Sisterhood of the Protected Female Liberal Journalists
My syndicated column today picks up on Obama official Howard Gutman’s odious comments on the Laura Ingraham show last week and applies his standard to working mothers in the liberal media elite.
***
Sisterhood of the Protected Female Liberal Journalists
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2008
Sisterhood of the protected female liberal journalist
Let’s talk Mommy Wars, double standards, and the media elite. Last Friday, Obama Campaign National Finance Committee member Howard Gutman attacked Sarah Palin’s ability to be a good parent and have a high-powered public life at the same time. In a finger-wagging appearance on the Laura Ingraham radio show, Obama’s operative scolded the Republican mother of five children for not putting her professional career on hold.
“Your responsibility is to put your family first,” Gutman lectured as he singled out Palin’s Down’s Syndrome baby and pregnant teenage daughter. “The proper attack is not that a woman shouldn’t run for vice president with five kids, it’s that a parent, when they have a family in need,” should get out of the public sphere and stay home.
The Gutman standard has now been proffered by countless Obama hacks and water-carrying commentators. Damningly, it’s high-powered working mothers in the journalism business helping to broadcast the anti-Palin slams or doing nothing to defend her.
CNN’s Soledad O’Brien denied Palin attacks on her network, even as her colleague John Roberts asked: “”There’s also this issue that on April 18th, she gave birth to a baby with Down’s Syndrome…. Children with Down’s syndrome require an awful lot of attention. The role of Vice President, it seems to me, would take up an awful lot of her time, and it raises the issue of how much time will she have to dedicate to her newborn child?”
NBC’s Meredeith Viera asserted that only blogs went after Palin’s motherhood abilities while running for veep, even as her colleague Brian Williams slyly raised feminists’ “fears or doubts that she should be able to do this, that she should be doing this.”
How would CNN’s O’Brien like the Gutman standard applied to her? She’s been working overtime covering the presidential campaign season, anchoring daily coverage, nighttime conventions, and producing documentaries that require large chunks of time away from home. Disney’s Family Parenting website lauds her as “a modern mom balancing a thriving career as one of America’s top news anchors along with her four children” – two daughters now ages 7 and 6 and twin boys who are 4. Where are the Palin-bashers to lambaste O’Brien’s professional pursuits?
How about Katie Couric? Her husband died at 42 when her daughters were 6 and 2 years old. With two young children devastated by the loss of a father, she opted not to quit journalism. She anchored NBC’s Today Show through his illness and death, continued working an intensive, time-consuming schedule as one of America’s most visible broadcast journalists while a single mother with two fatherless children at home, and then jumped to CBS News, where she maintains a rigorous on-air schedule, travel plans, and off-air social calendar. Where are the finger-waggers?
Also at CNN, Campbell Brown flew to Las Vegas last year to moderate a political debate while 8 ½ months’ pregnant. Fox News host and left-wing blogger Alan Colmes, last seen questioning Sarah Palin’s commitment to prenatal care because she worked and traveld late in her pregnancy, had no comment. When she initially left the Today Show in 2007, Brown said she was stepping down to devote more time to family and baby. She immediately turned around the next day and jumped ship to CNN, where she has anchored wall-to-wall CNN Election Center coverage and will launch a new nightly show in November.
And at NBC, famous balancer of work-and-motherhood Viera replaced Couric on the Today Show. She has three children at home and a husband who has battled multiple sclerosis and two bouts with colon cancer. By the Gutman standard, Viera should have left the business years ago to tend to her family in need.
As a working woman in the media for 16 years and a working mother in the media for the last eight. I know the commitment and energy it took for these women to get to the top. I’ve filed columns from hospital beds, written books while nursing, brought my toddlers to TV studios, and told bedtime stories on the cell phone while boarding planes. I’ve worked hard to strike the “balance” we all seek. I’ve made good choices and bad choices, and have no regrets about the opportunities I’ve taken and the opportunities I’ve rejected. I couldn’t have done it without a supportive husband willing to forego his own career goals – the kind of spouse that the media has ignored in Todd Palin and the kind of spouse I’m sure the Sisterhood of the Protected Female Journalist all have.
I don’t challenge the commitment these fellow working mothers in the media have to their home lives. What I challenge is their silence and complicity as the Palin-bashers impose a “Family First” double standard on conservatives. The sorority is closed to the Right.
***
K-Lo has a point here. But it’s not “whining” to expose double standards. It’s an object lesson.
John Hawkins has a video show of solidarity from the conservative sisterhood.
See what others have said
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Trackbacks
- Aside: Michelle On Hypocritical Media » Pirate’s Cove — Barracuda Patrol!
- Jules Crittenden » Fishy
- A Grym View » Blog Archive » Yes Palin is a mother of five, she only needs to take care of two!
- A Grym View » Blog Archive » Sisterhood of Hypocrits.
- Life in 3D » Keeping it Classy on the Left
- The New Face of Feminism « The Family Guy
- “Family First!” for thee but not for me. « Republican Party of Jefferson County, TN
- Webloggin » Angry Embittered Women Express Anger Over Sarah Palin
- Ed Driscoll.com
- Leftist takeover of Academia | NeoConstant
- Bloodthirsty Liberal » Can A Woman Hold An Important Job While Caring For Children?
- Michelle Malkin Knows Something About Racism and Sexism & Calls Out the Media On Sexist Attacks Against Palin « The IUSB Vision Weblog
- Little Miss Attila
- “Palin represented an explosion of a brand new style of muscular American feminism.” « Republican Party of Jefferson County, TN
- race42008.com » Blog Archive » Race 4 2008 Evening Essential Reads
- Blatant Anti-Palin Bias in the Liberal Media: A Collection « BUUUUURRRRNING HOT
- Hardcore, left-wing, feminist ideologues zeroing in on their target, Gov. Sarah Palin. « Republican Party of Jefferson County, TN
- Sisterhood For Me, But Not For Thee « Obi’s Sister
- Moonbats Out in Full Force « The Foxhole
- Michelle Malkin » CNN’s “overwhelming” Obama bias
- Obama, Bill Ayers; Who Cares? « Riggword Weblog
- RED GIRL RISING » Blog Archive » The Mommy Double-Standard
- Michelle Malkin » Liberal women still mobbing Sarah Palin and her family
- Obama = Bill Ayers; Who Cares II? « Riggword Weblog
- CBS News Anchor Flunked Math? Katie Couric & Her Idiotic ‘Jelly Bean Economy’ Analogy « Frugal Café Blog Zone
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Categories: Double standards, Katie Couric, Sarah Palin
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Abolish the teachers unions.
The real problem for Obama is that Palin is not only an attractive mother of five, and not only a popular governor, she is also more masculine than that effete metrosexual.
Who would you bet on in a fight?
Those CNN anchors are so catty my cat says:
With a shout out to the Collie….
On September 10th, 2008 at 12:50 pm, englishqueen01 said:
Wow. You ROCK!
Thanks for another outstanding column, Michelle. Keep up the good work!
Homeschool!
One thing which is not commented on enough is the way in which Palin is completely overshadowing McCain. McCain is almost the forgotten man at the moment. Who do the crowds cheer for at their joint appearences? Not McCain.
If they win, it will be because Palin carried McMoron across the finishing line on her back.
Homeschooling is good, but simply abolishing the unions and filling the ranks of teachers with, well, teachers would be a good move.
Is the photo of Katie Couric the “fingerpointing” you were talking about, Michelle?
ECS
What’s the story on the Katie picture? Is it photoshop?
An excellent article for all those commendable, working mothers out there (including my own when I was younger).
Are you saying that Gov. Palin should stay home to teach her children? I didn’t think so.
Abolishing teachers unions will not solve the problem of incompetent teachers. The teaching profession currently attracts, on average, those in the bottom half of the college graduates. This is the best job they can get considering the money paid.
Thank you MM for finally pointing out smthg that has P.O’d me since this started. SHE’S GOT A HUSBAND! All these comments presume that Todd Palin can’t or doesn’t help.
I think what really upsets these media numbskulls is that the Palin family is a Nuclear+ family: two parents (of opposite sex, egads) with oodles of kids.
And as a demographics fan, I’d like to thank the Palins for joining my family in keeping America’s total fertility rate above replacement! Something that Europe isn’t doing (short of Turkey and Albania, that is).
Let me ask you – given that nothing I said sounded remotely like “Palin should stay home with her kids”, and give that you yourelf say “I don’t think so” – what on earth are you blabbering on about?
Yes, Oh Genius, it will. At present incompetent teachers cannot be fired.
That’s an awful lot of mistakes to cram into a few sentences. Teachers are overpaid, relative to the hours they work and the skills they have.
Most countries pay far less than we do to educate their children, and get much better results. If money spent was the major issue then American kids should be world-beaters.
Nope, not photoshop. Tennyson pulled that pic up from somewhere. I’m not sure of the story behind it.
Excellent piece Michelle.
Michelle M. rocks! Cindy rocks! Sarah rocks!
M.O not so much. lol.
It’s Killin em and
I Love it!!!
McCain/Palin 08′
Three cheers to the First Dudes of America!!!
It is each families’ decision to make, certainly not political pundits’.
Bill Mack – I have to disagree here. First of all, the University I attended had a great education program that attracted numerous intelligent, top-performing students. It was a specific course of study that students chose early in their college careers, not a dumping ground for ignorant students with no other prospects. I am not saying that no teachers match your description, but I believe you are wrong in saying that on average teachers are low-performing students with no other job prospect.
I cannot tell if you are saying that teachers are underpaid in that final sentence – if, however, that is the case than I disagree there too. While there are certainly some educators who are underpaid, people in general tend only to compare the salaries of teachers with those of other industries and point out the fact that teachers make less on average. However, this fails to consider the many differences in teachers benefits. Teachers work an average of 190 days/year compared to 240 on average for other full-time employees. Teachers work <38 hour days (excluding extracurriculars.) In Chicago the contract for teachers limits their workdays to 6 hours and 45 minutes (including a 45 min lunch.) While I understand that they bring work home to grade, plenty of other professionals bring their work home. Then, when you consider tenure… How many other jobs have such ridiculous security?
Sorry for the little rant, but I studied education and I have heard my share of teachers whining about how underpaid they are… I fully support educators (real educators that is) but they have it pretty good oftentimes.
I will NEVER understand women. Honestly. They will divorce a husband who asks them to stop working to stay hone with the kids, yet they will support a desperate Socialist who says the opposing parties choice for VP should forfeit her right to a career because she has a family.
Something just does NOT compute here, ladies.
I’m curious about the pic of Katie giving the finger. I’m guessing its a photoshop yet, as we’ve already seen, perhaps owing to his having been abandoned by his parents, Obama earlier has already shown that on some profound level he’s never quite left highschool. Really, I can’t remember when in my life, even in college I’ve been in company anyone capable of mistaking that gesture for some kind of wit. Then again I would have never imagined I would see bathroom humor of the sort I thought I’d left behind in the 4th grade, become common place on late night talk shows.
Once again, the libtards are grasping at straws. Their hypocracy is as appalling as their agenda. This is all they have, and they’re failing in their efforts to demonize the GOP ticket. I can’t wait till November when the real fun begins, i.e. litigation for the presidency if McCain/Palin wins it.
Michelle,
Great column. You give many examples of liberal hypocrisy, yet there will be some on this blog, who instead of discussing the issue, will bloveiate about something completely unrelated. I would love one of them to come and defend it. Unfortunately, you’re chasing away some of our trolls because you’re “evil”, so I won’t hold my breath.
What happened to the “it takes a village to raise a child” notion that the left was so crazy about a few years ago? I guess that is now out of favor. Sarah Palin (and Todd) has every bit as much of a right to make a choice to raise her children while working in a tough career, as the young mother comtemplating abortion does to make her “choice” to kill her baby. Is not the privacy issue, with its resulting “choice” of death, a liberal mantra?
This is not about whether Sarah Palin is being, or can be if elected, a good mom or not. It is about trying to discredit, by any means available, a worthy opponent. It is also another fine example from the party that brings us the best in hypocrisy. The Democrats.
Just posted on Drudge. This race is going to be over in a week, if the Dems don’t shut up.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0908/SC_Dem_chair_Palin_primary_qualification_is_she_hasnt_had_an_abortion_.html?showall
Flyoverman linked to the Carol Fowler comment: John McCain had chosen a running mate “whose primary qualification seems to be that she hasn’t had an abortion.”
Democrats are just full of these nasty little comments, aren’t they? And they want us to vote for them why????
Public schools are so broken that I don’t know where to begin. Giving more money to stupid people won’t inprove education. I delt with 3 different school systems in 3 different states and found the Il schools to be pathetic.
Bruce said, “I’ll never understand women.” Well, neither does Obama.
“Captain, we are sinking in the polls”.
“Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead with the lies, the mis-truths and the innuendo, of which we will deny we intended in the first place!”
Michelle, great article. All liberal women assume that women in general must be like them. They rail about the injustices against women and continue to smear the patriarchy for holding women back. As long as women have their “abortion rights” on demand and “control” over their own bodies, the stars are aligned in their universe.
Everything these liberal news whores say about Palin is a bunch of static and white noise to me. I’ve worked my butt off my entire life, raised a younger sibling, and learned how to rely on my own talents. I never rode any man’s coattails (sorry Hilary). Despite the ignorant musings of nyk, I never benefited one day of my life from Affirmative Action.
You’re a masterful juggler if you’re a liberal feminist. You’re a traitor to the “sisterhood” if you’re a conservative or disagree with feminism’s aims. The ultimate lesson I got from feminism is a great women’s history professor, whom I considered a friend, cutting me dead when I married my military husband. She was the biggest juggler of all, challenging career, kids, new husband. She did it all.
So why can’t I? Why can’t conservative women like Palin do it all? What’s the big fuss?
It’s just pathetically sad. I die a little inside everytime I think of all the times I stood up for feminism to my mother, who never burned her bra or believed in any of their goals. She used to look at me after I would have discussions with her about feminism like I was crazy.
I guess I understand now why she felt the way she did.
It is intelligent articles like this one–that poke the collective eye of hypocrisy until it bleeds and is useless–that make Michelle one of the best reads in journalism today.
Excellent points. Keep peeling the onion. It’s bound to make the liberals cry for mercy sooner or later.
Is Obummer actually talking about the issues? Yes, let’s discuss. As a teacher, I heard that Obummer wants to throw money at charter schools but won’t discuss school vouchers. I heard him say that he supports merit pay for teachers and get rid of the bad ones. I wonder what teacher’s unions will have to say about that and if they’ll contribute more PAC money to his campaign to make sure that never happens.
Yes, let’s discuss why Obummer accuses McCain and Palin of being more like Pres. Bush in reference to the Bridge to Nowhere, when he and Biden supported that earmark. An independent, non-partisan group, Citizens against Government Waste (I think that’s their name) found that Obummer and Biden supported more earmarks in their time in Congress than McCain and Palin. Is that the change you want in Washington? More wasteful spending?
How are kids supposed to be educated better when Pres. Bush is just throwing more money at the system than actually reforming it? Clinton did the same thing. If you want kids to be competitive with the rest of the world, than the system needs to be fundamentally changed.
Obummer, like his predecessors, just wants to throw more money at things that don’t work. Taxpayers keep footing the bill.
#110 said:
From the report “Teacher Quality: Meeting the Highly Qualified Teachers Challenge”:
Academic standards for teachers are generally low.
* Only 23 states have implemented teacher standards tied to their academic content standards for grades K-12.
* On the teacher licensure test used by 29 states, only one state set its passing score in reading near the national average.
* Fifteen states set passing scores in reading below the 25th percentile.
On math and writing tests, only one state set its passing score above the national average.
Not surprisingly, more than 90 percent of teachers pass these tests.”
More to be had from http://www.title2.org/
I’m still searching for a report on average SAT scores of “education majors” and GRE scores for education graduates.
Listening to these folks is like listening to the feminists’ deafening silence when Bill Clinton was at large in the whitehouse doing interns…
Have they not all destroyed whatever point they’d all been previously trying to make, pre-Palin?…
Here you go Dowd, I found the info from the National Center for Education Statistics. From their table 136 (at: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d07/tables/dt07_136.asp?referrer=list):
Students who select education as their major have the lowest SAT scores of any major (964). This is 49 points below the average of 1013.
As for graduates of undergraduate education programs, the NCES uses GRE Education test scores (from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d07/tables/dt07_319.asp?referrer=list):
The undergraduates taking the Education GRE test for admission to education graduate programs average a score of 477, lowest of all subject and general GRE testers that year. (The last year shown in their report is 1998. I am presuming this is the last year the GRE had an education version of the test.)
ASSUME ASSUME ASSUME that dems, both politicans and constituents will act hypocritcally, without honesty or integrity, throw tantrums, be intellectually dishonest, be morally bankrupt, be treasonous and against the USA’s national interests, and willingly enable the fix to be in by the mainstream lemmings in the media. Then just sit back and chronicle all things that are done by such souless people, grotesque human beings.
When it comes to dems, NOTHING surprises me.
Couric, Brown, Viera, O’Brien, and Roberts should not be working the jobs they have in their current situation.
It has nothing to do with being a mother (we’ll include Roberts because he’s a girly man) with kids at home.
The fact is they are all lousy at their job, so they should do the right thing and step aside so someone competent can take over. To receive a 7+ figure salary, you should have 7+ figure talent. None of these hacks qualify.
I know of no other industry where the standards of performance are so low and the rewards are so high as what exists in the print and electronic mainstream media today.
Memo to Couric — winning the “bronze medal” (coming in 3rd place) doesn’t count for much when there are only 3 competitors. You really shouldn’t comment about what anyone else does in the workplace. Just stick to reading your teleprompter, you silly twit.
“On September 10th, 2008 at 2:04 pm, Elm Creek Smith said:
Is the photo of Katie Couric the “fingerpointing” you were talking about, Michelle?”
Geez, I gotta get more sleep. I meant “finger-wagging.” Sorry.
ECS
Not as long as the NEA keeps merit or performance pay off the table, emphasizes “process” and “self-esteem” over learning actual facts and history and getting the right answer, and gets involved in things like gay marriage, leftist causes, and other
crapstuff that doesn’t have anything to do with education. It’s a teachers’ union and is responsible for the destruction of American public education.When I retired from the Army, I was approached for the “Soldiers to Schools” program. I would have been required to join the NEA, and I would rather perform abdominal surgery on myself with a dull pocketknife, a nail file, and a hankerchief than do that.
How’s that for an issue, lgm?
ECS
When you hate as strongly as the extreme left appears to hate, it becomes self-destructive. obama has opened up pandora’s box and he just can’t put the demons back inside. The shame of all this is that a real discussion of the issues cannot take place in the midst of such emotion. On the other hand, since obama or a surrogate is forming a circular firing squad, I say bring it on.
More people talking about issues:
Elm Creek Smith said (#129):
Did you know Obama supports merit pay for teachers? He does.
We Love Michelle!!! BTW if the conservative goddess has been a “working woman in the media for 16 years” then she must have started working at age 10????
On September 10th, 2008 at 3:05 pm, Bruce said:
It’s not women. It’s collectivist women.
Hell, rich collectivists in pre-Soviet Russia helped Lenin, too. Collectivism has an unusual appeal to the self-destructive and suicidal.
Michelle, you are so awesome. Like Olbie, I “starting to sound borderline sycophantic” (I wonder who picked that word out for that dufus).
Hey, if you ever get tired of your wonderful husband… oh heck, what are the chances?
Keep up the great work. You are the BOMB!
As does McCain. What’s your point? You and one or two other liberal posters here have complained about Obama’s position on this previously.
Obama’s position might have something to do with the fact that meritocracy for the education system polls very well. Also, let’s not forget that despite Obama’s stated position on merit pay, he still gained the NEA endorsement. A bit curious given how big an issue this is for them.
I don’t have much to say about this
In the words of that immortal Marine:
Aging leftist man who looks like an old lesbian Roger Ebert lets Sarah Palin melt his brain. Seems he disapproves for her for not spending enough of her life in Europe.
But the left isn’t elitist, or anything. How could anyone infer that he’s an elitist just because he thinks unless one spends several years among our European betters, one is simply an unwashed backwoods peasant with a corncob pipe, missing teeth, and a jug of moonshine.
I didn’t read through every comment, so someone may have said this already. Viera is still hosting Who Wants to be a Millionaire too.
Michelle, it’s time to split from the feminist rhetoric. No matter what all the attempts over the years to define feminism, the term is stuck with political feminism. Sarah Palin bypassed the feminist era and went from suffrage to VP candidate. Our suffragists would be proud, but they would have ridiculed feminists.
Two words for the MSM liberal bias buzzards swirling over Governor Palin and her family: Butt the Hell Out.
Where is Gloria Steinem on all of this?
Sarah Palin and women like her are the fruit of the Women’s Movement in the 60s and 70s. A closet Moslem is running for POTUS so the reply of “feminist America” is to dummy up and let the poopie bombs fly in their faces.
Right along with the MSM, the “feminists” of America— you know the ones with the bumper stickers that talk about the “radical idea that women are people”????— are going to usher in their own era of irrelevancy and backlash.
Sold out to universities and non-profit upper middle class careers by and large. Bought and paid for.
Say Goodnite, Jane, you ignorant sl*t.
Bear1909 out
Is it the silence? Or the hypocrisy?
since our teachers consider themselves “professionals” how about testing them for competency. you know, like other professions. after law school i had to take a test to see if i knew enough to practice in my state. the curricullum of teachers in my state mandates half of the graduating hours to feel good sociology and psychology courses, but only requires high school math and science. no wonder we can’t do math, niether can our teachers.
.
These busy Lib journalist Mommies and Guttman are just little whiners who’re scared Palin is overshadowing the Obamassiah. Even more Hillary supporters will go for McCain now. Obama is no longer a near certainty. Heaven forbid something happens to McCain, but I believe Palin would rise to the occasion. She has the right attitude. Everyone knows Obama is NOT ready for POTUS, Palin is only for the VP. Look at Dan Quayle.
YEY SARAH PALIN! YEY John McCain! Great pick! The 1st woman for the GOP VP? SCORE!
She’s conservative! SCORE! She’s a Governor! SCORE! She’s pro-drilling! She’s a hunter! SCORE! She doesn’t believe the MMGW Scam! SCORE! She’s a hockey Mom and played basketball in school! SCORE! She’s pro-life! And she respects women! SCORE! She fights corruption! SCORE! She’s high-energy! SCORE! She’s tough! SCORE! She’s got 5 kids! SCORE! Her son is going to Iraq in the Armed Forces! SCORE! She’s married to a Blue-collar professional! SCORE! She’s smart! SCORE! She’s young! SCORE!
And she’s a Hotty to boot! SCORE! The Left is going to go nuts! SCORE!
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
never elect a woman
who’s a conservative
she’s just a gender traitor
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
just HOPE to pay more taxes
DREAM about high fuel prices
CHANGE PROGRESS to move backwards
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
NEVER ELECT a woman
OR a minority
if they are Right of center
.
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