As If on Cue

Just when I needed a follow up to yesterday's piece regarding the anger of Muslim societies to emissaries from the West telling them, in the name of "women's rights" that their centuries-old religious beliefs are doing it all wrong, along comes the Boston Globe with a report of Hillary Clinton's answer to the question: What difference would it make if a woman is president? I found the second part of her answer interesting in light of yesterday's article:

"You know, when I gave that speech in '95 in Beijing, it was meant to be a kind of call to action about women's rights. And we've made some progress in the last 12 years, but we haven't made enough, and we can see how suppression of women is directly tied to extremism, to anti-democratic forces. I think that having a woman president. . . you know, I'm not running as a woman. I'm running because I think I'm the best qualified and experienced person to do the job, but having a woman president is a tremendous statement to the rest of the world that I think would be to America's advantage, and would help us more than any policy would on a lot of the forward movement that we need to have within societies when it comes to women."

Clinton's assertion that suppression of women is directly tied to extremism is in direct conflict with the argument put forth by Dinesh D'Souza and others that it is rather the fear of attack by the West on Muslim values that pushes traditional Muslims toward more extreme positions.