Tempus Fugit

I’m a little bit perplexed by Ed Morrissey’s continued stubbornness over the whole “Laura Bush Suggests Sexism is Cause of Miers Opposition” canard. Ed is an eminently reasonable and intelligent person, and this isn’t exactly a complicated issue.

Yes, I have read the transcript from Dafydd at Big Lizards of the Matt Lauer interview. Yes, I know that Matt Lauer is not the greatest interviewer nor a friend to conservatives — which calls into question why the Bushes bother to do an interview on Today in the first place. But I think that parsing the interview to claim that Laura Bush didn’t agree with Lauer’s contention that the criticism came from “sexism” is at best Clintonesque, and silly beyond belief:

Captain’s Quarters: Further Notes on Sexism

First: Matt Lauer did not contend that the criticism came from “sexism.”

The possibility of sexism wasn’t Lauer’s idea, and he wasn’t presenting it as his own.

Second: Laura did not agree with the idea that there was sexism.

Lauer referenced “a little possible sexism,” and Laura replied “that’s possible.” This is not to say that she thinks that there is sexism, but merely that she doesn’t discount the idea entirely. And really, you’d have to be fairly ignorant to think that sexism is an impossibility in this case.

Yes, I have read the transcript from Dafydd at Big Lizards of the Matt Lauer interview.

[...]

So, what was possible? What else could Laura Bush meant? She answered Lauer’s question twice.

Captain’s Quarters: Further Notes on Sexism

Both these statements from Mr. Morrissey suggest that he has not even seen the interview. If he had, he would have likely mentioned so, instead of stating that he has read the transcript. And if he had actually seen the video, he would have realized that Mrs. Bush did not answer Lauer’s question twice, as the transcript suggests, but started to answer “that’s possible” when she was talked over by Lauer who was not quite done asking a question. After he had finished asking the question, she answered “I think that’s possible.” It’s a little thing I like to call conversational etiquette. If you accidentally interrupt someone who is asking you a question, you should wait until you are sure they are finished, and then answer their question. This is what Mrs. Bush did.

Michelle Malkin [full disclosure, I manage her website - ed] has also misperceived the interview.

So, the First Lady pulled out the sexism card in her defense of Harriet Miers on NBC’s Today Show.

Matt Lauer lapped it up.

Michelle Malkin: Mrs. Bush and the Sexism Card

Neither of these are true, and that would be obvious to anyone who has seen the interview. The First Lady didn’t pull out anything… Matt Lauer asked her what she thought about others who have suggested that sexism may be partly to blame for the opposition to Miers. Not only didn’t she bring it up, she brushed it off! She dismissed it as politely as possible, and moved on to something else she wanted to say.

Matt Lauer didn’t even have a chance to “lap up” Mrs. Bush’s response, because she dismissed his question so quickly and moved on that he didn’t have a chance to say anything more on the subject.

I find it rather amusing that such a fuss is being made over an allegation of sexism that Mrs. Bush never made, but the first couple’s blatantly gender-preferential remarks in that same interview have sparked no such controversy (although Malkin mentions it in passing). It has been made abundantly clear to me that Miers wasn’t the best choice, but the best female choice, in the mind of the President (or, as commenter Robert suggests, the best female choice who was willing to go through the mud-slinging of a confirmation hearing). In an interview so heavily tainted by blatant pro-female gender preferences, why is it the First Lady’s dismissive retort that it is “possible” that there might be some sexism to blame for Miers’ opposition even worthy of notice?

The answer appears to lie in the bile stirred up last week’s statement by White House adviser Ed Gillespie that some of the malcontent about Miers “has a whiff of sexism and a whiff of elitism.” So now, Mrs. Bush appears to be guilty be association, when all she really did was dismissively admit that it was “possible” that there could be some sexism.

What would have been an acceptable answer? “No Matt, we live in a colorblind gender-neutral society where people are always judged on their merits, so I must categorically reject the possibility of sexism.” ? It wouldn’t be honest, and it would look especially foolish, being sandwiched by the First Lady’s own flavor of gender preferences.