My military friends have a favorite saying: “If you’re not catching flak, you’re not over the target.” This campaign season, conservative women in politics have caught more flak than World War II Lancaster bombers over Berlin. Despite daily assaults from the Democratic machine, liberal media and Hollyweird — not to mention the stray fraggings from Beltway Republican elites — the ladies of the right have maintained their dignity, grace and wit. Voters will remember on Tuesday.
When “comedian” and The View co-host Joy Behar lambasted Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle of Nevada last week as a “b*tch” who would be “going to hell” for using images of illegal alien gang members in a campaign ad, Angle responded by sending a lovely bouquet of flowers and a good-humored note: “Joy, raised $150,000 online yesterday. Thanks for your help. Sincerely, Sharron Angle.”
Outgunned in the comedy department, Behar sputtered nonsensically and with bitter, clingy vulgarity: “I would like to point out that those flowers were picked by illegal immigrants, and they’re not voting for you, b*tch.” Illegal aliens aren’t supposed to vote at all, Miss B. But why let such pesky details get in the way of a foul-mouthed daytime TV diatribe?
Just a week earlier, Behar delivered a hysterical rant against Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., accusing the mother of five and foster mother of 23 of being “against children” for opposing the expansion of federal health-care entitlements for middle-class families and children (the SCHIP program) and for opposing President Barack Obama’s costly takeover of health care. Behar merely parrots the demagoguery of Democratic leaders in Washington, who have ducked behind kiddie human shields to avoid substantive debate about the dire consequences of their policies.
As a result of the Obamacare mandates, of course, insurers have canceled child-only plans across the country. And there are plenty of compassionate reasons for opposing SCHIP expansion beyond its original mandate to serve the truly working poor. Behar called me a “selfish b*tch” three years ago over the same issue. Why is it “against children” and “selfish” to challenge the wisdom of redistributing money away from taxpayers of lesser means who are responsible enough to buy insurance before a catastrophic event — and then using their tax dollars to subsidize more well-off families who didn’t have the foresight or priorities to purchase insurance with their own money?
But never mind those pesky details. Behar persisted in smearing Bachmann as “anti-children, anti-children.” Facts be damned.
Distortions on “The Spew” are bad enough. But the “mainstream” media’s complicity in spreading false narratives about Republican women is an affront to the First Amendment of the Constitution. When Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell of Delaware challenged Democratic opponent Chris Coons in a constitutional debate last week to name the five freedoms in that First Amendment, he blanked out after freedom of religion.
Instead of reporting on the flub, The Washington Post and Associated Press misleadingly reported that O’Donnell had questioned whether the establishment and free exercise clauses were in the First Amendment. What she actually said to Coons during the debate was: “So you’re telling me that the separation of church and state, the phrase ‘separation of church and state,’ is in the First Amendment?” It is not, of course. But never mind those pesky details.
In one of the most despicable last-minute campaign hits, gossip Web site Gawker — run by Internet smear machine operator Nick Denton — paid for and published on Thursday an anonymous tell-all from a man purporting to have had a “one-night stand” with O’Donnell. This misogynistic trash can’t be verified, and the author admits that the sensationally titled “one-night stand” did not actually include sex. The sole purpose and intent of such checkbook journalism: humiliation.
Pundits and late-night TV pranksters have ridiculed O’Donnell for exposing liberal bias against conservative female candidates. But these same smug mockers have spent the past two years deriding Republican vice presidential candidate and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, her children, her body, her accent and her brain. They snickered at reports of Democratic California gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown’s campaign calling Republican opponent Meg Whitman a “whore.” And they shrugged off The View’s “b*tch” sessions as schtick.
The conservative women-bashers can laugh all they want. On Nov. 2, success will be our best revenge.
— Michelle Malkin is author of Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies. Click here for more information. She can be contacted at malkinblog@gmail.com.