DOUBLE STANDARD

DOUBLE STANDARD, May 16, 2008

Senator Barack Obama visited a state he, and the rest of the Democratic Presidential candidates, ignored during the primary campaign. Michigan, along with Florida, decided that they would like to have a larger voice in the primary campaign, especially as related to smaller states like Iowa and New Hampshire.
During his visit to Michigan, Senator Obama visited a Chrysler LLC plant in Sterling Heights in Macomb County. Macomb County is the home of “Reagan Democrats.” These traditional, white, working class Democrats have been segment of the Democrat primary campaign that has eluded Senator Obama. These voters are one of the bases of the Clinton campaign. For Senator Obama to win in November, he will have to have vote for him.
However, Senator Obama’s reaching out to traditional Reagan Democrats is not what this is about. During the tour, a reporter for the local ABC affiliate, WXYZ, Peggy Agar asked the Senator, what he was going to do to “help the American auto workers?”
Obama’s response was, “Hold on one second, sweetie, we'll do a press avail, thanks.” He did not answer the question, as there was no press avail. He made a condescending remark to a professional woman. This is the man that wants to be the President of the United States? He is a Harvard educated lawyer, who one would think would know that it is not okay to characterize women in that manner.
I have just one question relating to this issue, why hasn’t the National Organization of Women (NOW) spoken up about how the Senator’s comments to a female reporter were inappropriate.
Would it be that NOW is basically a Democratic front and even though they support Senator Clinton for President, they are not likely to speak out against a fellow Democrat. Just like when they didn’t speak out against President Clinton for having an affair with a White House intern, NOW seems to only speak out when the person is a Republican or a corporation. Following the Lewinski affair, the leadership of NOW, Kim Gandy and Patricia Ireland both spoke out against the Republicans who were proceeding with an impeachment case against the President for lying under oath about the affair.
Would they have acted the same way if it were a Republican? I don’t think so. It is just another example of the double standard that certain groups hold when someone acts against their standards. Just another typical day inside the Beltway.
Senator Obama later called and apologized for his language. A small issue that if it were another person from another political party would be a much bigger issue and would be getting a lot more publicity on all the major main stream media outlets/