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Mar 11 2008 3:59PM EDT

No, Calling Hillary 'Calculating' Is Not Sexism

The press is discriminating against Hillary Clinton because she's a woman, says Newsweek's Anna Quindlen. How does she know this? Because of a word that keeps popping up:

[There has] been an inescapable undercurrent of bias. It's summed up in the word "calculating," which is often used to describe the senator in as witchy a way as possible. There is no male politico equivalent for "calculating," except perhaps "business as usual."

Actually, there is a male equivalent of "calculating." That would be "calculating." As in:

"Mitt Romney's mind is a marvel -- a calculating, evaluating, inquisitive, all-consuming consulting machine." -Time

"Vague is bad for Romney: It can make him look calculating and insincere, which is already the rap against him." -Slate

"Huckabee's response is to use the issue to paint Romney as callow and calculating, giving no pardons or commutations because he worried it might hurt him politically." -ABC News

"A totally calculating businessman is how he came across to me." Salt Lake Tribune

And so on. In most of these cases, "calculating" is clearly used in a pejorative sense -- almost like it would be if Romney were a woman!

For the record, other male politicians who've been described as calculating include Al Gore (in New York), Barack Obama (in the Chicago Tribune) and, yes, Bill Clinton (in the Weekly Standard).

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