I hope you, like any thinking person, are completely horrified that the Post would publish the insane, sexist screed by Charlotte F. Allen that appeared in your paper today. And no, just because it got farmed out to some woman eager to advance herself at the expense of the rest of us does not make it okay (one Maureen Dowd on the planet is one too many, thank you very much).
I'd very much like to know who assigned this piece, who edited it, what the reaction is from women who work there, and anything you can tell me about how this insufferably ignorant woman made her way into your pages.
You can contact me at firedoglake AT gmail.com.
All communications will be kept confidential.
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Fitz!
Oy. I didn’t read the whole thing (couldn’t stand it) but it sounds like “The Bell Curve”, this time directed at women.
I’d like to see one of those “journalists” say that to Harvard physicist Lisa Randall. Now that would be fun.
Heh! I just knew ya were gonna jump on this one, Jane. Dog help charlotte ’cause she (and whoever the facilitators are) done stepped in it good!
This woman is an idiot - superior verbal skills, my a**. The column leaves me sputtering and furious. Who is this inane human being and has she ever written anything before this?
Well, I did read the whole thing. Dear Charlotte sounds like she’d be perfectly happy curled up reading The Total Woman. What amazes me is that she imagines–dim though she is–that anyone else would be interested in her opinion. Sounds like a deliberate attempt on the paper’s part to draw fire. What else is around that we should be paying attention to? hmmm….FISA and Reyes’ comment that a compromise may soon be worked out, maybe….or……?
Ole 60 Grit’s outfit
http://www.iwf.org/authors/show/7.html
Uh oh someone telling the truth is going t get destroyed by the Obamanacs again..Democrats doing to the Clintons in six months what the Republicans couldn’t do in sixteen years…..Dick Morris is in awe of your hatred.
Jeebus! She pretty much managed to take down everything and everyone except for straight men.
She smacks on Obama because the women were “screaming” for him ala The Beatles circa 1964.
Hillary gets smacked around because she’s a woman.
Then she throws in gay males just because.
It would have been fun to watch my mother take her apart.
(My mother took trig and calculus at the same time. Didn’t recommend doing it that way. Worked as a newspaper proofreader. Worked in an oil company lab, and gave them six months notice when she left; they still couldn’t find anyone to replace her.)
from the link:
And obviously men do dumb things, too,…
See - there ya go - fair and balanced. (and correct in at least that one sentence).
I miss the WaPo. And the NYT. And intelligent, independent political coverage. And, and,….
Obamanacs? Are those Obama supporters who like men?
thanks will read later when I can take more of this. blegh
Jane???!!!
Who the fuck is this moron? That’s the lamest thing I ever read. Chick has the Marabel Morgan gene, obviously.
Charlotte F. Allen is the author of “The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus.” She also wrote a screed last year jumbling together hospice, living wills and assisted suicide in such a way as to make all of them seem pernicious. Such a doll.
i don’t know but don’t they make a pill or cream for this (ignorance)? (Better living through pharmaceuticals)
BTW, gang:
Relax–I leave in a few…(as Jane would say)..*G*
She appears to be a bit of a universal dumbshit:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R.....r_rdp_perm
“The theory that women are the dumber sex — or at least the sex that gets into more car accidents — is amply supported by neurological and standardized-testing evidence. Men’s and women’s brains not only look different, but men’s brains are bigger than women’s (even adjusting for men’s generally bigger body size). The important difference is in the parietal cortex, which is associated with space perception. Visuospatial skills, the capacity to rotate three-dimensional objects in the mind, at which men tend to excel over women, are in turn related to a capacity for abstract thinking and reasoning, the grounding for mathematics, science and philosophy. While the two sexes seem to have the same IQ on average (although even here, at least one recent study gives males a slight edge), there are proportionally more men than women at the extremes of very, very smart and very, very stupid.”
So, isn’t that sort of like the remarks made by Jimmy the Greek that got him fired by CBS when he said that blacks were better athletes because they were bred to be that way.
She should be fired immediately. This is disgraceful.
have fun Biodun
Having observed that one female columnist, in emulation of many male columnists, has already demonstrated the ability to shape a career appreciating only their own limited gifts in this world and deriding the choices of others, is it any surprise that someone like Ms. Allen would toss her wig into the ring with the support and encouragement of an envious paper management team. Management like that will eat its own in time. Intentional missed appreciation fosters the same. Poor, Charlotte, soon to be slain with her own copy.
Fellow Democrats;
The choice between Clinton and Obama is like picking between two very similar political creeds.
I won’t belabor the here and now with all the trivial issues that are being used to separate Obama and Clinton.
But in essence, we are voting for two degrees on a political thermometer that are very close together, like choosing whether you prefer 70 degrees over 72 degrees for your room thermostat. And the parsing of that difference has reached an historic fever pitch; never have two people with such similar political bent been so drastically dissected, putting a lot of rhetorical and contrived real estate between their common ground for the sake of political advantage and media profits. The more division between them, the more compelled they are to spend their money advertising those subtle differences.
But there is one factor that everyone should consider, one major difference that we all need to take into account when we make our choice. I think there is one very good and irrefutable reason to vote for Obama, with all else being equal.
You probably think I’m going after Hillary as the war enabler, which would certainly be worth considering. But I have always held the opinion that she took this politically unpopular tack because she is willing to represent her constituency, rather than her own self-will, as their elected Senator.
So while I agree with Obama that she was wrong to give Bush his power, I must commend her for representing the voters of her district, who for obvious reason wanted Saddam taken out as a threat to Israel and the whole middle east. I disagree with all of them, but I’m in Kansas and they are in New York.
No, it is not Hillary’s war policy that tilts my scales in favor of Obama.
It is her blind ambition, particularly evident in her media-obscured failure to get behind John Kerry in the 2004 election. She and Bill were notably absent from that election scene, the media never mentioned it despite their very conspicuous absence from the process, and to be very honest about it, I think there can be only one reasonable explanation.
Bill and Hillary DID NOT WANT THE DEMOCRATS TO WIN IN 2004 because it would have scuttled her chances to run in 2008!
Hillary did not have the political capital to run in 2004, and if Kerry had been the “official” winner instead of the “actual” winner, that would have meant her chances of running and winning in in 2008 would have been dashed before they ever got started. It doesn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to figure it out… the Clintons’ absence from that campaign contributed to the end game that fell short.
Bill and Hillary could have made a huge difference in that outcome, if they had put even a particle of the effort she has managed this year with her own campaign, into getting ANY Democrat elected in 2004.
So I guess, all things considered, that is what inevitably turned me into an Obama supporter when John Edwards dropped out. (I have to say this, if Hillary had really been as mistreated by the media the way she now complains, the way Edwards actually was trivialized, Edwards would still be in this race. Hearing the Clintons complain about the media is absolutely laughable to anyone who watched the concerted media effort to push Edwards off the front pages in this election, and Howard Dean in the 2004 election.)
The Clintons represent their own ambition much more than the aspirations of the new, young and growing Democratic Party. That is reason enough to find an alternative. That we have such a young, dynamic, and different kind of candidate in Barrack Obama makes it that much easier. Obama alone, in all his splendid quality, is worth supporting, but Hillary and Bill’s ambition just makes it so much easier to do that.
If for no other reaon than the Clintons’ blind ambition, our tidal-wave of support for Obama is justified. The fact that he is a great orator, a dedicated civil servant, and a devoted Democrat FIRST, just makes it all the more agreeable.
As I first stated, the actual political differences between Clinton and Obama are negligible, but their character qualities are graphically exposed in this comparison.
The Clintons are in it for the Clintons. Their conspicuous absence from the 2004 campaign is pretty good proof of it.
Yet through it all, Obama seems quite sincere in his dedication to the public will.
Do we need to know any more than that, to make the right choice between two close degrees on the same political scale?
That word makes me shudder when connected to human beings
Topic. It’s a beautiful thing.
1,774 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…
Citizen Hamsher:
Mrs. Clinton took the “gender thing” for granted and is gettin’ skewered on it by female shills…my wife LOVES it!!
KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITON, AND DON’T WORRY, SEX IS HERE TA STAY!!!
oh geeeeeez, Jane. REALLY? You’ll keep any reply CONFIDENTIAL?
DANG!!!!!
i’d have LOVED to hear the response on this one! (assuming you GET a response.)
Citizen JEP07:
Right fuckin’ on!!
See absolute hatred for Clinton…….Democrats doing Dick Morris work for free. Congratulations your brainwashing is complete!
Jane, you are a bit of a celebrity, right? So, ignore the tabloids.
She seems to fit all the stereotypes that she projects in her writing. Given her intellect and insight into men and women, I am sure that she is a self made woman because it’s likely no one else will touch her.
I think maybe Charlotte should clean Jane’s house now since Charlotte believes that that is what a women’s role should be, since we’re good at nothing else. Spit.
I fainted half way through the article.
707
Nope. Woman have ignored this kind of garbage for too long and it needs to be answered each and every time. Just like campaign smears - quickly and hard.
OMG, now I know what it is that makes me so not want to have a beer with Hillary! It’s because she’s got blind ambition!
And ambition so ill-becomes a woman. She needs to learn her place.
What is it about the Obamabots, as Taylor Marsh calls them? They sure can spam a thread with overwhelming verbosity! Just pick a recent thread at random and scroll down until you find a huge, verbose comment full of links. I guaran-damn-tee it will be an Obamabot.
The vapors, don’t ya know.
did they condition and use creme rinse as well? *g*
707 !!
LOL
What’s so interesting is white males are also into Barack Obama and from the footage I’ve seen of his rallies, he’s not attracting the feminine males either. I wonder what Charlotte has to say about that? Probably nothing since Charlotte believes a woman’s role is to be seen and not heard. Spit.
Another example of faulty arguing from the particular (the stupidity of Charlotte F. Allen) to the general…
ROFL. (and THAT hurts, as I’ve caught the flu!)
I couldn’t get pass the first paragraph, logic kept getting in the way
lay off the name calling today, okay? I agree that the slamming of Hillary isn’t cool but your not rising above it by calling supporters names.
I’ll be back in a bit, because I have to go get my botox injections and then I’m going to read romance novels, cook dinner for the guys, clean the house so my hubby is happy and he as me trained…all barefoot, cause I’m a woooomaaan….w.o.m.a.n…wouldn’t want him to cheat on me ya know.
I concur on the similarities to The Bell Curve. I lament that Stephen Jay Gould isn’t around to shred this, a la “The Mismeasure of Man”, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man for background.
Oh Laura. Did you get from me when we communicated? Just think if we had both gone to the meetup. FDL would have become a three legged stool for about a week.
ROFL my side hurts
More likely a McLamebot in disguise or a Rovebot….use your head…
The political hit piece on Hillary and Obama is crudely stupid in a way that only David Brooks could envy. It is the rawest of stereotyping, a try out of memes for the GOP’s fall campaign. Among her Rovian excesses [emph. mine]:
Right. Bush prefers competence.
Right. Substitute “neocons” or “GOP’ers” or “authoritarians” and the comment might be accurate.
Right. Including the one that casts Karl Rove as the ghost of Lady Macbeth.
Ms. Allen is Phyllis Schlafly, Maureen Dud, and the Capital Hill “Dating” Service all in one. My guess is she spends most of her time haunting the street corners of 15th & M, not inside the WaPo building around the corner. I doubt she gets more than $15 for a quickie, but it seems the once great WaPo has nevertheless asked her to stay the night.
I would disagree on this point.
“Appears”?
Allen is a self-loathing wretch who IS a dumbass.
A wretch proven unworthy of feminine labels, the Michelle Malkin of the Christianist world. It is Allen’s embrace of the misogynistic and unChristian Christianity that requires her to shut off what God dispensed at birth and yield to dogma that is fearful of woman’s intellect and power.
Ditch WaPo; if every woman did, it might actually hurt their pocketbook enough to make them stop such miserably poor content.
bonne soiree, sire..ca va bien? a plus tard…
bon soir, wobblybits–bebemos vina rojo esta nochee…
salut, LS–en depit du tout, tu es une de ma favotirites FDLers!
Je m’en vais, et c’est tout! comme Rimbaud a dit a l’epoch…
du calme et a bientot, ma FDL famille…
Je vous aime tous!!!
Nah. I’ve got plenty of virus stoppers on my ‘puter. But I’m glad we’re not sharing this with our pals….
this is so bad that I have a hard time believing that it is real.
Yeah, more REPORTED traffic accidents. I remember when I was hit by a guy in a car who was turning onto a one way street the wrong way. I insisted on calling the cops, though he was vociforcious in declaring that all he needed to do was give me the name of his insurance agent and drive away. He reeked of alcohol, his eyes were bloodshot. But when the police got there they rounded on ME and said that they didn’t need to be called for something like this, though the guy was obviously driving under the influence! They certainly didn’t write him up for it either. I thought, “What gives?”
LMAO! Have fun. Don’t forget to call home to see if hubby needs anything! LOL
Well, OK. But seriously, the Obama supporters remind me of Jesus Freaks. I mean, great, go ahead and love him, but please quit spamming me to death! OMG!
They definitely prefer quantity over quality in their arguments!
vino rojo…gostoso!!!!
Merci Biodun, tres gentile a vous de dire ca, voila la meme de vous…bon voyage! (I made up the French for the most part….*g*) hee, hee, hee.
hey LS - did Mr. LS play with the Huckster? How’d it go?
(you’ve probably already reported on this, but I missed it)
This bit is SO bad:
Although the bit I bolded is telling
What man would want to “know” this wretch?
Wait until I tell my spouse his evenings watching “Grey’s Anatmony” are anathema to his gender.
Hmm let’s see, still not rising above it.
I’m a supporter and haven’t sent you a lick of email and I have no idea what I have in common with the other not-so-nice name for people who believe in Jesus. Try again.
Off topic:
Chavez has ordered troops to the Columbian border…
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23435878
Serious question - really do want an answer. Could you tell me who you get spam from? I signed up on his site so that I could keep up with what is going on and I get about 3 or 4 e-mails a week and that’s it. Who’s doing all the spamming?
Oh my, it’s Sunday, I’m typing and he’s cooking me breakfast in bed as we speak…in reality, I married Mr. Mom…shhhhhhh…really…see what all that botox gets you??
rut-roh
He is a problem in South America (has been pissing off the brasilians and worrying just about everyone)
Wow. WTF was her name again? That was undoubtedly the most heinous piece of crap to have ever appeared in the Washington Post…I wonder if Katherine Graham was spinning in her grave as that was put to press?
I guess that Ms. Allen took the time to crawl out from under her burka to scribble that miserable piece of excrement before parking her and her smaller-than-normal brain back in her house where she puts her biscuits in the oven and parks her buns in the bed.
Does the “F” in Charlotte F. Allen stand for “Fucking Stupid” or just Fucked?
Our hearts ache for change and peace.
Lahoma.
The Huckster’s campaign called at 4:30 yesterday and said they were stuck in Houston…I don’t know if they are gonna do it tomorrow…Mr. LS just did the most hilarious photoshop of Huckster and the other guys with the title of ZZTop’s…Have Mercy been waitin’ on the
BusHuck All Day..Kiddo!!!!!
Your husband is the perfect husband. Charlotte would be stunned! LOL Poor thing.
From the Obama-(insert nasty name here) who are remarkably like (insert insensitive religious name here).
Seriously, the over simplifications and generalizations and name calling are way past their sale date.
Makes you wonder if Georgie will send in the CIA or the Reagan Crazy paramilitary guys down there? Hey, the warmongers will do anything for more wars.
{{{Lahoma}}}
LOL….kinda sad when you think that she has such low self-esteem and self- hatred of being a woman. Maybe she needs a sex change or something.
oy please nooooooooooooooo
Methinks Ms. Allen is trying out a new GOP meme that tries to undercut all of Hillary and the sensitive side of a streetwise, HLS editor-in-chief Obama. (Just to be clear, Hillary is at least as experienced, credentialed and talented.)
Why? Both will be potent electoral forces in the fall campaign, though only one as the presidential contender. Both out-poll McCain. Both appeal strongly to women and many other focus groups, frankly, leaving McCain in the dust with everyone who doesn’t eat their meat raw. And because the vote in November is only the start of a new phase of GOP attack mongering.
Allen’s is a pure attack piece, Jack London-meets-Bill Safire, meant to shore up a dwindling, more extreme base in a way that the milquetoast Brooks and empty-suited Kristol simply can’t. It is the WaPo become Fox Noise machine.
Jeebus, I have to go do something else; I can’t spend any more time on such a putz like Allen.
Better go find something stupid to do suitable to my gender.
Like fix the video display on a computer.
Or read something useless and fluffy like this month’s Foreign Affairs.
They are already there.
and wobblybits too: when I say “spam” I’m referring to spamming a thread, i.e., cluttering it up with a bunch of bombastic, overly verbose comments. Not literally e-mail spam.
OK wobblybits, I guess I’m having a problem with the name calling today. I’ll try harder. :-)
What’s Foreign Affairs?
Oh my Brattleboro is still at it. Today at the town meeting they will decide whether or not to indite Bush and Cheney!
http://www.timesargus.com/apps.....002/NEWS01
Since Brattleboro’s actions to put it on the town meeting ballot became public, he said, the group had been contacted by constitutional scholars who said it could be argued that the action is grounded in the concept of common law, and that it would be within the town’s right to issue an indictment.
Go Brattleboro!! Impeach the bastards!
I’ve never understood women like Charlotte. I’m not voting for Hillary for lots of different reasons, but her being a woman is not one of them. The fact that women are fainting during Obama’s speeches could be for lots of reasons (too many people causing dehydration in some for starters), but when Charlotte state’s that fainting is a woman thing, I have to believe Charlotte is wearing an 1800’s smock dress and bonnet while writing her articles. For crying out loud!
It’s all that can be asked in order to keep some semblance of peace here.
As far as verbosity, we’re all guilty of that at some point here at FDL, aren’t we?
Don’t you mean Whose Foreign Affairs? ; )
You are not reaching women over the age of 65 with that message. The Clintons and Obama are not subject to measurable degrees of separation. The Clintons are like the gang in High Noon; they rely solely on power to mask their intentions which are solely to run the town.
Yep. The Reagan Crazies have been preparing for a lot since that time. Bastards.
Last week Kathleen Parker has a similar piece on women swooning for Obama. Her’s took more of a “look, it’s the new religion” slant, which is just as weird and wrong as the piece of crap in the WaPo today.
Here’s a LINK if you have a few minutes to waste.
On the Huffington post, one poster wrote a long blog on, using the typical tv sit com meme on the uselessness of men, how women can multitask and take care of business better, ergo Clinton over Obama. In the United States, colleges and universities in the late 1970s opened their doors and some of their curriculum to women, and a demographic sea change that has been widely documented has occurred. Brain measurement, the phoney baloney 19th century pseudoscience that was appropriated to use half understood Darwinism as a racist political tool has in the past century been widely derided as a joke. In the 1980s when IQ tests were being revealed for what there were, the joke going around about it went like this:
“Who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb?”
…
Your mama.
Stupid is as stupid does, even a fictional idiot knows that.
Have you senn Joel Stein’s nasty little comments from Friday? Maybe they are channeling each other?
LA Times
From the Los Angeles Times
A little something for the ladies
Joel Stein
February 29, 2008
[Mod Note; link reformatted]
The only problem with your “crdentialed” Hillary is that she will not release her appointment records during the time period she served as First Lady. As a Senator she is a non-event, except for her votes.
The “women’s perspective” is false, a Hollywood store front. Ms. Allen is writing as artful and crude a political attack piece as she can. She’s a paid attack dog for whom gender is irrelevant except as a rhetorical tool.
LOL
Charley’s Aikin’ falls into a common trap. We tend to view others as we view ourselves. Intelligent people know better than to write, “I am somewhat dim, therefore, so are most other chicks.”
That’s not a direct quote, but it’s right on target.
Hillary and Obama are different talents, but she is as smart and streetwise and experienced as Obama. The meme about releasing her records might be relevant at another time, but not in a contest with an administration that hides and destroys government records at the pace of this one. Even Cheney’s visitors’ log.
Any chance her whole piece is pure snark?
Please, RF, I grew up with four sisters with an average IQ of 140, no one needs to tell me we are all equal. I spent the first years of my life struggling to compete with that, so I don’t need a lecture on sexual equality.
I’ve been outnumbered, outsmarted and outmanuevered often enough to humbly and readily admit gender equality, without any prodding from frustrated feminists who are tyhemselves so starry-eyed over Hillary, they can’t see that her ambition knows no gender.
So, in this little game of imaginary political poker, I see your “Hillary for President” and raise you “Sebelius for VP…” which would be very good for the whole party.
Also, I think I defended, if not proved the “blind” qualifier with the reference 2004 campaign absenteeism, if you have a better explanation for Hillary’s non-commitment, please elucidate.
Lastly, I have only been an Obama supporter since Edwards dropped out, so don’t lump me in with the starry-eyed newbies, although I am certain Hillary’s people would be more than glad to be the recipients of that adoration. As for me, I van only say that, even though starry-eyed, these ne people represent the future of our party. The more the merrier, if they stay involved for more than one electin cycle, they will lose the luster in their eyes, maybe not for Obama, but surely for the process they have recently joined.
Then they will be as jaded and skeptical as the rest of us, and that makes them the best kind of voter.
To me it’s no different than a gay writing an attack article on gays and attacking every issue they fight for.
Jesus, that reads like something published in Cosmo in the 1950s. Helen Gurley Brown, come back!
I’m heartened by Brattleboro’s willingness to openly debate this, in the finest spirit of democracy-in-action. I’m equally disappointed that our congresscritters lack the courage to do the same.
Sebelius for VP, that sounds good to me. I just saw here on C-Span at an Obama rally.
I’m glad you’re for equality of the sexes. I figured you were, but the blind ambition meme is bullshit. Any politician who makes it anywhere near running for president is ambitious.
Good afternoon Jane, Laura’ Twain, wobblybits, the rest of you foul-mouthed fem bloggers and gents as well.
I can see you are all quite annoyed with poor little Charlotte. But, really what can you expect from someone (of either sex) who admires Maggot Thather?
Certainly no one here is truly surprised or shocked at the sort of ‘person’ who is ’successful’ in today’s media? This article isn’t about depth or substance. Its purpose is two-fold: to get a rise out of those who are disgusted and an ‘aha!’ from those whom she confirms, most of whom, by the way, are NOT women.
Jane, please consider, when you send us on excursions of this nature, that
whatever ‘edification’ we may enjoy is countered by the number of ‘hits’ which result, only enhancing Charlotte’s ‘web’ appeal.
Paying any attention whatsoever (beyond assessing what ‘they’ are ‘up to’) to such writing(?) ability as she demonstrates, in my opinion, is not merely a waste of time, but of ink, paper, and ‘airwave’ space as well.
Frankly, she’s not worth the effort of juicing-up for a good spit.
AS outrages go, she represents women quite as well as ‘W’ represents intellect and nuance.
I was for Edwards too, and I’m not especially excited about either Hillary or Obama. But the Obama people do tend to be true believers, it seems to me, and I’m fed up with it. I’m also fed up with the nasty attacks on Hillary.
I went to the Great Orange Satan the other night, and believe me there are some very nasty people supporting Obama.
Here’s some Charlotte Allen for you: Larry Summers was attacked because:
Link.
Having read her other piece for the WaPo, no. She’s a conservative and very foolish person.
You nailed it, David. (Hi backatcha!)