Situational Feminism

by digby

I’m pretty sure I died a couple of weeks ago and nobody told me. Having to watch Rush Limbaugh wave the feminist flag in favor of Sarah Palin’s regressive politics and personal corruption can only be described as my own personal definition of hell:

LIMBAUGH: I’ll tell you what this Troopergate’s all about. I’m going to tell you exactly what it’s all about. It’s about the good ol’ boys of Alaska being upset that a woman had upset the apple cart, got rid of Murkowski, got rid of the other Republican opponent in the primary. This is all about the good ol’ boys of Alaska saying, “We’re not going to sit here and be run by a damn woman. We’re going to take care of it. We’re going to take this woman — ” That’s all this is. And of course this guy’s working with — doesn’t matter.

When the boys don’t like the girl, Democrat and Republican boys will line up, and then they’ll fight each other later after they get rid of the girl. And that’s exactly what is happening here. This is pure sexism in Alaska on the part of these old boys trying to get rid of Sarah Palin, and she didn’t put up with it, and she didn’t bend over and let them have their way.

He may want to work on his metaphors a little bit before he appears at the next NOW rally.

I wonder how he reconciles that comment with this:

Oh, gosh, that hurts, my friends. It reminds me of my first wife. Ah! Gee! It is just painful to hear this, and then she [Hillary Clinton] starts yelling everywhere — Dawn, you can smile. She’s in there shaking her head. She’s — she’s here in a den of sexists, folks, and she puts up such a game front. Chauvinists, I should say. We’re not sexists, we’re chauvinists — we’re male chauvinist pigs, and we’re happy to be because we think that’s what men were destined to be. We think that’s what women want. [4/15/04]

or this:

Well, Rich Lowry has a column today, National Review Online, and Time magazine has just discovered that stay-at-home moms are women who have made legitimate choices to stay home and raise their young children — a cover story. Time magazine has headlined the case for staying home, and the magazine, according to Lowry, reports without sneering or condescension, the trend toward more new mothers leaving the workforce. Yes, it’s a trend. It started years ago when the feminist movement decided that their best friends were going to be German shepherds. You know. So that’s — well, it’s true. You go to the right airports and you can see it. [3/19/04]

… or any of the other dozens of examples of his disgusting misogyny?

Maybe Palin has made him see the light. (And maybe lipsticked pigs can fly helicopters…)

The truth of the matter is that the two of them, along with the rest of the conservative movement, have created a post modern, up-is-down bizarroworld that normal people have no chance of ever penetrating without going crazy from the dissonance. Like I said — hell.

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