Geraldine Ferraro continued her campaign to get someone, anyone, to do something about all the sexism in the campaign today in an appearance on Fox News, where she once again had difficulty citing an example of sexist behavior from the Obama campaign. She eventually got around to the Annie Oakley remark, the treatment of Clinton at the Philadelphia debate, and her confusion over Jay-Z songs, but she had picked a new target of chauvinist infamy: black journalists. Ferraro held out the New York Times' Bob Herbert as a particularly egregious example of one such sexist misogynist terrorist of media, saying that in his past six months of writing, "There wasn't one column that had anything decent to say about Hillary." (By contrast, she applauded Fox's Sean Hannity for his honesty, saying that he hates Clinton too completely and too perfectly for it to be sexist.)
Host Shephard Smith rightly pointed out that this was more of a media critique than a charge that could be plausibly laid at the feet of the Obama campaign, but Ferraro, who seems not to understand what a campaign conference call is, insisted on labeling these "black journalists" as "surrogates": "Well, well...yeah...if you have conference calls with these people every week and you give them your message and they put your message in the paper, that to me is campaign."
"These all seem like little things," Ferraro said, believing that she had apparently elucidated a number of sexist "things," "but put them all together and realize what the impact has been on this campaign." Indeed. If only someone - anyone! - would, say, write a story about misogyny and the 2008 race and the media's response to it. Someone who could state, forthrightly, that "If there was ever a story that deserved more coverage by the news media, it's the dark persistence of misogyny in America."
Well, as Moe Tkacik from Jezebel points out, someone did:
Well, Geraldine, your charge that the media ignores sexism brought me back to a column I read about five months ago. "If there was ever a story that deserved more coverage by the news media," it opined, "it's the dark persistence of misogyny in America." Well, if it wasn't written by BOB HERBERT himself!
Today, by the way, is the one year anniversary of Jezebel, and if you'd like to be well-armed against misogyny, I'd suggest joining the 'Belles for their second year, and foregoing any further incoherence from Ferraro.
SMITH: You say the campaign is sexist. Can you cite examples?
FERRARO: Well yeah...I think...you know all the surrogates that they had out there from the black journalists...have you read Bob Herbert recently in the past six months? There wasn't one column that had anything decent to say about Hillary.
SMITH: Well, that's more media though. Is that the campaign?
FERRARO: Well, well...yeah...if you have conference calls with these people every week and you give them your message and they put your message in the paper, that to me is campaign. But I'll go further than that. When he...and, by the way, this is not an issue any longer in this campaign. I've been speaking about sexist behavior in this campaign since December.
SMITH: From the beginning.
FERRARO: It's not brand new. It started in the first debate when she was beaten up, not only by all the candidates onstage, but also by the moderator, Tim Russert. I was like a lunatic, I've known these people for a long time.
SMITH: Do you think that the media are in the tank for Barack Obama?
FERRARO: I think they've been there for about six months!
SMITH: All the media? Why?
FERRARO: Fox. I have to tell you, I beat up on Sean Hannity because every week...during the week...for a month...on that Sunday, Hannity's America, beating up on Hillary. And I said, "Will you cut it out." And he kept on saying, "Well you know how I feel about it." At least he's honest. It was not sexist. He just does not like Hillary under any circumstances.