Melançon Enterprises • a multidivision multinational since 1980

Let me say now before Hillary Clinton officially ends her presidential bid that while I follow Molly Ivins on this and opposed Senator Clinton's presidential ambitions from the start, there was definitely sexism in the campaign coverage that I and many people with a far greater reach than my voice should have spoken out against more loudly and more often.

I don't have much first-hand knowledge, but I understand there was a lot that wasn't admirable in the way the Clinton campaign was run, including too-frequent claims of sexism bias while attacking with everything, including not-so-coded racial language. And I don't think they could have asked for more in downplaying the issue of the role of, you know, former president Bill Clinton in a Hillary Clinton presidency.

But every single time commentators used a word for Hillary Clinton that they would never use for a man, we should call them out on it. Every focus on her appearance, warmness, laugh, stridency, etc.– should have been rejected and certainly not echoed by self-proclaimed progressives in the establishment media or our new collective media, the world of blogs and podcasts and web sites.

So this is too little, too late, from me, but for what it's worth, there's one more way the media was rotten, and we didn't do much about it. And as mentioned, some seem to think that anything is fair game on a candidate you oppose. It's not. Our collective conversation, our societal understanding of issues, including sex-based discrimination and inequality, is far, far more important than having access to a cheap shot.