trollop-mouth panders to lefty bloggers
May 18, 2008 by kristina b
Soooo, it looks like McCain–a man who once called his wife a “trollop” and a “cunt” during his 1992 senate race–is now pandering to lefty bloggers:
The McCain campaign has recently started to hold bi-weekly conference calls with left-wing blogs and blogs focusing on single issues, such as the environment and health care. … The last McCain blogger conference call was held Thursday. It included Greg Sargent of TPM Election Central, Kate Sheppard, a political reporter for the environmental web site Grist.org and Joanne Bamberger of PunditMom as well as Erin Kotecki Vest, who blogs at BlogHer.com, The Huffington Post and Momocrats.com.
[via Wired]
Neat. Although I know this is just a political move on McCain’s part, I’m glad these bloggers are getting direct access. Seems like one more point on the side of the Internet in the underground competition of Internet vs. Professionalization.
That being said, I have found a new level of disdain for McCain. He will henceforth be known on this blog as trollop-mouth, lest we forget his misogynistic nature. I only just learned of it. Personally, I think that the fact that he said that to his wife is a better window into his character than any other thing I’ve heard during this election cycle. It’s not like I was going to vote for him anyway–no matter what happens with the nomination–but I didn’t feel the need to actively speak against him until now.
Do we actually have any good evidence on the trollop/cunt thing? It’s good to remember that the swift-boat people put out a book too.
And even if this could be backed up, I’m not sure that it would serve as grounds for a distinction between the two candidates. Obama’s misogyny may not be packaged with a potty-mouth but it’s no less dismissive of women for that reason:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Juy9NwI8_i0
(note: I put this on facebook too; should I post comments here or there in the future?)
I prefer here. Not many of my facebook friends (besides you) care about this stuff.
Oh and yes, yes, I know about the damn “sweetie” moment. I must say, I call people sweetie too soometimes… maybe I shouldn’t, but I do. Sweetie has gotten a bad wrap because in the past it was used by superior-feeling white men to subtly remind women of “their place”. It’s also a term of endearment or, as one commenter suggested, a term used sometimes off-handedly by some one who does not remember the person’s name. I’m just saying that sweetie is a far cry from trollop and cunt.
However, I will acknowledge and recognize my bias in this situation. I instantly forgave Obama but I will probably never forgive McCain.
So there are two ways that “sweetie” gets used in English
i) as a non-demeaning term of endearment; and
ii) as a patronizing term used to refer to an inferior;
and how this cashes out in terms of the two candidates will depend on which of those two usages we think Obama was employing.
There are a couple of things, then, that I think make the “sweetie” stuff suspicious:
a) It seems to be a habit (http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/Vote2008/story?id=4870599) and note just a one-time, off the cuff remark.
b) It seems like Obama only says it to women (see above).
c) It seems like Obama mainly says it when he’s dismissing a woman (when he’s putting off her question, when he’s denying a request for an autograph, etc.) and not when he’s acknowledging them (e.g. he doesn’t say sweetie when he’s calling on a reporter to answer their questions).
d) Obama admitted guilt in the phone-message he left for the reporter (which would be strange if he didn’t mean it in a demeaning way).
Moreover, while there are times when “sweetie” gets used as a term of endearment, etc., that’s normally done between people who know each other. Obama didn’t know either of these women, and that militates against the “endearment” reading.
So let’s assume for a second that the patronizing understanding is correct (and at the very least I think that’s position best justified by the evidence). Is there then going to be a difference between what Obama said and what McCain is accused of saying? It doesn’t seem like it.
Your position here, then, relies on taking the position on Obama that’s least-justified by the evidence and on taking for granted unsubstantiated accusations leveled at McCain. And while I commend you for admitting your bias, I think permanently referring to McCain as “trollop-mouth” under those circumstances is a bit much.
Regarding the evidence question, a friend of mine knows the author of the book. While this is not iron-clad, it does confirm (for me at least) that he’s not some kind of nutjob with an agenda.
The ABC article that you linked lists a couple of other occasions that he’s used the term and then proceeds to support my argument.
I think McCain is a bad person, and so it doesn’t surprise me to hear he spoke to his wife this way. I have no problem assigning him this new nickname here in this space. I have met men like him in my life and I am tired of their having power over the fate of the world. My perspective is humanist, and many of his policies oppose humanism in favor of other motivations. I could call him a lot worse than trollop-mouth. It’s just the thing I happen to be focusing on at the moment.
Obama is not perfect. No one is. I can name a few things he’s said in this election that have bothered me or that I thought were impolitic. But I cannot honestly say that I think he’s a bad person. Quite the opposite. His ideas and perspective are humanist, and I therefor trust him. I have read a lot by and about Obama, and his humanism and rational approach to life is consistent over time.
Sexism, like racism and every other -ism, is not just a problem of individual agency. It’s a structural problem, and we are all socialized into it including the people most negatively effected by it. I am not apologizing or excusing, but I am saying that I do not think you can condemn Obama to misogyny because of his use of the word sweetie in these situations.
On the other hand, McCain doesn’t have the same kind of personal capital with me. He doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt, because he does not appear in his other actions and rhetoric to be well-intentioned or humanist.
Going back to my first post, my main point is just that the two (alleged) comments simply don’t serve as grounds for a distinction between the two candidates. That you’ve treated the two cases differently is the symptom, rather than the cause, of the fact that you don’t have the same view of both candidates.
And while that’s not necessarily a vice on an explicitly partisan and unashamedly biased blog, it’s good to remember that the sexism argument won’t necessarily be your strongest card when it comes time to make your pitch to independents. (It’s also good to keep cases like this in mind when trashing right-wing pundits and voters (e.g. Rush Limbaugh) for interpreting events in ways which seem only to affirm their previously held beliefs. Just as it’s possible for someone who’s very well informed (like you) to do so for the left, it’s not necessarily a sign of ignorance when someone does it on the right (e.g. when they view school shootings as a reason for, rather than against, having guns on campus).
You make a good point as always, Kyle. In a way, I’m just rabble-rousing.
For a much more serious and well-thought out treatment of this material, please check out this post by my fellow sociology blogger Wicked Anomie. It rocks. I’d be curious to hear your response.
Just a quick comment since I’m rushed for time:
Wicked Anomie proposes (clever) a test to determine whether a name like “sweetie” or “cunt” invokes a power-differential. S/he writes:
***If you want to know whether calling someone something implies that they have less status or power than you, think about how you would feel if someone clearly under you used that term. If it’s a term you use when you don’t know the person’s name, then what if a child you didn’t know called you “sweetie”? Or a teenage barista giving you coffee (assuming you are an established adult)? Does it sound weird? That’s the power difference implied in the word.***
But here’s the problem: Clearly the fact that you’re being addressed in a given way by “someone clearly under you” is supposed to matter for the test, but how? For any given term, it seems like the test will map it into one of four possible categories:
A) Being called X by an inferior offends & so does being called X by a superior/equal.
B) Being called X by an inferior offends but being called X by a superior/equal does not.
C) Being called X by an inferior does not offend but being called X by a superior/equal does.
D) Being called X by an inferior does not offend and neither does being called X by a superior/equal.
Which of these categories, then, are the ones that invoke the power differential? (B) seems like the most likely candidate, but the problem is that neither “sweetie” nor “cunt” falls cleanly into (B) (certainly I would be upset if my boss called me either).
[I'll add to this in a little bit when I have more time.]
(Sorry for the break - I got off work and had to switch computers):
Really, if anything, “sweetie” is going to fall into (B) (which would, presumably, imply a difference in power) while “cunt” falls into (A) [which probably doesn't imply a power difference as terms like "asshole" and "moron" also fall into (A) but don't seem to imply anything like that].
So the irony here is that Wicked Anomie probably undermines his/her own case with their line of reasoning.
And even if we recast the test (say, by replacing “offends” with “seems strange”
I don’t know that we get the results Wicked Anomie is looking for. For example, it doesn’t seem any stranger for someone to call their social “superior” a “moron” than it does to call them a “cunt”. If anything, these sorts of tests seem to place “cunt” squarely in the neighborhood of “idiot”, “asshole”, and “moron” - words that no one wants to be called, but that don’t imply any obvious power difference.
What’s needed then, if we’re going to make the case at hand with linguistic tests, is a test that:
i) Returns roughly the same result for both “cunt” and “sweetie”; but which
ii) Doesn’t return the same result for “asshole” and “cunt” or “moron” and “cunt”.
And I just don’t see any such test forthcoming.
I don’t know why there’s an emoticon in my previous post…
Also, I still insist that there’s no good evidence for the accusations being leveled at McCain here. (Actually, I’m told his wife was in rehab for an addiction to prescription medicine at the time, so the story may be something that could be easily discredited. Even if it can’t be, though, I still don’t buy it.)
Aren’t anonymous sources the backbone of journalism? I mean, I know that as academics we’d prefer more, but journalists protect the anonymity of their sources all the time. Though I do wish someone would come out with primary evidence on the cunt comment.
Someone did ask McCain once whether it was true, and he dodged the question, which further solidifies his guilt in my mind, though it still isn’t rock-solid.
The exchange:
Q: This question goes to mental health and mental health care. Previously, I’ve been married to a woman that was verbally abusive to me. Is it true that you called your wife a (expletive)?
McCain: Now, now. You don’t want to… Um, you know that’s the great thing about town hall meetings, sir, but we really don’t, there’s people here who don’t respect that kind of language. So I’ll move on to the next questioner in the back.
Plus, Kyle: your comment about McCain’s wife being in rehab at the time is a non sequitur. It is faulty logic at the least, and at the worst a blatant smokescreen.
That excuse/explanation would only merit consideration if it were the wife who were leveling the accusations, and she has kept mum on the topic.
McCain’s wife’s drug use has no bearing on the likelihood that McCain called her a cunt, and it has no bearing on whether a journalist would lie about it in his book.
Well, Kyle, you’re right in a way, but you are leaving out one important point. Actually two. The first is that cunt is a gendered word. And I don’t have any empirical evidence to back this up, but I’m going to go ahead and assert anyway that it’s a heavy word. It’s one of the lesser-used obscenities because its use “takes it up a notch.”
The second and perhaps more important omission is the context. He didn’t just say cunt. He said a whole sentence filled with ire and disgust. If Michael ever uttered such a sentence to me in seriousness, I don’t suspect our marriage would last much longer afterward. And let me be really clear on what I mean by that: I don’t mean that I would divorce him based on a sentence. I’d be mad. Really mad. But what I really mean is that if he spoke to me that way, even in anger and embarrassment, it would suggest that there was a much deeper problem between us. A fundamental sort of problem involving respect.
To be honest, for me, this conversation is much more about sexism in general than it is about the candidates’ comments specifically. But I guess it does come back to them in the end.
I second that; if my husband said that statement to me, divorce would be on the horizon, for the same reasons as Kristina said.
I’d stay with my husband if he came home in a fretful state and confessed he’d killed someone. Hell, I’d help him hide the body. But that sentence–that kind of treatment an the disrespect/hate it implies–wouldn’t get a pass from me.
Kristina:
So you’re right that cunt is a gendered word and that it’s a heavy word, but what I’m questioning here is whether those two features - even in conjunction - are enough to make its use obviously sexist. For example, we know that there are gendered words which don’t seem facially sexist (e.g. “dick”, which I use to describe men without any intention of denigrating my gender) and there doesn’t seem to be any reason that simply being heavy makes a word sexist.
So my point that “cunt” isn’t obviously more sexist than “sweetie” still holds up I think. Obviously it’s an ugly thing to say to anyone, but that doesn’t necessarily make it sexist.
Now, with all that said, you’re right again that a comment like “cunt” from McCain would probably be a sign of larger problems within his relationship. I’ll add to that and say that it would also be a troubling reflection of his temper (since it would show that he was eager enough to hurt his wife that he would hurt his campaign in front of reporters to do so). But again, I just don’t buy that the thing happened. I mean, why wasn’t it reported by those reporters back in 1992 ?
Anomie:
My point with the rehab center thing was just that if we could pin down a specific date on which McCain is supposed to have made these comments we might be able to disprove the story by showing that Cindy McCain wasn’t with her husband on that day. I wasn’t trying to imply anything about her not being a reliable source, etc.
And as far as anonymous sources go - I think the best you can really say is that anonymous sources are sometimes necessary so that journalists can bring important information to light. That doesn’t mean that they don’t undermine the credibility of the story and I think that calling them the “backbone” of journalism is more than a bit of a stretch.
And McCain’s response to the question is pretty weak circumstantial evidence. I know a lot of politicians who probably would have dodged the question (regardless of whether there was any truth behind it) because you don’t want to get into a debate over something like that. Simply having the debate hurts you.
So, again, the evidence here is, at best, pretty weak, and until something more substantial emerges I’m going to lump this with “Obama is a radical Muslim” rumors.
And I said this to Kristina above, but why didn’t any of those reporters report the conversation back in 1992 if they saw it then? Certainly it would have been a relevant story…
And I said this to Kristina above, but why didn’t any of those reporters report the conversation back in 1992 if they saw it then? Certainly it would have been a relevant story…
Well, why didn’t any of the reporters at Strom Thurmond’s birthday party report (right away) that Trent Lott had made such controversial comments? Perhaps there’s a pattern. In ‘92, blogs and YouTube weren’t what they are today.
I’m going to have to just respectfully disagree on the cunt vs. sweetie thing.
But those reporters haven’t even come out now that the meme is floating all over the blogs and boards of the internet. I mean, these are reporters - you’re telling me that they would rather say nothing about this than do their job and go on TV and say “I saw John McCain call his wife a ‘cunt’”? I find it hard to believe that they would just keep quiet now.
It’s plausible that they are waiting until the Dems settle on the nominee, but you’re right. We shall see.
I read one of your comments at The Best Article Everyday (regarding “Sex and the City”
and I totally agree with you. And after reading this entry, it appears as though we see eye to eye on a lot. Using those words is disgusting, and any women who would stay with a man who called her such things is just setting the rest of us back about 400 years.
Hi Kate. Yeah that’s the second time that blog got under my skin. I don’t even like Sex and The City. I just never got into it. But that post was so ridiculous I had to comment!