Team Hillary plays the victim card two days after the debate

From the very moment Hillary Clinton announced her intentions to run for president, I knew this would happen. I knew that one day, the seemingly unflappable junior Senator from New York would go through what could be described as not one of her finer moments in front of a crowd, and that as an excuse, she’d do what so many other so-called “equality-loving” feminists do: play the victim card.

Her supporters started doing so last night, and Team Hillary – and more of her supporters – officially played it today. Sam Youngman at the Hill reports (emphasis added):

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) top advisers, doing damage control after the candidate’s debate performance Tuesday, told supporters on a conference call Wednesday that the campaign needed more money to fight back.

Mark Penn, Clinton’s senior strategist and pollster, and Jonathan Mantz, the campaign’s finance director, told the supporters on the call, which The Hill listened to in its entirety, that they expect attacks from Clinton’s rivals to continue, and she will need the financial resources to deflect their attacks.

Clinton came under withering assault in the Philadelphia debate, and some supporters on the call agreed with analysts that she stumbled.

“I wouldn’t say she lost her cool” one caller said. “But I would say she lost her footing.”

The caller addded that Clinton’s response to questions about records from her time in the White House that have been sealed by the National Archives “made me roll my eyes.”

The criticisms followed Penn’s assertion that Clinton was “unflappable.” He also said criticisms from Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) would backfire and that he was already “detecting some backlash” particularly among female voters.

Those female voters are saying, “Sen. Clinton needs our support now more than ever if we’re going to see this six-on-one to try to bring her down” Penn told those on the campaign call.

He, Mantz and several supporters hinted repeatedly on the call that Clinton was unfairly targeted by Tim Russert, debate moderator and host of NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

[…]

It received a big boost at midday when Clinton received the coveted endorsement of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

Gerald McEntee, AFSCME’s president, mentioned the debate during his endorsement speech, and took Penn’s and Mantz’s view of the results.

“Some of you may have seen last night’s debate” McEntee said. “Six guys against Hillary, and I’d call that a fair fight. This is a strong woman.”

Isn’t it just sickening? As a woman, the double standards and hypocrisy being employed by Clinton and her supporters is offensive, not to mention hypocritical. As the frontrunner, Hillary Clinton should expect to be targeted by her fellow candidates who are looking to gain some traction in the polls. But more importantly, as a self-proclaimed feminist woman, if she wanted to hold true to what the radical feminista sisterhood routinely preaches (but, as we see more and more, doesn’t actually practice) about women being equal to men in every way, she should stand tall and, as they say, “take it like a man” and state while she’s being grilled that she knew she’d be the target of attacks from her fellow Democrats because according to the polls most of those who have been surveyed view her as the most qualified (or most electable?) Democrat to be president. Oddly enough, she did mention at the debate that she was being targeted for a “reason” (because she was leading in the polls) but her comments at that time were directed at her Republican rivals, which is something you wouldn’t know if you watched the “pile on” video:

But what does she do two days after the debate? She cries “misogyny!” – and she’s doing so against members of her own party, one of who leaves it to his wife to deliver his campaign’s sharpest criticisms of La Clinton, presumably because he’s too scared to do it himself out of fear of – you guessed it – being wrongly labeled as a misogynist.

Fred Barnes noted earlier today the double standard being utilized by Hillary and Co.:

What’s the double standard? It’s the old feminist one in which women must be treated as equals – except when they’re criticized by males. When men criticize, that amounts to unfair picking on a woman, or “piling on” as the Clinton campaign puts it, or “ganging up” in the metaphor used by others. Naturally, Clinton supporters say she stood up to the attacks. And she did, but her responses were lame and evasive.

That Clinton took a beating in the debate had nothing to do with gender and everything to do with the fact that she’s the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. Frontrunners are always attacked by the other candidates in the runup to actual voting in the primaries. If a male candidate were leading, he’d have faced a similar barrage. Just ask Howard Dean, the frontrunner four years ago.

For that matter, why not ask the GOP candidates who were frontrunners back in May, who were treated to a 2007 version of the Spanish Inquisition by the worst moderator in modern history: Chris Matthews? Or how about members of the administration and other Republicans who have been harshly grilled when testifying before Congressional committees?

Let’s face it: In a strict apples to apples comparison, the only time feminist Democrats find it fair to attack a woman on solely on the basis of her womanhood is when it’s a female Democrat taking cheap shots at a Republican woman. Yeah, we remember all the feminists howling with outrage over that one, right?

If Hillary Clinton wants to prove she’s just as tough as a man and show everyone she’s strong enough to lead this country in a post-9/11 era – an era which requires and demands strength, she needs to stop falsely blaming men in her own party for attacking her strictly because she’s a woman and start acting like the frontrunner who has has easily lead in the Democrat candidate polls over the past few months “for a reason.” If she continues to do so, it should lead to a lot of questions along the lines of how will she be able to present an image of strength for the US as the both the President as well as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces in the face of women-hating Islamofascists when she can’t even stand up against legitimate criticisms of her ideas made by men in her own party?

Related: Ian Schwartz has video (h/t: Stop The ACLU) of part of a speech Hillary made to her alma mater Wellesley (a women-only college) today, at which she stated the following:

“In so many ways, this all women college has prepared me to compete in the all-boys club of Presidential politics.”

Yeah, they certainly helped her get the victim act down pat, didn’t they? No surprise there.

Update: I forgot to link up to this piece, sent to me by ST reader Leslie as a nomination for moonbat of the week (which I haven’t done in a while, I know …). It was written by NYT columnist Gail Collins, who, while she doesn’t sound like a big fan of Hillary, gives her major props for ‘standing her ground’ against all those mean Democrat men:

Hillary Clinton stood on a stage for two hours Tuesday night, being yelled at by six men. Now this is what they mean by pressure. The most important job in the world is at stake and every single one of the other candidates walked into the presidential debate gunning for her. They began piling on from the first question. She took it all and came out the other end in one piece. She’s one tough woman. Kudos.

[…]

But you do have to give her a few points for not letting the guys push her around.

Would someone pass me a couple of extra-strength Tylenol, please?