Thursday, March 21, 2019

Kirsten Gillibrand Smiles In Your Face

What she does!

I've always loved Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, but I'm not so sure I like Kristen Gillibrand, Democratic presidential candidate.  It's not that she suddenly became a liberal only after it was safe for her to do so, when she went from a representing a center-right House district in upstate New York to representing the entire state in the Senate; lots of moderate Democrats suddenly get progressive religion only after it's politically safe.  It's that she's made as her pet issue an issue no one could possibly against - ending sexual harassment - and has still managed to make enemies.
People are still smarting over her pressure on Al Franken to resign his Senate seat in Minnesota rather than face an ethics inquiry over charges of groping or other forms of inappropriate behavior towards women, which Franken denied.  An ethics investigation would have likely reprimanded him and allowed him to remain a senator and allow the voters to offer their own verdict on him in 2020.  But Gillibrand demanded the same punishment for the sort of behavior that is much more serious than anything Franken ever did - like anything Trump has done.  She took what some people call a  courageous stand against Bill Clinton for his sex scandals and how he was able to have an affair with an intern form a position of power - but taking this stand after having become safely ensconced in a Senate seat from a state so Democratic and after you no longer need help from the Clintons to stay there does not count as courage.  Especially when the indiscretion she condemned had happened twenty years earlier.  There's nothing wrong with Gillibrand advocating for a better deal for women, but there is something wrong with her trying to own the exclusive rights to the issue.
But never mind all of that back-stabbing of potential rivals like Franken or political benefactors like the Clintons.  She's stabbed her own supporters in the back.  After promising not to take any PAC money or rely corporate donors, an exceutice drug company Pfizer announced plans to hold a fundraiser for Gillibrand.  And Gillibrand thinks that's okay because the Pfizer executive in question is a woman.
I once included Gillibrand on my sister blog, my beautiful-women picture blog.  Now, she's become a reason why I'm seriously considering no longer including female politicians on that blog.  Because female politicians are just as dismaying and disappointing as their male counterparts.

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