Nuts & Sluts: In Which Your Wonkette Agrees With Pat Robertson And Richard Cohen About Paula Broadwell

There is a lot of Yap and Huff on the Internet right about now about how poor Paula Broadwell is being SEXISMED because nobody is making tons of mocking fun of disgraced former top spook David Petraeus, but people are all OH HER CLOTHES WERE TOO TIGHT SLUT SLUT SLUT. They seem to be regarding the current Unpleasantness as just another in our unbroken epochs of Blame the Floozy. But is it possible that the reason we are not making fun of David Petraeus is because the US has, 20 years after Bill Clinton, become less puritanical about affairs, and the reason we are all making fun of Paula Broadwell has nothing to do with her flooziness but rather is because she is (allegedly) a psycho nutzoid Internet stalker who is one crowbar and a pack of Depends away from driving to Houston to kneecap a bitch? Like, we are sorry there is still sexism in the world, and the women are blamed for the affairs and stuff, but maybe that isn't actually what is happening here! For instance! If she hadn't gone bunny-boiler (allegedly) would anybody even have cared about the boffing -- if it were even discovered at all? We posit not really! Also, some Internet stalkers really are crazy, even if they are women, and it is not not-feminist to say so! (We have one ourself. We would print all her messages to us, but then you would be scared, and probably cry.) And we think it hurts equality to insist that Broadwell is somehow a victim in this, and society is to blame. And that is where Richard Cohen and Pat Robertson come in.

Some people are offended by the Pat Robertson video above, because he is a crazy old man and says Broadwell "threw herself" at Petraeus and it's not really his fault he couldn't resist. Well. We don't know who did the throwing. But if she did, does anyone out there know a man who WOULD resist? She is beautiful. Her figure is amazing. Her Type A achieviness probably would be a turn-on to someone who doesn't lie in bed all day smoking Camels and blogging. It doesn't Hurt the Cause to recognize that some women are irresistible to some men.

Richard Cohen, in the meantime, wrote what may be his least stupid column in years. It is very Franch, and it is basically Richard Cohen (who has some sexytime inappropriateness issues of his own) yelling at Petraeus to go back to work because his affair is between him and his wife, not him and the nation. It ends like this:

At dinner one night, I sat opposite Holly Petraeus. She’s charming and deeply concerned about the welfare of our troops — both active and retired. I can only imagine her hurt. But this is her matter — and her husband’s — and not ours. He betrayed her, not his country. No more need be said. Now get back to work.

That got people on Twit asking if anyone else took umbrage at Cohen's dismissal of Holly Petraeus's pain? Well, we're sure someone did? But what Holly Petraeus's pain has to do with David Petraeus's job is truly beyond us.

So people mention that Broadwell was a homecoming queen? Well, they mention it alongside her master's degree, her Iron Man competitions, and her rank as Major in the reserves. So people talk about her tight clothes? Well, in context of "in Afghanistan," that is relevant. You're sad that old men are talking about how she got "her claws in him"? Those are old men. And? They might be right. Because women are sexual actors too, not merely the pawns of men's desires. That, our sistren, is a good thing. 

PS: Here is what Pat Robertson's "propinquity" means. He is right about that too.

[ RightWingWatch / WaPo ]