Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) levied a thinly disguised insult to Secretary Rice yesterday as Rice appeared before the Senate to defend the President’s new plan for Iraq. The New York Post‘s scathing editorial, “Boxer’s Low Blow,” quoted the following exchange:
“Who pays the price? I’m not going to pay a personal price,” Boxer said. “My kids are too old, and my grandchild is too young.”
Then, to Rice: “You’re not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family.”
Breathtaking.
Simply breathtaking.
We scarcely know where to begin.
The junior senator from California ap parently believes that an accomplished, seasoned diplomat, a renowned scholar and an adviser to two presidents like Condoleezza Rice is not fully qualified to make policy at the highest levels of the American government because she is a single, childless woman.
This is a tactic often employed by the Left and particularly radical feminists: men are often demeaned unfit to comment on issues such as reproduction issues or childcare that most directly affect women. It’s simple prejudice, of course, and as is often the case, the media lets such inappropriate remarks slide when they come from Democrats. The New York Post suggests imagining the uproar that would have ensured if it was a Republican — or even worse, a male Republican –making such snide remarks to a Democrat. It would be page one news.