Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand: "I wasn't in a place where I could tell him to go fuck himself."

[kpete]

"If I could have just melted in tears, I would have. But I had to just sit there and talk to him and I switched the subject and I didn't hear another word he said, but I wasn't in a place where I could tell him to go fuck himself."

-- Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), in an interview on HuffPost Live, on a labor leader who told her she was too fat to win a statewide election.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/15/gillibrand-harassment_n_5824014.html

[KittyWampus]

1. She'd just had a baby.

[merrily]

7. Even if she hadn't, his remark was way out of bounds.

[cali]

2. he's too stupid to be a labor leader, but he is.

[Paladin]

3. There are any number of post-election revenge measures available to a U.S. Senator.

I hope Senator Gillibrand is in the process of using every one of them against that sorry prick.

[surrealAmerican]

4. I hope she isn't.

That would be an abuse of her position. She's better than that.

[1StrongBlackMan]

17. But then, she'd be accused of being a ...

3-rd-way, anti-labor, destroyer of the middle class!

[pscot]

30. And dog knows there's enough of that already.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

5. Kirsten, I will tell him for you = Go Fuck Yourself Punkass Labor Leader.

and Fuck Off, from me.

[merrily]

6. I have never made a fat post, until today.

But Howard Taft, Teddy Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland, seemed to do all right at the polls at a time when being heavier was nowhere near as common in the US as it is now.

So did Barbara Jordan, Bella Abzug and some current female members of Congress and the Senate whom I will not call by name who were/are far from stick figures.

More recently, Chris Christie (pre-surgery), Huckabee (pre-surgery), did more than okay, despite being "fluffy."

So, what was really going on in this guy's mind?

[packman]

8. Hard to believe , but--

at one time a corpulent , rotund man was regarded as an image to aspire to because it reflected success and wealth. Even a "beefy"women was a desired standard at various times. It is just recently with our obsession with body image that the willowy look has become the goal - and diet fad, gyms, and marketing gurus have milked it for every penny they can.

[merrily]

9. Fashion magazines and "heroin chic" don't help.

Yet, as a nation, we get heavier.

My father was always shouting at me to eat more.

Called me a skeleton. Trust me, I was not a skeleton. Not fluffy, but far from a skeleton

I guess he had some visceral connection to that era.

[packman]

10. Yes, parents grew up in Depression Era

and were obsessed , I think, with making sure we three kids cleaned our plate with the admonition of "starving kids in India" and telling us how they worked all day for a 1/2 bushel of green beans or shoveling coal (coal company would dump the coal on the side of the house and it would be shoveled into the basement for the furnace) for a pint of milk and a bit of butter.

[merrily]

12. I don't think I got India or any specific locale.

I did get "people are starving all over." I never understood how forcing myself to eat more was going to help them, why my father did not just give some starving person the rest of the food instead of urging me to eat it.

Meanwhile, he was skinny himself, until he was forced into retirement.

[Nay]

28. We got the Armenians. They were starving so we should clean our plates. nt

[merrily]

32. As I said, that simply bewildered me. How was my cleaning my plate, or

taking bigger helpings, or seconds, going to do anything but decrease the available food supply?

[1StrongBlackMan]

19. Thin = Attractive ...

is a decidedly euro-centric beauty standard ... and then, only in the past 50 years, or so.

[Atman]

16. Can we stop calling it "Fluffy?"

Probably not, but seriously...why is "fluffy" anything but a veiled term for "fat?" That comedian dude who uses it is not "fluffy." Far from it, unless you mean "big & hairy." It is like when we use asterisks to pretend we're not actually typing the word "FUCK." Everyone knows exactly what you mean. What is the point of not just saying it? If you can get behind the idea of body acceptance, why not language acceptance? Why do you need to come up with a cute, cuddly term to deflect from the word you actually mean and want people to accept?

[merrily]

18. "We" didn't call it fluffy. I did, yet you used "we."

Was that to avoid posting "Can you stop calling it "Fluffy?"

Everyone knows exactly what you mean.

Apparently not.

[Atman]

23. Hey, over-analyze much?

This comedian has lots of people using the term "fluffy." I got a post on FB just today about a "fluffy" guy. So sure, if it makes YOU feel better, please stop using the term "fluffy." It refers to fabrics and plush toys and kittens. It has nothing to do with one's weight. It's like calling air "wet." It's just the wrong term being used for all the wrong reasons.

[merrily]

33. You have now made two posts about a lone use by me of "fluffy"--which was, btw,

enclosed in quotation marks by me for good reason, and you are calling a two sentence response from me over-analyzing?

All righty.

[Nye Bevan]

11. I wish she would name names.

Why is she protecting this horrible person?

[merrily]

13. Yeah, that is what Scarborough keeps bellowing. Others on the right as well.

Of course, they're wrong and they know it. Shit stirring, pure and simple, and blaming the victim, as usual

She's not the one who is wrong here. They are.

[Nye Bevan]

14. Do you think that person deserves to have his name kept confidential?

We already know who the victim is. Why can't we be told who the perpetrator was?

[1StrongBlackMan]

20. If she chooses to keep it so ...

we should respect her decision. She is doing so for her own reason.

[merrily]

21. I think it's up to Gillebrand and she is wisely not bowing to

right wing shit stirring.

Why is the right so hot for her to reveal his name and to shame the victim (as usual) for not revealing his name? Why do you join that RW chorus? How is learning his name going to improve your life? Or Joe Scarborough's?

[Nye Bevan]

24. Men would be less likely to behave that way

if they thought that their behavior would be publicly exposed. For all we know the perpetrator is still engaging in that kind of conduct.

I guess I am just less tolerant than you of this kind of thing. You seem to think I am being too hard on the guy, but I really hate to see women treated like that.

[merrily]

25. Baloney. Plenty of men are named and stuff keeps happening.

If still alive, this guy knows exactly who he is and knows Gillebrand can name him whenever she wishes. If that doesn't deter him, nothing will. Once he is named, he has nothing to lose.

You seem to think I am being too hard on the guy,

Really? Is this guy's name Gillebrand? Is he the victim? Because everything I've posted to you so far has been to the effect that the right should stop blaming the victim and this is Gillebrand's decision.

How you get out of that that I think you are being too hard on the asshat is beyond me. Nice try.

[Nye Bevan]

26. I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

I think that when a guy does that kind of thing he deserves to be publicly named and embarrassed. Obviously you do not agree. But there is clearly no point in continuing to argue this point.

[merrily]

27. Again, nice try. You blame the victim while trying to imply I am okay with the perp,

even though my prior post a minute ago pointed out that I never said anything about the perp. What bs.

[Atman]

15. I was doing some of Kirsten's political mailers at the time.

They're very nice, proud to have them in my portfolio. But she was quite self-conscious about her post-baby weight. We had to do lots of tight cropping of the photos. I find it refreshing to hear a politician to be so candid. Exactly the kind of language most "real people" would use in such a situation.

[glowing]

22. You can probably imagine why she was like that?

Seems quite a few men had opinions on her weight post baby and it was all pretty disgusting. No matter what you say to yourself, if you hear it all the time, you start thinking it... Especially post baby when things are just not quite back to place yet and there is a new baby at home to top off the stress.

[HelenWheels]

29. Gillibrand is a cry baby

Instead of crying about being derided for being fat she should get up on her hind legs and tell these people to back off. She exhibits weakness by acting like she can't defend herself.

[Atman]

31. Oh, please. Kirsten Gillibrand is anything but a crybaby.

She DID defend herself. Any politician worth their salary (and there are very few) knows that you cannot publicly deride the head of an organization whose vote you need. It's a sad truth about politics. Gillibrand stated that she wanted to tell the guy to "fuck off." But her cooler head prevailed. She maintained decorum and respect, even when it may not have been deserved. She's a class act, even if I don't agree with all of her positions.