Knee-Jerking in New York.

The New York State chapter of NOW has recently slammed Ted Kennedy for backing Obama over Clinton. The chapter labeled the endorsement as the "greatest betrayal."

The national leadership of NOW apparently responded with this distancing statement about Senator Kennedy's endorsement.

I couldn't find a copy of the state chapter's statement, but I wanted to respond generally to the excerpts used by CNN.

Does anyone else see the state chapter's reaction as unnecessary/inaccurate? My first reaction was that the state chapter was reading far too much into the Senator's endorsement when it claimed the endorsement represented an unwillingness to "handle the idea of Clinton becoming President of the United States." This statement seems especially unfair as the CNN article linked above indicates Kennedy will support Clinton if she wins the nomination.

I'm also troubled with the divisiveness of the NOW-NYS statement as I've yet to hear that Obama is any more or less sympathetic to NOW-issues than Clinton. The excerpts in CNN's article indicate to me that NOW-NYS is more concerned with the gender of the candidates than the positions those candidates hold, which again, since I don't have a copy of the entire statement, might be unfair to NOW-NYS.

But if that is the case, and NOW-NYS is supporting Clinton mainly because she is a woman, that makes about as much sense as not supporting her because she's a woman, which is not something that can be established merely because one chooses to endorse Obama over Clinton.

[edit: I have since been provided with a link to the full text of the original NOW-NYS statement: http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0108/NY_NOW_Betrayal.html]