Spurious Invocation of Sexism of the Day

I would like to think that this is too obvious to need pointing out, but as Hilzoy and Cole note, the idea that there’s some nefarious sexism lurking in Obama’s boilerplate statement that “I understand that Senator Clinton, periodically when she’s feeling down, launches attacks as a way of trying to boost her appeal” is a)farcical, particularly when one views the whole context of the remarks, and b)undermines attempts to point out the extensive and genuine sexist attacks that Clinton has actually received. And since I’m sure some conservative will pick up on this and start tutting about those feminists and their p.c. or some such, I’ll also add that as far as I can tell the group of people making this argument are best described not as “feminists” (although some may be as well) but “people who have extensively demonstrated that they’re completely in the tank for the Clinton campaign.”

…although I would like to have the context of the remark, I would agree that this is much more plausibly described as offensive, and I would hope that Obama wouldn’t use the phrase again.

…UPDATE: I should also note that, as you can see in comments, several very smart bloggers who (unlike Armando) have much more extensive records of calling out sexism than carrying water for Clinton also find Obama’s comments objectionable. So the last line of the original post no longer applies, and their arguments should be seriously considered. On the other hand, many good feminists don’t find the comments objectionable, and I’m still unpersuaded.