why her pick, while seeming absurd, given that she’s a 32-year-old law student with no accomplishments, actually makes complete sense:
When I first saw the report that Sandra Fluke was on Time magazine’s “Person Of The Year” short list, I immediately looked for the logo for the online parody newspaper The Onion.
Alas, Time is serious—raising the question of whether the magazine itself has finally reached full “parody” status.
Then I thought about it. Why does “Sandra Fluke—Person Of The Year” strike me as so ridiculous?
Because she’s a 32-year-old woman who’s still in college (“Grade 25,” as humorist Mark Steyn calls it)?
Because, even at this late age, she expects other people to pay her bills—specifically for her birth control?
Because she chose to attend a Catholic college, then demanded they drop their profound theological objections and pay for her “morning-after” pill?
Because she lacks even one accomplishment to point to, a single achievement that would put her in the same category as the inventors, presidents and popes who’ve been given this award in the past?
Yes, all those things are true—which is exactly why Sandra Fluke should be named Person of the Year! Or “American of the Year” at the very least.
Can you think of anyone who better represents the America of 2012 than Ms. Fluke? I can’t.
She’s got it all: The “Generation Cupcake” inadequacy (“So what if she didn’t earn the award—give it to her, anyway!); the “Occupod” sense of entitlement (“Somebody should be buying my condoms, and it ain’t gonna be me!”); and, of course, the liberal detachment from reality (“There’s a war on women! We’re being oppressed! Just ask Hillary Clinton, Condi Rice and Oprah!”).
Then there’s the economic angle. One could argue that the icon of the failing Obama economy is the college grad with a worthless degree under his arm and a bed in his mom’s basement.
Time magazine gives us Sandra Fluke, with a bachelor’s degree in (no joke) Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, no marketable skills, and still on the academic track, living on the largess of others.
I’m not trying to be mean to Sandra Fluke. Unlike Rush Limbaugh I make no comment on her personal life or sexual proclivities.
But I also didn’t—and would never—put this unaccomplished 30-something on the “Person of the Year” list for publicly whining about paying her own bills.
And if I were Ms. Fluke, I’d be embarrassed by Time’s selection. I’d be pointing out the people who’ve actually made some impact—maybe Fidelity’s Abigail Johnson, or Malala Yousufzai, the 14-year-old girl shot by the Taliban for insisting on attending school.
Ah, but I’m not Sandra Fluke, who used her “Person of the Year” moment to complain, in a tweet, about the “few women” nominated.
The entire premise of the Sandra Fluke brand—Republicans hate women and want to confiscate their ovaries—is nonsense. Most fair-minded Obama supporters will admit that the ads attacking Mitt Romney and Scott Brown as “anti-woman” were cynical and unfair.
But they were also effective.
So if Fluke had played her part, then gone on to whatever left-wing organization would hire her, that would be one thing.
But we’re not going to pretend that any rational person took any of her “Woe is my woman” nonsense seriously, are we?
Not even The Onion would do that.
James P. writes: