Following their November 2 electoral melt-down, the Sisterhood and the
rest of the radical Left lapsed into bitterness and despair. Sensing
that Middle America is turning a cold shoulder on their socialist
agenda, the rad-fems have now unleashed a last-ditch campaign of
intimidation, accusations, and threats.
On January 9, former Indiana representative Tim Roemer announced he was
running for the top post of the Democratic National Committee. Many
believed Roemer was exactly the boost the wilting Democratic Party
needed - someone with a moderate ideology, fresh ideas, and Midwestern
roots. But there was a slight problem: Mr. Roemer is a Catholic, and his
resumé revealed a pro-life voting record.
That was more than the pro-abortion jihadists in the Democratic Party
could stomach.
With cat-like stealth, "they" put together an "opposition research
memo," pol-speak for a smear campaign. I put "they" in quotation marks
because no one was willing to admit who perpetrated the hatchet job.
Next, Nancy Keenan, incoming president of NARAL Pro-Choice America
(that's a feel-good name, isn't it?) powered up the feminist buzz-saw.
She ordered NARAL's state affiliates to pressure the 447 DNC delegates
to toe the pro-abortion line.
Roemer is as feisty a politician as you will get. But the NARAL
activists turned his abortion views into a single-issue litmus test, and
soon he was forced to withdraw. An angered Roemer later commented they
"tried to make abortion the radioactive anvil that hung around my
neck. They threw two kitchen sinks at me."
Then just five days after Roemer announced his DNC candidacy, Harvard
president Lawrence Summers made a comment that "innate differences"
between the sexes may account for why top science positions are filled
mostly by males. Sitting in the audience was one MIT professor Nancy
Hopkins. Upon hearing his remarks, Hopkins nearly swooned and had to
exit the room.
The Fearsome Felines became so enraged over Summers' suggestion that
they mounted a campaign designed to embarrass and humiliate the Harvard
president. Summers soon confessed to his ideological revisionism and
commenced a round of self-criticism. But that wasn't enough, and now the
N.O.W operatives are calling for a complete ideological cleansing.
Dismayed by the Soviet show-trial atmosphere at Harvard, civil-liberties
lawyer Harvey
A. Silvergate remarked, "The modern university is the
culmination of a 20-year trend of irrationalism marked by an
increasingly totalitarian approach to highly politicized issues."
The missteps of Roemer and Summers were bad enough, but after all, they
were made by members of the male oppressor class. What really stirs up a
cat fight, though, is when a woman -- a woman! -- hisses at the
Sisterhood.
That's what happened on February 13, when the Los Angeles Times ran a
piece by Charlotte Allen. Commenting on the dearth of female
intellectuals, Allen
explained, "Ideological feminism has ghettoized and
trivialized the subject matter of women's writing."
The feminist catechism does not take well to apostasy, and it fell to
one Susan Estrich to deliver the ex-communication. Estrich is the
ultra-liberal University of South California law professor who likely
would have been John Kerry's first nomination to the United States
Supreme Court.
First, Estrich broadcast a thermonuclear e-mail accusing the Times of
"blatant sex discrimination" and calling for a quota for female
columnists. Worst of all, she branded Miss Allen a "feminist-hater." Off
with her head!
Then in an exchange of e-mails with opinion-page editor Michael Kinsley,
Estrich pulled out every intimidation tactic in the book. She threatened
to approach the LA Times advertisers. She accused the Times' male
editors of "unconscious discrimination" -- how's that for the mother
of all guilt trips?
And then showing incredibly bad taste, she suggested that Kinsley's
health "may have affected your brain, your judgment, and your ability to
do this job." But Kinsley refused to give in to Estrich's sourpuss
demands.
Estrich made a slight miscalculation, though -- she cc'ed her hot-head
threats to the Examiner. This past Saturday the Examiner published the
entire
acerbic exchange.
Now, the cat is out of the bag, so to speak. Let's just say that Susan
Estrich is no longer on anyone's short list for the U.S. Supreme Court.
Anyone who has had dealings with the rad-fems knows how they rely on
every type of psychological, social, and legal manipulation to get their
way. Give them an inch, and they take a mile. In the past, these
machinations took place behind closed doors, so the public remained in
the dark. But now, their storm-trooper tactics have come out of the
closet, for all the world to see.
Hooray for editor Michael Kinsley and all the other men and women who
Just Say No to the feminist bullies.
