Politics makes for strange bedfellows, goes the old saying. That being the case, I hope Gloria Steinem has a bedtime burqa.

Via about.com:

Here's an irony to start your Iftar meal tonight: Saudi Arabia, where a woman must have permission from a male relative or her husband before traveling, will nevertheless run a Gloria Steinem column in its main English-language daily about the sufferings of American women (and their impending doom if Sarah Palin makes it to the White House). 

To be fair to Steinem, the column first ran in the LA Times, but all the same, the irony may be the tastiest thing the veteran feminist has ever half-baked.

"Good Morning America" weekend anchor Kate Snow conducted a fawning interview with the "renowned," "fascinating" Gloria Steinem on Sunday's program. Leaving aside any mention of the feminist author's very liberal opinions or her controversial statements, Snow focused only on the issue of whether former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton lost "because she is a woman, because the system was stacked against her as a woman, because America is the way it is for a woman?"

Sounding like a disciple of Steinem, Snow also worried about whether Clinton's failure could harm women. She fretted, "And now that she's not made it, do you think there will be any kind of backlash, then, against women or against the women's movement?" Appearing to be in awe of the feminist, Snow closed the interview by gushing, "So fascinating. We could sit here all day." Perhaps if Snow had actually spent all day with Steinem, she would have found time to wonder if some of the author's more controversial and shocking statements had actually harmed Clinton, such as in March when she derided supporters of John McCain for touting his POW experience as an asset in the presidential campaign. Steinem also told the New York Observer that "from George Washington to Jack Kennedy and PT-109 we have behaved as if killing people is a qualification for ruling people."

CNN’s "American Morning," following-up on their segment last Friday with Gail Sheehy on whether sexism factored into Hillary Clinton’s loss, asked "pioneering feminist" Gloria Steinem about the issue on Monday morning. Steinem placed the blame squarely on "misogyny and the culture at large, and especially in the media." "[N]o candidate in history has been asked to step down by the media. She was. The average time that it takes for a loser to endorse a winner in this situation is four months -- four months. She did it in four days, and look how she was criticized, you know, for not doing it the very same night. It's outrageous."

Last Tuesday, when before a John McCain campaign rally, Cincinnati radio talk show host Bill Cunningham used Barack Obama's full name and derided Obama as “the great prophet from Chicago,” NBC and ABC pounced with full stories on the “controversy.” But after over the weekend, where at an event touted as “One Million for Hillary with Gloria Steinem” the left-wing feminist icon ridiculed John McCain's years as a prisoner of war, ABC did not utter a word about the remarks while NBC on Monday gave them -- sanitized -- a few seconds. A New York Observer posting on Sunday quoted Steinem:

“Suppose John McCain had been Joan McCain and Joan McCain had got captured, shot down and been a POW for eight years. [The media would ask], 'What did you do wrong to get captured? What terrible things did you do while you were there as a captive for eight years?'” Steinem said, to laughter from the audience. McCain was, in fact, a prisoner of war for around five and a half years, during which time he was tortured repeatedly. Referring to his time in captivity, Steinem said with bewilderment, “I mean, hello? This is supposed to be a qualification to be President? I don't think so.”

On the NBC Nightly News, which had run six Cunningham soundbites, David Gregory quoted only a small portion of Steinem:

Joy Behar defended the indefensible on "The View," Gloria Steinem’s anti-military comments, and Elisabeth Hasselbeck came out strong against them. For those that missed it, the famous feminist implied Hillary Clinton is more qualified than John McCain because Senator Clinton did not serve in the military. Steinem rhetorically asked "killing people is a qualification for ruling people?" She continued to wonder how it may have been different had John McCain been a female prisoner of war.

"suppose John McCain had been Joan McCain and been captured, shot and been a POW for eight years. The media would ask ‘what did you do wrong to get captured? What terrible things did you do while you were there as a captive for eight years?’"

These inflammatory comments became the topic of discussion on the March 3 edition of "The View." Elisabeth Hasselbeck, to a very loud applause, called the rhetoric "despicable" and "evil."

David Crary of the Associated Press, in an article asking if sexism or racism is more "taboo" in the context of the recent war of words between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, concluded that "both are alive and well." It appears, though, judging by the use of quotes from feminists including Gloria Steinem and Kim Gandy, it seems that Crary is taking the apparent sexism against Hillary Clinton more seriously.

The first half of Crary’s article focused on the sexism component of the discussion. Crary quoted Steinem’s claim in a recent New York Times article that "gender is 'probably the most restricting force in American life' — more so than race." He then quotes Yvonne Scruggs-Leftwich, who "suggested there was little point in ranking them," and NOW president Kim Gandy, who is of the view that while racism may be "somewhat coded," there’s still "an awful lot of explicit sexist stuff."

Crary then spent six paragraphs on criticism of Hillary Clinton that has apparent sexist overtones.

Are Hillary Clinton’s recent troubles the result of unfair press coverage? According to "The View’s" Joy Behar they are. On the January 8 edition of the ladies chat show, the co-hosts discussed Senator Clinton’s recent emotional breakdown when Behar exclaimed, "I feel like crying for her now. I feel so bad about how the press has been vilifying her."

As is expected for a woman who frequently gets her facts wrong, the facts simply do not back her up. Even the allegedly "conservative" Fox News gave the New York Senator a softball interview. Since the fall, several negative stories about Senator Clinton broke that the network news simply did not pick up. Some of the most prominent examples include news that former President Bill Clinton left his wife in charge of Clinton Library documents that have not been released, and raising an extremely high amount of money from poor Chinese immigrants.