Media Matters comments on Mark Halperin's disgusting, sexist, juvenile photoshop of Landrieu

[Enrique]

http://mediamatters.org/blog/200911240036

Maybe Halperin thought it was really clever to echo a scene from a late-90s romantic comedy, but it isn't. The image and all that it suggests -- yes, her hair is supposed to be held up by semen -- isn't supported by any facts provided by Halperin in his post. The page to which he links doesn't have anything to do with semen, romantic comedies, or hair gel. In fact, it's a statement from Sen. Mary Landrieu's (D-LA) Communications Director "on motion to proceed timing" on the Senate's health care reform bill.

In other words, it's part of a broader, sexist right-wing narrative that the U.S. Senator from Louisiana is, as Glenn Beck put it yesterday, "a high-class prostitute" engaged in "hookin'" -- all because she lobbied Senate leadership for expanded Medicaid funding for Louisiana in the Senate health care bill in what was characterized by the media as an exchange for her "yea" vote to proceed with floor debate on the bill.

Not to be left out, Rush Limbaugh got in on the action yesterday too, declaring that Landrieu "may be the most expensive prostitute in the history of prostitution."

These types of backwards, sexist remarks are what we have come to expect from Beck or Limbaugh, but this is truly a new low for Halperin, and, by association, for Time. As my colleague Julie Millican pointed out last week, the other weekly news magazine -- Newsweek -- has a sexism problem that it needs to address concerning another female politician.

(...)

[GMA]

1. This kind of garbage is okay for Palin,

but not Landrieu.

[Captain Hilts]

3. No, it's not. Palin has been subjected to a lot of classist and sexist crap. nt

[Enrique]

4. it's not ok for Palin

imho.

[Captain Hilts]

2. It's gross, and should be worthy of firing him. But, they won't. nt

[HipChick]

5. I'm tired of the double standard already..

but I'll make an exception for Palin - sorry can't stand that woman

[GMA]

7. And THAT, my friend,

is how the garbage happens. I know you're only joking, but you make my point.

[GMA]

8. Wait! Maybe you're not joking!

In which case, you really make my point.

[karynnj]

6. Well he is one of the two men who wrote that Drudge was our Murrow!

I only read the chapter that was free online - but it praised Drudge and the Republicans for what was a dirty trick that was likely too transparently a lie to have worked for Colson. They took a routine $75 hair cut appointment John Kerry had in DC and turned it into spending $1000 to get his hair colored, highlighted and styled complete with bogus quotes from imaginary hair dressers. The Kerry campaign and the beauty salon immediately got the truth out - but the Republicans thought it was a victory because some believed it.

I didn't think his admiration for that and Drudge could be outdone (in the negative direction - it was with this.

The fact is that what she got for LA was reasonable - not an earmark, but justifiable aid. That they are making this seem almost criminal is pathetic.