Newsweek's Clift Mocks GOP Women's Pro-Life Views as 'So Yesterday'

Newsweek's Eleanor Clift, on this weekend's syndicated The McLaughlin Group, slighted conservative pro-life women everywhere when she applied California Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina's "so yesterday" description of Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer's hairstyle to women who hold anti-abortion views in the Republican Party. Clift, in a segment about the primary victories of both Fiorina and GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman began actually crediting Sarah Palin as "Saint Sarah" for the wins as she claimed that the former Alaskan Governor is "emboldening conservative women" and "reshaping the religious right" but then went on to question if pro-life women candidates could win statewide races in California because their views would be seen as "so yesterday." Incidentally, The Washington Times' Monica Crowley had to correct Clift as she pointed out her liberal spin wasn't even entirely accurate as Whitman is, in fact, "pro choice." [audio available here]

The following exchanges were aired on the June 12 edition of The McLaughlin Group:

JOHN MCLAUGHLIN: Question: How do you account for the amount of successful women candidates in Tuesday's political primaries? Eleanor Clift?

ELEANOR CLIFT, NEWSWEEK: Well I think conservative Republican women were really the stars this week, and I credit, in part, Saint Sarah. She's on the cover of Newsweek this coming week. She's credited with empowering and emboldening conservative women and maybe reshaping the religious right. And I think that looks good in primaries. I don't know how it will play in the, in the fall when you have a broader electorate. I think the two women in California are genuine business women. They spent enormous amounts of money. Whitman spent, I think $80 million, which works out to about $80 per vote, and they are gonna position themselves as outsiders and business women who are running against classical political insiders. But Carly Fiorina, who's running for the Senate, got a rocky start when she was caught on an open mic making fun of Barbara Boxer's hair saying it's oh, "so yesterday." And these two Republican women are also social conservatives in a state that's very pro-choice. So maybe those issues will be cast as "so yesterday."

...

MONICA CROWLEY, WASHINGTON TIMES: First of all I need to correct something that Eleanor said. Meg, Meg Whitman is not a social conservative. She is pro choice.

-Geoffrey Dickens is the Senior News Analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here