WashPost's Karen Tumulty Insists 'Left Guilty of Misogny, Too'

March 5th, 2012 12:30 PM

On The Washington Post’s “She the People” blog, Post reporter Karen Tumulty recommended a Kirsten Powers column because “all the furor over Rush Limbaugh, while totally justified, has also been one-sided. When are we going to hear similar outrage over the casual sexism of the left-leaning commentariat?”

She said Powers does an “impressive job cataloging the kinds of things that have been said by liberal commenters, with little stir.”

“Dealing with criticism is part of the job for people who do what I do for a living. I’ve felt it from both sides,” Tumulty wrote. “But as I read Kirsten’s column, I thought back and realized that some of the more blatantly sexist attacks I have personally felt have come from the left.”

Tumulty recalled how Limbaugh attacked her for a recent debate-moderating performance, calling her a deer in the headlights. “There was a lot more like that, as you will see if you go back and read the transcript. It was pretty vicious, but not sexist in my view.” She added:

And it was nothing compared with what liberal enfant terrible Matt Taibbi wrote about me a few years back. He too had a lot of complaints about my coverage, but his biggest beef seemed to be that he doesn’t consider me attractive.

At various points, he has described me as “mannish,” “a pre-op version of Dave Barry,” and a “female impersonator.” At one point I sent him an e-mail joking that I’d like to see what he looks like when he’s 48 and has two babies, but that only opened up another spigot of vitriol. Most of the original links are gone, but you can get a sense of it in this excerpt from his book. He also wrote at length about the size of one female reporter's rear end, and called another one “a squirrely b--ch.”

Taibbi began by calling Tumulty a "female impersonator," and then added "ugly," "seriously ugly," and phrases like "serial poll-humper." A few pages later, Elisabeth Bumiller of The New York Times was a "smug, barking cow."

Really clever stuff, huh?

Limbaugh certainly deserved the criticism. The question now, however, is whether anyone else will get the message.