We’re on Day Four of “bindergate,” and what started as a kind-of-funny Twitter meme has turned into a horribly long and boring lecture by feminists and the progressive-left. When you take something that’s essentially an Internet joke and try to squeeze outraged commentary out of it, you end up with self-parodies like this one from today’s Time’s “Ideas” section:
So, to help you out, here are four reasons why bindergate isn’t just a superficial “gotcha moment” …
3. In our paperless society, binders are terribly old-fashioned. They invoke a time when the only jobs women could get in offices involved secretarial duties like putting together binders for the men who would do the real work. And given that women still occupy so few upper management and CEO positions, the thought of being relegated to an old-fashioned office supply item is such a perfect symbol of so many things that irk us.
4. And, as hundreds of online commenters (male and female) have pointed out, the word binder implies, well, binding. And we’re kind of sick of being bound up unless it’s in an E.L. James novel.
Did you get that? Binders sounds like binding, which sounds like foot-binding, and women aren’t just going to sit back and let Romney drag America back to 16th century China. Moreover, binders are old-fashioned, which reminds women of other old-fashioned things like not being allowed to vote, own property, or drive. Or something.
The “outrage” over the binders comment is so ridiculous that it’s not going to convince anyone who doesn’t already think Romney is a misogynistic jerk (and most people don’t). It’s a desperate shot by a campaign that’s losing ground with women voters and has no good argument to win them back.
Don’t get me wrong — Romney’s comment was lame and worth making fun of. But the joke died as soon as the Obama campaign picked it up and tried to turn it into a serious issue. This isn’t the first time Obama has a killed a Twitter meme, either. The “Big Bird” line was amusing too, until Democrats jumped in and started yelling about how Romney wanted to kill Sesame Street.
This whole Obama strategy of picking up laugh lines on Twitter and then centering his campaign around them is weak. If a joke stops being funny when you have to explain it, then it definitely stops being funny when you have to explain why we should all be outraged by it.
Romney hired women and he can prove it, no matter how they spin it. In contrast, Obama's WH is a 1950s boys' club and this Romney can prove too. Indisputably, with facts, charts, figures and a PowerPoint show if need be. Ooops! n nThe Dems still don't get it. Romney's team dropped a pile of lures for them and their lapdog media. By betting on their pettiness, lack of ethics and class and most of all, their desperation and viciousness, the team predicted that this would lead the Dems into making a slew of silly errors and hysterical accusations each of which, however, reveals actual and very serious problems with Obama & Co instead. The Benghazi kerfaffle and this binder thingie are prime examples. n nSo now, the Dems are strutting about, still high-fiving each other over how smart they are and how they are winning whilst slipping and tripping over their own viscera unravelling on the floor. n nSo, say no more; let's encourage them to hold on to their binder-meme, to sink their teeth into it and not to let go until it's all over.
At the recent Al Smith dinner, Romney poked fun at the Big Bird meme and at himself at the same time. It showed that he is not afraid to laugh at himself, and also showed how laughable some of the attacks on him have been.
I am not so sure that binders (or paper itself) is truly and completely obsolete. n nFrom a learning psych perspective, organizing things in a linear fashion has specific advantages and much as we went to (and then came back from) digital speedometers in automobiles and digital clocks on the wall (and gauges in thinks like nuke plants) because it was easier for a person to comprehend the analog depiction of the information, I do believe that we will eventually be moving back from the completely seamless digital format into some sort of structured format.
Well spoken young person. Also digital media software and hardware become obsolete and data is not guaranteed transfer to each successive generation of storage. First editions of the King James Bible are around after 400 years with zero data leakage from its pages. Paper will outlive its owner.
Above and beyond that, talk to any librarian about the issue of electronic journal subscriptions. n nBack in the paper days, what a library bought, it OWNED — it could bind them and put them away in the stacks and have them. But with the electronic subscriptions, if you cancel you also automatically loose all your back issues too. n nEveryone is talking about "cloud computing" and remote data storage but no one is saying what will happen when these companies either go bankrupt, go out of business or get bought up by someone else — as inevitably happens to all businesses.
And then as to treating women badly, let's go down the list: n nJFK — slept with everyone including the Godfather's girlfriend. n nLBJ — Crude and vulgar beyond belief — treated women very very badly. n nYoung Teddie K — left Mary Jo to suffocate (not drown) and couldn't even throw a rock through the window of a house that had lights on (which would have led to the wreck being immediately discovered). Mary Jo's shirt — but not skirt — had extensive grass stains on it, and the reader can speculate how that combination might happen. n nOlder Teddy K and Chris Dodds – Waitress Sandwiches — why that wasn't considered "attempted rape" is beyond me — and a 120 lb girl can get HURT when a 300 lb man jumps on top of her — hurt as in terms of broken ribs and such… n nBill Clinton -arguably raped one woman and did a lot of bad things to others. n nAnd these are all Democrats. And they say that the Republicans are anti-female? n nHOW???
I am worried about (a) the likely riots should Romney win and (b) what Obama does then….