To the Editor:
“Campaigning as All Things to All Republicans” (front page, March 14) describes Tim Pawlenty’s crowing about his “red-hot, smoking wife” as a “crowd pleaser.” I am not sure which crowds found this pleasing, but I am far from pleased at such crudeness.
Where I grew up—in Minnesota, as it happens, of which Mr. Pawlenty is a former governor—inviting a crowd to ogle your wife in such terms would be considered tantamount to pimping her out for your personal gain. My grandfather, my father and my husband would never speak that way.
Mr. Pawlenty’s wife, a lawyer, served as a district court judge, and yet he seems to think that only her physical attributes are worth people’s attention. If he treats his own wife with such disrespect, I can only imagine how he would treat me, my daughters and all the women of this country if he should have the chance to make policy for us. Such a man could never have my vote.
Kay Cahill
Madison, Wis., March 15, 2011
Note from KBJ: The letter writer commits the "It-Is-Merely Fallacy," the form of which is: X is Y; therefore, X is merely Y. She reasons that because Pawlenty's wife is attractive, she is merely attractive. Why can't a woman be both "red-hot and smoking" and accomplished? Isn't that precisely what most women want to be? Hasn't feminism been telling women for 40 years that they can have it all: a fulfilling career; a handsome, loving husband; bright, photogenic children; and glamour? At least half the hatred of Sarah Palin, in my judgment, stems from the fact that, unlike her critics, she has it all. She is feminism's ideal woman.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 