There goes my paternalism-o-meter again

So Hillary Clinton got the direct challenge in Tuesday night's debate that befits someone who's spent the last 6 months declaring themselves the frontrunner of inevitability, and she apparently didn't handle it so well. I didn't see the debate but I've already read considerable coverage that indicated she seemed waffly, off her game, and generally very very flappable. How has her campaign responded? Let's see if you can guess.

He also said criticisms from Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) would backfire and that he was already “detecting some backlash,” particularly among female voters. Those female voters are saying, “Sen. Clinton needs our support now more than ever if we’re going to see this six-on-one to try to bring her down,” Penn told those on the campaign call.

Why do they always resort not only to the fallback position that she's being unfairly attacked, but also presume that the womenfolk will reflexively close ranks to support her? We are not a collective hive mind like the Borg, and just like men we can watch a debate and decide if criticisms seem warranted or not and judge the response of a candidate to those criticisms. I just hate that her campaign seems to be pushing this notion so hard that women are just going to throw all independent judgment and opinion out the window and support Hillary Clinton no matter what, because she's a chick.

To make matters worse, Clinton's campaign is now employing the weakest tactic in the book to spin her bad performance in the debate--blame the moderator. One participant in the conference call apparently said Russert should be shot, while even Clinton's advisers were complaining loudly and repeatedly about the disparity of difficulty of the questions given to Clinton as opposed to the other participants. You know...this is infuriating. Hillary can't handle being thrown a few tough questions and some direct fire from her opponents? Then why in the hell should she be our nominee? She's going to take far worse in the general if she wins the nomination, so I want someone who seems battle-tested and poised even in the face of adversity, not someone who after flubbing in response to the pressure then retreats to her corner and whines about the unfairnes of it all.

If the automatic response to any adversity in this campaign is going to be "those men are all picking on this one girl," and an expectation that other girls are going to reflexively feel bad for her as a result, then Hillary Clinton is doing a disservice to every single female candidate for office. The fact that she's female should not matter one iota, and I'm sick and tired of her trying to use outdated notions that it's not fair to be mean to girls to justify her bad performance or her considerable political baggage. All she's doing is reminding me that she has no balls.