Andy Rooney Shills For a Woman President; Might That be Hillary, Andy?

April 23rd, 2006 10:32 PM

On Sunday’s “60 Minutes,” Andy Rooney didn’t come right out and say that Americans should vote for Hillary Clinton in 2008…but you didn’t have to be telepathic to figure it out (hat tip to Expose the Left with video link to follow).

In his regular closing arguments – in which he has had free reign for decades to say whatever he feels with total impunity – Rooney suggested that women are smarter, nicer, more disciplined voters, and more honest than men. This makes one wonder how many men were still watching the broadcast when Rooney got around to actually making his point. After all, it's not often that one runs across such an unashamedly proud and outspoken male misandrist during prime time, is it?

Regardless, Rooney declared that America is one of the “few countries in the world that has never had a woman chief executive.” He then listed all of the countries that have had women presidents, as if to shame Americans for never having done so.

Of course, Rooney didn’t bother naming any women that have actually run for president in America. Does that suggest that women are too smart, too nice, and too honest to run for the highest office in the land, or that Rooney didn’t consider this possibility? 

What follows is a closed-captioning transcript of Rooney’s endorsement, along with a video link courtesy of Expose the Left. 

Andy Rooney: Every time I think about it, which isn't very often, I think how wrong it is that we've never had a woman president of the United States. How did that happen? There has never been one American woman smart enough to be president? There isn't a single woman alive as capable as George W. Bush? We don't know who's smarter, men or women. There have been I.Q. tests over the years, but the results never conclusively determine any intellectual superiority for either sex. It's interesting, though, that last year for every 133,000 women who graduated from college, only 100,000 men graduated. Our failure to elect a woman isn't because of any conspiracy by men. There are 146 million men in the United States and 151 million women, and one of the things that makes it strange that we've never had a woman president is, more women than men vote. It must be that even women don't vote for a woman. If there's some doubt about whether men or women are smarter, there's no doubt about other male and female characteristics. For example, it seems as though women are nicer people than men. They're apparently more honest than men, too. There are 2,270,000 people in prison in the United States, and only 7% of them are women. The other 93% are men. Of course, it could be that women aren't more honest; they're just smarter at not getting caught. Women's brains don't go about solving problems the same way men's brains do. That's a personal opinion of mine. But it would be hard to say which way is better. We're one of the few countries in the world that has never had a woman chief executive. Margaret Thatcher was elected prime minister of Great Britain three times. Lots of countries have elected women presidents-- Argentina, Iceland, the Philippines, Nicaragua, Ecuador. Right now, Finland, Ireland, Liberia and Chile have women presidents. Not that I'm going to move to any of those countries because of it. 

Video Link