Schumer's Potty Mouth Puts, Um, Gillibrand in the Hot Seat

Republicans are letting Senator Kirsten Gillibrand know that she can't get away with letting Senator Chuck Schumer call a woman a "bitch."

Schumer, who isn't exactly known for having a lovely temper, muttered the expletive about a female flight attendant who insisted he stop being a chatty Cathy and get off his cell phone. Bad luck, Chuck: a Republican aide seated nearby heard the remark and tattled to the press. On the bright side, the Teflon male senator from New York managed to step out of the spotlight with an apology, shifting the how-dare-you focus to Sen. Gillibrand, his seatmate on the plane. Republicans are shocked, shocked, that someone who claims to be woman- and family-friendly -- in a Change.org interview, no less -- would not issue a ringing condemnation of her colleague's potty mouth.

Oh, double standards. Wasn't I just talking about this?

Listen, Chuck: don't call women bitches. It's just not a good idea, although you're hardly unique in doing so. In fact, we can put it on the list my roommate and I are creating of sexist words never to use against women, alongside with "slut," "feminazi," "bimbo," and some less PG-13 slurs. (Unless, of course, you're using the B-word in a tongue-in-cheek empowering way, like Bitch Magazine.) I'm glad Republicans realize this, since they weren't so clear when Hillary Clinton was running for president. Even if this incident perhaps had less to do with sexism and more with rudeness -- meaning Schumer would have been muttering "asshole" under his breath if the attendant had been male -- it's still disrespectful to a working person. The thing to do is apologize. Which you did. And it was accepted by the woman in question. Moving on.

So let's all gang up on Kirsten instead. First, one of her aides said that Schumer had been polite to the attendant, which, though clearly untrue, is hardly a surprising PR move. In the "how far is it okay to fudge the truth" category that politicians live in, I can imagine they thought, well, Schumer was argumentative with the attendant, but he only called her a "bitch" behind her back. It's like "define sexual relations": he was sort-of polite when actually speaking to the attendant. This spinelessness doesn't exactly help Schumer's image (but then again, it wasn't too damaged to begin with), nor is the evasiveness stand-up on Gillibrand's part, so they do both deserve a time-out in the corner to think about what they've done.

But the new-and-improved line is that, well, he apologized, so what else is there to say? The NRSC -- National Republican Senatorial Committee -- says that's not good enough. They also wants all those pro-woman groups, like NARAL, who've supported Gillibrand to push for her to show some outrage and ... I don't know, demand an apology? Which Schumer already did. Pretty quickly, in fact. Radical feminist that I am, I'm finding it hard to drum up any pitchfork-carrying hostility. What else is there to say?

Meanwhile, behind the smoke and mirrors, Kirsten and Chuck both get 100% scores from NARAL, while Republicans are trying to deny women reproductive care in the new health care bill. Let's keep our eyes on the prize here. It's like Schumer's foul mouth is the next color alert system for Republican -- hey, HEY, look over here, don't look at us restricting your freedoms, over HERE, orange alert on Democrats cussing!