I’m the last person to defend Harry Reid. But between the mean-spirited, humorless Reid and the mean-spirited, humorless feminists, Harry is my man. Oh, am I allowed to say that? At issue was Reid’s praise (notice the word “praise”) of Kirsten Gillibrand for being the “hottest member of the Senate,” an apparent reference to her inclusion on The Hill’s Most Beautiful List. He also said some other nice things about her. So what do the feminists do?

The shrews high-minded ladies activists are outraged, demanding an apology. In the true spirit of the 1970s, when opening a door or standing up for a lady female would evoke not a smile or an appreciative nod but a cry a determined statement of feminists principles, these gals have nothing better to do than excoriate Reid. One pronounced, “He had a chance to clarify his comments and instead of clarifying it his spokesperson just said, ‘yeah, that’s basically what he meant,’ and in this day and age if that is the way he is going to refer to one of the seventeen women in the Senate, then you know he should just get back on his dinosaur and go back to Nevada and stay there.” Good impulse, bad reason.

This sort of hysterical fit disproportionate response over nothing remotely important is a sign that women have come very far indeed. As they say about academic politics, the feminists’ complaints these days are so bitter because the stakes are so low.