Now Now, N.O.W.

by Paul Jacob

It’s that Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.”

Lately I’ve been getting lots of outlandish parodies from my huge research staff, which calls itself “the Internet.” Hey, stop sending me all these goofy parodies, “Internet.” Just the facts, man.

The latest is a press release from the New York chapter of NOW, the National Organization for Women. It reads like a spoof of group-identity politics. It blasts Senator Teddy Kennedy for endorsing Barack Obama for the Democratic
nomination over Hillary Clinton. I quote:

Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal. Senator Kennedy’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton’s opponent . . . has really hit women hard. Women have forgiven Kennedy, stuck up for him, stood by him . . .

And now the greatest betrayal! We are repaid with his abandonment! He’s picked the new guy over us. He’s joined the list of progressive white men who can’t or won’t handle the prospect of a woman president who is Hillary Clinton. . . .

Geez, what a crude satire of the notion that an individual’s accidental group affiliation is far more important than the content of her character, or her ideas — assuming that even the most blinkered partisan of groupthink can’t grasp the impossibility of playing both the gender-identity card and the racial-identity card in this situation. And what about “the women” who don’t support Hillary?

Er . . . except it’s not a parody. It’s an actual press release of the New York chapter of NOW. They’re serious. Yikes.

Paul Jacob's "Common Sense" is published by the Sam Adams Alliance. Their website can be visited at www.samadamsalliance.org.