CNN Panelist Defends Use Of 'Bitch' As Pejorative

Paging Geraldine Ferraro! When it comes to sexism, there exists a more fertile ground to critique than obscure hip-hop gestures. And, there are more fitting chauvinist villains than the Obama campaign. Take GOP consultant Alex Castellanos - the man best known for creating "Hands," an overtly race-baiting advertisement that Jesse Helms deployed to great effect in defeating his African-American opponent, Harvey Gantt.

Tonight, as a part of CNN's primary night panel, Castellanos took issue with Jeffery Toobin, who decried a recent newspaper column that referred to Clinton as a "white bitch." The thoroughly refined and scintillatingly relevant counterpoint that Castellanos interrupted Toobin to make - attached to an assertion that Toobin was "dead wrong" by the way - was that, "Some women, by the way, are named that, and it's accurate." Clinton was apparently one such woman, because she is "abrasive, aggressive [and] irritating."

Right about then, I really started noticing how abrasive, aggressive and irritating Castellanos was! See for yourself.

Comments

[thetaoofterri]

But there's been no sexism. Yeah sure.

[pie8ter]

I am a die hard OBAMA supporter. But this low life definitely went way out of line when he called Clinton "a bitch". You can question her management skills, integrity or honesty, but don't call her bitch or c**t. I guess this low life calls his mom, wife and daughters "bitches". That's republican for you!

[orpheusjones]

I am an Obama supporter, and I find Clinton's foreign policy completely antithetical to the world I wish to live in. If I wanted someone to obliterate Iran i would vote for the man who turned that into a song. That's what it means to be Democrats in the Age of Bush the Terrible, that we are the party that doesn't want to obliterate first and ask questions later.

The thing that I find so remarkable about the past few years of this abject tyranny and stupidity and moral relevatisim is how much we are willing to suffer fools. This homunculus troglodyte should be a pariah not a high paid commentator, or a dissenting voice, he is not just someone with a contrarian opinion, he is holding this society back himself. In short HE IS WHAT IS WRONG IN MY AMERICA. Now he should be free to hold ridiculous opinions like that, but he should not be aloud to say them in polite company and expect to retain all of his original teeth. I want to see this man get hit in the head with a brick.

Nothing less than that is acceptable.

[Grammie]

Please, sir, may I stay in "YOUR AMERICA" and still consider myself an AMERICAN?

I have no sympathy for the foul descriptions and words used so blythely today whatever side of the aisle it is from and there is a great deal of it out there and here that is enough to curl your hair.. However, I would appreciate your simply confining yourself to your soap box and not climb up on your high horse and ride around in high dudgeon.

[bentenrai]

I don't think he meant to say America was his and not yours. I believe he meant the America he wants to live in.

[Bill3rdterm]

Do you understand she said she would obliterate Iran, if and ONLY if, they obliterated Israel????


Why is that such a bad thing to bleeding hearts, or OBama supporters? If Obama had said it, which he did in not so many words, you would applaud it for him showing toughness. You all know that we have the same policy with England, right?

[Cathexis]

How unforgivably boorish. Such immature vulgarity speaks more to Mr Castellanos' upbringing and lack of substantive debate than to any traits of Senator Clinton.

[jamo02110]

He is a cockeyed moron...

[adept2u]

Hold it. So, this person thinks it's ok to refer to a lady of power and will a bitch huh. Really, Really, well who can be surprised. Obama and the new Democratic party will be gentlemen. He has not disparaged any race or gender, and when he has slipped up and gaffed it was in an attempt to sympathise and empathise with people (oooh he said people like religeon and guns). Gomez Adamms here, This dude is a clown, and a joke(wait Gomez was a lover! he'd never call a lady a bitch). When our party finally unites under Obama we his supporters will crush this kind of thinking and throw it on the slag heap of history it deserves. Candidates both Democratic and Republican who think like this take heed. Change is coming.

Obama 88- One of the finest African Americans in an age, but born and raised by White ladies.

[Bill3rdterm]

88 ???

[Xavier Ninnis]

A reference to the slogan "Barack To The Future".
(In the movie the DeLorean/time machine had to be traveling at precisely 88 mph when the connection/lightening strike occurred.)

[DHSmd]

I think he made his point with a gentler demeanor than a couple of those who disagreed with him.

Of course, he was wrong. "Bitch" maybe OK if one also considers "bastard" acceptable. "White Bitch" is way over the top, though.

Sexism has not been a driving force standing in the way of Clinton's nomination. If anything, Hillary has been the net beneficiary of both Sex and Race-influenced voting decisions. Where sexism has appeared, it has been as a device to antagonize her, wielded by .reactionary deep-Republican types - who opposed her primarily for other reasons.

To lay those incidents at Obama's feet is preposterous, but Hillary's calculus is undeniable. A sizable chunk of her remaining support comes from hard-core "feminists" who are deluded into believing sexism remains a greater barrier to advancement than racism. (Funny thing, it seems like 99% of those making such claims are white.).

Another significant chunk of her remaining support comes from the type of voters who freely say "I'm not voting for that nigger" to newspaper reporters, and their fellow travelers with a little more sense. Exit interviews and polling data suggest she nets at least double Obama's excess AA support derived from race/identity, though that is hard to measure. This is why she has been willing to embrace Rovian wedge issue politics, simultaneously exhibiting astonishing insensitivity to the experience of Black Americans while overplaying the influence of sexism in the contest.

[Bill3rdterm]

Taken a civil service exam lately?

[presto]

Did you ever see that Seinfeld episode where everything was oddly backwards? It was called Bizarro World.

I am a Hillary supporter and I find you frightening.

[westreal]

This guy is correct. He wasn't calling women that. He's just saying some women earn that moniker and Hillary is one of them. And he's also correct in stating that Hillary plays the hard-edged woman until she needs those sympathy votes and plays the innocent victim card, which we all knows she's not. But people in Kentucky, WV, OH and Pennsylvania obviously fall for this tactic. She's the attacking vicious "witch" until a couple of days right before an election cycle then she plays the victim/gender card. Usually on the Sunday before the elections.

[Bill3rdterm]

Were you telling your wife to make you a sandwich when you were watching him and applauding him? You do understand that Witch and bitch are derogatory attacks against woman and only woman RIGHT????

[presto]

So, by your reasoned analysis, if someone called Michelle Obama a "ho", it would be okay because some women earn that moniker and they think Michelle is one of them?

Wouldn't it be easier to stick to issues instead of vicious ad hominem attacks?

[dadw5boys]

Geraldine Ferraro is a fighter she has been in the pits and the sewers with the Republicans fighting for years.
Old habits of self defence do not pass quickly. She has a healthy distrust of the Republican money machine and rightly so.
Geraldine Ferraro in the end wants what is best for America and Americans but she still thinks the best is a woman and I would agree.

Look back at all the promotion the media has done for these now disgraced weirdo's on the right and she could dance naked on stage and still not be as bad a the child molesting and lieing Republicans.
How many Republicans across the nation now have resigned of killed themselves after being caught abusing children? 200?

Power really does go to their heads,

[jazmatician]

She's entitled to her opinion. Unfortunately that opinion is not shared by the majority of Democrats. In this country, we elect candidates by majority rule.

[presto]

Majority delegates rule.

[Janus]

Look, this guy is just another of the obnoxious, well-paid vermin that populate the community of rightwinger Stooges who lie, insult, indulge in half-truths and deception for the benefit of the Neofascist Plutocrats who are in control of the Republican Crowd, the economy, the media, and the foreign policy of belligerence, air attacks, invasion and occupation of countries that refuse to grovel and install puppet governments to do our bidding in repressing dissent and agreeing to our takeover of their strategic resources, mainly oil reserves.

If he desires regular television appearances, he really belongs among the same species at Fox TV Newstwisters Cesspool, where the ignorant Dupes across the Country but strongly concentrated in Bibleland (and found right here on HuffPost) receive their daily brainwashing sessions that send them into a frenzy and irreversible need to cheer and vote against themselves.

[Raisean]

OMG! Men like that make me mad! He's disgusting... He should have lost his job when they saw "The Hands" ad.

[xmw]

THIS GUY IS ABOUT AS FAR RIGHT AND UNPROFESSIONAL AS THEY COME. I CAN'T UNDERSTAND WHY CNN CONTINUES TO HAVE HIM ON. HE'S A JERK. HE'S CONSTANTLY SAYING SOMETHING IGNORANT.

[Krikkit]

So he's a dog, dude. Get over it. Snarling animals are snarling animals.

[nitestik]

There's a reason I don't watch "The Best Political Team on Television." It's the same reason I don't watch the "Fair and Balanced" Fox News. Both networks ought to have their licenses pulled for fraudulent sloganeering.

Castellanos is Exhibit "A" in the case against CNN. He is an avowed racist, having created the race-baiting "Hands" ad in the Gantt/Helms race in North Carolina. He is also the major league dickhead who created the "Democ'RATS' " subliminal ad for the RNC in 2000, or as Bush said, "subliminable."

Good "strategery," CNN. Apparently you did not "misunderestimate" Castellanos's abilities as a douchebag.

[coinier]

castellanos is someones bitch,too.john mccain's.