Gandy (and NOW) endorsed Obama (after the Dem convention); it begins and ends there. Anything other explanation is window dressing.

As I noted at Stupid PUMAs, I won’t support NOW financially anymore (yeah, I know—losing those occasional checks for $50 or $25 are really gonna hurt ‘em!) thanks to Gandy’s dishonest campaign to “count every vote” with Michigan and Florida. I’m sure she would have been just as concerned if Hillary had been the frontrunner and Obama was the one who was insisting that they had to rewrite the rules for those beauty-contest primaries after the fact to his benefit. Right.

But I have no issue with her taking a spot in the administration. The Hillary Cultists can just suck it.

And when Siskind uses the phrase “sold women down the river” and describes it as “metaphorical baggage,” she insults the very REAL history of women—BLACK women—who were routinely sold away from their families, raped, beaten, and worked to death. A bit harsher than “pundits saying stupid shit about Hillary. To not be able to make that distinction suggests racial insensitivity at the least, and hardcore racial prejudice at the worst. And with PUMAs, you know where I come down.

So—Amy Siskind. Just another dumbass ahistorical hysterical lying racist piece of PUMA shit. Gee, she didn’t get her toy candidate. “Wah wah wah! Mommy! Daddy! It isn’t FAIR! I’ve been VICTIMIZED just like those inadequate black wenches who got sold down the river! But it’s worse for me, because it’s ME! And it’s happening metaphorically, not in reality!”

BTW, I’d be interested in how Liza got hold of that email from Siskind to the “PUMAsphere” - she provides no link or explanation for that.

I commented on this on Stupidpumas, too. Glad to see it getting a wider airing.

In any case, I’m obviously WAY behind here. I thought Siskind was well under the bus after her run-in with Betty Jean, amid accusations that she didn’t care about working-class women.

Good catch on the leaked ultra-secret Siskind “briefing.” It’s obviously the way things are run in the PUMAsphere. Who’d have thought it?

BTW, I’d be interested in how Liza got hold of that email from Siskind to the “PUMAsphere” - she provides no link or explanation for that.

I wonder about that too. But a chorus of PUMAs published posts that fit that description right on schedule (and are linked by Siskind at The New Agenda as evidence of widespread opposition to Gandy), so I tend to believe her.

Absolutely Bloody Brilliant, Betty! The New Agenda(or as I like to think of them, NAG) couldn’t do better to telegraph their devotion to lunacy than teaming up with Cow Patty(wonderful), no matter how they may try to scrub PUMA scent off themselves.

Ms. Amy continues the tradition of unknowingly outing oneself that shows her PUMA kinship:

Feel free to use whatever rationale you see fit

It makes me blush to be an egg-carrier.

Ms. Patty would snatch the pennies off the eyes of Susan B. Anthony. She’s still fundraising for the Museum of Misogynistic Memorabilia—doesn’t that sound like a fun night out? Actually, it fills me with joy just to type, and I visited the online “collections”: about 5 “exhibits”, made available to Ms. Patty through the click of her right mouse button.

If the MMM is ever bricks-and-mortar, who wants to go with me?

Bravo, Betty!  Fantastic work as usual.  I’m so impressed with the thoroughness and diligence of your research.

Now off to send an email supporting Gandy’s selection…

You know, I haven’t even visited the pumapac blog for like five days now.  You mean to tell me that they’re still bloviating?

Is the earth still turning?

What stuns me about PUMA is their thin-skinned unwillingness to deal in any way with even the slightest criticism. Not a word on either Effluence or PUMA PAC about their movie, which apparently fails to canonize any of the PUMA leaders. Talk about precious.

Cow Patty’s POUTpourri

Marry me.

Not a word on either Effluence or PUMA PAC about their movie, which apparently fails to canonize any of the PUMA leaders.

I did see one fleeting mini-“review” on one or the other site. As far as I could tell, the main gripe was that it would be indecipherable to a non-PUMA. (Someone else can putt that one in from there.)

PUMA PAC was all about Murphy’s birthday last I looked, and had degenerated into a full-on Murphy Vogon poetry session, so I’d advise waiting till there’s another post up.

The Effluence was getting its netherwear in a right old twist about Sirota’s slapdown. The resulting retaliatory RD post and comments set the record for the most concentrated ignorance and disinformation I’ve seen outside No Quarter, with added pouting and paw-stamping. It’s maybe worth going briefly to point and laugh, but I had to cut my visit short as reality was warping and I have to drive tomorrow.

Betty pointed out to me at Stupid PUMAs that the “sell down the river” line was Heidi CowPouty, not Siskind. So fuck her, too!

What most PUMAs fail to realize is that Her Murphiness has the rather unsavory habit of just walking away whenever or wherever she feels the urge. Case in point: she just flew back home from Denver the morning after Hillary Clinton’s first appearance at the Democratic Convention. She left everyone at PUMA headquarters high and dry, without a warning or even a note! No one has ever even questioned her on this, much less held her accountable. It may be a cliche, but it still holds true that what we are is invariably defined by how we handle adversity. Her Murphiness has already demonstrated how she deals with even a hint of smoke: she runs away.

I guarantee that many a PUMA tongue is raw from having been bitten so many times over the past . . . how many months has it been?

Mommy! Daddy! It isn’t FAIR! I’ve been VICTIMIZED just like those inadequate black wenches who got sold down the river! But it’s worse for me, because it’s ME! And it’s happening metaphorically, not in reality!”

Exactly, exactly, exactly. That was enough to make me see blood, too. And modelled on the Epistle of Saint Hillary, her Zimbabwegian Martyrdom. What is kidnapping, mutilation and murder compared with losing delegates in Michigan and Florida?

I refuse to waste time looking into the PUMA’s misstatements. They’re a smaller group than they think they are. Like Sen. McCain, they just aren’t as badass as they think.

Certain feminists (Sonia Johnson, for one) astutely point out that resistance to women’s rights often comes from some men who say “But lots of MEN are still hurting/sick/poor/screwed-over vets/victims of war and imperialism, etc., so why don’t feminists worry about THEM? HUH?” As Johnson puts it (oh, and she ran for president in 1984, which I’m sure the PUMAs all know about, archivists of herstory that they are)—“What they were saying to me is very clear. As long as any male, anywhere[her emphasis]is suffering, women are selfish to mention that they are suffering, too.” (See Chap. 10, “Telling the Truth,” from Johnson’s Going Out of Our Minds.)

The PUMAs are the even-insaner version of the mindset critiqued by Johnson, inasmuch as they shamelessly co-opt language and imagery from a history of oppression that is not theirs to use, unless they happen to be black Americans. To equate the very real horrors of slavery and jim crow with Hillary Clinton not getting to count votes from primaries she repeatedly said shouldn’t and wouldn’t count and with privileged white women not getting to salve their wounded sense of entitlement with a symbolic White Warrior Princess President is nauseating.

I’d love to see some of the less-insane, non-PUMA “Hillary got beat up more than Barack” professional victims-of-vaginahood crowd who still insist that he had a moral obligation to “defend” her from Chris Matthews, et al, but who remain conveniently silent on her unfulfilled obligation to speak out against racebaiting and xenophobia (even from her own campaign—Bob Kerrey and “secular madrassa,” anyone?) at least show the intellectual honesty and cojones to take on those feminists who continue to use the images of slavery to advance their cult obsession with Hillary Clinton’s nether regions as the Sacred Vessel In Which Resides All the Hopes and Dreams of All Real Women Everywhere.

Otherwise, I’m afraid I shall have to continue to believe that there is still a cohort of white feminists who believe that as long as any white American woman, anywhere, isn’t getting what she wants, that is the problem, and there is no need to concern oneself with the problems faced by people of color anywhere else in the world (like women getting bombed to shit in Iraq, for example).

Again, I don’t even particularly like Kim Gandy, mostly because of her defense of Hillary’s aggrieved “count every vote!” shenanigans and her silence on the Iraq war vote (a silence she shared with other second-wave equivocationists Robin Morgan and Gloria Steinem) and its effects on women who weren’t white, American, and named “Clinton.” But the idea that she lacks the administrative and legislative chops for this job because she, like HRC, decided that the smart and pragmatic thing to do after the primaries was to endorse the guy who actually supports feminist principles is just more pathetic PUMA hoo-ha.

Somebody kindly correct my misconcepions here, if that’s what they are, but how much of this PUMA “feminism” was in fact founded in grasping for counter-ammunition to use against accusations of racism during the primaries anyway?

It seems to me that now some of them are stuck with it as a focus, and it’s a pretty uncomfortable fit - both for them, and for those who didn’t discover it as a cause just nine months or so ago.

YAFB, I think you’ve nailed it. Once some of the slightly-less-dimbulbs realized that the Harriet Christian “inadequate black male” line didn’t exactly endear the bitter Hillary dead-enders, they jumped on the “she’s the REAL victim because she’s a woman!” bandwagon. Again, their shock and dismay at finding out, nearly a quarter-century later, that ERA never passed means that their depth of commitment to real feminist activism is rather spotty at best.

I absolutely think that some of the media coverage that Hillary Clinton received was misogynist and crossed a big line. But again, the widespread notion on the part of Hillary’s most fervent supporters was that ONLY Barack Obama had an obligation to distance himself from any negative rhetoric about Hillary, no matter the source, and that he failed to “speak out” about the misogyny.

Now, if I’d ever heard Hillary say to those “hardworking Americans, white Americans” something like “Look, if the only reason you support me is because you hate and distrust black people, or you mistakenly believe my opponent is a Muslim and hates America, I don’t want your vote,” then they’d have a case for Obama cynically exploiting misogyny to his benefit. But we’ve all read the memos from Mark Penn outlining the HRC strategy of “otherizing” Obama from the get-go, and we all know how weakly she responded to Ferraro’s insane rants about him as the affirmative-action candidate. (Just like she said about Jesse! Wow, she and Bill needed new glasses, as often as they got those two black dudes confused with each other.) So frankly I think it’s a wash as to who benefited more—Obama from sexism, or Hillary from xenophobia and racism. I just know who I saw using questionable tactics as a matter of campaign policy.

Don’t forget to freep the most imprtant online poll ever.

With the PUMAs against her, Gandy is a shoo-in for the post.

With the PUMAs against her, Gandy is a shoo-in for the post.

I think that’s a foregone conclusion.  The PUMA epicfail factor should ensure that.

Somebody kindly correct my misconcepions here, if that’s what they are, but how much of this PUMA “feminism” was in fact founded in grasping for counter-ammunition to use against accusations of racism during the primaries anyway?

Oops, you let the PUMA out of the bag.

Ms. Patty would snatch the pennies off the eyes of Susan B. Anthony.

Jesus God, Mrs. P! (Mr. Cabernet Sauvignon, meet Mr. Laptop Screen…)

If the MMM is ever bricks-and-mortar, who wants to go with me?

Ooooo!!! MeMeMeMeMe! But only if we wear adult cow hats!

And oh yeah, I will definitely go to the MMM with Mrs. Polly and Betty Cracker.  I hope everyone else will join us and we can all dress up as our favorite PUMA.

YAFB—I’m no Sirota fan, but that was glorious.

Mrs. Polly—“NAG”?  Little ol’ sexist me is fine with “T ‘n’ A,” but that works, too.

Hey, I don’t give two shits if Sirota responds to me or not. It’s just entertainment!

Why the pathetic obsession with PUMAs, though?

Strether, “pathetic” is fund-raising off Ruth Bader-Ginsberg’s illness. “Pathetic” is whipping up resentment and fear to squeeze money out of followers. “Pathetic” is comparing a delegate snit to the victims of Robert Mugabe. “Pathetic” is the Museum of Misogynistic Memorabilia (please give generously!) with its two collections: “General” and “Bloopers”.  At least the MMM is funny.

Charles Dickens wouldn’t have been able to tear his eyes away from PUMAs, and John Irving, in his “Ellen Jamesians”, predicted them.

By the way, what is missing from the Rumproast site? Nobody here is being hit up for money.

And using this language:

I use the expression “sold women down the river” with all its metaphorical baggage: the image of humans being treated like chattel sold down to the Delta to be auctioned off.

to bolster your opposition to someone who endorsed the candidates who actually support woman’s issues v. the candidates who call women trollops and cunts and charge them for rape kits is beyond pathetic.

lambert strether, surely you’ve got better things to do than hang around here or maybe you’re finding it enlightening.  I don’t give a shit either way.

Mrs. P - I am totally on for the MMM trip!  We can have a nicely laid out picnic in the park afterwards with cut sandwiches and a wonderful white wine.

I’m glad to see Lambert passing this way as I’ve been meaning to ask him a question or two.  Goldberry/Riverdaughter deletes or edits any comments that offend her sensibilities.  This is an indefensible practice in that she uses her site to attack others, while not recognizing any right for those she attacks to respond.

How come no one at Corrente, where she regularly comments, calls her on this?

Corrente allows comments, though in practice it can take well over a month to get registered at the site.  Why do you do this?  Isn’t this just another way to shelter yourself from criticism?

Marindenver, after an afternoon perusing the exhaustive collections of the Museum of Masochis—-oops, wrong museum! Museum of Misogynistic Memorabilia, we may emerge into the dusk, or the gloaming, or something.

I’ll bring the citronella candles.

Lambert, don’t you have some bugs to fuck over in Sambo/Scoop Mouth/Inadequate Black Male/Shoot Their Cocks Off/I Can’t Wait for the Suffering to Begin World?

Racist Needledicked Shitbird.

Hey, why don’t Iraqi women count as women for you? Got some sort of 3/5ths Rule in place when you piously add up the Oppression Points? You’re totally down with Hillary Clinton condemning Iraqi women to death for her political aspirations? Yeah? Eat some shit. Die some more.

Kerry, tell us how you really feel.  ;)

I’m sure Lambert enjoyed being called a racist though as the ratio of him whining about being called a racist compared to the times he has actually been called a racist was getting pretty huge.

In which lambert prematurely answers his own question…

Why the pathetic obsession with PUMAs, though?

It’s just entertainment!

I think an adjective was out of place as well:

Why the obsession with pathetic PUMAs, though?

Fixed.