In fairness to Sen. Booker, 'mansplaining' is a stupid word; he's perfectly right that he should be able to be critical of a cabinet secretary regardless of sex. On the other hand, he wasn't at all fair or reasonable in his conduct at yesterday's hearing.
Ultimately his complaint came down to how unfair it was that the Secretary had produced the report on international terrorism that she had been directed to produce by a formal Executive Order, and not the report on white nationalist domestic terrorism that he would have preferred. He also objected to the fact that she didn't remember the President's use of a word he wanted to take offense to, such that her memory agrees with my Senator (David Perdue) rather than Senator Durbin (who has been known to lie through his teeth on occasion). What he wants is another Sally Yates, a woman who will refuse to do her job or carry out the President's orders, and then call him a racist after she is fired for nonperformance. Anything else? He'll scream at her and insult her publicly.
But that doesn't mean it's sexism. Maybe Sen. Booker would have treated Secretary "Chaos" Mattis exactly the same way, or White House Chief of Staff John Kelly. I mean, no doubt.
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But that doesn't mean it's sexism.
No, it wasn't sexism. It was, rather, Booker's utter dishonesty and his abject moral cowardice that he was so terrified of Nielsen that he refused to let her have any opportunity at all to respond to his scurrilous charges.
Oh, wait--maybe it was his rank sexism being exposed: Nielsen is just a woman and has nothing to say but what her lord and master--the Senator from New Jersey in the instant case--will permit her to say.
Eric Hines
Grandstanding is the better word.
"It’s a little insulting to say that I should be treating Cabinet secretaries one way or another depending upon their gender," he said.
Worth it just to get him to say that.
It wasn't sexism—he would doubtless have behaved just as *ahem* deplorably with a male cabinet official in her same position*—but crying sexism is a defense, one I am reluctant to deprive the right of given that the left uses it early, often, and when it's not even arguable applicable. "One set of rules for all" is turning into my watchword, and we don't completely control what the rules are.
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*Although he'd be taking his metaphorical life in his hands if he tried that with Matthis, and he might be smart enough to realize that.
Maybe his buddy the drug dealing "T Bone" put him up to it...
Is it just faintly possible that he gained some awareness when he found himself thinking, hey, isn't it kind of unfair that I can't oppose her on a substantive issue that's important to me, without her diverting the conversation like that?--I know, I'm dreaming.
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