She says a lot of women who are backing Hillary Clinton will find it hard to support Obama in the fall because, in her words, “he’s another frat boy” candidate: the cool and charming jock who gets his way and doesn’t appreciate or work hard enough to have gotten where he did.

An interesting side question is whether Obama was the beneficiary of Affirmative Action or not. Will we have our first Affirmative Action President?

Uh, no. You don't get to be a frat boy without a penis. Also, last time I checked, frat boys weren't facing this kind of nonsense on a daily basis:

http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2008/05/hillary-sexism-watch-part-eighty.html

Obama's win is a triumph of American sexism, along with a bit of racial guilt thrown in: nothing more.

Not so progressive.

Looking around these here parts, I'd still be inclined to give the boy's club award to Chelsea.

The frat boys of this primary were the MSNBCers: Matthews, KOS, Olbermess, Schuster, and whichever candidate they supported.

Tom, I usually appreciate your analysis, but this is just ridiculous. Analogizing either candidate to entitled Greeks who have more interest in finding their next sexual conquest or beer? Pretty weak. How about some analysis of the upcoming primaries in West Virginia, or a look at whether things have changed with respect to Obama's path to the presidency now that McCain has been campaigning for the past few months?

Of course, your post looks quite good good when compared with the first two comments, one of which is racist blather, and the other is howling nonsense!

Labelling Obama a "frat boy" kind of reminds of people who voted for Bush because "he seems like the kind of guy I would want to have a beer with."

People love to take heuristic clues from the media and convince themselves they really understand the personalities of these candidates. The problem is that it leads to really bad impulses like zenophobia (e.g. "I know Obama isn't one of us because he has that uppity black reverend).

"either candidate to entitled Greeks who have more interest in finding their next sexual conquest or beer? Pretty weak."

They picked the wrong terms. They don't really mean "frat boy," literally, they mean "boy's club," broadly. Entitlement.

Uh, no. You don't get to be a frat boy without a penis. Also, last time I checked, frat boys weren't facing this kind of nonsense on a daily basis:

http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2008/05/hillary-sexism-watch-part-eighty.html

Obama's win is a triumph of American sexism, along with a bit of racial guilt thrown in: nothing more. Not so progressive.

And yet Clinton, as her campaign surrogates will tell you, did oh so well with men (especially white and hispanic men).

The problem with your post, in other words, is that there's no argument there. There's not even an attempt to back up the assertion by looking at the demographics of the actual voting. There's no attempt to connect the sexist comments of MSNBC commentators and actual political behavior. It's a completely reductionist argument in search of evidence. (Mind you, it may ultimately be true, but why should I believe it sans argumentation?)

Obama's coalition was made up of African Americans (who the Clinton campaign threw away like so much trash around the time of the SC primary), the "wine-track" (college educated voters and liberals...the type of people who were already going to look askance at a Clinton based upon the spotty record of the first one) and just enough white working class men and women to make up the difference. You needn't invoke sexism to explain that, although it would be fool hardy to expect sexism not to be a causal factor for some of those voters (just as it would be fool hardy to expect that race also hasn't played a factor).

And of course, this is not to mention the silliness of the strict equation of frat boy with genitalia when the original post was talking about an attitude (which, being an attitude, or a disposition, or whatever, can be aped by people even if they do not qualify physically in the manner of the original exhibitor).

Clinton supporters have every right to complain about the asymmetric national media coverage that was tougher on her and, until recently, more favorable toward him.

Clinton gets some unfair press, but she also gets positive backing.

It was the press that allowed her to define the game changer races - Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, but not Mississippi, Wisconsin and Virginia. Even Obama's win in North Carolina didn't matter. If she'd held him to 5% in Indiana, they'd have called yesterday a draw. It was the press that reinforced the notion that she had momentum simply by winning states she was always expected to win. And it was the press that allowed her to make increasingly absurd and contradictory arguments about her chances for the nomination.

She was a special target because she was Hillary Clinton. But no one else would have been allowed to carry on as long without being called on it.

Obama's win is a triumph of American sexism

Obama is winning because he was right on the Iraq war and Hillary wasn't.

That's a big deal to a lot of people, despite all the attempts by fans of Clinton to dismiss it.

um, actually we've had a lot of affirmative action presidents, including most notably the current one. as a college prof i can assure you that affirmative action on campus, and in life beyond, takes forms other than racial ones. we have special admissions for people with musical or athletic talents, who are legacies, or based on geographic considerations. (in most states the standards for SAT scores are lower to get into state universities for kids from poorer counties...why? because state legislators in those parts of the state damn sure don't want to pay taxes to fund higher ed if a far smaller share of their constituents get in.)

having said all that, consider george w. bush: mediocre andover student, but gets into yale; mediocre yale student but gets into harvard biz school; mediocre biz student but gets all sorts of investment capital (including from bin laden family) to start failed businesses; failed businessman who gets chance to run the Rangers (his one great success). this is a guy who had accomplished almost nothing by 40...far less, say, that I or most other 40 yearold white boys have--and yet 14 years later he's president. that's not affirmative action, El Viajero?

the very fact that the idea and practice of affirmative action is to most people associate with race and race exclusively is one of the biggest myths about how who gets where in this country got there. there's plenty of affirmative action for middle class and even upper class white boys. denying it is simply delusion.

"Obama is winning because he was right on the Iraq war and Hillary wasn't."

He was right...you mean before he was wrong?

flip flop flip flop

...she was a special target because she was Hillary Clinton. But no one else would have been allowed to carry on as long without being called on it.

Live by the everyone-knows-everyone-here-right?-free-media, die by the everyone-knows-everyone-here-right?-free-media village. They made it, they can destroy it.

If, arguendo, Sen. Maria Cantwell had thrown her hat into the ring, she wouldn’t have made it as far as the Iowa caucuses. I doubt Chris Matthews even knows what state she’s from....

Hell, I'm just thrilled that racism no longer exists in America. That Obama was one lucky frat boy - if history has taught us anything it has taught us the greatest assest you can have in national politics is black skin.

"And of course, this is not to mention the silliness of the strict equation of frat boy with genitalia when the original post was talking about an attitude (which, being an attitude, or a disposition, or whatever, can be aped by people even if they do not qualify physically in the manner of the original exhibitor)."

See, no. Original post or not, "frat boy" does imply genitalia. If it were just entitlement we were talking here, then Sorority Sister is the more accurate term.

Frat Boy is a boy. And the reason he is a boy is because "frat boys" get away with stuff, i.e. rape, where Sorority Sisters do not.

This, I think, is specifically where the metaphor fails:

"Isn't, after all, Clinton who ran a much more presumptuous, just-need-to-show-up 'frat boy' candidacy than Obama?"

Nothing about "presumptuous" or "just-need-to-show-up" actually denotes "frat boy," other than the desire to counter the criticism of Obama. While all frat boys can be these things, not all, in fact, very few "presumptious" folks are actual frat boys.

Finally, on the practical side, I can tell you that trying to call Clinton a "frat boy" in response to his female critics calling Obama one, is really going to get you NOWHERE if you want their votes. It's only going to show them that, bless your heart, you just don't get it.

"Obama's win is a triumph of American sexism, along with a bit of racial guilt thrown in: nothing more."

Are you trying to be funny? Because this is the biggest steaming pile of bullshit I have read today. Clinton set the narrative (e.g., "game changer") throughout this primary, and was still considered in it long after a man would have been totally ridiculed for staying in.

And are you really trying to argue that the approximately 1.5 million or so Americans who turn in to MSNBC in a given week decided this election?

God, what stupid rot has come out of the Hillary side in this primary. No wonder she lost; she only appeals to morons.

The "frat boy" label doesn't work for either candidate. The frame of reference I've seen Clinton supporters struggling with is the one where an older, more qualified woman gets passed over for promotion... and the promotion goes to a younger man who gets by on charm and "Boys' Club" connections.

The problem with applying this frame to the Democratic nominees is that both candidates are equally qualified to be President: That is, they are both over 35 and were born in the United States. Everything else is subjective, and our nation does not choose its Presidents based on the strength of their résumés. (Indeed, for 30 years the strongest indicator of election-night performance has been whether the candidate comes across as warm and caring on television - a quality that Obama has, Bill Clinton had, and Hillary arguably lacks.)

But I digress. For any woman who's bumped against the glass ceiling at some point in her life, and who supported Hillary because she was "better qualified," I suspect it's seductively easy to view Obama's win as sexism writ large. Defusing that frame will require some effort, especially given the genuine sexism (CHRIS MATTHEWS! GET INTO THERAPY NOW!) that Clinton's campaign encountered on a routine basis.

This is the second or third time today I've seen Clinton criticized for the phrase "in it to win it" which I think was perfectly innocuous and also was an accurate dramatization of exactly the quality that got people to vote for her. In that sense it was "smart politics" because it worked. Its the opposite of lazy, entitlement. This is a really stupid frame, not so much as phrased by the original taxi driver--I mean "woman voter" but as rephrased by Tom Schaller.

The fact of the matter is that HRC was routinely dissed by everyone as too wonky--that means, in the binary world of political punditing that by definition her opponent had to be too not wonky. That's just the way the cards were drawn at the start of this matchup *by the press* and, to a certain extent, by the candidates. Why fault her supporters for taking that frame, which was put on her by the press and the public, and runnign with it.

There's another layer of sexism at work here, indicated handily in Michael Wolff's repulsive article in Vanity Fair this week--it is that *older women are really seen as having no other function than service to others and hard work* by the time they are thought to be past beiing fuckable. By definition, since Hillary was the first wife--not the trophy wife--and since she wears pantssuits and is a mommy--she can't be presented as a sexy airhead. The only other role for her, which was thrust on her and accepted by her, was "hard worker." Obama choose a different public role: blessed, happy, handsome, young, vibrant, etc..etc...etc.. Of course a guy who got to be editor of the harvard law review can't be any kind of slouch but he didn't play it up and neither did his supporters.

Don't hold hillary responsible for the fact that her experience, and her supporters vicarious experience of her candidacy, mirrors older women's experience of their own work lives: the harder you work and the more earnestly you perform the more often you are passed over for a younger, less qualified, male.

aimai

The best evidence that Clinton isn't losing because of a sexist conspiracy is that she's losing to Barack Obama and not to John Edwards or Joe Biden.

There's a pretty big overlap between sexists and racists. Anyone who thinks either of them had an unfair advantage because of their genes hasn't been paying attention very long.

"There's another layer of sexism at work here, indicated handily in Michael Wolff's repulsive article in Vanity Fair this week--it is that *older women are really seen as having no other function than service to others and hard work* by the time they are thought to be past beiing fuckable."

I don't entirely agree with this. If HRC had had more of her *own* political career, and not been riding primarily on her identity as former first lady, she could have projected a form of authority other than "hard worker," something that a lot of people-- including practically *all* the "educated class(es)" don't really consider a form of authority, and frequently not even of any particular value. Many of us get hit with this crap everyday-- killing yourself on the job does jack, 9 times out of 10.

Hillary just didn't have all she needed, given the biases of much of the American public. I always thought we should have heard more about *her* and not just her "35 years" and "the nineties" that were actually Bill's administration-- that sovereign "we."

Are there really *no* authoritative older women out there? Just 20something tramps, Caitlin Flanigan, and old bags?

Come now.

In other words, what was doing during that 35 years' experience?

Not a word.

Hillary *had* to adopt the "hard worker" line because it was diametrically opposed to what much of the public already thought.

"A smart, liberal, female Democratic friend of mine repeatedly points out to me ways in which Barack Obama often comes across to some women as arrogant. She says a lot of women who are backing Hillary Clinton will find it hard to support Obama in the fall because, in her words, “he’s another frat boy” candidate: the cool and charming jock who gets his way and doesn’t appreciate or work hard enough to have gotten where he did."

This coming from a Clinton supporter? Presumably one who complains about sexist coverage with things like Chris Matthews' comment about women voting for Hillary Clinton because they felt sorry about Bill having an affair (i.e. that women are driven only by emotion and can't make a hard-headed choice)? That is, to be fair, an unbelievably sexist comment. But when people making these sorts of claims make Matthews's point for him...does not compute.

Nobody who grew up poor, raised basically by a single mother who was on food stamps, can by any stretch of the imagination be called "a frat boy. . . who gets his way and doesn't appreciate or work hard enough to have gotten where he did".

Whatever his faults and his relative inexperience as a national politician, for Obama to climb out of where he was took more gumption than his detractors ever had or can even imagine.

"Are there really *no* authoritative older women out there? Just 20something tramps, Caitlin Flanigan, and old bags?"

LOL. thanks for making my point, anon.

you work on what you find "authoritative" and how it differs from "hag" in your view, and make your arguments for how Clinton is a hag, w/o using gender-specific arguments...waiting

Aimai - he didn't "get to be editor of the Harvard Law Review." There are dozens of editors. Obama was President of the Harvard Law Review - a position that feeds directly into Supreme Court clerkships and then into jobs that pay two or three hundred thousand your first year. Or he could have skipped the clerkship and gone straight to an investment bank. As a whip-smart, highly sophisticated black man he could have been worth a hundred million by thirty without breaking a sweat.

He didn't do that. He went to live in a working class black community. He became a community organizer and a state senator and he taught law students as an adjunct professor. He earned less in a year than he could have made in a week. He turned down private jets and a third house in Jackson Hole in order to register voters.

To be blunt about it, he was a saint. I went to Yale, not Harvard, but I recall only one person who did the sort of thing that Obama did, and he genuinely was a saint, of the "when he dies he'll go straight to heaven and sit at the Lord's right hand" variety. That's what Obama's experience tells us he's like.

There's no question that Clinton has been the target of some very ugly sexism. But not from Obama. And the idea that he's a "frat boy" (let's watch that "boy" stuff, shall we?) who just skates by is so far from his real experience that I have trouble believing that the people who say it are acting merely out of good faith ignorance.

"There's no question that Clinton has been the target of some very ugly sexism. But not from Obama."

google Obama and claws
obama and tea parties
obama and "periodically lash out"

The original post called Clinton a Frat Boy. That is what I disputed and still dispute.

"you work on what you find "authoritative" and how it differs from "hag" in your view, and make your arguments for how Clinton is a hag, w/o using gender-specific arguments...waiting"

The Democratic Party could have gotten behind any number of long time women Senators, and advanced their candidacy as they did that of Obama. They didn't do that-- they rean Hillary for her name recognition as former first wife.

It didn't work.

You, meanwhile, can drop the pathetic gender schtick and go discover what the various professions consider authoritative on your own time.

Grow up.

You can start with: reading comprehension.

LOL, "anonymous" telling anyone to grow up.

As for your dodge, fail.

Periodically I find myself rolling my eyes over the continued claim that correct use of the word periodically is sexist.

Mara, When Schaller said that Clinton's candidacy was more like a frat boy candidacy because she has benefited more from privilege than he has, you came back with the zinger that she can't be a frat boy because she can't get away with rape. The implication being that Obama can? Or is this some sort of oblique reference to the Duke lacrosse team? What does it add to the discussion other than to raise the blood pressure of every participant on the thread? Does it give you pleasure to make cutting remarks to total strangers who happen to belong to the same political party that you support?

There should be a Godwin's Law corrolary: as a thread concerning a feminist issue grows longer, the probability that someone will mention rape approaches one.

Mara is a racist who thinks calling everyone a sexist is a brilliant campaign strategy.

Seriously, how dare you belittle the historical challenges facing people of color in this country. How dare you suggest the only reason white people might support Obama is 'racial guilt'. You are a tool of everything you pretend to despise. Invoking the stereotype or rapacious black savages is just disgusting.

"Invoking the stereotype or rapacious black savages is just disgusting."

soullite, that's just a clever tactic to distract us from the Clenis. Not that it matters, as it doesn't look like it will be returning to the Oval Office, after all. :(

I happen to admire Tom Schaller a great deal... which is why it distresses me that his criticisms of Hillary Clinton have run a continuous strain of personal animus that undermines reasoned analysis. "Frat boy?" Really?

I just think Schaller's better than that.

Aside from wholeheartedly agreeing with aimai - which is par for the course - I think this is just the sort of denigration of Clinton, at every level, that gives her supporters reason to go on (even, as I think, it may be past the point of success): if my choice is agreeing with Schaller's vapid, insulting characterization of Clinton's years of service to the public in a variety of roles, then no, I'd rather she run this out and fight on the convention floor. Until people - men especially - who prefer Obama can do it without crass, sexist dismissals of a woman's work, then we've gotten nowhere in this country figuring out the real meaning of women's equality. Frat boy. The mind reels.

The frat boy analogies are not useful. I went to frat boy U. and the real thing is sitting in the WH. Even John Kerry was more of a frat boy (of the noblesse oblige kind who grew up variety).

Clinton has been the subject of some ugly sexism, but I don't think that's why she hasn't succeeded. I think if either one of two things had been different, she would already be the nominee:

1. She not only voted for the AUMF, but she was singularly unrepentant, more concerned with not admitting fault than assuring those of us, like me, who just wanted to know that her foreign policy would be markedly different. I find the ramped up bellicosity of U.S. foreign policy to be at least as much a threat to the future of my girl children as sexism, and I find Clinton's attitude to be unsatisfactory.

2. No plan after February 5, and other strategic decisions, like not reaching out to African Americans, which I find baffling. Sure, most AA voters were going to vote for Obama, but reaching out might have swayed some and, more important, preserved much good will.

When I compare Clinton's willingness to appeal to working class voters with a phony gas tax proposal to her unwillingness to address the legitimate foreign policy concerns of those like me regarding the AUMF, I don't have a good feeling at all for what kind of president she would be. Her support was a mile wide, but it was an inch deep and she didn't deepen it through her campaign.

"Mara is a racist who thinks calling everyone a sexist is a brilliant campaign strategy."

Sheesh, and I just complimented you in another thread too. Sheesh.

Soullite: race-baiting daily at half the price

"google Obama and claws
obama and tea parties
obama and "periodically lash out""

If this is the best you've got, quit while you're behind. What a joke.

here ya go: 80 or so more

http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2008/05/hillary-sexism-watch-part-eighty.html

"here ya go: 80 or so more"

I was referring to Obama criticzing Hillary on the basis of gender, but whatever.

You really need a deifferent hobby. I don't think this one's making you very happy.

Inartful Dodger, Hello!

"I think this is just the sort of denigration of Clinton, at every level, that gives her supporters reason to go on (even, as I think, it may be past the point of success): if my choice is agreeing with Schaller's vapid, insulting characterization of Clinton's years of service to the public in a variety of roles, then no, I'd rather she run this out and fight on the convention floor."

Weboy, I think you must have missed Donna Brasile's recent announcement: the democratic party doesn't need Clinton's supporters. Obama will coast to victory with the "new" coalition of AA's and the youth vote. White working class voters need not apply.

I think it would be foolish to not court white orking class voters but not at the expense of AAs and youth vote. The media discourse on this has very insulting. They are implying that black votes don't count. Well like any American they do count.

Doesn't calling Obama a frat boy denigrate him? As someone who made career choices that are a lot closer to Clinton's, I can say that I am a bit in awe of Obama's example. Lumping him with Bush because both are male without acknowledging the radical differences between the two is rank sexism, even if the gender being dissed is M not F. But retorting that Clinton is the real frat boy, as I said above, is just not useful or accurate, and further poisons the well.

mara, I looked at about 10 of the links on Shakespeare's Sister, and some are definitely examples of media sexism, but others are sexist only if your antennae for sexism are so sensitive that they it detect a lot of false positives. To find it sexist that someone would even ask for a listing of Hillary Clinton's accomplishments is a real stretch, as is, I believe, presuming sexism when a news service publishes a photo of a woman you deem to be less than flattering to her overall attractive features.

I am also turned off by the increasing "macho" imagery that is being used by Clinton's supporters to justify her candidacy -- it's a backhanded pseudo-compliment at best, because it disses women in general even if it's meant to build up one woman in particular. It's of a piece with excusing her vote for the AUMF on the basis that she needed to show she was tough enough to be president. Authorizing an unjust war and all that goes with it is an awfully high price to pay just to have a woman in the WH.

"To find it sexist that someone would even ask for a listing of Hillary Clinton's accomplishments is a real stretch, as is, I believe, presuming sexism when a news service publishes a photo of a woman you deem to be less than flattering to her overall attractive features."

Which numbers are you speaking about, Barbara. I'd gladly discuss them with you.

I agree with you, though, on "testicular fortitude" and "pansy." They both demean women even as they purport to demean Obama, but are a drop in the bucket compared to what's been used against Clinton.

As for AUMF, I've never excused it under the guise of her proving "toughness." If anything, like Obama's votes to fund the war after reaching the Senate, it shows cowardice.

No, it's not the list of accomplishments per se, it was the presumption that asking what her accomplishments were was in itself sexist. The retort was something like, "did they ask about Bill's accomplishments?" This is just way too exquisitely sensitive for me.

And regarding voting to fund the war: one of the reasons why the AUMF was so important is because it is very difficult to reverse its effects through defunding the war, which then becomes an issue of undermining the troops and not just Bush's foreign policy. There were at least 21 Democratic senators who understood this at the time and voted no. Kerry, Edwards and Clinton were not among them, but only Clinton continues to maintain that it was the right thing to do under the circumstances. Really, this gives me no confidence about how she would react to future threats, and talk of obliterating Iran frankly scares me. If the only way to get a woman president is for her to embrace militarism well, I doubt if that would be a good thing for women overall, even if it's good for the woman who becomes president because, whatever else you can say, a militaristic society almost never values women as much as it does men.

These are legitimate questions about Clinton and the sexism of the media and others should not be used as an excuse to duck them. I have this conversation regularly with my mother.

Regarding "obliterating Iran," please go back to the original context. She was talking "could" as in deterrence as has been used to great advantage many times in the past.

"If the only way to get a woman president is for her to embrace militarism well, I doubt if that would be a good thing for women overall, even if it's good for the woman who becomes president because, whatever else you can say, a militaristic society almost never values women as much as it does men."

I'm not sure what you mean by "embracing militarism" and how other presidents or even "let's attack Pakistan" Obama is any different. But the logic of this argument perplexes. Are you arguing that until the US is a peaceful nation, women shouldn't apply for the job of presidency? If a woman believes in a strong military, she is anti-woman? How is an anti-military person of either gender supposed to be elected president. I don't see it.

I'm a pacifist but none of the three candidates for presidency left appears to be.

If HRC had had more of her *own* political career, and not been riding primarily on her identity as former first lady, she could have projected a form of authority other than "hard worker," something that a lot of people-- including practically *all* the "educated class(es)" don't really consider a form of authority, and frequently not even of any particular value. Many of us get hit with this crap everyday-- killing yourself on the job does jack, 9 times out of 10.

Agree completely, and I also think that women are particularly susceptible to the [IMO generally incorrect] idea that dependability, diligence, and broad operational knowledge is (or should be, I guess) the key to career advancement. It's not; specialization (with some diversification), taking risks, and self-promotion tend to reap more rewards. It doesn't really matter whether it's rank sexism or just one of the quirks of capitalism-- the fact is that a certain set of qualities tend to be seen as those of leaders, while others are those of managers.

It's also true that there's a lot of room for posturing and a lack of substance in that model: GWB is proof of that, as someone noted above. And I'd argue that Bill Clinton was more of a manager with charisma than a real leader, given how easy it was to back him down on anything that wasn't a personal issue. But Obama, as others have also pointed out, is clearly not substanceless, and while there's no denying his star power-- some people just have it regardless of situation-- it's not like he coasted in any way, from his high school scholarships to getting into the Ivy League via transfer to taking low-pay, long-hours work to benefit others. IOW, he paid a proper set of dues early on, when he could have coasted easily, and reaped an earlier reward for it.

Hard work is required but rarely sufficient to succeed.

mara, I had a long post in reply to yours but it was eaten. Let me say that I think posturing regarding potential military action is never a good idea, but that the comment about obliterating Iran will be used by the Iranian government to further undermine democratic liberalization, whatever its original context, and is particularly damaging for that reason (as well as for its implication that the U.S. would use tactical nuclear weapons, which is the only way on earth that we would be able to "obliterate" a country with 80 million plus people). Obama's comment was that he would not "rule out" the use of force in Pakistan in going after al Qaeda, which seems a lot milder in comparison.

Of course women should run for office, but I want all candidates to show as much strength in standing up to the forces of darkness at home as they do abroad, and I personally feel very little empathy for women who think that they must outdo their male competitors in warmongering in order to prove a point.

"here ya go: 80 or so more"

What part of "but not from Obama" did you fail to understand?

thanks for the link, Mara...truly depressing.

um, actually we've had a lot of affirmative action presidents, including most notably the current one.

Really! You have to be of a minority race for Affirmative Action, a federal directive, applies. Why don't you name one...BOZO?

i can assure you that affirmative action on campus, and in life beyond, takes forms other than racial ones. we have special admissions for people with musical or athletic talents...

No, those are called scholarships for especially talented people of all races.

as a college prof...

Well, that explains a lot.

"You have to be of a minority race for Affirmative Action"

ROFLMAO.... Are you always this clueless? Tom is correct, of course, and you are, as always, completely and totally wrong, not to mention completely failing to address Tom's actual point. Do try again when you can post something other than mindless partisan drivel, won't you?

Tom, kudos. When I read this post I was pretty sure this would push more partisans' buttons than anything else posted on tapped today. And so far I'm not disappointed.

Red meat!

You forgot another frat boy aspect:

The drinking shots, the Annie Oakley thing, sniper fire, the gloating, the jeering, the talk about testicles. I think they were more frat boy than most frat boys.

Boy the Clintons were really being a bunch of total dicks, weren't they?

"Boy Obama is really being a total dick, isn't he?"

You got it; Obama routinely borrows Clinton's work; my guess is he used to buy term papers in school too.