Via Sports Grid, no, it’s not ESPN but rather a ripoff from Comcast called Versus that I hadn’t heard of until today. And yes, believe it or not, they’re actually featuring this clip in the video section of their website. After all the phony cries of sexism aimed at Karl Rove et al. for criticizing Christine O’Donnell, consider this a useful reminder that the real thing is alive and well. And it hurts women politicians who are targets of it — a lot:

Calling a female candidate such sexist names as “ice queen” and “mean girl” significantly undercuts her political standing, a new study of voter attitudes finds, doing more harm than gender-neutral criticism based solely on her policy positions and actions…

Among the findings:

• The female candidate lost twice as much support when even the mild sexist language was added to the attack. Support for her initially measured at 43% fell to 33% after the policy-based attacks but to 21% after the sexist taunts. The drop was significant among both men and women, those under 50 and over 50, and those with college educations and without.

• The sexist language undermined favorable perceptions of the female candidate, leading voters to view her as less empathetic, trustworthy and effective.

Needless to say, as any Hillary Clinton fan would tell you, this is a bipartisan problem. (And intrapartisan too!) The only question now: Will this be shrugged off somehow on grounds that Palin was “asking for it”? Don’t laugh — that argument has been made before, and not always by hard-left liberals.