Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, fired off a rhetorical shot at a group of female senators during an interview on Monday, blaming them for obstructing the upper chamber’s healthcare reform legislation.
“Some of the people that are opposed to this, there are female senators from the Northeast,” Farenthold said. “If it was a guy from South Texas, I might ask him to step outside and settle this Aaron Burr-style.”
In this hypothetical, I would hope Farenthold to be a better marksman than he is a comedian, because if that joke was a bullet, it was shot straight into his foot.
The congressman did not explicitly blame the senators’ womanhood for their stance on the legislation. But the implication of his remarks was just as dumb as their content.
First, there is only one female Republican senator from the Northeast opposed to the bill: Susan Collins of Maine. Farenthold, speaking repeatedly in the plural form, appears to have grouped the bill’s two additional female opponents — Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia — right in along with Collins.
If you’re going to shoot your mouth off, do so correctly.
Furthermore, immediately before making those comments, Farenthold chalked obstruction of the bill up to a lack of “courage.”
“The fact that the Senate does not have the courage to do some of the things that every Republican in the Senate promised to do is absolutely repugnant to me,” he said.
In that context, it sure looks a lot like he’s exploiting silly stereotypes about the sensitivity of women and Northeasterners, both of which can be funny in the hands of an actual funny person, which Farenthold is not. While I’m sure these accomplished women appreciate Farenthold’s generous instinct not to shoot them in a duel, plenty of (a) men from (b) other regions of the country share their concerns about the legislation. His decision to single them out need not be explained.
It’s simple enough for a sitting congressman to criticize his colleagues (for admittedly legitimate reasons) without making bizarre jokes about women predicated on an ill-informed version of the facts.
Conservatives already have to swim upstream against the efforts of the mainstream media and the Democratic Party, who wish to brainwash the public into believing we are anti-women. Why give the Left more ammunition?
Unlike liberal feminists, most conservative women won’t argue Farenthold’s silly comment harms their fragile sensibilities. It’s not a big deal, and they’ll be just fine. But bad jokes like this one do harm the party’s substantial efforts to gradually chip away at liberal narratives about the GOP’s regard for women, efforts to which the women whom Farenthold insulted have dedicated their careers.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
