Jonathan Chait on Herman Cain at the debate in Michigan:
At one point Herman Cain answered a health care question by referring contemptuously to Nancy Pelosi as “Princess Nancy,” misogyny dripping from every syllable. In that one ugly phrase — and it was all in the delivery — he ripped the mask off his cornpone persona and revealed the ugly interior.
There’s something about the dismissiveness of it that seemed to strike women the wrong way. Consider the instant Twitter reaction of Dana Perino, the former spokeswoman for George W. Bush and a conservative in good standing: “Ay yi yi, former Speaker Pelosi called a princess in the debate? Not fair. We may disagree on policy, but she earned the Speaker title.”
Herman Cain says he ‘probably shouldn’t have said Princess Nancy’ during the latest presidential debate. Ya think?
…But that’s where the modern day GOP is. This is the party of Rush Limbaugh, who grossly mispronounces one of the Cain accuser’s name, and throws in some slurping sounds just to up the hurl factor … It’s the party of John Derbyshire, who says women shouldn’t be allowed to vote because they’re too soft hearted and let Democrats get elected. It’s the party where women like Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter make money bashing fellow women for daring to stand up to sexual harassers like Clarence Thomas and apparently, Herman Cain, and where meanness and downright nastiness is what is most valued in a female commentator (look at who rises to the top on the right: Coulter, Ingraham, Michele Malkin…)
