and first-termers, could really overstep the bounds of their relative newbishness to everyone in the Dem party and the senate overall. It's why Obama hasn't been as vocal as many would like him to be on Iraq, and it's why HRC hasn't had an active record in sponsoring impactful legislation as we would expect given her name recognition. [There's also the fact that, immediately after his first year in the Senate, Obama was recruited by the DNC to campaign for the Dems running in 06. Hence his many missed votes. I have ambivalent feelings about this, but even I would say that refusing to help your party when it needs to win seats in Congress is a dumb move. At such a time, his votes were less important to than his literally "magnetizing" presence at fellow Democrats' rallies.]

But the Iraq vote was something else. Millions of people in HRC's own party, in her own country, and around the world saw fit to protest it, and she joined in ignoring them. I looked at the list of Dem senators who originally opposed and she would have been in fine company, as difficult as it was to make such an unpopular decision. She would have suffered for a short time politically, but her career would still have continued. But obvs, she chose differently and many people are bitter. If she had voted no, she would have been a safe bet to win this election and Obama, robbed of his chief selling point, would have been perfectly content to sit in the senate chamber for at least 8 more years.

As for "bitch" well: a bitch oversteps boundaries, mouths uncomfortable ideas, challenges authority even when she has no business doing so, doesn't care about her reputation, is not afraid to make people feel her power. We could have used some bitches in the Senate in 2002/2003.

Paula26:

At least Fey is smart enough not to bring race into the picture.

Ummm...hello? It's a clever double entendre: he's Black, get it? Her whole *point* was that Hillary/Bitch should become the thing to be just as Barack/Black was last season's fashion trend: ultra-hip, all the cool kids were wearing it, seen in the best restaurants, etc. Ordinarily, being a Bitch or beng Black would be a BAD thing, but ...

This is why men say we feminists have no senses of humor.

Actually, I assumed that she DIDN'T mean it like that, because it's too thuddingly obvious and, well, stupid. I get the fashion/hipness reference, but I'm giving TF the benefit of the doubt on the other meaning.

they call us cunts.

Bitches are considered difficult but still biddable. Cunts are not.