Empowering of Manipulating Women

President Obama received plaudits last week for a first in the history of White House press conferences. He only called on women reporters, with whom he then engaged in long, often meandering and always time-consuming answers.

We’re encouraged to see this as just the latest evidence of Team Obama’s commitment to empowering women. And it is certainly true that they now hold more senior positions than ever in the national security portfolio.

Moreover, we would have had a female Secretary of Defense but Michelle Flournoy turned down the offer. And two women have been nominated to the top Justice Department jobs.

Could the President’s handlers not simply be pro-feminist, however, but manipulative? For sure, the all-woman press conference gambit had the effect of precluding any pesky male reporter from interfering with Obama’s self-congratulatory musings.