Newscoma

I’ve been reading the spirited discussion regarding Jon Favreau being an asshat regarding a picture of Hillary Clinton in the Tennessee Blogosphere this morning. I admit, I have been so busy the last few days that my google reader has been sitting on 1000+ for days and I’ve had other things on my mind then politics. I’m studying my industry right now like a first year law student so heavily to see where I’m going to fit in the big picture. Speaking of first-year law students, I tend to agree with GoldnI.

Yeah, I’ve been a bit busy and stressed. I digress.

I saw the story over the weekend. My initial reaction wasn’t one of feminism honestly, it was looking at this as the burning stupids. The issue that Hillary Clinton will go in to the history books as being treated with such rabid misogyny by people who should know better but don’t will be studied in future generations. Maybe I’m an old bird, I saw the photo and thought, this guy is a kid. He’s a sexist kid, but if you are going to put stuff up on your Facebook with you groping a cardboard cutout of a woman and you think it’s funny …. well, just how out of touch are you? There is an acceptance for the Girls Gone Wild sort of thing in our society right now and I see that it translates to Boys Gone Wild. Let’s remember though, the subculture of frat parties has gone on forever.

Doesn’t make it right. It just is. And bloggers calling it out does help in the long term.

I see a couple of things here which support no one really on both sides of the issues and these are just my observations. I guess I need to say that I’m one of the older bloggers out here. I’ve seen misogyny out of me being one of the first women in my region to be in news and that’s why I have a kinship to Sharon Cobb. We have worked in news and seen it change around us. We were, at times I imagine, the only women in the newsroom a couple of decades ago. I have also worked with battered and sexually assaulted women. So,yeah, I did react to the photo for many reasons. Campers, I have heard more sexist crap that would make your skin crawl and I’ve gotten thick skinned about it as a survival mechanism. Cobb and I honestly had the same reaction to Favreau. And I’m glad people are pointing the Favreau crap out, but on the other hand, I’m honestly more concerned about having a job and social issues that I’m leaning very libertarian right now.

The leave-me-alone school, if you will, so I can do my own thing. Sadcox would be proud, I think.

First of all, the picture is stupidly inappropriate. Second of all, I met my favorite republican, Bob, last night who I have written about before. Bear with me, they both do sort of fit in with each other.

Bob and I discussed that we are undergoing information overload in politics right now and so much of it is frightening because no one can stay on topic about anything these days. He’s lost more money due to the fall of Wall Street than I’ve made in my whole life. He’s mad at the Republicans for throwing out grenades that do not apply to his fiscal conservatism and I’m irritated with the Democrats for not having any cajones and relying on the Favreaus of the world. (Note to Tennessee Democrats: Bill Hobbs isn’t going away.) Bob was a politician for the better part of 40 years and helped bring a ton of industry into this area. I respect his opinion because he has lived in the role of being a leader without being asked to lead.

He is disillusioned with his party. I’m disillusioned with my state party. We are good partners in crime. And we see our country and the political parties that we aligned with changing before our eyes in ways we aren’t fond of. Most of it has to do with misuse of power when you get right down to it.

“This isn’t my Republican party,” Bob said last night after calling me to come meet him.

I nodded as he continued. “There are younger people out there that really don’t know the history of politics, do they?”

“They don’t know our history, Bob,” I replied. “They know the romance of the politics that suits them, and what they want to believe, but they don’t know that both of us have been fighting a long time for what we believe in.”

He smiled wistfully, ” I miss the 60s.”

And I don’t remember the 60s, and as he is nearly 30 years older than I am, that is his history. I will say that my first memory is burning streets. I was told later by my mother and father that it was leaving Memphis while it burned during the garbage strike. That is the beginning of my history.

But you see, I respect his memories as he does mine. Everyone’s history is important and defines how we react to certain things.

I’m going to say this and it may be unpopular. Favreau is a cocky, obviously immature kid that is quite talented in speech writing and obviously knows pretty words but not necessarily pretty deeds. With positions of this stature you have to put the frat boy BS behind you. There are other talented speech writers out there that are gunning for your job, Favreau. With power comes responsibility. Everyone deserves a private life, but it’s very telling that this photo was put out on a social networking format because you thought it was fun. It wasn’t.

You know, it’s not funny for those of us who have been called ugly names or groped inappropriately just because we are women.

We aren’t just saying that and it has happened more than once, unfortunately.

Favreau was wrong. But dismissing the history of women and men upset with the obvious misogyny and sexual inappropriateness of Favreau’s behavior regarding Hillary Clinton’s image is also wrong.

Bob asked me last night if I wanted to start a new political party. I laughed and told him no.

“Why?”

“Because despite that we get along, you still voted for Sarah Palin.”

He winked at me, “Yes, I did.”

Everyone needs a Bob.

But when I think about, Bob obviously need a Newscoma.

Our histories, despite their different paths, mesh.