Just one more thing

One thing I've learned since I started writing this blog is that conservative bloggers hate Meghan McCain. This is what Lori Ziganto recently said about her and McCain's recent Daily Beast article: "The very first paragraph alone divulges Meghan McCain's real problem; childish jealousy due to a gigantic, and unwarranted, ego mixed with a delusional persecution complex. She's like Jan Brady, only not as groovy."

Ziganto says that McCain's political analysis is "banal" and characterizes McCain's book as "drivel-filled." "Your book was basically a tale told by a useful idiot," writes Ziganto. "Full of shrieking sound and temper tantrum fury, signifying nothing." And that's not all. According to Ziganto, McCain "thinks incredibly highly of herself for no discernible reason" and "has no leadership qualities whatsoever, nor any original thoughts of her own." 

But I want to focus on one passage in Ziganto's post in particular:

[McCain] talks a big game about a "big tent." Except, by big tent she means very exclusive tent consisting only of people who agree with her and who, she desperately hopes, will worship her while they're at it. Those who disagree with her need not apply. Tolerance for me, but not for thee, says Meghan. She's not a fan of diversity, particularly not of diversity of thought.

Ziganto appears to be castigating McCain for allegedly shunning those who disagree with her. McCain is not the only person Ziganto has abused for this particular crime. Consider what Ziganto said about Gloria Steinem recently:

Gloria Steinem recently said conservative women cannot be Feminists. Cannot. Why? Because you are anti-woman if you are pro-life. Many other faux-feminists, or femisogynists, have been flapping their soy-drinking gums with outrageous, and shrieking, outrage in a similar vein. “Oh noes!” they say “Conservative women are trying to steal Feminism! They can’t be feminists. They are icky!” Um. Selective support for only “the right kind” of woman and slamming the doors you claim to open right in their faces is antithetical to actual feminism. Shatter that glass ceiling, but only if you do it by walking in lock-step with us!

Again, the problem with Steinem, according to Ziganto, is that she shuns conservative women, i.e., women with whom she disagrees. And consider an exchange on Twitter between Amanda Marcotte and Ziganto. Marcotte tweeted, "I don't know why women who aren't feminists want to be called 'feminist' anyway. Do they think we get special discounts or something?" In response to Marcotte, Ziganto tweeted, "Not feminists? Saying some women don't meet yr assy club standards is antithetical to Feminism. Not very For The Women-y!" Again, Ziganto criticizes someone for shunning those who disagree with her, but this time she goes even further: she claims that shunning women who disagree is "antithetical to Feminism."

Ziganto has declared that she herself is a feminist. I am not making this up. Ziganto writes:

I’ve said before that one day I hope to take back the term Feminist, as it has been bastardized beyond any recognizable meaning. I lied. I’m doing it now. I am a Feminist. [Feminists] are not. They are, at best, Faux Feminists and, at worst, misogynists. In fact, I think they require a new term: Fem-ogynists.

Great. So I take it that Ziganto herself, being a feminist, is against shunning those who disagree with her, since it's "antithetical to Feminism." In fact, she congratulates herself for attending the so-called "Smart Girl 2010 Summit" with "the strong and diverse group of women, and the men who support them, who are at the center of the Conservative movement today." All right, then.

Just one more thing.

How are we to understand this other post in which Ziganto says the following to one Meghan McCain:

If you were truly brave, you would actually, you know, discuss Conservative principles. You would STAND UP for conservatives, not constantly deride them. You would applaud them, not mock them. You would work WITH them, not against them.

Come to think of it, why does Ziganto abuse McCain so savagely? I know they disagree on a number of issues. McCain is apparently not conservative enough for Ziganto. But McCain is a woman, and Ziganto wouldn't want to shun her, would she? But it sure seems as if that's exactly what she's doing. Ziganto writes, "Meghan must believe in antiquated stereotypes of the Republican Party, perpetuated by her buddies in the media, that are not true." Is that why she is abusing McCain? They don't agree about the truth of the stereotype? It just doesn't seem very for-the-women-y to me. I mean, you know, with feminists celebrating diversity of thought. Well, whatever it is, I'm sure Ziganto can explain her apparently hypocritical behavior. Perhaps someday she will!

Bonus Comment

Can you find the problem with the following sentence from McCain's article?

The further I got into my book tour last month, the more paranoia set in as I started questioning the idea that the only thing that made me interesting to some people was my association with Sarah Palin.

Me neither. Grammarian-in-training Ziganto believes that there is something wrong with the phrase "questioning the idea," but I have no idea why. One sense of the verb "to question" is "to subject to analysis." Can't ideas be subjected to analysis? I thought they could.