Is the New York Times terrified of strong women?

There is an article in the New York Times today, titled "Showing Candidates, as They Praise Themselves and Bury Others". The article is a review of a "The Living Room Candidate" exhibition of campaign commercials at The American Museum of Moving Image. One quotation from the article caught my attention:

It is the one with Nancy Reagan, in a demure red suit and navy ruffled collar, staring frostily into the camera in a 1980 ad against Jimmy Carter.

"I deeply, deeply resent and am offended by the attacks that President Carter has made on my husband," she said in a tight, reproachful voice. "I would like Mr. Carter to explain to me why the inflation is as high as it is; why unemployment is as high as it is; I would like to have him explain the vacillating, weak foreign policy so that our friends overseas don't know what we're going to do, whether we're going to stand up for them, or whether we're not going to stand up for them."

Even the harshest of President Bush's ads this year criticizing Senator John Kerry's voting record on defense are not as chilling.

The 1980's Democratic Party must have had some pretty devastating structural problems when the question "Why is unemployment so high?" is seen as a bone-chilling, horrifying, below-the-belt assault from a "Bob Dole-style attack dog".