Hillary's Harpies

            "I'm a PUMA," the button festooned woman at the local Box Lunch declared. "Do you know what that is?"

            "I know what that is," I responded. "I think you're all nuts."

            She didn't take offense (I give her credit for a thick skin, although it may make her impervious to political realities as well as insults,) and we engaged in a brief discussion.  She acknowledged that McCain was no feminist and said she would not vote for him; but she "hated" and feared Obama and warned that his "horrible" past, including unspecified prior "crimes," would be revealed as the campaign progressed. She may not be voting for McCain, but she appears to be listening to attacks on Obama made on his behalf. And she declared that McCain would have limited power as president, because "we're going to have 60 Democratic Senators in November."

            Oh. Her idiotic confidence in the prospects for a Democratic Senate (along with her ignorance of executive power) was interesting: the rationalizations of thoroughly irrational people are always a surprise and a reminder that debating them is futile. With luck, they can be neutralized, but not persuaded.

            Maybe Hillary's convention speech succeeded in convincing some of her more realistic acolytes to follow her in supporting Obama. It's too soon to tell. But they can be forgiven for assuming that her speech was more strategic than sincere, and, in any case, the enmity and contempt for Obama that she aroused during the primary will not be easily defused. Her praise for McCain's commander in chief credentials and disdain for Obama's will not be forgotten, as long as there are Republican attack ads, and an army of Hillary's harpies.

           They are not feminists, if feminism entails reason and a commitment to advancing equality and reproductive choice. They're female chauvinists (who may or may not be inspired by racism along with crazed notions of gender solidarity, considering their visceral hatred of Obama and susceptibility to smear campaigns against him.) They're hysterics, who stand, or scream, in opposition to feminism and its insistence that women are rational, realistic, intelligent beings who can be trusted with power. Hillary shouldn't trust them with her legacy.