In a good column this morning, Kathleen Parker designates the “war on women,” the cornerstone of desperate Democratic attacks on GOP candidates, as “the war that never was.”
Kathleen also muses on the phenomenon of who can say what: Rush Limbaugh is criticized (in this instance quite rightly) for calling Sandra Fluke a bad name, while Democratic candidates get to say what they damned well please about Republican women with impunity:
A more recent example of a war-on-women event occurred in Virginia’s closely watched congressional race between Democrat John Foust and Republican Barbara Comstock. This time it was a Democratic male attacking a Republican female in, shall we say, the most clueless of terms. Lacking facts or finesse, Foust mused to an audience that Comstock hadn’t ever held a “real job.”
Meaning, what, that she’s just a mom ?
Even if this were so, and it is not, why should Foust get a pass for such an ignorant, sexist remark? Is any Democratic male — even one who manages to insult while pandering — better than any Republican female? In my experience, a woman who can manage a household and juggle the needs of three children while obtaining a law degree from Georgetown University, as Comstock did, can run a corporation or a nation. …
When a Comstock ad recently called Foust’s comments “sexist, bizarre, insensitive, ignorant,” the 10th District’s Democratic Party tweeted, “If @barbaracomstock were a man, she’d be down 20 pts w women. Her record & policies are horrible for women.”
No, if Comstock were a man, she wouldn’t have to counter such slander.
Virginia voters who oppose Comstock’s legislative record have a clear alternative. But if they cast their ballots for Foust, they’ll be electing a man whose disrespect toward women and the single job only women can do — mothering — is at least as offensive as Limbaugh’s name-calling.
On the other hand, maybe Foust and Limbaugh cancel each other out — neutralizing the war that never was.