Hillary's got a vagina! And COOTIES!

More on The Woman Card from:

Atrios: "All of this conversation just serves to reinforce the obvious state of things in this country: white males are the most aggressive practitioners of so-called 'identity politics' and always have been."

Matt Stoller: "This is a woman's election. People are tired of bullying, war, and marshal glory, and they want a different kind of power, one that isn't full of irresponsible certitude, sleazy salesmanship, and macho fakery that is the hallmark of the current boys club in DC."

And the amazing Digby:

[T]he entire Republican campaign strategy can be said to be one big gender card—the only people they believe matter in this country are delicate, insecure creatures who are so sensitive that they have to be pampered and pandered to like a bunch of overfed princes who like to play cowboy and don't want to share their favorite binky.

Every presidential candidate, and most other politicians, since 1980, have been bowing and scraping before this constituency. But for some reason, the hunting trips and codpieces and brush clearing and all that metaphorical crotch measuring isn't considered playing "the gender card." It's just considered the normal political pander to an aggrieved minority vote: the poor white males who've been treated terribly by all those powerful women and minorities and gays. What could be wrong with that?

...Half of this country is female and they've noticed, in case these manly men haven't, that presidential politics is a very exclusive a boys club and we don't find it all that odd to mention it. Certainly, if it's ok for politicians to literally walk around with a codpiece to show their masculine bona fides, I don't think it's out of line for a female candidate to speak to a younger generation of women at her college and take a little bit of pride in the institution and her own accomplishments—since she does happen to be the first serious female contender for president in the whole history of the country. Excuse me for thinking she has the damned right to do it.

Go read the whole thing and cheer.