On Thursday evening, The Washington Post’s resident “conservative” columnist Jennifer Rubin went on MSNBC host Ari Melber’s “The Beat” to discuss the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. During her appearance on the show, Rubin insisted that Christine Blasey Ford was a “victim” of Kavanaugh’s “sexual crimes” and suggested that Republican senators who have defended him this week are behaving like “hysterical” women having their periods.
Far from being a throwaway line, Rubin actually opened her bit with the latter not-too-subtle dig at Senate Republicans [transcript from NewsBusters]:
"First of all, I just want to comment on that appearance by those senators today. They are so emotional, almost hysterical. I mean, I would make a joke about it, that they're behaving as if it's their time of the month, but this is very, very serious."
After Melber assured Rubin that she had “the right to call the male Senate press conference hysterical on this show,” Rubin continued by excoriating President Trump and other Republicans for executing a “deliberate” campaign designed to “whip up [the ire and malice of a] mostly male, mostly white, mostly non-college-educated base” against all American women, including Dr. Ford [emphasis mine]:
Yes, I mean I think what we saw in the last week was a transformation. They decided instead of going from a respectful vein where they were going to defend their guy but not attack her, they decided to make women the object of their ire and their malice. This is a deliberate strategy to whip up mostly male, mostly white, mostly non-college-educated base and they do this at the expense of women.They don't care whether they're dissuading women from coming forward. They don't care whether they have made a mockery of own words, assuming respect to these people. This is a strategy and that’s why you see the hysteria. That’s why you see the President viciously mocking a victim of sexual crimes.
Unsurprisingly, although not directly related to this incident on MSNBC, dozens of conservative organizations, leaders, and journalists issued an open letter on Wednesday calling on the Postto hire a genuinely conservative columnist and to stop selling Rubin as a representative of the American political right:
.@MZHemingway at @FDRLST reported that 37 conservative leaders sent this letter to the @washingtonpost calling on the Post to stop identifying @JRubinBlogger as conservative. We also called for Post to hire conservative writer.
— American Principles (@approject) October 4, 2018
Check it out: pic.twitter.com/AcqUYg6hqj