President Barack Obama just couldn’t help himself. He saw a pretty woman, channeled his inner Bill Clinton, and swooned over California’s Attorney General Kamala Harris. At a fundraising event, the Commander in Chief described Harris as “by far the best looking attorney general in the country.”
“It’s true! C’mon,” Obama responded, as the crowd roared with laughter in agreement, according to news reports. I wonder what First Lady Michelle Obama thought about her husband’s comment?
Both Harris and Obama were just outside of San Francisco April 4th attending a DNC event to raise money for the 2014 mid-term elections. Obama certainly has his priorities in order. Instead of reducing the country’s mounting debt and deficit, he’s helping Democrats win control of the House.
Not only was the comment sexist but beneath the dignity of the President of the United States. If Obama made such a comment in the private sector about a female co-worker, he likely would have been terminated on the spot and slapped with a sexual harassment lawsuit. But American’s can’t terminate our president for behaving badly.
On the flip side, this is a classic example of the liberal media’s double standard for conservatives. If George W. Bush described a female lawmaker as essentially being a hottie, there would have been howls from mainstream press that dominates our news media. But Obama can call CA Attorney General Kamala Harris the "best looking AG in the country" and the media's response to our first black president is, “Go ahead brother,” in so many words.
That’s what Jonathan Capehart thinks. Capehart defended Obama’s loose lips comment about Harris, “a compliment.” You can’t make this stuff up. Capehart wrote:
“President Obama prides himself on telling the truth. And when he reportedly said that California Attorney General Kamala Harris is ‘by far, the best looking attorney general,’ he spoke the God’s honest truth.” You just can’t make this stuff up. In Capehart’s mind-boggling defense of Obama, Capehart reminds us he’s one of “them,” part of elite group of Democrats who’s been in Obama’s presence at the White House.
“And Harris was a guest at the state dinner for British Prime Minister David Cameron. (Full disclosure: We were at the same table that night.),” added Capehart.
No matter what this president does, Obama’s loyal flock come to his defense, particularly his black supporters, even if it means overlooking the facts and blatant insults. In 2011, Obama spoke to the Congressional Black Caucus’ Annual Dinner and told blacks they needed to “take off your bedroom slippers, stop complainin, and stop grumblin.” Many conservatives like myself thought the remarks were racist but most blacks didn’t seem bothered and the liberal media was mostly muted on the topic. Former CBC Chairman Emmanuel Cleaver said in 2012 that with the black jobless rate at 14%, almost twice the national average at the time, Cleaver said “if we had a white president we’d be marching around the White House.” But Cleaver said the CBC cut Obama some slack cause he was black.
Back to Capehart, who wrote “judging by some of the comments I’ve seen on Twitter you’d swear the president was guilty of luridly cat-calling a woman he doesn’t know. If I thought for one moment that’s what was going on, you better believe I’d hammer him for it.” That’s exactly what was going on and whether Obama knew Harris or not doesn’t give him a license to reduce a woman of power to her looks.
I guess if Obama kissed Harris on the mouth, Capehart would consider that gesture worthy of “hammering” the president. Instead of lecturing his readers to “lighten up” on Obama, perhaps Capehart should open his eyes and “get serious” in his coverage of the president.
Recently, a student asked me whether I had a right to speak out on abortion given that I am a man and could never experience pregnancy. I countered by asking him whether arguments have testicles. The question drew laughter from other students who were listening to the exchange. But my point was serious and worth addressing at length.
The idea that men are ineligible to speak out on abortion has at least six flaws, each of which should be understood and articulated by men who desire to speak on the issue. Those argumentative flaws follow in no particular order of importance:
1. The argument is sexist towards men. There have been 26 million males aborted in America since Roe v. Wade. Men have every right to speak out on behalf of those millions of males who were victims of violence at the hands of women. To accept that men cannot speak up for them because they could never choose to have an abortion would have dangerous implications. Could a woman not speak up for a young female rape victim because she could never choose to commit a rape? Would they be prohibited from speaking because they were not members of the gender ultimately responsible for carrying out the crime? Surely not. Furthermore, the argument reinforces the dangerous idea that rights belong to groups and not to individuals.
2. The argument is sexist towards women. We must also consider the effects of male anti-abortion advocacy on unborn women. An unborn woman has a right to choose simply by virtue of the fact that she is a woman. Or so the argument goes. If a woman is persuaded to let her unborn female child live then she too can hear the evidence on both sides of the abortion debate. If she dies, she is not at liberty to hear arguments on either side of the issue from either a man or a woman. And she cannot make a decision concerning what to do with her body if she is dismembered in the womb. Ironically, a woman’s so-called right to body autonomy, when exercised, defeats another woman’s right to bodily autonomy (in roughly one out of every two cases of pregnancy).
3. The argument defeats Roe v. Wade. Feminists would like to see the two dissenting Justices in Roe v. Wade silenced because they are men. But the same argument would silence the seven Justices who voted in favor of Roe v. Wade. They were also men. In other words, if a man’s opinion on abortion is invalidated simply by virtue of the fact that he is a man then Roe v. Wade would also be invalidated.
4. The argument would also apply to other medical procedures. Women usually decide to let their male offspring live. When they do, they usually have their male offspring circumcised. As Francis Beckwith points out, a woman can never know what it is like to have a portion of her penis removed. So how can she be allowed to participate in both the abortion and circumcision decision while a man is excluded from the former?
5. The argument assumes the male pro-life speech is directed toward women. People simply assume that the pro-life male is trying to control women when he argues against abortion. But oftentimes he is not even speaking to women. He is often motivated by a desire to change the hearts of men. This is because he knows that men often coerce women into abortions by threatening to leave them if they have the baby. Therefore, by entering the debate, the pro-life man may be reducing coercive control over women’s bodies. If women are better suited to speak to women, then it stands to reason that men are better suited to speak to men.
6. The argument also applies to slavery. No one could reasonably argue that abortion only affects women. A better argument would be that it affects women disproportionately. But that does not mean women are the only ones who can address the issue of abortion. Historically, slavery has affected blacks disproportionately. But it does not lead to the conclusion that non-blacks are disqualified from commenting on a moral issue that clearly spills over to all segments of the human population.
Liberals are constantly trying to reduce the marketplace of ideas by reducing the number of voices that are eligible to participate. They have already silenced 52 million voices with the blade of a sharp knife. We cannot let them do further damage with dull ideas. Sharpening arguments requires vigorous debate. And vigorous debate requires acceptance of the idea that arguments are not gendered. Neither is the right to speak on matters of profound moral consequence.
President Barack Obama just couldn’t help himself. He saw a pretty woman, channeled his inner Bill Clinton, and swooned over California’s Attorney General Kamala Harris. At a fundraising event, the Commander in Chief described Harris as “by far the best looking attorney general in the country.”
Not only was the comment sexist but beneath the dignity of the President of the United States. If Obama made such a comment in the private sector about a female co-worker, he likely would have been terminated on the spot and slapped with a sexual harassment lawsuit. But American’s can’t terminate our president for behaving badly.
