So much for bipartisanship and returned civility to the Senate

From The New York Post:

January 12, 2007 -- Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, an appalling scold
from California, wasted no time yesterday in dragging the debate over
Iraq about as low as it can go - attacking Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice for being a childless woman.



[...]

Rice appeared before the Senate in defense of President Bush's tactical change in Iraq, and quickly encountered Boxer.

"Who pays the price? I'm not going to pay a personal price," Boxer
said. "My kids are too old, and my grandchild is too young."

Then, to Rice: "You're not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family."

The junior senator from California apparently believes that an
accomplished, seasoned diplomat, a renowned scholar and an adviser to
two presidents like Condoleezza Rice is not fully qualified to make
policy at the highest levels of the American government because she is
a single, childless woman.

It's hard to imagine the firestorm
that similar comments would have ignited, coming from a Republican to a
Democrat, or from a man to a woman, in the United States Senate.
(Surely the Associated Press would have put the observation a bit
higher than the 18th paragraph of a routine dispatch from Washington.)

I thought the feminist dream was for strong, single women who put themselves or their jobs or their dreams and aspirations above and beyond traditional family roles? I guess that doesn't apply to brilliant women like Rice. But it really isn't surprising, is it? I mean the fact that Democrats would be so rude and disrespectful is not a new thing. We've seen it before with the head of the DNC delivering a fiery rant about the evils and racists ways of Bush. We've heard it from the 2000 Democrat Presidential candidate as he screamed from behind the podium that "Bush lied to us. He played on our fears." So such hateful rhetoric should hardly come as a shock.

The writer of this article suggests that:

The vapidity - the sheer mindlessness - of Sen. Boxer's
assertion makes it clear that the next two years are going to be a time
of bitterness and rancor, marked by pettiness of spirit and political
self-indulgence of a sort not seen in America for a very long time.

Obviously.

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