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Interpretation of senator's comment is up for debate
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published January 17, 2007
NEW YORK - However one interprets Sen. Barbara Boxer's remark last week to Condoleezza Rice that the secretary of state, single and childless, doesn't have a "personal price" to pay in Iraq, the brief exchange still has people debating. Boxer's comment came during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing last week, as senators grilled Rice on Iraq. "Who pays the price?" asked Boxer, a California Democrat. "I'm not going to pay a personal price. ... You're not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with immediate family. So who pays the price? The American military and their families." The reference to Rice's personal status was an instant catalyst for vigorous chatter on blogs, TV and talk radio, ranging from the conservative Rush Limbaugh (Boxer hit "below the ovaries") to the liberal Joy Behar on ABC's The View (Rice "deserved it.") As for Rice, who assured Boxer she understood the sacrifice of military families, she later told Fox News: "Gee, I thought single women had come further than that." On the same network, White House spokesman Tony Snow called Boxer's remark "a great leap backward for feminism." Not to the country's most prominent feminist, Gloria Steinem, who said Snow's remark "takes your breath away." "It had nothing to do with feminism," Steinem said. "Sen. Boxer was trying to draw a parallel" between herself and Rice. For Christina Hoff Sommers, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Boxer's comments were "mean-spirited and thoughtless." "She seems to be saying that an unmarried, childless woman should not be involved in decisions that affect traditional families," Sommers said.
[Last modified January 17, 2007, 01:20:53]
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by Gilbert
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01/17/07 01:03 PM
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While I certainly would not make that type of remark, I believe Sen Boxer has every right to ask tough and deliberate questions of our nations reps. Heck at least Rice showed up and answered. Her boss otherwise ducked the exchange. We need answers!!
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by Jane
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01/17/07 09:17 AM
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The only thing wrong about this is that Boxer implied it's only childless women who won't make this sacrifce.
Bush has two daughters of fighting age and he's not making a personal sacrifice either. The Bush Twins should be leading the surge.
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by Doug
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01/17/07 08:56 AM
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I think Boxer's remark observation that policymakers don't have at risk what serving families do should be made daily to every cabinet member, congressman and senator. It is a truth that all of them should keep in mind and be often reminded of.
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by Fred
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01/17/07 06:09 AM
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Truth is truth- Senators and other elected ones always find ways to preclued their "children" from dying in military combat-- How many children of Bushes are in the military? Any in the 21k troop build up?
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