Shame on you, Dee Dee

My wife watches The INDY 500 each year since she is from Indiana and went to Purdue University. The PU marching band always plays at The 500 pre-race ceremonies.

When she was at Purdue in the late 60s, women were not allowed in the marching band and to go out on appearances. So she couldn't take her high school marching band experience to West Lafayette, Ind., all because of her gender.

Now, women can be in the marching band. Actually, they can be in a lot of places that once restricted their gender. But in a very few instances, that doesn't necessarily make things better.

Consider Sunday morning's appearance of former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers on the non-Hispanic roundtable portion of This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Myers, who has written a book about something concerning if women ruled the world, verbally stomped on Sen. Hillary Clinton's candidacy by wondering what the New York senator really wanted by staying in the race.

Well, Dee Dee, she wants the presidential nomination of her political party. And her numbers work when it comes to the electoral college map and the states she has won compared to those of Sen. Obama. And some of the Obama states won't even be playable for a Democrat in the general election.

Sen Clinton is -- at this time without much African-American support -- the most electable candidate. And she is the favorite of most Hispanic voters and would tromp Sen. John McCain in competing for them.

She is not the most charismatic. She is not a member of a minority group. She doesn't draw the largest crowds. But when it comes to how the superdelgate process is supposed to work in the Democratic Party, she is making the right kind of pitch at the right time.

Myers confirms a complaint my wife has about younger women who did not have to go through all the outrages of denial and restrictions older women faced. There is a lack of recognition of even recent history, and with that blindness, there is a lack of respect to female pioneers.

I'm not saying that Myers should automatically speak favorably of Clinton becuase she is a woman, too. But Myers should at least cut her some slack and listen to what she is saying. Ascribing less-than-admirbale motives to Sen. Clinton is unfair. The campaign is still ongoing. And the campaign is a historic one.

A woman still in the race for a major political party's nomination at this point of the campaign is a sign of progress for this nation, even if Myers can't recognize it and attaches ill motives instead.