By Celia Rivenbark
Tribune News Service
WWR Article Summary (tl;dr) Celia Rivenbark, a NYT-bestselling author and humor columnist who frequently writes about politics shares this fictitious yet hilarious take on a media roundtable about female candidates.
Tribune News Service
MEDIA ROUNDTABLE SOMEWHERE IN D.C.
Moderator: Ok, everybody, take your seats. I just wanted to huddle up and talk about all this flak we’re taking for not treating women presidential candidates the same as men…
Lou Dobbs: Harpies, magpies, she-devils…
Moderator: Can someone please take Mr. Dobbs out and get him some pudding? Mika?
Mika Brzezinski: Oh, sure. Because I’m the girl. Maybe you need to read my new book: “Women and the Inferior Men Who Steal Their Jobs and Their Futures and Why We Hate Them.
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” Well, it’s a working title…
Moderator: OK, OK. Brian Williams, can you take Lou out for pudding?
Brian Williams: Sorry, feeling a little stiff this morning. Still have some shrapnel in my elbow from that hit I took in Kabul…
Moderator: No, you don’t.
Brian Williams: Right. Sorry. Old habits…
Bernie: Hey, I brought pudding. Lou! Catch! It’s Hunt’s vanilla snack pack. I get them at the 7-11 off Route 65 in Burlington, three for a buck.
Moderator: Why is Bernie Sanders here? This is media only. Never mind, let’s get started. Now it has come to my attention that we have got to examine the way we talk about female candidates. For example, we need to not make it a big deal if a woman candidate raises her voice.
Mika: Damn straight. Elizabeth Warren is “strident” or “off putting” but Beto can get up there and he’s “lanky” and “handsome” and “walked out of my dreams and into my heart” if we’re being totally honest…
Lou Dobbs: Elizabeth Warren is Satan’s minion, a temptress with a treasury …
Moderator: No, actually, she’s an accomplished, thoughtful candidate with a variety of well thought out plans to better the lives of all Americans.
Tucker Carlson: I wouldn’t diddle her with someone else’s…
Moderator: Now, see! This is the kind of stuff we’ve got to stop doing. We’re better than this. Well, not you Tucker.
Tucker: Point taken.
Moderator: Everyone’s starting to notice how we have a double standard for the male and female presidential candidates. For example, the way we blew up that thing about Amy Klobuchar eating a salad with a hair comb.
Mika: A powerful woman using the tools at her disposal to get the job done….
Moderator: No. It was how we kept talking about how she demanded that her aide wash the comb. That’s very unflattering language and we have to be more circumspect.
Lou Dobbs: I remember my circumspection, back in 19 ought 10 I think…
Moderator: OK, moving on. What about how we wasted five news cycles making fun of Kristen Gillibrand, a highly regarded Senator and scholar, for how she ate fried chicken with a knife and fork? Or blasting Kamala Harris for confusing Run DMC with Snoop Dog? Would we have done that with a male candidate?
Chris Matthews: No, but tonight on my show we’ll discuss a prophetic meeting in the coat room in the Hay-Adams hotel back in 1968…
Moderator: Somebody make him stop.
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Celia Rivenbark is a NYT-bestselling author and humor columnist who frequently writes about politics. Visit www.celiarivenbark.com.)
