How much of a pickle is Pelosi potentially in? Enough that Dem loyalist Charles Blow had to resort to some truly twisted reasoning to explain away her delay in responding to allegations against Eric Massa.
Of all things, the New York Times columnist tried to excuse Pelosi's failure to act by blaming . . . "our crazy misogynistic culture." Huh?
Blow offered his odd opinion on today's Morning Joe . . .
After playing a clip from yesterday's Rachel Maddow Show of Pelosi defending herself by claiming that it was not up to her to deal with the allegations when they arose, Mika Brzezinski put a pretty good question to Blow.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Is it not appropriate, Charles Blow, for the House Speaker to know about things like that going on? I would think it is.
CHARLES BLOW: I would think it is. But if her chronology's right, which is that there were rumors of poor language or crude, and that doesn't quite rise, but she later learns of the groping. I mean, it seems to me that I don't see a problem yet. In the investigation there may be something that comes to a head.
It's also part of our crazy misogynistic culture where we among men, we allow so much of that. We allow so much language. We allow so much sexualized ritualization that you get to a point where people like this can hide harrassment in that horseplay.
Mika wasn't buying.
BRZEZINSKI: I don't understand. The man that we saw on television, Mike Barnicle, on Glenn Beck and Larry King and all these other shows making a complete freak show out of the whole thing. How did that go unnoticed for so long?My two cents:
- Kudos to Mika for not buying Blow's gobbledygook, which sounded like the product of too much time spent in feminist academe.
- All Botox jokes aside, Pelosi never lets the mask down. There is virtually always the sense of a contriving politician calculating her words.
- Speaking of faces, Maddow's serious attentiveness to Pelosi's pronouncements is chuckle-worthy. Somehow I sensed that while striving to be respectful, even Rachel had her doubts.
- Question: did Blow similarly blame "our crazy culture of misogyny" to excuse the House Republican leadership's failure to act swiftly on allegations against Mark Foley?
