Those poor delicate flowers! After a contentious interview with NBC’s Savannah Guthrie [1] last week and an earlier one with CNBC’s Kelly Evans, female anchors and reporters have it in for Rand Paul as the resident GOP sexist.
On April 14’s Today show anchor Hoda Kotb asked Paul’s wife, Kelley, what was “going through her mind” while watching the contentious interview with Savannah Guthrie last Wednesday.
Kelley Paul responded that it was hard for her to watch him being criticized as a sexist, because “that’s not who he is.” Paul explained that her husband has no problems with women; in fact his longtime surgical partner of over ten years was a woman. Kotb was not swayed by this answer though and then asked:
“Did you give some advice after that? Did you say, ‘Okay honey, here are some ABC’s, let’s go through them.’ Do you do that?”
Paul responded, “Sometimes I do. But as I said, the more I’m putting myself out there, the more I’m shutting up because I realize how hard it is.”
Perhaps Kotb should be commended for not asking “When did Rand stop beating you?”
Meanwhile, Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd repeatedly scolded Paul for his behavior on Mitchell’s MSNBC show last week. Todd brought up that Paul should be “careful” after acting that way around two female anchors, to not stir up any charges of sexism.
Liberal media watchdog Mediate [2] snarked that Paul “doesnt take too kindly” to being interrupted constantly assertive women so, therefore, he must be a sexist! In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Paul claimed he lost his temper with both male and female reporters before. To this, Slate’s Amanda Marcotte quipped, “Is Rand Paul sexist or just a jerk? [3]”
Paul turned the tables on the liberal media yesterday by saying it would be “sexist” [4] to throw softball questions at Hillary though, because she is a female candidate, so treat all the candidates to the same hard questions.
— Kristine Marsh is Staff Writer for MRC Culture at the Media Research Center. Follow Kristine Marsh on Twitter. [5]