NYT's Dowd: Hillary Has a History of Using Sexism as Cover for Her Mistakes

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd said Sunday that Hillary Clinton blaming her campaign woes on gender bias is "poppycock" that is "very damaging to feminism," and that the former first lady "has a history of covering up her own mistakes behind sexism."

As this appears likely to be an important issue for Democrats to resolve in the months before Election Day, Sunday's "Meet the Press" devoted a great deal of time to the matter during its most recent installment (file photo right).

After showing some video clips of the Clintons separately discussing how sexism has been a part of the campaign, host Tim Russert said, "Maureen Dowd, misogynist, gender bias, it seems as though the Clintons are being, trying very hard to lay that out as a premise for Hillary Clinton's difficulties in this primary contest."

Dowd amazingly responded:

I think it's poppycock, really. I mean, Hillary Clinton has allowed women to visualize a woman as president for the first time in the way Colin Powell allowed people to visualize an African-American. And, she dominated the debates, she proved that a woman can have as much tenacity and gall as any man on earth. We can visualize her facing down Ahmadinejad. But, the thing is Hillary hurts feminism when she uses it as opportunism. And, she has a history of covering up her own mistakes behind sexism. She did it with healthcare. Right after healthcare didn't pass, she didn't admit she was abrasive or mismanaged it or blew off good advice or was too secretive. She said that she was a Rorschach test for gender and that many men thought of a female boss they didn't like when they looked at her. And now she's doing the same thing, and it's very, you know, in a way it's the moral equivalent of Sharptonism, it's this victimhood, and angry, and turning women against men, and saying that the men are trying to take it away from us. In the same way she's turning Florida and Michigan, and riling up and comparing them to suffragettes and slaves, and it's very damaging to feminism.

Fascinating, and makes one wonder not just how this is going to impact the elections in November, but also how typically feminist media members will cover this issue as the campaign progresses.

For instance, will press members who typically act as advocates on this subject support Hillary's view that sexism and misogyny kept her out of the White House? Or, will they play this down in order to assist Obama's need for women to vote for him on Election Day?

Seems a difficult tightrope for media to walk, doesn't it?