"There was an unexpected, oh no what just happened, kind of moment" earlier that day, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow told her viewers last night. Actually there were two, but she glossed over the second.
Maddow opened a segment by describing what happened when new Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and his wife Stephanie arrived at the Pentagon on his first day of work.
Footage was shown of Mr. Carter getting out of a dark SUV and greeting an officer while his wife, off camera, slipped and fell on ice on the other side of the vehicle. "And it's a real blessing that she was not hurt when she fell down," Maddow said. "I think it is also a small but significant blessing that the cameras did not actually capture the fall itself so she never has to see that on film."
Anyone else think it odd that sand and/or rock salt wasn't slathered around the ice-covered entrance to the Pentagon? Your government not at work, again. Obviously there hadn't been time for an environmental impact study.
This was not the only embarrassing incident for Stephanie Carter yesterday and, alas, cameras did catch the other one. Here's Maddow's take on what else happened --
MADDOW: She got up, she was a champ about the whole thing, she joked about it as she made her way up the stairs with her husband, so it ended up OK. It happens to everyone. Also, so does this (footage shown of Ashton Carter behind lectern, Biden behind him and gesturing to Stephanie Carter). At least this happens to pretty much everyone who has ever met Vice President Joe Biden. (Footage shown of Biden's hands placed firmly on Stephanie Carter's shoulders, Biden also whispering in her ear).
During his White House swearing-in ceremony, there was this moment (Maddow can't help but chuckle) when Vice President Biden was trying to get Mrs. Carter to stay on the stage. He was basically trying to keep her from shying away from the attention and from the camera shot on her husband's big day as he spoke at his swearing-in ceremony. But he did so in this very Vice President Biden way, right, gave her a quick shoulder massage, sort of whispered something in her ear (pause), yeah. She was a champ about that too. And somewhere between the fall and the shoulder rub we did get a brand-new defense secretary.
She was a champ about that too ...?
It was with considerable amusement that I found this headline in the coverage of our new defense secretary -- "Ashton Carter pressed to address sex assaults in military."
We're often reminded by liberals that there is such a thing as "rape culture" -- not sexual assault per se, but the conditions leading to it.
Call me naive or woefully behind in my feminism studies, but aren't the unfortunate conditions for such a culture in place when a high-ranking government official tells the wife of a subordinate employee, apparently against her will, to present herself before the media in a heavily covered event, at which point he gives her an unsolicited "shoulder rub" massage and whispers sweet nothings in the woman's ear?
Moreover, when the apparently reluctant wife complies with the wishes of the high-ranking government official in a position of authority over her husband -- and hence her -- and is then man-handled before the media by the high-ranking government official, thus becoming an Internet meme she mercifully avoided becoming when she slipped on ice but no one recorded it -- when these bizarre circumstances converge, is not "rape culture" an ominous specter which must be immediately addressed with mandated sensitivity training for all, except the high-ranking government official?
It is beyond the realm of possibility that Maddow would chortle with forced delight had the participants in this scenario been GOP governors Scott Walker, Rick Perry or Chris Christie and the unwilling wife of one of their employees. When a woman shakes her head no, she means no.
