“No, I don’t know why women are fleeing the Republican Party in droves.”

January 25th, 2013 by Scott Lemieux

Shorter Bill Kritsol: “Biology proves that the IDF is a hopelessly deficient combat force, what with all those unfit women and all. You’d have to be a grade-A moron to think that women are capable of serving in combat roles. Ask this scientician. In conclusion, gender equality is contrary to common sense, decency, and honor.”

…also, this. And.

Posted in General | 63 comments

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63 comments on this post.

  1. bill:

    January 25th, 2013 at 1:31 am

    “This is therefore a moment of opportunity. The political leader who takes on this fight will be mocked and scorned–almost as much as was Ronald Reagan in 1977, when he challenged the bipartisan elite consensus on the Panama Canal Treaty. As it happens, I suspect this fight will prove more winnable in Congress than the fight against the Panama Canal Treaty.”

    Reagan was truly a man of infinite foresight- just look at the multitude of disasters that have followed the handoff.

  2. Dan:

    January 25th, 2013 at 1:32 am

  3. Dan:

    January 25th, 2013 at 1:34 am

    Er lets try again–

    http://media.caglecartoons.com/media/cartoons/98/2012/08/27/117595_600.jpg

  4. Warren Terra:

    January 25th, 2013 at 1:38 am

    Lacks the vivid imagery of Gingrich’s 90s bloviation on the same topic, which as I recall involved infections, trenches, and gazelles.

  5. DocAmazing:

    January 25th, 2013 at 1:39 am

    Kristol manages to be wrong even about events that are already well in the past. How does he do it?

  6. JMP:

    January 25th, 2013 at 1:40 am

    The IDF, with female soldiers, are good fighters? Please; next you’ll be claiming that the French ended up winning the Hundred Years War thanks to the intervention of a woman warrior whose military leadership turned the tide against the English. Silly ladies can’t fight, they don’t have penises!

  7. bph:

    January 25th, 2013 at 2:33 am

    It was actually giraffes. The whole set of quotes are hysterical as they offend everyone.

    http://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/19/us/gingrich-s-piggies-poked.html

  8. herr doktor bimler:

    January 25th, 2013 at 2:58 am

    Tell me more of Bill Kristol’s expertise about military service.

  9. Sly:

    January 25th, 2013 at 3:06 am

    Also, more: “We can’t let women (officially) serve in combat roles because macho men just can’t handle it” in 3… 2… 1… Liftoff.

  10. SV:

    January 25th, 2013 at 3:16 am

    Shorter Jessie Jane Duff: “You girls know soldiering is, like, hard, right? Also, men’s sexism and rapeyness means that the presence of your vaginas will interfere with them killing people. Trust me, I’ve been doing it for years.”

  11. commie atheist:

    January 25th, 2013 at 3:33 am

    The fucking Panama fucking Canal fucking Treaty? That was Reagan’s “moment of opportunity” to show what big-balls leader he was? Seriously?

    Christ, what an asshole.

  12. Tom Renbarger:

    January 25th, 2013 at 6:31 am

    A man, a plan, a canal–Reagan!

  13. c u n d gulag:

    January 25th, 2013 at 6:56 am

    His expertise was in avoiding military service – which was smart, because I think even the Doctor, after checking him to see if he was physically fit for service, would have “fragged” him, saving some poor battle-weary grunt the trouble.

  14. N__B:

    January 25th, 2013 at 6:58 am

    He has masturbated to the battle scenes in every Star Wars movie.

  15. BethR52:

    January 25th, 2013 at 7:29 am

    Where have the forces of gender correctness been all my life?

  16. TT:

    January 25th, 2013 at 7:35 am

    There are conservative performance artists. And then there is Newton Leroy Gingrich.

  17. Mac:

    January 25th, 2013 at 7:38 am

    “Israel is to be supported without question at all times, until something progressive they do that I dont agree with begins to be used as an example for the US.”

    My conservative veteran friends are losing their minds right now on FB – end of the infantry, we’re the best what will this do?, etc.

  18. Manju:

    January 25th, 2013 at 7:40 am

    Well, if we put the women in harness, what are we going to do with all the binders?

  19. bradP:

    January 25th, 2013 at 7:42 am

    Shouldn’t the argument that bans on women in combat roles prevents incompetent soldiers from making it to the battlefield be really, really insulting to present combat soldiers.

  20. Manju:

    January 25th, 2013 at 7:50 am

    When Obama let the gays fight, I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a gay. Then he let the women in, and I didn’t speak because I was not a woman. By the time he asked me to serve, there was no room left in the Texas National Guard.

  21. c u n d gulag:

    January 25th, 2013 at 7:55 am

    +1

  22. The Dark Avenger:

    January 25th, 2013 at 8:04 am

    Here’s a comment I found at NRO and my response:

    “Wow. Who knew the Israeli Army has been so wrong for so long.”

    “What else did you expect from a country that lacks Christian values?”

  23. Chris Campbell:

    January 25th, 2013 at 8:12 am

    Criticizes President and Panetta for making a public policy decision without evidence. Says it’s a bad idea and “won’t someone think of the wimmenz” and step up to fight it. Offers absolutely no evidence of his own why this is a bad idea.

  24. adolphus:

    January 25th, 2013 at 8:44 am

    Quoting David Frum in the Serwer article: ” In Iranian prisons, rape is a frequent practice.”

    Um, yeah. In Iranian prisons. All the prison rape is in Iranian prisons. I guess that stuff in US prisons isn’t “Rape Rape.”

  25. rea:

    January 25th, 2013 at 8:59 am

    I believe the term for which you are searching is “legitimate rape”

  26. rea:

    January 25th, 2013 at 9:01 am

    He has a point, though. We don’t know how this will work out. It’s not as if we’ve sent tens of thousands of women into combat over the last 25 years or so.

    Oh, wait . . .

  27. Woodrowfan:

    January 25th, 2013 at 9:05 am

    even the ones with Jar-Jar Binks? eww, wayyy too kinky…

  28. N__B:

    January 25th, 2013 at 9:08 am

    Me-sah…me-sah…me-saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

  29. Major Kong:

    January 25th, 2013 at 9:21 am

    Wait, aren’t the Chinese supposed to have missiles based in the Panama Canal Zone by now?

    That was the cause of much conservative bed wetting pre-9/11.

  30. olexicon:

    January 25th, 2013 at 9:21 am

    Ah the internal contradictions of Conservative dogma

  31. Slocum:

    January 25th, 2013 at 9:39 am

    Ok, let’s compromise. No women in combat; no men in combat.

  32. Kurzleg:

    January 25th, 2013 at 9:45 am

    Yeah, mine too. Big issue is perceived (and perhaps actual) double standards in physical fitness requirements. Not so worried about the nonsense that National Review and others are chattering about.

  33. Uncle Kvetch:

    January 25th, 2013 at 10:06 am

    Harrumph.

  34. c u n d gulag:

    January 25th, 2013 at 10:09 am

    The American inmates body has a way of shutting down, in the case of legitimate prison rape.

  35. DrDick:

    January 25th, 2013 at 10:16 am

    He has the unique talent of always being wrong abot everything.

  36. DrDick:

    January 25th, 2013 at 10:34 am

    Gingrich is his own conservative art form.

  37. jack:

    January 25th, 2013 at 10:35 am

    NSFW

    Movie night at The Weekly Standard

  38. Brandon:

    January 25th, 2013 at 11:00 am

    There are lower standards for women, but I think I read that the standards for combat roles will be uniform.

  39. CashandCable:

    January 25th, 2013 at 11:10 am

    Don’t forget this amazing effort from some Bush 41-era DUSD: http://spectator.org/archives/2013/01/24/the-blood-smeared-glass-ceilin

    Did you know that the only thing holding our military together was a common ability to sign their names in the snow?

  40. Leeds man:

    January 25th, 2013 at 11:18 am

    Was the same fuss made about women police officers?

  41. CashandCable:

    January 25th, 2013 at 11:30 am

    Yes.

    And when women tried to volunteer for support roles during WWII.

    And when women tried to preserve those role after WWII.

    And when women joined the service academies in the 1970′s.

    And when women became fighter pilots in the early 1990′s.

  42. joe from Lowell:

    January 25th, 2013 at 12:02 pm

    No arguments are provided. But public policy arguments are supposed to be based on reality. The president has no interest in a debate about the biological, sociological, psychological or physiological realities of combat. So it will be up to the rest of us to make the arguments against this irresponsible act of liberal social experimentation.

    Oh please oh please oh please. By all means, proceed, governor.

    Take all the time you need to express your thoughts in as detailed a manner as possible.

  43. Bill:

    January 25th, 2013 at 12:42 pm

    Well at least we won’t have to worry about any increase in sexual assaults–only “sexual assaults.”

  44. Origami Isopod:

    January 25th, 2013 at 1:49 pm

    I saw enough cross-sections of Reagan’s canal on TV in the early ’80s, kthx.

  45. Adam Bradley:

    January 25th, 2013 at 1:53 pm

    You’re forgetting that God told Jeanne d’Arc what to do. And He does have a penis.

  46. herr doktor bimler:

    January 25th, 2013 at 1:56 pm

    the biological, sociological, psychological or physiological realities of combat
    Anyone talking like this, you know straightaway that they have a history of pacifism for themselves.

    Those Scandiwegian countries that allow women in combat positions, only do so because they have no historical experience of invasion, right?

  47. Njorl:

    January 25th, 2013 at 2:27 pm

    Maybe we should only let Jewish women fight?

  48. Linnaeus:

    January 25th, 2013 at 3:23 pm

    From the linked article:

    “Chivalry is one of the great civilizing forces, taming men and introducing social graces and nuance to what would otherwise be a brutish social world.”

    I can’t think of any feminists, at least not any who participate in mainstream discourse, who claim that men need to be “tamed”. Yet it’s feminists who “hate men”. Right.

  49. BobS:

    January 25th, 2013 at 4:39 pm

    Now probably isn’t a good time to tell them about the relatively restrictive gun laws in Israel.

  50. STH:

    January 25th, 2013 at 4:49 pm

    The right wing needs the whole “taming” thing because it helps them along with the “blaming the victim” thing. You know, if women are going to wear short skirts, those barely-tamed men are going to lose sight of the “civilizing forces” and rape them. Built-in excuse for all sorts of shit.

  51. John Protevi:

    January 25th, 2013 at 4:59 pm

    We can be sure it will be a very serious, thoughtful, argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care.

  52. DrDick:

    January 25th, 2013 at 7:12 pm

    The Neocons have never gotten over the fact that the canal was returned to Panama.

  53. Tehanu:

    January 25th, 2013 at 9:49 pm

    N_B, a shiny new Internet for you!

  54. Suffern ACE:

    January 25th, 2013 at 10:53 pm

    Really, Chivalry? I believe what we ask for is courtesy and dur the lack of courts, manners will do. Do soldiers really think they would be knights?

  55. Jewish Steel:

    January 25th, 2013 at 11:49 pm

    Take my wife. Please.

    hiyo!

  56. Anna in PDX:

    January 26th, 2013 at 12:25 am

    Nice.

  57. Dave:

    January 26th, 2013 at 3:22 am

    And, we burned her.

  58. Dave:

    January 26th, 2013 at 3:25 am

    Well, actually, Sweden is one of the very few countries in the world never to have its [current] territory invaded in modern history. But that is merely a factual addendum, and irrelevant to the discussion.

  59. Emma in Sydney:

    January 26th, 2013 at 5:01 am

    Well that was due to a little matter of collaborating with the Nazi invasion of Norway. It isn’t an invasion when you let them use your railways. Can I suggest you don’t use that one of argument on a Norwegian ?

  60. Emma in Sydney:

    January 26th, 2013 at 5:02 am

    * line of argument

  61. herr doktor bimler:

    January 26th, 2013 at 5:29 am

    I believe that the Swedish experience of not being invaded is central to my point.

  62. herr doktor bimler:

    January 26th, 2013 at 5:32 am

    Ah, that 1986 breakthrough in medical science when surgeons found the one part of Reagan’s body that was not malignant, and successfully removed it.
    [/Waugh]

  63. HTTP://arduino.org/:

    May 10th, 2013 at 1:38 am

    Good day! I could have sworn I’ve been to this website before but after browsing through some of the post I realized it’s new to me.
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