I just read that whole transcript twice.
Some parts were a bit mean, but what was sexist or over the line about it? Isn't this always a roast??
The transcript really doesn't tell the whole story...like the look of humiliation and hurt on Sanders face when they cut to her. This will delight some, I'm sure. But I didn't take any pleasure from seeing it.
The response to those critical of Wolf's performance basically falls into three categories...it wasn't that bad, it was bad but Trump's people deserved it because they're hateful fascists, racists, etc., and "stop whining, Wolf criticised CNN also." None of these excuses, IMO, are valid.
And with regards to the event being a "roast"...not really. There's some defacto roasting going on, that's inevitable. But that's not what it's intended to be. And in any event, roasts, despite sometimes being very harsh, and generally done by friends and colleagues of the roastee, and come from a basically good place, with the usual admonitions at the end about how the roastee is really a good person, etc.
None of that was in Wolf's performance. She was basically a partisan snipe hurling insults. Though it will no doubt do her career wonders. It also sort of played into Trump's hands and made Sanders look sympathetic to the point where the DC Press Corps was defending her and the WHCA was expressing regret.
And for God's sake can we please retire the strawman trope about what we all would have done had this happened to to President Hillary (pro tip: she'll never be President) and the implication that women scream about sexism anytime a woman is criticized. It's so old and so stupid.
It's more "woke" men who ride in on their white horse and do that anyway.
But, now that I think about it, I can't recall a single major criticism of HRC during the campaign that wasn't attributed at least somewhat to sexism. I'm sure there might have been, I just can't think of it. And accusing Obama's critics of racism was frankly a pretty consistent refrain from some quarters as well.
So given that it's the fall back position on a certain segment of the left to habitually accuse Republicans of racism and sexism as a mater of course, and given that even HRC attributes her loss at least partially to sexism, I think Out of Control's point is a valid one.
Of course, it's also valid to say that there are plenty of racists and sexists on the right, and that some of the criticism of HRC was rooted in sexism, and racism in Obama's case.
Finally, as an aside, I'll add that IMO men on the left are just as likely to be sexist or racist as men on the right. It's just manifests itself in different ways.