Earlier today, liberal bloggers at Crooks and Liars and Digby went after John McCain for not vociferously defending his daughter in an interview with George Stephanopoulos. Here's the exchange in question:
GStephanopoulos@SenJohnMcCain Lots of twitterers want to know: what do you think of Meghan's feud with Coulter and Ingraham?
SenJohnMcCain@GStephanopoulos I'm proud of my daughter and she has a right to her opinions.
GStephanopoulos@SenJohnMcCain Do you agree with them?
SenJohnMcCain@GStephanopoulos like any family we agree on some things and disagree on others.
GStephanopoulos@SenJohnMcCain Thanks for your time Senator.You're a good sport I know I'm not getting anymore on Coulter and Ingraham Happy St Pat's again
Why such a disjointed, terse conversation, one might ask? Because it was a "twitterview"-an interview conducted with the senator over Twitter, the social media tool, which only allows for 140 characters per entry.
Digby should have kept her righteous indignation to under 140 characters, because she's divining a bit too much about the senator's state of mind and his views on feminism and body type, from his Twittering. This is her take:
What kind of a man is this that he can't even defend his daughter against personal insults from the likes of Laura Ingraham? He doesn't even have a political motivation, as low and cynical as that might be. He won't be running for president again...
I think he believes that Megan deserves to be spoken to like that because he probably speaks to her that way himself. Although she's quite lovely, she's not physically a perfect Barbie like her mother or Sarah Palin --- or Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham ---which is what he thinks is important in a woman. So, he can't bring himself to defend her. She asked for it.
The man had 140 characters in which to clarify, parse, and parry Stephanopoulos' questions, while keeping it bland enough to avoid another round in a fight he didn't start. Stephanopoulos' "Do you agree with them," which he didn't even cite in his write-up of the interview, is very unclear about who "them" is- Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham, as Digby thinks? Or, is "them" the "feuds" themselves or the substance of the disagreements? McCain doesn't bother to waste an answer on it, nor should he.
Meghan McCain is a bit of a squish who seems to delight in pushing her cure-all medicine of moderation in exactly the venues where she will find no actual Republicans to buy it- MSNBC, The Daily Beast, etc. If a Republican truly wants to change hearts and minds, "Hardball" and "Rachel Maddow" are not the soapboxes from which to start preaching, as the approach leaves the Right skeptical about her sincerity (and, there's substantive evidence to support this skepticism with Meghan). Laura Ingraham was impolite in referencing McCain's body type, and McCain was only slightly less impolite when she none-too-subtly took a shot at Ingraham's age instead of sticking to the high ground.
But no matter what you think of the fight, Meghan McCain is a grown woman who has shown herself perfectly capable of both starting a row and defending herself in one. I find it odd that those on the Left who endorse her empowering body-image talking points would simultaneously demand that her father defend his little girl from each and every volley. It would serve neither Meghan nor McCain himself for him to Twitter his outrage to Stephanopoulos, which would infantilize her and handicap his own message.
It's also odd that nary a liberal in sight (Karen Tumulty of Time, excepted) had a word to say about Obama's unnecessarily holding up Jessica Simpson's weight for ridicule during an interview with Matt Lauer, in which he parroted a rude US Weekly headline, to Lauer's delight.
You know, that was almost enough to make me think Obama thinks Jessica Simpson deserves to be talked about that way because she's not a statuesque specimen of a daily fitness regimen, like Obama and his wife, Michelle, which is what he thinks is important in a person. He couldn't bring himself to leave her well enough alone. She asked for it.
That's what I might have thought about Obama, but alas, I have not Digby's divination skills.
