Ocasio-Cortez Plays the Sexism Card While Defending 'Motherf---er' Comment
There is a certain type of politician where everything has to be about them, and everything about them (that’s critical, anyway) has to be about some form of bigotry.
New York City Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is just that sort of politician.
So, as you may have heard, Rep. Rashida Tlaib — another newly minted member of the Democrat caucus in the House — decided to celebrate her swearing-in by declaring, “We’re going to go in and impeach the motherf—-r!” to attendees at an event sponsored by liberal organization MoveOn, according to the Washington Examiner.
Leaving aside any questions of whether or not this is crass, why would a representative throw her credibility on all issues of impeachment out the window on the very day she was sworn in? Special counsel Robert Mueller hasn’t issed a report about his Russian “collusion” investigation. Congressional investigations haven’t even been started. If Tlaib wanted to maintain a patina of impartiality, perhaps she could have saved any talk about impeaching the expletive for, I don’t know, never.
Anyway, I think that we can all agree that this is about Rep. Tlaib and not about anyone else, particularly Rep. Ocasio-Cortez. Except, of course, for Ocasio-Cortez, who believes this is all about sexism and that Tlaib needs her to swoop in and save the day via social media.
“Republican hypocrisy at its finest: saying that Trump admitting to sexual assault on tape is just ‘locker room talk,’ but scandalizing themselves into faux-outrage when my sis says a curse word in a bar,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted Saturday.
“GOP lost entitlement to policing women’s behavior a long time ago. Next.”
Republican hypocrisy at its finest: saying that Trump admitting to sexual assault on tape is just “locker room talk,” but scandalizing themselves into faux-outrage when my sis says a curse word in a bar.
GOP lost entitlement to policing women’s behavior a long time ago.
Next.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 5, 2019
She then reminded everyone for the 12,907th time that she represents the Bronx:
I got your back @RashidaTlaib – the Bronx and Detroit ride together 💪🏽💜
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 5, 2019
Can someone please tell Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a cum laude graduate of Boston University who grew up in a tony Westchester County suburb, to stop using street argot as if it makes her sound authentically working class? This is almost as embarrassing as the relative you have who keeps on using “jiggy” 20 years on as if it makes them sound hip.
Naturally, of course, Ocasio-Cortez’s fans in the mainstream media ate it up.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Hypocritical GOP forgives Trump’s sexual assault but is outraged by Tlaib’s swearing https://t.co/MdH6AxAuc6 pic.twitter.com/x1e6f3fTlJ
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) January 6, 2019
But about that “Access Hollywood” tape from 2005 to which Ocasio-Cortez refers.
It literally has nothing to do with standards of how an elected official behaves. It was inarguably the worst thing Donald Trump has ever been recorded saying and one of the only people willing to call it “locker room talk” was Trump himself. Even Trump’s supporters acknowledge how awful it was, even if they don’t believe it’s “admitting to sexual assault on tape” like Rep. Ocasio-Cortez pretends.
This a) doesn’t make him impeachable and b) doesn’t make it acceptable when someone says “we’re going to go in and impeach the motherf—-r,” even when it takes place in a bar. It also c) doesn’t constitute “policing women’s behavior,” inasmuch as this was criticism that would have been leveled at any man who chose to do this. In fact, it probably would have been worse.
Consider, for instance, the firestorm around the 2003 remarks by then-Rep. Patrick Kennedy, son of Ted Kennedy, when he made the remark, “I don’t need Bush’s tax cut. I have never worked a f—— day in my life.”
While part of the hubbub likely had to do with the fact that it played into rumors Kennedy had a substance abuse problem (he would later check into rehab in 2006 for prescription drug addiction after he plowed his car into a traffic barrier on Capitol Hill), it didn’t have the threat to impeach the president without any evidence involved in it.
Both comments had the same tone-deafness, but I can’t see Tlaib’s comment resonating as long as Kennedy’s did. In fact, that tax cut remark arguably became a metaphor for his entire career in the lower house.
Kennedy has a Y chromosome. What he didn’t have was a whole lot of defenders when he made the remark — and certainly no one of the stature of Ocasio-Cortez or Nancy Pelosi, both of whom have stood up for Tlaib. Ergo, Ocasio-Cortez is full of bunkum when she says this is just about women.
What’s also funny is that this is coming from the self-appointed spokeswoman of a party that always cries foul about so-called “whataboutism,” or comparing conservative behavior to liberal behavior. But when one of their own says something vulgar and unbecoming about impeaching the president, well, did you remember what Trump once did?
Furthermore, I believe that Tlaib can defend herself. She’s a fairly high-profile member of the incoming class in her own right, certainly someone who’s able to get the attention of the news networks. She didn’t need another freshman congresswoman to avouch that “the Bronx and Detroit ride together.” This didn’t restore any credibility to Tlaib.
There’s literally nothing that required Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s attention here.
But, it got Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s attention for one simple reason: It got Rep. Ocasio-Cortez attention. For that reason alone, you can get used to seeing a lot of this.
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