Maureen Dowd has an excellent column (“Don’t Tread on Us”) at the NYT:
“‘Why extremists always focus on women remains a mystery to me,’ [Hillary Clinton] told an adoring crowd at the Women in the World Summit at Lincoln Center on Saturday. ‘but they all seem to. It doesn’t matter what country they’re in or what religion they claim. They want to control women. They want to control how we dress. They want to control how we act. They even want to control the decisions we make about our own health and bodies.’
“As secretary of state, Clinton is supposed to stay out of domestic politics. But this was a moment pregnant with possibility, a titanic clash of the Inevitable (Hillary) and the Indefensible (Republican cavemen).
“The attempt by Republican men to wrestle American women back into chastity belts has not only breathed life into President Obama, it has roused and riled Hillary. And that could turn out to be the most dangerous thing the wildly self-destructive G.O.P. leaders have done.
“The Republican assault on women does, though, provide a glide path to the White House both for Obama in 2012 and Hillary in 2016.
“American women have suddenly realized that their emancipation in the 21st century is not as secure as they had assumed.”
So true, it’s painful. Nevermind the glass ceiling, the GOP is dressing women in an invisible burkha. The religious extremism is so bizarre it makes me ill.
But the women will win on November 6.