The big lapses at the Washington Post closely parallel those of the Democratic Party establishment – enabling the non-vote count in election 2000, failing to investigate 9/11, and enabling the Iraq war.

It is telling, if somewhat ironic, that some establishment-type Dems are now at odds with the Post over a fashion article.The article, by the Post’s Pulitzer-winning Robin Givhan, was titled “Hillary Clinton’s Tentative Dip into New Neckline Territory.”

For the record, accusations that Givhan wrote about “body parts” are bogus. The article is not about body shape or size, and anyone who suggests that it is either has not read it or is deliberately lying. The Style section article is about clothing.

The article does, however, reflect accurately that Mrs. Clinton has made another slight adjustment in clothes style. Givhan, a sensitive and perceptive writer, obviously picks up on the timing of this adjustment, which follows the most recent New York Times/CBS News poll showing that well-informed women often distrust Clinton. As usual, one woman was quoted as finding Mrs. Clinton ‘hard’ and ‘cold’.

Misogyny is always a factor in perceptions of women in public life. The hard right has never drawn the line anywhere – so much for ‘conservatism’ – with regard to women in office. Mrs. Clinton in particular has been attacked so unfairly, so often, and so viciously by the hard right that some of the ‘jokes’ seem designed to put her in physical jeopardy.

Nonetheless, Clinton still seems largely focused on her own ambitions and her own family circle, and – ironically, given all the word-flinging about ‘liberal’ and ‘feminist’ -- she has done far too little for other women. While distrust of the candidate has its dark underside, it also has a core of validity. The Clintons were not in a position to inveigh against a “vast rightwing conspiracy,” back in the 1990s, because they never did anything to protect anyone else against the GOP noise machine. They never brought the well-funded noise machine to public attention to warn the public, to help give the public a fighting chance. They accommodated the Republican echo chamber whenever they could and deflected its attention to other hapless prey whenever they couldn’t.

Broadly the reason Mrs. Clinton has done too little for other women is that she has done too little for other people. She went along with the non-vote count in election 2000. She went along with the lack of investigation of 9/11. She went along with the Iraq war and is still doing so today. If she had chosen to work full-time in the Senate instead of running for the White House, she could do more.

But then, if she had chosen to return to Arkansas in 2000 and to run for the Senate from there instead of from New York, GWBush would not be in the White House.

Thus she is being treated gently as a candidate by the neocons, who are treating her as the inevitable Democratic nominee because they want her to be. She is also receiving massive donations from parts of the financial sector that supported Bush, because they also want her to be the Dems’ nominee. Those who fight against the public interest are conducting much of the fight on Democratic terrain right now, trying to influence or manipulate the Democratic primary process.

The Clinton campaign, in attacking Robin Givhan, is playing to its strengths – trivia. Every time the public discourse gets deflected from important matters to unimportant, the android candidates get an advantage.

Mrs. Clinton took a lot of gratuitous flak when she kept changing her hair style as first lady. Understandably, her campaign is now raging against a new comment about her newest fashion adjustment. The last thing her operatives need is further suggestion of the doesn’t-she-know-who-she-is variety. Obviously they have a vested interest in shifting attention away from Clinton's shifts or apparent shifts, especially given Clinton's unreliability on the war. So they suggest that any attention to Clinton's changing appearance is antifeminist.

But the point of Givhan’s article is that Mrs. Clinton did indeed craft a slight change in style, and surely for a reason. To overlook this point to help the Clinton candidacy, or from envy at Givhan’s writing, is unfair. Note to the Clinton campaign and others: you cannot defend Mrs. Clinton, or women, by unfairly attacking Robin Givhan.

Columnist Ellen Goodman used to make excellent points. A few years ago, Goodman pointed out that politicians and papers are always celebrating when some affluent woman leaves work to go home and be with her children – and they also celebrate when some poor woman leaves home and her children, to go to work.

Our so-called ‘welfare reforms’ – passed during the Clinton years – never did take account of the fact that babies thrive best on breast-feeding. And the good years for professional day care begin when the child is three years old, not in babyhood.

Now Ms. Goodman has descended to join in criticizing Givhan’s column. This is just one small symptom of the damage to the public discourse when the 2008 election was thrust into 2007. 'Women’s issues', essential to the survival of the planet, are displaced by how ‘Hillary’ is treated. How she is treated matters, but how she is treated is not always a genuine reflection of how women in general are treated. It is always more important to raise the floor than to raise the ceiling.

The primary season has not started yet. Election year 2008 has not even begun. This whole prequel of the 2008 primaries is eating up 2007, when we the people desperately needed 2007, to draw attention to the matters most important to the public weal. Why did so many opinion-makers go along with the election-calendar maneuver in the first place?