On reason magazine’s website, it’s Kerry Howley versus Michael C. Moynihan on Sexism versus Hillary Clinton. Howley gets much the better of the argument when she writes

It’s probable that Clinton ran an inferior campaign, as Moynihan argues. And unless Hillary nutcrackers are somehow emblematic of gender equity, it’s blindingly obvious that Katha Pollitt was also right: This campaign inspired myriad public displays of misogyny, many of them deeply dispiriting. Perhaps another woman wouldn’t have prompted questions like “How do we beat the bitch,” or calls to iron the shirts of hecklers. There is a tendency to dismiss sexism against Clinton because “it’s just her.” But sexism is no more particular to its object than racism. Surely it matters that instead of saying “I disagree with this policy proposal,” Tucker Carlson chose to say of the would-be candidate: “There’s just something about her that feels castrating, overbearing and scary.” Unless you think there is something new about comparing assertive women to castrators, saying “but there is!” really isn’t an excuse here.

I can understand - first-hand! - that the degree to which some Hillary supporters have tried to use sexism to explain away Clinton’s defeat is deeply annoying, but Moynihan succumbs to mere glibness in passages like the following:

Over at The Nation, it was the back-slapping cable news fraternity that was activating our subconscious sexism. “Hillary Clinton’s loss has renewed critiques that American political media is slanted, sexist and dominated by men,” wrote Ari Melber, the magazine’s “Net movement correspondent.” “While Clinton and Obama broke barriers in the Democratic primary, swiftly dispatching white male senators with more government experience,” Melber huffed, “the race was still refereed, scored and narrated by white male commentators,” because “the elite opinion media continues to employ, groom and promote a commentators corps that is disproportionately white and male.” (As one commenter on The Nation’s website dryly noted, Melber’s own magazine, a 180,000-plus circulation purveyor of elite opinion, is also disproportionately staffed by sinister white men.)

This is about as classic as examples of tu quoque get. It’s noteworthy if the Nation fails to walk the walk (I personally haven’t checked their masthead, but let’s assume the commenter is correct.) but it doesn’t mean there’s no walk to make. Nor does Moynihan’s “sinister white men” gambit do him credit. It’s either bad faith or just plain ignorance about the nature of arguments about the structure of institutions. Certainly commenter Mask at the Nation site, who makes the point about disproportionate staffing, doesn’t seem to argue that William Greider, one of the while men named, is “sinister.” Moynihan allows himself to appear like a defensive white dude trying to make anyone who thinks white dudes have more than our share of plum positions sound more unhinged than their actual words make them sound. I used to do this myself a fair amount when I was Moynihan’s age. Then I realized that it made me sound . . . unhinged.