That poor Condi woman...

Via the NYT:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 — A passing exchange during a Senate hearing on Thursday turned into a political flashpoint overnight as Senator Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused one another of insensitivity in comments about motherhood and the war in Iraq.

In an interview with The New York Times on Friday, Ms. Rice suggested that Ms. Boxer had set back feminism by suggesting during the hearing that the childless Ms. Rice had paid no price in the Iraq war.

How dare Rice or anyone make this about "feminism"? And how dare the NYT report this as "insensitivity in comments about motherhood"?

Here's what happened:

During the Thursday hearing, Senator Boxer told Ms. Rice: “Who pays the price? I’m not going to pay a personal price. My kids are too old and my grandchild is too young. You’re not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family. So who pays the price? The American military and their families. And I just want to bring us back to that fact.”

In an interview on Friday, Senator Boxer said her comments had been misunderstood and were now being turned against her by the White House and by Republicans. “What I was trying to do in this exchange was to find common ground with Condi Rice,” she said. “My whole point was to focus on the military families who pay the price.”

Senator Boxer added: “I’m saying, she’s like me, we do not have families who are in the military. What they are doing is a really tortured way to attack a United States senator who voted against the war.”

And here's poor Condi whining, blowing the issue way out of proportion and totally missing the point:

“I thought it was O.K. to be single,” Ms. Rice said. “I thought it was O.K. to not have children, and I thought you could still make good decisions on behalf of the country if you were single and didn’t have children.”

If this exact same exchange had occured between two men, would anybody be talking about this? No. But Rice picked up the "poor me" ball and is running with it as fast as she can in a pathetic attempt to distract from the fact that more American soldiers are being sent to die in Iraq while Rice acts as Bush's head cheeleader just as she's always done.

I repeat: this has nothing to do with feminism. This has nothing to do with wombs. This has nothing to do with women's issues. This has nothing to do with the gender of those involved.

This was an exchange between two people about the sacrifice that the military and their family members make as a result of Bush's insane policies - both of whom, as Boxer noted - have no immediate family involved in the war. Neither of which can truly understand that "empty hole", as one family member described it in a letter Boxer read at the hearing, that is left when a loved one dies in war. That is the only point Boxer was making.

So take your sanctimonious pity party somewhere else, Ms Rice.