No conservative must ever, ever be seen as bullying a female candidate. On the other hand...

"David 'Rodham' Gergen says the Republicans should be very, very, very careful. They should not bully or overly criticize Mrs. Clinton. Would somebody explain this to me? How in the world does one bully the toughest, smartest and most presidential woman in the world. How is it even possible to bully Mrs. Clinton? She's got her own testicle lockbox, for crying out loud! How in the world do you bully that?"   Rush Limbaugh

I saw no sign whatever that the left suffered politically for their bullying of the following  Republican women. Where were the "fairplay independents" when these women were being trashed by the left?

“So sit back and enjoy!” – Smug CNN host can barely contain her excitement over new Palin ‘brawl’ audio

. . . "CNN host Carol Costello can barely contain her excitement over hearing the new audio of the ‘brawl’ in Alaska that involved Bristol Palin a few weeks back.

She started the segment by claiming it was possibly the best audio CNN had ever gotten:

“Okay I’m just going to come right out and say it. This is quite possibly the best minute and a half of audio we’ve ever come across.”

This liberal blog brims with satisfaction at the Danziger and Oliphant cartoons of Condoleezza Rice

 

Salon's back-handed defense of conservative women:  . . . "Examine the symptoms of this infection, beginning with David Letterman’s comments . . . “buying makeup at Bloomingdale’s to update her slutty flight attendant look,” as well as his joke about Palin’s teenage daughter: “Sarah Palin went to a Yankees Game yesterday … during the seventh inning stretch, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.” (Letterman insists he was talking about her 18-year-old daughter, Bristol. . .  not her 14-year-old, Willow, the daughter who attended the game.) . . .writer Guy Cimbalo published a list of 10 conservative women he’d like to “hate f--k,” a term that various observers interpreted as rough sex, sex tinged by rage, or rape. . . .Worse than the violence of the general sentiment was the graphic specificity of the “Hate F--k Rating” appended to each woman — a list that included Michelle Malkin, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Dana Perino and Laura Ingraham. On Hasslebeck:  . . . On Malkin: “Worse than f--king Eva Braun.”

"Both cases were met with a tepid response from the left. Though Letterman apologized on Wednesday’s show . . . his tone was mock-serious, and his audience chuckled along.

Brent Bozell writes in Townhall: Smearing Republican Women  "In 1992, the feminists in the media rejoiced at what they called "The Year of the Woman," when 10 Democratic women (and one Republican) were running for the Senate in the aftermath of Anita Hill's unproven sexual-harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas. Just two years before, seven Republican women (and two Democrats) ran. But the media yawned.

Where were those cherished independents during all this?