Every town has a village idiot or two, but this is a viral internet trend that needs to go away.  Via AP:

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign stop was interrupted Monday when two men stood in the crowd and began screaming, "Iron my shirt!" during one of her final appearances before the New Hampshire primary….

At least they left off the usual "bitch" ending, I suppose — their mommas must be so proud.  If I were Sen. Clinton, I would take an ironing board and an iron to every damn appearance today. With a large lettered sign that says:

LESSONS AVAILABLE: CALL 1-800-BITE-ME

But then, I’m not running for President with a giggling pack of press scrutinizing me, including my cleavage.  As Gloria Steinem points out in today’s NYTimes, old stereotypes still abound. 

Sen. Hillary Clinton is a candidate for President of the United States.  Show her some respect.  Whether you support her or not is irrelevant.  Treat her with disrespect simply because she is female, then you are treating every woman, everywhere, with disrespect.  And we are not putting up with that shit. 

Try to demean a woman in public like that again?  Even if it’s just a "prank" in your addled mind?  You are likely to end up with a Jimmy Choo Ramona Patent Bag somewhere supremely uncomfortable.  Unless you were raised by rabid vermin, there is no excuse for this idiocy. 

The misogynistic crap cannot be allowed to pass without pushback.  Every female candidate has been living under the unreal standard from the Pat Schroeder cryfest for years since it happened.  There wasn’t any pushback then — and every woman in politics has avoided being painted with that unreasonable brush ever since.

I do not care which person is your candidate.  I don’t care what you think of Hillary Clinton as a potential president.  What is being done in the press is akin to a pack of rabid 7th graders trying to haze the nerdy girl in school simply because they can.  It has nothing to do with her qualifications — it has to do with gender, and these lemming pundits think that it’s perfectly acceptable because everyone is doing it, including women like Andrea Mitchell and Anne Kornblut.

When they finish with Sen. Clinton, they will turn on Sen. Obama.  Because they’ve already done their number on the "coiffed" Sen. Edwards.  So it’s on to the next target, isn’t it?  We would never, ever let them get away with pulling this shit based on Obama’s race, would we?  We shouldn’t, because it’s disgusting.  Gender is no different as a reason for heightened scrutiny.   Right-wing race baiting on immigration and "Barack Hussein Obama" has been bad enough, but this herd mentality from the media on Clinton’s gender is the absolute last straw for me.
 
We constantly talk about the need to broaden participation, to pull in more women voters — single moms, soccer moms, etc.  If we think that we can do that by ignoring this crap, think again.  We won’t be recruiting good candidates for office who are women if we allow this to stand — who in their right mind would subject themselves to this level of bullshit?

You debate issues, not gender.  Period.  More from the NYDailyNews and the NYTimes has a photo of one of the signs. 

(H/T to Jeralyn and twolf1.)