From The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/opinion/sunday/dowd-we-offer-more-than-ankles-gentlemen.html?ref=opinion&_r=0
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: January 12, 2013
PRESIDENT OBAMA ran promoting women’s issues.
But how about promoting some women?
With the old white boys’ club rearing its hoary head in the White House of the first black president, the historian Michael Beschloss recalled the days when the distaff was deemed biologically unsuited for the manly discourse of politics. He tweeted: “1/12/1915, U.S. House refused women voting rights. One Congressman: ‘Their ankles are beautiful … but they are not interested in the state.’ ”
Now comes a parade of women to plead the case for the value of female perspective in high office: Women reach across the aisle, seek consensus, verbalize and empathize more, manage and listen better. Women are more pragmatic, risk-averse and, unburdened by testosterone, less bellicose.
Unfortunately, these “truisms” haven’t held true with many of the top women I’ve covered in Washington.
Janet Reno was trigger-happy on Waco, and a tragic conflagration ensued. Hillary Clinton’s my-way-or-the-highway obduracy doomed her heath care initiative; she also voted to authorize the Iraq invasion without even reading the National Intelligence Estimate, and badly mismanaged her 2008 campaign. Condi Rice avidly sold W.’s bogus war in Iraq. One of Susan Rice’s most memorable moments was when she flipped the finger at Richard Holbrooke during a State Department meeting.
Continue reading at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/opinion/sunday/dowd-we-offer-more-than-ankles-gentlemen.html?ref=opinion&_r=0
