The media is calling the Barack Obama attack on the Catholic Church a “culture war.” Culture War. The words and graphics are everywhere. It was the ABC News headline one morning, “Candidate’s Culture War” is what the graphic said. As if this is some sort of battle between Obama and the Republican candidates. Yes, it is that, but it us much, much more.

This is also a fight much larger than “culture.” Culture is something that defines art and common belief. Culture is something that changes with the times and can actually be defined as you wish. Much of our culture today is not what it was 50, 100, or 200 years ago. What I think is culture, may not be what you think is culture. Yes, there is an “American culture, and I believe I know what it is, but I certainly don’t trust the media or this President (who would probably see me as a “bitter” American who “clings to guns and religion”) to tell me what it is.

The Constitution doesn’t work that way, certainly not the First Amendment which guarantees religious liberty and expression. I would like to think the Constitution would define our culture, but sadly that is not always the case. For the media to call this a “culture war” greatly diminishes its value, this is a battle over the First amendment of the US Constitution. Obama wants the Constitution circumvented to pander to his base, I would hope that most of us would be united with the Catholic Church in wanting it protected.

The new part of the ObamaCare law (that nobody read before they voted on it) says that churches that provide health care and insurance, must also provide contraceptives. The Catholic Church opposes contraception.

“The White House insists this achieves a balanced approach that respects women’s health care and religious liberty, but that’s not how the Republican candidates see it,” said Jake Tapper of ABC this morning. Jake, this does nothing to protect religious liberty. It tries to destroy it.

Thankfully, the presidential hopefuls joined in the fight.

“We must have a president who is willing to protect America’s First right, a right to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience. This is a violation of conscience,” said Mitt Romney

Rick Santorum says Obama has been “hostile to people of faith particularly Christians and specifically Catholics.”

Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul have also been avid opponents to Dear Leaders actions on this. Not just because they want to be seen as opponents, they all believe what he is doing in inherently wrong.

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From Accuracy in Media’s Lynn Woolley and Cliff Kincaid:

When the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure made a decision to sever its ties with America’s number one seller of abortions, Planned Parenthood, the media went to war. The media coverage was slanted in such a way that “mainstream” reporters like Andrea Mitchell and Lisa Myers of NBC News were openly advocating for a point of view—pressuring Komen to reverse course and give in to Planned Parenthood.

Why would the media go to war over something as seemingly insignificant as a policy change regarding funding at Komen, a private cancer charity? Part of the answer lies in the fact that, for the media, “women’s rights” take precedence over all other rights, including the rights of children. This is what “feminism” has become and this is what the Komen controversy was supposed to be about. In reality, it had nothing to do with breast cancer because the fact is that most Planned Parenthood affiliates don’t even provide mammograms. That money from Komen was used to refer women at risk of contracting the disease somewhere else.

So the issue was something else as well. While there were references to Planned Parenthood being an “abortion provider,” there was no explanation of what this “service” actually “provides”—a procedure that destroys a human life. This is why the annual March for Life against abortion is mostly ignored by the major media. It is a sad fact that even some conservative women still think that Planned Parenthood is simply an organization that provides information about voluntary family planning.

You saw very little in the mainstream media from pro-life people who supported Komen’s initial decision. The bias is so pronounced that the media long ago adopted the language of the Left. The term “pro-life” is never used. But “pro-choice” is. Newspapers use the term “abortion rights” to describe the political process of terminating the lives of the unborn, but use “anti-abortion” when referring to those of us who value human life. We are “against.” They are for “rights.”

So we made it a point to tune into the Big Three network newscasts on Friday night—hours after Nancy Brinker of Komen had caved. We wanted to see if this story would be treated in a neutral manner, or if the stories would be written from the standpoint that Brinker did the right thing—and, why did it take her so long? We did receive a shock, though it was a mild one. One of the three networks actually did a fairly nice job.

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***ADDED: Something else the Blaze didn’t bother to share was this.

You have to wonder what’s going on with Glenn Beck.

Beck’s fall from grace started when his site, The Blaze, falsely attacked James O’Keefe — to the delight of the very people who used to attack Beck. Then Beck, of all things, betrayed the Tea Party in the worst way any conservative could. I thought he’d hit bottom with that. After all, how much lower can you go than selling out to the mainstream media?

Well, yesterday, what I thought had been a rhetorical question was answered when The Blaze went full Andrew Sullivan, full Politico, full Wonkette, and and attacked Sarah Palin over a situation involving her family. 

The Governor’s sin? Composing what amounts to a touching article about her family’s life with Trig – Todd and Sarah Palin’s youngest son with Down Syndrome.

To understand how misleading the Blaze attack is, you first have to read what Beck’s writer, a piece of work named Eddie Scarry (more on him below), wrote:

What’s the first thing that came to mind when you heard that Rick Santorum‘s special needs child was in the hospital with pneumonia late last month? I bet all of Mitt Romney‘s money it wasn’t Sarah Palin unless you are Sarah Palin. …

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It was an onslaught of savvy PR tactics yesterday that brought the Susan G. Komen Foundation to its knees, apparently prompting the organization’s retreat today from its initial decision to cut its funding to Planned Parenthood.  As Politico reported this morning:

On a day when the breast cancer charity’s top official made the rounds with the national media, insisting the organization’s decision to stop giving grants to Planned Parenthood wasn’t political, the firestorm only got worse. Top Democrats piled on; the head of the Komen chapter in Los Angeles quit; and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is giving a $250,000 matching gift to Planned Parenthood.

The Atlantic Wire reports that the Susan G. Komen foundation’s website was even hacked, for some period displaying a banner that had been changed from “help us get 26.2 or 13.1 miles closer to a world without breast cancer“  to read, “help us run over poor women on our way to the bank.”  And the long repeated myth that the current Komen CEO takes home a half a million dollar salary was brought back to life yesterday – even though the truth is that Komen’s current CEO, Nancy Brinker, takes home $0 in annual salary.

But hey, breast cancer isn’t supposed to be political, right?

Officials with the Susan G. Komen foundation had insisted the initial decision was never political, that it was about providing more direct mammography screening services for women, according to Nancy Brinker, the charity’s founder and CEO.  From Politico:

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If you want a case of clear bias, the Washington D.C. affiliate of CBS will surely fill the bill for its bias against pro-life supporters. On January 23 the DC affiliate featured on its website a photo slide show of pictures taken at the March for Life rally held annually at the nation’s capitol. Curiously, though, there wasn’t a single photo of any pro-lifers. Instead, the photo essay featured only photos of abortion-supporting protesters who stood on the sidelines taunting the pro-life marchers.

The photo slide show initially featured seven photos of abortion supporters, such as one of marchers holding signs saying “Family Planning Saves Lives Worldwide,” one featuring women holding signs saying that abortion should be kept legal, and another showing a woman sporting an abortion on demand sticker.

Upwards of 50,000 pro-life supporters turned out in the DC cold to participate in the March for Life, yet apparently CBS could only find the small handful of pro-abortion supporters to photograph.

Pro-life advocates like Jill Stanek were incredulous, and it wasn’t long before the comments section on the CBS website exploded with pro-lifers crying foul. Dozens of unhappy commenters remarked how badly the bias of CBS galled them.

Finally, a day or so later, CBS altered its slide show and added some photos of some of the actual participants of the pro-life march. The slide show now features seven photos of pro-lifers and an equal amount of pro-abortion supporters.

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Media outlets didn’t cover March For Life while it happened, despite knowing it was going to happen and hundreds of thousands of people there. News outlets do have stories on it now, but of course the number of people there are distorted and the stories are pretty bland. Again, remember how much effort went into Occupy Wall Street coverage. Reporters were at the scenes. News stations were always on them. Also if they had anyone on the scene at March For Life they’d have a more accurate number of people.

Photo Credit Michelle Fields from The Daily Caller

The best coverage belongs to Judge Andrew Napolitano on his show  ”Freedom Watch” on FOX Business Network. Judge Napolitano is a fierce pro-life advocate and doesn’t shy away from the issue. At the end of every show he signs off with “The Plain Truth” and yesterday it was about abortion.

His guest was Rep. Renee Ellmers who discussed the defense of life. This was the most coverage by anyone in the media. Thank you, Judge Napolitano.

I then went to FOX News and I’ll admit, I was disappointed. The article was written by Shannon Bream and just like C-SPAN she called the protestors anti-abortion. Yes they are anti-abortion, but why doesn’t anyone ever call them pro-life? Why do they have to be constantly addressed as anti? When pro-choice protesters march they’re referred to as pro-choice, not anti-life. She did, however, give a reasonable estimate of people there, tens of thousands. Trust me, that’s much better than some of the others.

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The March For Life took place yesterday in Washington, DC despite the cold, dreary weather. But unless you tuned into C-SPAN2 for a few hours this morning or EWTN (the Catholic station) all day you wouldn’t have known it happened. Other stations, including FOX News, glossed over this march while it happened.

Credit Elizabeth Avis @Beth_Avis

Before the march Michelle Malkin wrote a post about the media’s lack of attention. It got me interested and I decided to tune into DirecTV News Mix and the C-SPAN coverage all afternoon. Some people on Twitter, especially Sharon Cabana, helped me out by keeping an eye on CNN and MSNBC. There were a a few seconds of coverage on FOX News & MSNBC, but didn’t see anything on CNN. I’m not shocked, but it doesn’t mean I’m not disappointed. The Old Media was on hand to cover OWS at all times. They knew this was happening and yet no one on stand by. It’s awful how these peaceful, clean, and civilized people were completely ignored by the Old Media while the disgusting and uncivilized people of Occupy Wall Street received so much attention.

Thank goodness for social media like Twitter. Since I knew I wasn’t going to receive anything from the Old Media I knew I had to use the New Media. I reached out to people on the #MarchForLife hash tag and people have been tweeting me pictures. Here are a few:

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Eric Boehlert, serial propagandist and Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, joined the Stephanie Miller show this morning to fling some more dirt at Big Journalism editor-in-chief Dana Loesch.

Boehlert, who has thus far given a pass to men such as Bill Maher and Brit Hume with regard to their comments supporting U.S. Marines who were videotaped urinating on Taliban corpses, joined his hosts in joking about Loesch’s “screeching.”

Miller’s co-host, Chris Lavoie, opened the interview with Boehlert by describing a debate with Loesch on Twitter: “She got really, really screechy and emotional in her responses, and I just kept it on the level.”

Boehlert agreed, affirming Lavoie’s choice of language: “Straight to the screech, straight to the attacks.” He also belittled Loesch, describing her as “an Andrew Breitbart creation.”

Prior to joining Andrew Breitbart’s Big Journalism in 2010, Loesch had been blogging for more than ten years, and had won an award in 2007 for her column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, among other distinctions.

Boehlert also slammed Loesch for not apologizing for her remarks–an odd claim, given that Media Matters has yet to apologize for the blatant antisemitism of M.J. Rosenberg, or for the lies and distortions of Boehlert himself.

Piling on, Boehlert claimed that Loesch hosts “a radio show, you know, that nobody listens to in the 22nd largest market in the country.” In point of fact, the Dana Show is the number one talk radio show in St. Louis–and in Indianapolis–in its time slot and it was just announced that the show is expanding to three hours.

But if Loesch’s show were really “a radio show that nobody listens to,” why would Boehlert and the left have made such a big deal out of her comments, elevating them to a national level?

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Jezebel, the site where self-obsessed women celebrate unprotected promiscuity, is smearing another woman’s loss of child for politics. This, in the Claire’s Boutique mindset of progressive feminism, is called “empowerment.”

Let’s get down to brass tacks: Presidential candidate Rick Santorum, Personhood Pledge-signing, Griswold vs. Connecticut-opposing, Mr. Ban Abortion in All Circumstances With No Exception for the Life of the Mother, believes that the actions of his own wife should be treated as criminal. Why? Because, back in 1996, his wife had a procedure that resulted in the deliberate death of her fetus, even though it was a matter of saving her own life.

Karen Santorum’s difficult pregnancy and resultant life-saving, induced early delivery is nosecret; in a 2004 interview with NPR’s Terry Gross, her husband characterized the 1996 procedure as a harrowing but necessary. Karen, in her 19th week of pregnancy, received a risky surgery to save a pregnancy that doctors thought had little chance of survival. After the surgery, she came down with an infection, and doctors told Rick that unless the source of the infection — the fetus — was removed, his wife would die and his already-born children would be motherless. The doctor also told Santorum that his wife’s fetus would not survive outside of the womb. According to Santorum, Karen went into labor as a result of the antibiotics, and then doctors gave her a drug that further induced labor. She delivered, and unfortunately the doctors were right.

Jezebel confuses an attempt to undergo surgery to save the life of her child with procedures a woman undergoes a to end the life of her child.

The Santorums’ child was not going to live regardless, yet Karen Santorum risked her life to take the pregnancy as far as possible. Both she and her husband committed to an early delivery with hope that a miracle would occur and their child would survive. Karen Santorum wasn’t going to live to carry the baby to term and the baby, due to a defect, didn’t have much of a chance outside the womb, but there was a chance. It does happen. The Santorums chose the route that provided the biggest return for the gamble. How asinine and petty for women to politicize the loss of a child for a straw man argument. Doing all you can to prevent the loss of a child you wanted is nothing like planning the execution of a child you don’t want. Of course, I don’t expect a site operated by drunk, self-described “slut machine(s)” who talk about how they don’t report rape (but like to use it as a political issue nonetheless) to understand the elementary difference. Perhaps, like our President, the issue is “above their pay grade.”

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We’re already seeing how desperate the Left and their MSM allies are as 2012 nears, the economy sputters, Dems abandon ship, and Obama’s poll numbers continue to stay in the cellar.

Just last week, just before the Thanksgiving holiday, the Obama campaign and their MSM pals went apoplectic with phony outrage over an ad released by Governor Mitt Romney. The only real mistake the Romney ad made was a tactical one in that it gave Obama and his Media Palace Guards the ammunition they crave to to keep the focus on anything other than Obama’s failed record. Later, Democrats went even further and attempted to call the Romney ad — you guessed it — racist. The reasoning is so stupid I won’t waste your time, but The Hill has more.

Now Slate wants us to believe that the ad below, which quite accurately attaches Mass. Senator Scott Brown’s challenger Elizabeth Warren to Occupy Wall Street, is — you guessed it — sexist.

Judge for yourself:

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Slate’s absurd rationale:

The Crossroads GPS ad against Elizabeth Warren works not just by portraying her as radically liberal, but by implying that she is unhinged. After showing chaotic scenes of angry young mobs and what looks like a street explosion, and noting that protestors “support radical redistribution of wealth and violence,” the ad cuts to a clip of Warren’s “class warfare” speech, with the volume turned way down, so that the viewer cannot hear the warmth in her voice or the substance of her argument. She is gesticulating strenuously, and the scene implies passion without reason.

Images of female candidates looking angry or self-righteous are a staple of negative ads; the implication seems to be that they are out of control, overtaken by their own emotions and, utterly unfit for office. Nevada Sen. Harry Reid showed his opponent Sharron Angle first smiling sweetly, and then with her face contorted with feeling. “Not just extreme,” the ad intones: “dangerous.”

What’s going on here is that in collusion with their media allies, Democrats are attempting to make Republicans gunshy about launching ads that effectively criticize and define them. Everything in the Warren ad is true and even after you read Slate’s nonsense, there’s not a single frame that comes close to crossing any kind of line.

But the MSM’s tactics here are not about truth or clarity or informing the public; they are about distracting from the issues that should define the 2012 election.

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New York Congressman Charlie Rangel should have quit after having his wrist slapped by the Congressional Ethics committee. The poor guy is not as sharp as he used to be, either that or he has never been interviewed by the likes of Laura Ingraham.

Ingraham has been filling in for Bill O’ Reilly this week. On Wednesday she interviewed, Allen West, Congressman from Florida (who is a real mensch!). Congressman  West made a pretty controversial (but true) statement during the interview. The Lieutenant Colonel (ret.) made the point that the Democrats have  been ignoring the Black voters for years, because they knew African-Americans will vote Democratic no matter what.

West Described himself a” modern day Harriet Tubman” who can help rescue blacks from the Democratic Party by leading them “on the underground railroad away from that plantation.” West told Laura Ingraham that some black leaders “are nothing more than the overseers of that plantation.”

In the interests of “Fair and Balanced” the next night Laura Ingraham had Charlie Rangel as a guest on the show so he could rebut Congressman West.

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This past Newsweek cover of Presidential candidate, Michele Bachmann, shows the unfair portrayals of female politicians in the media. While Publisher of Newsmax, Christopher Ruddy, reasonably displays Bachmann as a lady of office, Newsweek Editor-in-Chief, Tina Brown’s choice of an unflattering picture depicts Bachmann as an insane politician. As if the photo isn’t weird enough, the article entitled “Queen of Rage,” presents a propagated notion of instability and lunacy, whereas “Heartland Warrior” better describes her candidacy.

Bachmann’s Newsweek scandal is only the most recent of sexist subjections. Rooted in what seems to be the Madonna verses whore syndrome, society continues to allow the media to degrade women without concern. Thankfully, the National Organization of Women declared the cover misogynistic, but where are the rest of the feminists?

The list of unfair projections is growing with every women who steps into the political arena. As soon as a powerful, strong, intelligent woman surfaces as a leader, the media immediately attempts to destroy her reputation. From the 1st Vice Presidential candidate, Geraldine Ferraro, who was thought to have mafia relations, Hillary Clinton, who was portrayed as an unattractive obscene Presidential contender, and Nancy Pelosi, who’s facial features have been criticized, to Sarah Palin, who’s intellect and family life was demoralized, Christine O’Donnell, who was characterized as a promiscuous witch, Meg Whitman, who was unjustifiably called a “whore” by political opponent, Jerry Brown, Jan Brewer, who was  labeled a racist for wanting to protect her state from illegal immigration, and Nikki Haley, who was accused of extramarital affairs during her 2010 campaign – these women have been torn apart on matters unrelated to the real issues they were fighting to solve.

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Sunday night we told you about Newsweek’s unflattering cover of Congresswoman and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann and how the magazine gleefully promoted it on Twitter with the hashtag #QueenofRage. (It sparked our own caption contest using an unflattering photo of Newsweek’s editrix, Tina Brown.)

Sexist shots at conservative women (of conservatives, period) by the media have become so prevalent that we hardly page so-called women’s groups any more because their support for female conservatives is non-existant. From the female equality industry, one group has been somewhat present, although vocally inconsistent: NOW.

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I don’t know about you, but when I want articles on women that read like bitter Summer’s Eve scripts, I turn to Newsweek. Under the editorial control of Tina Brown, the rice paper magazine barely struggles against its bias towards conservative women to view them with anything other than contempt.

Check out Newsweek’s latest cover, which they happily Tweeted out minutes ago:

When your premise is an unflattering photo (and if you don’t have them you’re a liar or Miranda Kerr) to sell your bias, you just might be a chauvinist.

So because Brown thinks bad images are fair game, let’s have fun with an image of her, taken from MSNBC. Bragging rights, kudos, and hopenchange to the pithiest commenter who can best CAPTION THIS:

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From everything I’ve read, the only factor remaining in Governor Palin’s decision-making process about a 2012 presidential run is the impact the campaign would have on her family — which is why I think Bill Maher went here [emphasis mine]:

Now, I’m not saying that sexism doesn’t exist and isn’t real. And we can’t, but we can’t throw around the word “sexist” just to stop people like me from pointing out that Michele Bachmann, now running second for the Republican presidential nomination, isn’t a dangerous nincompoop. And when I point out that Sarah Palin is a vainglorious braggart, a liar, a whiner, a professional victim, a scold, a know-it-all, a chiseler, a bully who sells patriotism like a pimp, and the leader of a strange family of inbred weirdos straight out of “The Hills Have Eyes,” that’s not sexist. I’m saying it because it’s true, not because it’s true of a woman.

Really, Bill, this is “true?” Who has it in them to look at this photo of Tripp and Trig Palin, two beautiful and perfect children, and make jokes about “inbred weirdos?”

There was a lot of news, outrage and commotion over the weekend over Maher and his panelists ripping Michele Bachman’s husband, the appalling hate f**k comment directed at her, and Maher’s defensiveness when it comes to being called sexist. But from everything I’ve seen — including most of the paragraph quoted above aimed at Governor Palin herself — all of those comments were directed at adults perfectly capable of defending themselves. No one will argue that any and all of those comments were in poor taste, even for a HBO program proud of such things, but the real line that was crossed Friday night was Maher’s astonishingly obscene attack on Sarah Palin’s family — which obviously includes her children.

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Forget about the liberal “new tone” that was touted in the wake of the tragic shooting in Arizona by a crazed political party-less lone wolf. It’s open season for media talking heads, who continue to marginalize conservative women because they embrace a right-of-center form of feminism.

The most recent — and altogether unsurprising — culprit is Bill Maher, who sat down with CNN’s Piers Morgan to spew his misogynistic rhetoric Monday night. Morgan proposed a choice between either Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann. That part of the interview went something like this:

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I sometimes wonder if the opinion writers for the Washington Post let anyone read their articles before they get published. The main stream media at one point prided itself for its “layers of editors and fact checkers,” but they seem to have disappeared. I say this because, every once in a while, I come across an article so deaf to its own irony that I need to stop and wonder. I don’t mean to say that I don’t expect a misrepresentation of facts, the building of straw men and a dozen other logical mistakes in the writings of ideologically compromised “journalists.” It’s just the absolutely unbridled transference that I would think that someone in those vaunted layers would maybe dare to say, “uh … about that.”

Such is the feeling I got when reading Richard Cohen’s latest screed in the Washington Post. I hope you’re ready for this one, it is pretty laughable. The GOP is a cult. You need to take a pledge to join up. Well, no, not exactly, but certain interest groups want you to promise to agree to their causes to get an endorsement. That’s totally like joining a cult, except it isn’t. For the sake of entertainment and to see how oblivious to irony these people are we’ll take a look.

Cohen has to make a silly jab at the memory of Ronald Regan to start things off.

“It is not enough to support the party or mouth banalities about Ronald Reagan …”

It is true there are those in the Republican Party who would use President Reagan’s memory as a political tool without actually believing in any of the principles that made the GOP the party of Reagan. However, the majority of Republicans do not “mouth banalities” about Reagan; they hold the truths that he espoused to be the bedrock upon which the country stands.

What are the pledges that have Cohen so up in arms?

No increase in taxes and any closing of loopholes would be matched by other tax cuts. Right, you can now run screaming into the woods as the mad cultists of the GOP come for you. Just not for your money.

The pro-life pledge is next on the list of bugaboos for Cohen. GOP candidates who want the endorsement of the Susan B. Anthony List must agree to oppose abortion including the opposition of judicial nominees who might decide against the wholesale slaughter of the unborn. Can you smell that? That’s the irony burning. If I could remind the Washington Post editorial staff it is the Democrat party who have for years been using the pro-abortion stance as a litmus test for judges. It is the radical feminists of NOW who have raised the concept of abortion to an inalienable right. A right that trumps every other consideration.  A politician can be the biggest womanizing, sexual harassing scum bag, but if they are a pro-abortion advocate Democrat then they’re good to go. That’s a Pro-Hypocrisy stance if I have ever seen one.

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Of the many things this “Arab Spring” has the potential to produce, this may be pretty low on the scale, but it is a lesson in the literary license that the internet can bring.

Simply, the story is this; an American blogger in Scotland posed as a lesbian in Syria to make his point about gay rights in the middle-east.

Tom MacMaster, who is a 40 year-old American male studying in Edinburgh, posed as Amina Abdallah Araf al Omari, a gay gal in Damascus. Okay, I guess if that’s all that happened here, this would be the beginning and the end of this deception. People harmlessly impersonate people all the time on the internet and on “Saturday Night Live” — but Tom concocted this scheme where Amina, “A Gay Girl in Damascus,” was kidnapped by Syrian authorities because of her lifestyle and real people risked their lives trying to save the girl that never existed.

He even sent out this picture of her. This is actually a picture of a woman from London, but the world now knows her as a gay girl in Damascus. A French Canadian woman exchanged 1,000 e-mails with “Amina” and believed they had a romantic relationship.

Stories were done on the outrage that Syrian authorities would do this to a young girl who was just living as she wanted to live. MacMaster’s fraud perpetuated an international outrage of stories demanding justice for the Amini and her cause was taken up by journalists in every corner of the planet. An aggressive internet campaign was started and other media outlets quickly followed, all along believing the premise that the story was true, so they didn’t bother fact-checking.

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During a discussion on the ratio of estrogen to testosterone in the workplace, Claire Shipman remarked:

“A group of all white men are not going to reach the best decisions.”

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As with Bill Clinton before him, Anthony Weiner has managed to spotlight the ironic discrepancy between what feminists say and the things for which they stand.

A NY head of NOW remarked to the New York Daily News that the group is “trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.”

The head of the Brooklyn/Queens chapter of the National Organization for Women said she could separate Weiner’s sexcapades from the liberal track record that earned the group’s support.

“I wasn’t happy to discover that my congressman is a 14-year-old boy,” said Julie Kirshner, president of the NOW chapter.

“But he happens to be one of the best politicians out there, so we’re in a bad position. We’re trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.”

Feminist Amanda Marcotte, who previously carried water for John Edwards, called the reporting of a congressman’s lewd photo scandal “new standards” of which we should all fear. She was taken down eleventy notches by The Other McCain:

Note how Ms. Marcotte deploys “ideologue” as an epithet against Breitbart when she is herself an avowed adherent of the ideology of feminism. Indeed, if it weren’t for her idolatrous devotion to feminism, Ms. Marcotte would have nothing to write about. Her entire raison d’êtreas a writer is to filter the world through a feminist lens.

She is one of those writers who, despairing of achieving notoriety in the larger literary world, seeks a readership in some ghetto niche occupied almost entirely by third-rate talents, so that her occasional second-rate contributions appear conspicuously impressive by comparison. And in her feminist niche, the only standard by which anyone may be judged is according to their zealous devotion to The Sacred Cause:

Weiner has an outstanding record supporting sexual rights of others, with100% ratings from NARAL and Planned Parenthood, and has a strong record of support for gay rights.

See? He votes the right way. And isn’t that what really matters?

[...]

Amanda Marcotte is her own insoluble problem, and the appeal of politics to such an irreparably warped personality is that it appears to make sense of her alienation from society. All she needs to do is to re-frame her grievances in an ideological context — to say that “sexists” or the “right-wing smear machine” or some other such politicized bogeyman is to blame for her own unhappiness — and suddenly she is no longer a whining malcotent, but a heroic crusader for social justice.

Maybe she’s just waxing fangirl to score a spot on Weiner’s mayoral campaign? She asserts that investigation into or reporting on Weiner’s acts constitutes a “violation of sexual privacy.” Two tough lessons progressives have to learn here:

1. When you open the door of sexual investigation you can’t close it again. It was fine for the left to absurdly question the parentage of Trig Palin; it was fine to make hay out of the GOP perverts, so it’s newsworthy to report on Weiner. These are the standards the left themselves set.

2. There is no expectation of “sexual privacy” when there is a possibility that you Tweeted photos of your schlong from your congressional office or congressional gym.

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