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Strong Women Are Scaring the Pants Off the Right
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace:
Poverty, Income, and Health Insurance: What to Expect and Why It Really Matters
Jared Bernstein
Democracy and Elections:
Troops Abroad Donate 6:1 to Obama Over McCain
Luke Rosiak
DrugReporter:
Unlocking the Power of Art to Counter Injustice
Anthony Papa
Election 2008:
I Spent Years as a POW with John McCain, and His Finger Should Not Be Near the Red Button
Phillip Butler
Environment:
Why T. Boone Pickens' 'Clean Energy' Plan Is a Ponzi Scheme
Scott Thill
ForeignPolicy:
Russia and Georgia: All About Oil
Michael T. Klare
Health and Wellness:
Medical Tourism Is Great -- for Those Who Can Afford It
Niko Karvounis
Hurricane Katrina:
From the Bayou to Baghdad: Mission Not Accomplished
Amy Goodman
Immigration:
American Legion Immigration Report Replete With Falsehoods
Sonia Scherr
Media and Technology:
Communication Breakdown: How Cell Phones Hurt Communities
Benjamin Dangl
Movie Mix:
Protest over Use of the Word 'Retard' in Stiller's 'Tropic Thunder' Misses the Target
Annabelle Gurwitch
Reproductive Justice and Gender:
Why Obama Should Pick Hillary
Lanny Davis
Rights and Liberties:
Who Will Crash the Democratic and Republican Conventions?
Michael Gould-Wartofsky
Sex and Relationships:
The Things Women Go Through to Attract Men ...
Cheryl Saban
War on Iraq:
Robin Long, War Resister Deported from Canada, Faces Trial This Week
Sarah Lazare
Water:
Water for All: The Leaders of a New Revolution
Jay Walljasper
Last month saw Al Gore's triumphant return to Capitol Hill -- the once-ridiculed candidate now acknowledged as a visionary and treated with long-overdue respect. But the most remarkable moment of Gore's hours of testimony in both houses may have been one in which he wasn't even involved. It shined a light on both the changed atmosphere in Washington today, and the fear and loathing that that change is bringing on.
The most confrontational part of the day came when Gore was being questioned by Oklahoma senator, famed global warming skeptic and former chairman of the environment committee James Inhofe, in a battle of wits that was not exactly an equal match. Inhofe had trouble getting Gore to answer questions the way he wanted to, and kept interrupting him and complaining about the limited time he was given.
After some back and forth between Inhofe and Gore, the new chair of the committee, Barbara Boxer of California, put a hand on Inhofe's arm and said, "I want to talk to you a minute, please." After Boxer suggested that Inhofe give Gore the time to answer his questions, Inhofe replied, "Why don't we do this: at the end, you [Gore] can have as much time as you want to answer all the questions..." Boxer then interrupted: "No, that isn't the rule. You're not making the rules. You used to when you did this," she said, holding up the chair's gavel. "Elections have consequences. So I make the rules."
Boxer spoke with appropriate authority: not angry, not loud but unmistakably firm. There was no doubt who was in charge in that room. You could almost see the steam coming out of Inhofe's ears, not only because he had been deprived of his power, but because he was deprived of it by a woman. She even held up the gavel, the symbol of that power, and practically taunted him with it. Freud couldn't have scripted it much better.
The response in some quarters was unsurprising. Michael Savage, whose hateful rants are reportedly heard by 8 million radio listeners every day, hit the roof. Referring repeatedly to "foul-mouthed, foul-tempered women in high places bossing men around," he opined that the image of a woman giving a man orders would lead to more terrorist attacks (or something like that -- it was a little hard to follow).
And it isn't only extremists like Savage who are having trouble stomaching the idea of women in positions of increasing power. We now have a female speaker of the House, and the strong possibility of the first female president; the prospect is sending some men over the edge. MSNBC host Tucker Carlson recently described Hillary Clinton as "castrating, overbearing and scary." Why Carlson looks at the junior senator from New York and immediately fears for the safety of his testicles might be something he and his therapist should explore, but he's hardly alone -- after the election Chris Matthews wondered on the air if Nancy Pelosi was "going to castrate Steny Hoyer." And Matthews has gone through a series of man-crushes on politicians whom he sees as super-hunky in their masculine ways. First it was George W. Bush, then John McCain and the current object of Matthews' affections is Rudy Giuliani. "I think he did a great job," Matthews said about Giuliani's tenure in New York. "And I think the country wants a boss like that. You know, a little bit of fascism there."
See more stories tagged with: power, politics, james inhofe, barbara boxer, hillary clinton, pelosi
Paul Waldman is a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America. He is the author of Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success.
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