Nancy Pelosi on Hillary Clinton and gender bias

December 1, 2008

I've been looking around in the drafts and found this. Rather funny coming from a woman who looked the other way as one of the leaders of the Democratic Party, while the future POTUS made sexist comment after sexist comment. And who looked the other way while her colleagues made sexist comments and nothing while the media made sexist comments hourly.

Don't these people ever listen to what they say?

And what's most ridiculous is Pelosi acting like she has a higher profile than Madame Secretary Clinton on the world stage. I sure wish I had the energy to go back and match up her before and after words. Historians are going to have so much fun with this election.

Pelosi was speaking at the Hunter College forum on the role of gender in politics. She responded to a question on whether Clinton would face sexist behavior from world leaders - something Clinton had already said she had never experienced.

From Huffington Post's Sam Stein:

[PELOSI] None at all. I have traveled the world as Speaker of the House… and I have seen the treatment I have received in these places. And I know the respect that they will have for soon to be Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

…What is important to world leaders is, 'Does the president listen to you?'

… She is a force in her own right and anybody that might have that thought that you mildly suggested does so at his peril.

A lesson proven on the campaign trail when barry couldn't put Clinton away after winning 11 primaries in a row. A few more of his Stein's words:

But the most interesting topic of debate centered around whether Clinton and Sarah Palin were hindered by their sex [He doesn't even notice how whacked this sounds. It should be gender.] while on the campaign trail.

Both Pelosi and Rep. Carolyn Maloney were put in a tricky position, arguing that their Democratic colleague had been disadvantaged by her gender while Alaska's governor was not. But they made the case astutely, noting that the policies pursued by the McCain-Palin ticket were antithetical to women's interests, even if Palin's candidacy was a symbolic victory.

"It as a very contrasting case," said Maloney. "[Clinton] earned 18 million votes, inspired and led many people to live a better life. But at the same time there were hurdles there for her that were not there for her opponents... Back then, I thought someone should write a book about it. And someone has. It is called 'Rumors Of Our Progress Have Been Greatly Exaggerated,'" a reference to Maloney's own book.

"John McCain had a problem," she went on. "He had 20 years of anti-woman votes on his record… When he appointed Sarah Palin, he did nothing to help women or women's rights."

"[Palin's] lasting legacy is that the extreme right accepted a women with small children running for office," she concluded.