Progressivism

Working class, orphaned by the left, starts to veer right

With parties of the left no longer championing Joe Sixpack and Jane Jobholder in the rapidly globalizing economies of America and Europe, it’s no wonder the right has surged, writes contributor Bill Moloney

Jerry Brown slurs Whitman -- earns NOW's endorsement

The timing couldn't be more profound: just one day after California gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown is caught on tape as a campaign aide calls Meg Whitman a "whore", the National Organization for Women announces -- you guessed it -- that it is supporting Jerry Brown for Governor. Proving that liberal orthodoxy trumps gender every time, NOW not only is endorsing a man over a woman in California, but it is apparently not concerned with Brown's acceptance of sexist, demeaning language being used against his opponent. In NOW's view, Whitman -- who is pro-life -- apparently doesn't warrant the kind of protection from mysogynist attacks that the group's charter is supposed to provide all women. But as it has proven time and time again, female conservatives are the wrong kind of women. Not that NOW can't be enraged by a politician's words -- just not those of Democrat politicians. Posted prominently on the NOW website, the group is vehemently denouncing Senator Jim DeMint's "dangerous comments" on gays and sexually active single women "being unfit to teach". According to NOW, DeMint's comments to a "conservative church group" make him a "sexist bigot" who is "ignorant, homophobic" and unfit to serve in the U.S. Congress. DeMint actually made these comments six years ago, and was only recently reflecting on the impact they had in the media in a speech he gave last week to the Greater Freedom Rally in Spartanburg, South Carolina. And he actually said that "gays and unmarried pregnant women" should not be public school teachers -- a statement that NOW extrapolated to mean "sexually active single women" -- as if every sexually active single woman gets pregnant. Leaving aside the wisdom of DeMint's views on these issues, is putting forward a value statement on public education really worse than calling a woman a "whore"?

For NOW -- which has never met a conservative woman it can support, a man who uses a sexist slur is still better than a self-made woman who embodies the very feminist values of hard work and female mobility that the group is supposed to stand for.

Shameful.