Originally posted at American Thinker. blog
Apparently, sexist “menacing” behavior is only sexist and menacing if the accusation involves a Republican male and a Democrat female. Who can forget back in 2007 when Rick Lazio was accused of aggression against Hillary Rodham Clinton when, during a New York Senate debate, in a display of staged showmanship, Rick Lazio came out from behind his podium waving a piece of paper demanding Hillary concur in the form of a signature.
Liberals went absolutely wild after Mrs. Clinton complained that Lazio “invaded her personal space.” The media used the opportunity to reduce the woman in the perpetual pantsuit to a blithering damsel in distress. Despite Hillary making light of the incident and shaking Lazio’s hand in agreement, after the fact her spokesman, Howard Wolfson, exploited the situation and called Lazio’s behavior “menacing.”
Never once mentioning Mrs. Clinton’s assertive demeanor during the debate, the New York Times reported that “[m]any supporters of Mrs. Clinton said they found Mr. Lazio to be pushy and disrespectful during the debate in Buffalo — bullying her in a way that he would not have bullied a male opponent.”
Lazio responded by saying, “The idea that somehow that there’s a double standard because you’re a man or a woman, and you can’t make a point forcefully if you’re a man, and the person you’re making the point with is a woman, I just think that’s sexist.”
Lazio added, “I don’t think people in the Senate worry about whether you’re a man or a woman,” which is usually true, unless of course a Democrat woman being tied to the tracks by a villainous conservative male stands to gain liberal carpet-bagging political points.
New York voters were manipulated into believing that fearless Hillary recoiled in fear because her opponent, on a stage in Buffalo in front of hundreds of people, walked a few feet from his podium over to hers. In an attempt to depict the always-smiling Rick as a threat to women, the left milked the incident by portraying Hillary as a powerless victim, which ultimately cost Lazio the election.
Fast forward five years and a male liberal president is peeved over a book written by a conservative female Arizona governor. Stepping off Air Force One onto the tarmac in Phoenix, Arizona, rather than being handed a contract similar to the one Lazio attempted to get Hillary to sign in Buffalo, Barack was given a handwritten letter by Governor Jan Brewer inviting him to lunch and a visit to the beleaguered border.
Instead of accepting the invitation, “It’s All About Me” Obama felt it was imperative to let Governor Brewer know, right there on the tarmac, that he didn’t appreciate her not treating him cordially in her book “Scorpions for Breakfast,” where she said that during her tense 2010 meeting at the White House, Obama made her feel “like a little kid.”
Six-foot-plus Obama voiced his disapproval of Brewer’s account in the book as he towered over the tiny woman. And although when Obama later spoke to Diane Sawyer he shrugged off the incident as inconsequential, Brewer shared that during the confrontation “she felt a little threatened by the exchange.”
Ms. Brewer said that in a tense one-on-one interaction, the President “indicated at that point in time that he was a little uncomfortable, a little unappreciative, if you will, of my book in the way that he was portrayed in it. And I felt a little unnerved by the way that he spoke to me about it.”
In other words, in this case it was a Democrat male who, according to Brewer’s interpretation of what happened, was indeed “menacing.” Under other circumstances, even without corroborative proof, a similar accusation by a female would be instantly met with righteous indignation and vocal concern by the defenders of feminine sensibility residing on the left.
Hypocritical liberals who, if a conservative man is involved, will always defend a liberal woman, are now saying that Barack Obama was put upon by a disrespectful, finger-wagging “racist” named Jan Brewer. What does it say about Democrats when a conservative woman accuses a man of intimidating behavior and the duplicitous left, quite out of character, is willing to disregard the allegation of male hostility and give the benefit of the doubt to a menacing bully?
The difference is obvious when compared to the way the left reacted to Hillary Clinton being approached on a fully-lit stage in front of hundreds of people who heard every word Rick Lazio said. Now, rather than defend a pint-sized woman’s claim that she was verbally smacked down by a powerful man historically known to be “thin-skinned,” the left is more than willing to abandon their usual condemnation of perceived sexist aggression toward women and side with a hypersensitive bully merely because he’s a liberal.
