As the front runner in the democratic primary, Hilary Clinton’s claim that she is not being treated fairly because she is a woman is utterly appalling, and so most inexcusable. And if I had been inclined to vote for her, I would surely now be disinclined to do so. I would not want a woman for president who needs to rely upon charges of sexism in order to silence or, at any rate, to attempt to silence her critics. The very idea of victory by any means, including unwarranted charges of sexism, is most despicable on various fronts.
To begin with, there is the simple truth that we have enough genuine injustices in the world to occupy us for a very long time. We should not muddy the moral and political waters by making false charges of injustice. For that is a grievous form of injustice in and of itself. It is to engage in a form of malicious character assassination.
For another, making false charges, be they regarding sexism or racism or whatever, sets a horrendous moral example. Furthermore, doing so bespeaks a profound lack of moral integrity.
The issue is not whether there is sexism in the world. Of course, there is. Rather, the issue is whether Ms. Clinton has been a victim of sexism in her bid for the democratic presidential candidate by the other candidates and reporters. And there is absolutely no evidence of that at all. She has enjoyed extraordinary privilege and clout.
On the issue of whether illegal immigrants should be granted a driver’s license, as Governor Eliot Spitzer of New York wants to institute, Hilary Clinton equivocated mightily. And it was not at all unfair of anyone to zero in on this fact. This is a major issue; and where she stands on the matter is rightly taken to be of great national interest.
Clinton wanted to be in support of Spitzer’s proposal in order to have his support but yet not quite be in support of the idea giving a driver’s license to illegal immigrants as such. Which part of drawing attention to this glaring inconsistency is sexist?
Barack Obama may be surprised that blacks are not giving him nearly 100% of their support. But he has not been foolish enough to suggest that blacks who fail to support him are Uncle Toms or servile or ashamed of their African heritage or whatever. And this is to his credit, though it is far from obvious to me why either he or his wife, Michelle Obama, should expect support from blacks merely because he, candidate Obama, is black. I did not know that skin color counted as a qualification for the presidency.
And if the idea is that some sort of ethnic solidarity requires blacks to vote for Obama, then it is not clear to me how the Obama campaign could expect whites to vote for Obama. And once we have privileged ethnic identity, why on earth should we stop there. Let us go for gender identity, too. This is all absurd. Besides, I digress.
Although Michelle Obama has expressed her indignation that blacks are not running to Obama on the order of some sort of Pavlov-like reaction, Barack Obama must be given credit for not having expressed such a stupid view and a blatantly indefensible view.
But back to Ms. Clinton. An ounce of foresight suggests that she is doing herself more harm than good by playing the “sexism card”, precisely because she makes herself look weak. The stakes are high; and the males in the campaign are not going to refrain from going after her because she makes the charge of sexism. Quite the contrary, she give them a reason to continue their pursuit in the hopes that she will continue to call attention to the fact that she is a woman by making the charge of sexism.
As for Governor Spitzer’s proposal: It is obviously a red herring for her. By that is her problem and not anyone else’s. And her campaign ought to have been smart enough to have talked to Spitzer about this at the outset.
So it is now apparent that she is a bit inept. For it is does not take an Einstein to figure out that the Spitzer proposal raises deep, deep issues for the presidential election—especially for a New York member of the United States Senate who is running for president. Her campaign ought to have brought Spitzer’s silence by promising him a key position in the cabinet. This would have been the savvy thing to do. Or would that have been too much to expect from a woman such as Mrs. Hilary Clinton? People who make charges of racism or sexism, whenever it is convenient to do so, make for awful leaders. They do not inspire confidence; and they cannot be trusted.
The hope of a better America does not lie in a presidential candidate who is willing to sully people’s character with the charge of sexism in order to secure power or to block criticism. Quite the contrary, the country suffers a major moral setback should any such person obtain the Oval Office.
