In a seemingly desperate attempt to deny the biggest story out of Washington in quite some time, an actual bonafide nominee to the highest court in the land (and what could be more exciting than that), Barbara Boxer held a press conference yesterday to remind the D.C. press corps that the real story is Karl Rove's non-outing of the non-covert Valerie Plame.
Despite her valiant efforts though, media in attendance refused to stay on message and Boxer was finally forced to address a question on the Roberts non-story.
Reporter: Senator, you said that gender is not the primary concern, but is it a step back in some way that we have, you know, just another white guy being nominated in this important position?
Boxer: I assume those are your words, which I don't ascribe to. What I would say is, it's definitely a setback when the president has an opportunity to appoint...to make a, shall we say, ground-breaking appointment, you know, of a woman, of a minority. It's always a setback when he decides that there's no one that fills the bill. And so...but to me, the bottom line is, you know, your rights, the rights of your families, the rights of my grandson, and future citizens. That's the key thing here. But there's no question in terms of role models. And I have to...I could tell you right here now, that being a woman in the Senate, and we are now up to fourteen, when I go out, and especially in the years when I was one of four or six or whatever the number, I can't remember exactly, the young girls that would come around to me, who would just say, you know, I want to do what you do. And I'm sure as reporters in the early days, when there were fewer, I'm sure you had the same if you went to speak at a school, a high school. The girls would be so interested. How do you do it in a man's world, you know? And look around you here. It's very different today, which is terrific. So when we have a chance, as elected leaders, to, you know, to pick a chief of staff as a woman, or a minority, this is something that's a good thing to do. You pick the best. You always pick the best. But my view is there's the best out there. So yeah. I would have to say, for sure, I'm disappointed in that. But I don't want to say that's dispositive of how I feel about this nomination, because there's a lot more important things. I mean, had the president chose a woman who didn't respect the rights of women, that wouldn't have...it would have been good from a role model perspective, when you see the picture, and little girls in the community and the country know that it's possible for me. But in terms of the rights of the people, that's the key here, more than anything else.
And that, my friends is why Boxer is the queen. Listening to her talk about politics is like listening to Tom Cruise talk about Katie Holmes. In fact, the only complete thought in this entire litany is the very first sentence. The rest looks like a symptom list for ADD, or ADHD, or whatever acronym we are using these days to describe an inability to focus ones attention for more than a few seconds. Sadly, it is a response to what was essentially a yes-or-no question.
Duane attempts the Herculean task of making some sense out of this at Radioblogger and my hat's off to him. I became sleepy and despondent after the first few "sentences."
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