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I’ve been saying it for over a month: We need to leave Afghanistan as soon as safely possible. Our brave men and women have performed admirably there. Now it’s time to bring them home.

In fact, a lot of Democrats have been saying that lately. So when Gen. Stanley McChrystal recently proposed sending up to 40,000 additional troops there, California’s own Nancy Pelosi stepped up in her role as Speaker of the House and said escalation would be a tough sell for some Democrats.

That’s when the National Republican Congressional Committee turned an honest debate into a shameful display of sexism.

The committee sent out a press release attacking Speaker Pelosi for her honest assessment of the situation. The release included the following line:

If Nancy Pelosi’s failed economic policies are any indicator of the effect she may have on Afghanistan, taxpayers can only hope McChrystal is able to put her in her place.

As Speaker Pelosi observed in her own defense, it’s been decades since that kind of blatant sexism and talk of “putting women in their place” was accepted in public discourse. Today you can get fired for saying something like that — unless, apparently, you work for the Republican Party.

We’ve always known from the Republicans’ regressive tax proposal, the erosion of median income under their administrations, and the way they vigorously defend our broken health care system that the Republicans would love to undo as much progress as they could. But this kind of behavior simply has no place in our politics, and we should all thank Nancy Pelosi for saying so.

But the Republicans aren’t just wrong to use such prejudiced, long-discredited language. They’re also wrong to promote blind trust in Gen. McChrystal, whose role in covering up the friendly fire death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman is undeniable.

General McChrystal certainly has many years of dutiful service to our country. That does not give him — or the Republican Party — the authority to put the Speaker of the House in “her place.” We have the people of San Francisco and her colleagues in the House of Representatives to thank for putting Speaker Pelosi in the very place she needs to be.

John Burton is chairman of the California Democratic Party. Sign up to join the Party at CAdem.org.