Liberal and Conservative Feminist Conversation as it Should Be

Laura Ingram on Gretta Van Susteran's show
Women are diverse. They have different viewpoints. I mean, you say this all the time, it’s not a monolith. But I think what she does is speak to America and an American sensibility that sometimes is not heard in Washington where we live or in New York or in L.A. Sometimes you have to come to America, the middle of the country. Tom Wolf says there’s the parentheses and in the middle of the parentheses it’s America, okay? So those people who, sometimes they sit in their lazy boy rockers and sometimes their kids eat macaroni and cheese, they don’t travel to Europe every summer. They don’t go to the spas. They don’t have to watch the Sunday chat shows to exist. They actually have real lives. Those people actually see this woman and they think, "Gosh, you know, I don’t agree with her on everything, but she seems really strong, she seems like she loves this country, she seems committed to this country, she fights corruption," and that’s a very positive thing.

Gretta
Joining us is Susan Estrich. Susan was the first woman to run a presidential campaign – for Michael Dukakis in 1988. And, Susan, I suppose, in all fairness, I should say that most people in the Republican Party are waiting for Senator McCain’s speech, but, I guess, I mean, it`s sort fun there’s a woman on the ticket, so people are also excited to hear from her. But is she getting an unfair grilling or is this part of the vetting process by the media?

SUSAN ESTRICH, FORMER DUKAKIS CAMPAIGN MANAGER.: I’ve never seen anything this bad in my life, and, Greta, I was with Geraldine Ferraro in ‘84 – and this is worse. I do have to say to Laura, though, I have a lazy boy recliner, my kid eats macaroni, and I haven’t been to Europe in 10 years. But putting that aside, I don’t agree with Sarah Palin on the issues. I mean, she and I are very far apart, but I have never seen from some of my friends such vicious and mean-spirited attacks on her most personal choices, which is what they are. We ask that our choices be respected. Hers should be respected. And this questioning of whether she should as a mother of five be running for Vice President, I don’t recall anybody saying that Arnold Schwarzenegger shouldn’t run for governor of California because he’s got four kids. I think this is just really unfair, really sexist, and very likely to provoke a backlash.