Brooklyn Mutt

clingtomymouth:

When forced to consider the subject of Nancy Pelosi’s massive success as Speaker of the House—-success many people like Brooks would not think a woman capable of—-he said this, after Mark Shields suggested Pelosi is the most powerful female political figure in our history:

JIM LEHRER: Do you buy that, David?

DAVID BROOKS: I’m trying to think of alternatives.

Some people say Edith Wilson was very powerful when Woodrow Wilson had a stroke.

Already we’re deep into wanker territory.  But it gets worse!  Because Brooks simply cannot accept that a woman might acquire power the way a man can, by working hard and winning elections and getting good at her job. 

DAVID BROOKS: But, certainly, this is a great accomplishment. And sort of it’s an interesting picture of what it takes to succeed in a job like this.

She is not a great speaker—I mean a spokesperson, a communicator. I personally don’t think she’s great on policy. But she has the skills to know how to control this body, which is a fractious body, even when you have a majority. And, so, those skills are maybe in her blood from her father and her brother, but also skills that she really possesses. And there’s no denying she is a very effective legislator.

If you’re going to force him to admit that she’s good at her job—-which he does under great pain, no doubt—-he’s going to give credit to her male relatives.  And then he’s going to run off and tell Sandra Bullock it’s her fault her husband cheated, because she insisted on winning that Oscar.

Yes, it’s 2010, people, and that’s in the op-ed pages of the NY Times. 

via pandagon.net - we are the public option