Maureen Down: Hillary's latest hurdle - the Old Hag routine

When men want to put down a powerful woman in a sexist way, they will say she’s a hag or a nag or a witch or angry or hysterical.

First, the Republicans tried to paint Hillary as angry, but that didn’t work because she has shown a steady composure and laughed a lot (even if the laughter isn’t always connected to people saying anything funny). She has kept her sense of humor — which has a tart side — mostly under wraps, so she won’t be accused of being witchy.

But some conservative pundits who disagree with a woman on matters of policy jump straight into an attack on the woman’s looks or personal life.

And so the inevitable came to pass this week when Rush Limbaugh began riffing about an unflattering picture of Hillary in New Hampshire that Matt Drudge put up on his Web site with the caption, “The Toll of a Campaign.”... 

The public still has no idea of what part of her is stage-managed and focus-grouped, and what part is legit. It’s pretty pathetic, at this stage of her career, that she has to wage a major offensive, by helicopter and Web testimonials, to make herself appear warm-blooded.