(Update) Why Did We EVER Give Them the Vote?!
By Mona
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Maureen Dowd’s has-to-be-read-to-be-believed analysis of Wicked Witch Hillary’s (whose candidacy I do not support) win in New Hampshire, and Dowd’s reported reaction among her newsroom colleagues to Teh Hillary Tears, is truly jaw-dropping. I almost never deploy the sexism accusation, having been almost allergic to it my whole adult life; but folks, just read Dowd, and then take a gander at this simply sexist post from Dan Collins at Protein Wisdom who endorses the Dowd rant, all emphasis mine:
For Hillary to be swept away weeping for the beauty of her idealism, at her age, man or woman, is frankly disgusting. The women of New Hampshire identify with her, and probably believe the bizarre and self-righteous feminist cant that declares men more prone to resolve disputes through violence than women, less likely to listen, etc. What I can say, with some confidence, I believe, on the basis of this result, is that women of a certain age, in New Hampshire, at any rate, are comparatively easily womanipulated.
We silly little girls saw one of our sisters cry, and — the “older” among us, anyway — were “womanipulated” by it. Darn our emotional, pretty little (graying) heads. (Why don’t I believe the Collins qualifier “man or woman?” Because of all that comes before and after.)
*********
UPDATE: If there was a boost for Hillary related at all to “the tears,” I agree with Kos — who absolutely opposes her candidacy, my emphasis:
If I found myself half-rooting for her given the crap that was being flung at her, is it any wonder that women turned out in droves to send a message that sexist double-standards were unacceptable? Sure, it took one look at Terry McAuliffe’s mug to bring me back down to earth, but most people don’t know or care who McAuliffe is. They see people beating the shit out of Clinton for the wrong reasons, they get angry, and they lash back the only way they can — by voting for her.
The snotty, media mob attack on the woman for shedding a couple of tears — as my gender is wont to due under stress and when very tired, but which few of us actually can do “on command” — might have also have tempted me to vote for her. Not quite enough to do so, but I’d have been tempted to show the bastards what I think of their obsessive, petty and in this case truly sexist hatred —  as so well demonstrated by the bizarre MoDo column and those who buy it.
Comment by Jeff in Texas —
January 9, 2008 @ 12:19 pm
But of course a male (i.e., “real”) voter getting all woozy over a male candidate’s huntin’ fishin’ beer drinkin’ Islamo-fag-librul bashin’ manly manhood is perfectly fine.
It’s amazing how roughly half of the population just gets written off as some sort of half-witted special interest group by people like this, unless that half of the population decides they need a George W. type to make it safe for them to take the kids to soccer practice, in which case all hail patriotic mothers everywhere.
Comment by Michael —
January 9, 2008 @ 12:29 pm
Shouldn’t it be womynipulated?
Comment by Michael —
January 9, 2008 @ 12:31 pm
Jeff: to quote some wymin I know “white men can’t be practicing identity politics because they have no identity”.
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 9, 2008 @ 12:34 pm
Jeff is right about the male counterpart, who like to shoot first and ask questions later (if at all), but that doesn’t mean you can’t find the sob-sister constituency either. Let’s face it, Hillary didn’t turn on those waterworks for her health. She knew what she was up to, and there is a group of people out there (largely, but not exclusively, female) who can be, well, “womynipulated.”
While Dowd and Collins are overstating the effect, they are right about its existence.
Comment by Barry —
January 9, 2008 @ 12:36 pm
It’s similar to some pundits who point out that the Democratic Party would be nowhere without the black vote. True, these guys don’t mention which groups’ absence would doom the GOP.
It’s a Freudian slip, IMHO – the punditry is letting us get a glimpse at whom they consider to be citizens, and whom they consider to be lessers.
Comment by Michael —
January 9, 2008 @ 12:50 pm
So, is it some kind of sneaky Clinton akido going on? Show a little vulnerability, let the asshaberdashers display their finest asshattery, and watch the women fall back into line, either out of sympathy or out of rage against the misogynistic machine?
Is there a difference between feeling sympathy for Hillary for putting up with years of crap and feeling angry at Chris Matthews for spewing crap for years, given that the alleged outcome of those responses is “voting for Hillary”?
Comment by AlanSmithee —
January 9, 2008 @ 1:03 pm
The fact that this bit of political theater gets any fucking attention at all is difficult to fathom. Sure, it’s emotionally satisfying for the red-meat brigade to sit around grunting about how emotional the wimminfolk is. But one would think that anyone even remotely familiar with how our political system works would instantly know this “Hilliary’s Tears” episode for the kabuki it so plainly is.
Comment by Mona —
January 9, 2008 @ 3:24 pm
McCain is notorious for a well-documented temper. I doubt he’s faking that. Women are more likely, for physiological reasons, to shed some tears when feeling extreme emotions, especially when tired. Most of us, however — pace Derek, and contrary to what some menfolk think — cannot turn the waterworks on at will. (And get very annoyed when some of ya’ll accuse us of that.)
If anything, an increased female vote for Hillary could well have been in response to the media mob attack on her, and not in response to the tears themselves.
Comment by Stu —
January 9, 2008 @ 3:50 pm
Let’s face it, Hillary didn’t turn on those waterworks for her health. She knew what she was up to,
Of course, the fact that she’d be exhausted from campaigning 24/7 and/or tired of the media’s “the wicked witch is dead” narrative had nothing to do with it. It had to be planned.
Sheesh. The simplest explanation is that she was tired and cranky. Let’s go with that one rather than investing her with emotional superpowers that cloud the minds of uterine-Americans.
Comment by B Moe —
January 9, 2008 @ 3:59 pm
My feminist friends back in the 60s and 70s would have strung me up by the ‘nads if I had said such a thing back then. You people are a friggin’ joke.
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
January 9, 2008 @ 4:03 pm
I’ve watched the video of the incident that set all this off, and what I see is a tired, frustrated woman trying to keep her cool and staggering for a moment. Anything could be an act, but not everything is. And when I talk to friends, I find a lot of them sympathetic and taking this as just one damn thing too many from the completely cynical punditariat. It’s not the one round of baying hostility by itself so much as that on top of all the years of past bad behavior running back to 1994 or so. (Which talk show had the ad of its regulars standing on the Capitol steps as if to block incoming Congresspeople who might displease them?)
Comment by The Modesto Kid —
January 9, 2008 @ 4:08 pm
has-to-be-read-to-be-believed
Thanks a lot, now I just went and read a Dowd column for the first time in a couple of years. And I had been doing so well at ignoring her!
Comment by Mona —
January 9, 2008 @ 4:09 pm
Yeah? Well I have never identified as a feminist, and particularly didn’t like the brand of feminism that was around in the 70s and 80s. But men and women are, yanno, different — and not just at the high school level of observation.
See, I don’t give a rat’s patooty what certain feminists think of my views, or what those with Clinton Derangement Syndrome think, either.
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
January 9, 2008 @ 4:09 pm
Modesto Kid, it’s okay, you can just start the 12 steps over again.
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 9, 2008 @ 4:30 pm
Most of us, however — pace Derek, and contrary to what some menfolk think — cannot turn the waterworks on at will. (And get very annoyed when some of ya’ll accuse us of that.)
Most of you aren’t lifelong political actors running for the most powerful office in the world.
Let me put it to you this way, Mona. I hope she was turning the waterworks on deliberately. If she becomes president the alternative explanation isn’t very comforting.
Comment by Jeff —
January 9, 2008 @ 4:47 pm
I guess we should be asking if the media’s coverage of this is really going to change voters’ perception of her candidate and whether it will be positive or negative for her. Places like are interesting to look at for this now, but how will we really know before the next primary.
Comment by Stu —
January 9, 2008 @ 4:48 pm
Let me put it to you this way, Mona. I hope she was turning the waterworks on deliberately. If she becomes president the alternative explanation isn’t very comforting.
The alternative explanation being that she’s a Republican? Hey, that actually is a legitimate reason!
Comment by Mona —
January 9, 2008 @ 4:57 pm
Codswollop, Derek. I’m not saying you want a POTUS weeping in public often — altho I recall Bush choking up a few times right after 9/11– but if during her downtime she cried, that’s how many females refresh ourselves — there is even a biological basis for its cathartic value. Your gender’s “testosterone poisoning” in a tantrum-prone candidate like McCain is hardly better!
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 9, 2008 @ 4:58 pm
Most of those incidents were probably faked as well. However, even if we grant them authenticity, they weren’t Muskie moments. None that I could tell were due to cracking under stress, which is what this incident would be. They were moments of pride, congratulation or commiseration.
Comment by Stu —
January 9, 2008 @ 5:13 pm
They were moments of pride, congratulation or commiseration.
Well, yeah, otherwise they’d be pvssies. Can’t have that.
Although I have no love for her, and hope against hope that I don’t have to vote for her, I really do feel for HRC on this. She’s either a manipulative fraud, or a total girly girl who can’t hack it. Ain’t misogyny grand?
Comment by Mona —
January 9, 2008 @ 5:13 pm
Oh puh-leeeze.
You’d think she’d had a breakdown and been carted off to a psych unit. She teared up, in the context of a vicious campaign and after over a decade of incomprehensibly vile attacks on her, which appeared to be working to deny her a shot at POTUS based not on her positions, but rather due to the base antics of petty, deceitful and sheerly malevolent media pack-dogs and a repugnant, right-wing, personality-based destruction machine.
I don’t like Hillary, and do not support her candidacy. But this hype over her tearing up — and the gender-based screeds by such as Dowd (and what she reports her colleagues saying) and Collins — are hateful and unacceptable regardless of HRC’s positions on the issues.
Comment by Josh —
January 9, 2008 @ 5:21 pm
Sadly, even the high school level of observation is too sophisticated for the likes of B Moe.
Also, is this the same Dan Collins who posted embarrassing information about someone he dated like 20 years ago? Because that guy just might have a few women issues to work through.
Comment by Mona —
January 9, 2008 @ 5:26 pm
Yup. Another piece of evidence that he’s got issues with women. (And one need not be — as I am not — a self-identified feminist to observe that this is true for some men.)
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 9, 2008 @ 5:28 pm
Codswollop, Derek. I’m not saying you want a POTUS weeping in public often — altho I recall Bush choking up a few times right after 9/11–
There’s a difference between public commiseration and cracking. Hillary used her gender IMO to stage a little tear party because she knew she’d get the antipathetic and sympathetic reactions she’s getting. At least I hope that’s what she’s doing.
…but if during her downtime she cried, that’s how many females refresh ourselves — there is even a biological basis for its cathartic value.
She didn’t do it on her downtime. She did in front of a national audience at a very critical moment in her campaign.
Your gender’s “testosterone poisoning†in a tantrum-prone candidate like McCain is hardly better!
You know I detest McCain, too, right? I’ve already said I’d vote for Clinton over him or most of the other GOP candidates.
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 9, 2008 @ 5:35 pm
You’d think she’d had a breakdown and been carted off to a psych unit.
If it would have given her a bump in the polls, I wouldn’t put it past her to pull just that.
She teared up, in the context of a vicious campaign and after over a decade of incomprehensibly vile attacks on her, which appeared to be working to deny her a shot at POTUS based not on her positions, but rather due to the base antics of petty, deceitful and sheerly malevolent media pack-dogs and a repugnant, right-wing, personality-based destruction machine.
Funny, it sounds like you’re saying the stress is getting to her. So what is it? Is she faking it, or are the tears genuine and the stress is making her crack?
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 9, 2008 @ 5:39 pm
Well, yeah, otherwise they’d be pvssies. Can’t have that.
You got me, Stu. I don’t want the President to be a pussy. But I guess you value that in a leader.
She’s either a manipulative fraud, or a total girly girl who can’t hack it. Ain’t misogyny grand?
You shed tears of self-pity on national television, it’s going to attract attention. I’m at least giving her the more charitable interpretation.
Comment by Mona —
January 9, 2008 @ 5:45 pm
Yeah Derek, it is. But one teary-eyed episode after 15 years of the shit she’s taken does not a “crack up” make.
Comment by Stu —
January 9, 2008 @ 5:49 pm
You got me, Stu. I don’t want the President to be a pussy. But I guess you value that in a leader.
I do? Good to know. Can you tell me what to make the kids for dinner tonight? I’m thinking softshell tacos…
You shed tears of self-pity on national television, it’s going to attract attention. I’m at least giving her the more charitable interpretation.
You and I clearly have different definitions of self-pity and charitable.
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
January 9, 2008 @ 6:00 pm
Derek Coppold has of course such an impressive legacy of factual correctness and insightful interpretation that it’s worth the time of the rest of us to worry a lot about his take.
Or not.
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 9, 2008 @ 6:00 pm
Yeah Derek, it is. But one teary-eyed episode after 15 years of the shit she’s taken does not a “crack up†make.
Things aren’t going to get any easier in the Oval Office. If she can’t keep her teary-eyed episodes under control now, it won’t be much better later.
Of course, it was under control, and working magnificently, as you and the others demonstrate. She’s a pretty cagey woman. I always think she’s gone too far (like her Southern Preacher act from a few months back), but, sure enough, there’s always someone around to lap it up.
Comment by Stu —
January 9, 2008 @ 6:06 pm
Things aren’t going to get any easier in the Oval Office. If she can’t keep her teary-eyed episodes under control now, it won’t be much better later.
Plus, what if her menstruation attracts bears? You ever thought about that?
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 9, 2008 @ 6:08 pm
Yes, because she is not a female of species Homo sapiens who has, for some 15 years, been treated to almost unprecedentedly vicious, febrile and base attacks on her as a person.
And she’s had nothing to do with this, at all. Just a perfect little citizen, never saying one cross word to anyone.
Poor, poor, little dear.
The woman can’t win for losin’ with the punditocracy.
Actually, she can’t lose. It’s worked out in her favor quite nicely. I’m impressed.
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 9, 2008 @ 6:10 pm
Plus, what if her menstruation attracts bears? You ever thought about that?
Nahhh, I’m pretty sure she’s well past menopause.
I think you’d be better off asking Mona this question, anyhow, considering that she’s whipping out the biological-she’s-just-a-woman excuse.
Comment by Mona —
January 9, 2008 @ 6:11 pm
Oh, it’s worse than that. She’s prolly menopausal, and her finger will be on the button. Testosterone in the Oval Office is one thing, but a woman in change-of-life with her hormone issues? Yikes! (And we cry!)
Comment by Gsnorgathon —
January 9, 2008 @ 6:22 pm
Yeah, God forbid she have a hissy fit in office and launch an unprovoked war or something.
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 9, 2008 @ 6:27 pm
She already did that, in 1999, in Kosovo.
Comment by Stu —
January 9, 2008 @ 6:58 pm
And she’s had nothing to do with this, at all. Just a perfect little citizen, never saying one cross word to anyone.
Poor, poor, little dear.
Yep, that’s exactly what everyone’s saying.
Nahhh, I’m pretty sure she’s well past menopause.
I’m surprised you don’t think she faked that to get the hot flash vote.
Comment by joe —
January 9, 2008 @ 7:10 pm
Plus, what if her menstruation attracts bears? You ever thought about that?
Cripes, Andrew Sullivan snuffling around the E Street gate. Like we need that right now.
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 9, 2008 @ 7:12 pm
Yep, that’s exactly what everyone’s saying.
The whole accusing Hussein Obama of selling cocaine in kindergarten’s forgotten, too.
I’m surprised you don’t think she faked that to get the hot flash vote.
Oh, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear about that before November, too.
When she first ran for Senate against Guiliani, and he was diagnosed with prostate cancer (which would force him out of the race), there was a political cartoon showing Hillary in a doctor’s office. She was yelling at the poor doctor, asking, “What you mean I can’t get prostate cancer?”
Comment by Mona —
January 9, 2008 @ 7:20 pm
Were you sentient in the 90s? Some obscure cartoon as you describe is as nothing compared with the never-ending “lesbian bitch Hillary who killed her lover Vince Foster and has ice in her veins along with the rest of the murderous Klinton cabal that has murdered dozens of people. And oh, her daughter is an ugly dog.”
Comment by Mona —
January 9, 2008 @ 7:25 pm
Not forgotten by me. I don’t like some of the Clinton machine’s antics — and James Carville always made me puke.
But then, rarely have a president (Bill) and his wife been the object of such viciously deranged, endless bullshit. They haven’t begun to compete in the filth department.
Comment by joe —
January 9, 2008 @ 7:29 pm
Once you start with the premise “Everything involved with Hillary Clinton is part of a carefully-calculated strategy,” then it just becomes a game of figuring out how any particular event fits in.
It’s sort of like the JFK assassination theories. You don’t have to ask if a particular event was cynically staged as part of the Master Plan; you can just take it on faith that is was.
Comment by Mona —
January 9, 2008 @ 7:38 pm
I made the error of posting this in Dr. T’s thread above:
Yes, because she is not a female of species Homo sapiens who has, for some 15 years, been treated to almost unprecedentedly vicious, febrile and base attacks on her as a person. She is a mannequin, who could never do what many real women do, which is to get wet-eyed when exhausted and overwhelmed by incredible amounts of lengthy, pack-dog abuse.
The woman can’t win for losin’ with the punditocracy. She is either the Ice Queen Bitch of Drudge’s initial creation, or she tears up, and is then a girly girl unfit for office.
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 9, 2008 @ 7:51 pm
Were you sentient in the 90s? Some obscure cartoon as you describe is as nothing compared with the never-ending…
I’m not citing the cartoon as an example of abuse, but a good snapshot of her personality.
… “lesbian bitch Hillary who killed her lover Vince Foster and has ice in her veins along with the rest of the murderous Klinton cabal that has murdered dozens of people. And oh, her daughter is an ugly dog.
And the Republicans were burning churches, Bush wanted to drag James Byrd behind a truck again, and the GOP was also responsible for the Oklahoma bombing. Newt Gingrich wanted to starve kids at school. Oh, and the left has been nothing but pure charm to Bush twins.
We can go back. The Bush family are in cahoots with the Nazis. Bush I flew to Paris in an SR-71 in 1980 to arrange to extend the hostage crisis with Iran (the subject of a congressional hearing, no less), and Barb’s the real man in his household. Reagan is a senile dunce and his wife is a heartless snob of a bitch.
I agree it was rough in the 90s, but the Clintons didn’t mind turning up the volume, and they certainly provided plenty of fodder. That’s life, and what’s more, she won. She got a senate seat out of the whole deal.
Further, it’s eight years in the past. Don’t you think all that should have been ‘cathartized’ out of her system around, I don’t know, 2002, or at least 2006 when her party took the Congress back?
And, hey, if the stuff is still there, do you think those little sniffles were really cathartic? I mean what happens when she really blows?
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 9, 2008 @ 7:54 pm
Once you start with the premise “Everything involved with Hillary Clinton is part of a carefully-calculated strategy,†then it just becomes a game of figuring out how any particular event fits in.
Actually, I’m starting with the premise that Clinton’s a professional politician, and she carefully stages her public appearances. Do you have something that contradicts that premise?
She was being criticized in the days before for not showing emotion, and, lo and behold, we got emotion. Coincidence? Maybe, but I doubt it.
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 9, 2008 @ 7:57 pm
Not forgotten by me. I don’t like some of the Clinton machine’s antics — and James Carville always made me puke.
So you don’t like the fact that they got whopped by their own tactics.
If you can’t take it…
Comment by Mona —
January 9, 2008 @ 8:08 pm
Uh, Derek, she didn’t draw the cartoon.
Look, I did not vote for Bill in either election in the 90s, and I don’t endorse Hillary. But even I was aware in the 90s that the level of deranged, sheerly hallucinatory vitriol directed at them and even their daughter was by many magnitudes more repulsive and high-profile — that is, had traction — than any Dem bashing of GOPers. I let lapse my subscription to The American Spectator in the 90s because of its Scaife-funded pathological, tabloid-style focus on Bill and Hill’s lives (especially their sex lives), including Hillary’s supposed demand to be sexually serviced by Bill, yelled from the base of the governor mansion’s stairs.
It was the most tawdry, repulsive, unrelenting campaign of sheer vitriol I have witnessed in my lifetime, and I tilted GOP at the time.
Comment by joe —
January 9, 2008 @ 8:15 pm
“There’s no difference of degree, because I can show that there was no difference in kind.”
Color me impressed.
Comment by Stu —
January 9, 2008 @ 8:24 pm
She was being criticized in the days before for not showing emotion, and, lo and behold, we got emotion. Coincidence? Maybe, but I doubt it
And remember, even if it was genuine, that’s bad, too!
Say what you will about Scaife, the money he spent getting the rubes to buy into the Hitlery Klintoon storyline was money well spent.
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 9, 2008 @ 8:30 pm
Uh, Derek, she didn’t draw the cartoon.
And it was perfectly fair. We’re talking about a person who will literally change her accent to suit the audience. Suddenly became a New York Yankees fan when she was running for the Senate. Discovered that her mother’s friend’s roommate (or something like that) was Jewish when she was accused of Jew-bashing. Do you really think she wouldn’t squirt a few tears for the camera?
It was the most tawdry, repulsive, unrelenting campaign of sheer vitriol I have witnessed in my lifetime, and I tilted GOP at the time.
I didn’t like it either, but let’s remember where it started. The left was more than happy to drag out Clarence Thomas’ life (including alleged visits to porn shops) with less good cause. They threw a fit about inappropriate sexual behavior in a workplace. They made it a national issue.
Well, Bill Clinton (who, poor fellow, had stood up for Thomas) was the poster boy for exactly this kind of behavior. And it wasn’t just the American Spectator breaking that story. The L.A. Times was on it as well. Then you had women coming out of the woodwork claiming they had had affairs with Clinton, and run ins with his goons.
And unlike the Paris story on Bush I, many of these claims had the merit of being true.
Dislike Scaife and Brock and Tyrell all you want. They deserve their share of scorn, but don’t forget the role Clintons played in their troubles.
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 9, 2008 @ 8:33 pm
And remember, even if it was genuine, that’s bad, too!
Well, yes. If she has trouble controlling her emotions in public, that would be bad. If she doesn’t like it, then she should have picked a more private profession.
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 9, 2008 @ 8:40 pm
Mona,
My big problem with The GOP and conservatives is that they agreed to the play the left’s game from the 80s. Instead of letting the special prosecutor law stay dead and saying to Clinton, “Okay, you see how this sexual harassment thing has gotten out of hand. Let’s reform the laws”, the launched into their own gotcha campaign, with its bad consequences.
Comment by Mona —
January 9, 2008 @ 8:54 pm
Now really. Have you no knowledge of the filthy campaign Nixon and the GOP waged against Helen Gahagan Douglas in the CA ‘50 senatorial campaign? She became so frustrated — as a mere New Deal Dem repeatedly cited as a communist complete with “pink papers” passed out and bogus letters sent to white suburbanites “signed” by the “American Communist Negroe Women’s League” endorsing her — she teared up at least once as well.
Comment by Stu —
January 9, 2008 @ 9:07 pm
Well, yes. If she has trouble controlling her emotions in public, that would be bad
Unless she was a Republican with a penis, in which case you’d let her slide, as you’ve noted (”they were moments of pride, congratulation or commiseration”).
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 9, 2008 @ 9:38 pm
Unless she was a Republican with a penis, in which case you’d let her slide, as you’ve noted (â€they were moments of pride, congratulation or commiserationâ€).
I’ve already said I’d probably vote for Clinton over McCain or the other nominees, save maybe Thompson, so I’m hardly in thrall to the GOP.
If you had shown me a case of Clinton crying at a funeral, I’d have said the same thing. Not all situations are the same.
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 9, 2008 @ 9:41 pm
Now really. Have you no knowledge of the filthy campaign Nixon and the GOP waged against Helen Gahagan Douglas in the CA ‘50 senatorial campaign?
Well, jeez, let’s just go all the way back to Grover Cleveland’s bastard kid.
Comment by Mona —
January 9, 2008 @ 9:50 pm
No, let’s stick with your [edited to correct] ahistorical notion the GOP somehow only picked up rancid, below-the-belt tactics in the ’80s, in response to Democrats. Which is consummate nonsense. (And I agree that what the Dems did to Clarence Thomas is inexcusable, but that does not make the GOP righteous in its own sins.)
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 9, 2008 @ 10:11 pm
No, let’s stick with your [edited to correct] ahistorical notion the GOP somehow only picked up rancid, below-the-belt tactics in the ’80s, in response to Democrats.
Because you complained about the personal aspect of the Clinton-bashing, particular the sexual side. Well, where did that come from? We can point to the unprecedented treatment of Thomas. It’s not a coincidence that the same guy who did an expose on Anita Hill went after the Clintons. One attack fed into the other.
Dragging in the tactics of Nixon from over 40 years before doesn’t seem very proximate. I mean, if I found dirty tactics on the part of the New Dealers (and FDR could hit below the belt with the best of them), then would you look for some sort of sin on the part of Calvin Coolidge?
Comment by Stu —
January 9, 2008 @ 10:28 pm
I’ve already said I’d probably vote for Clinton over McCain or the other nominees, save maybe Thompson
I’ve been arguing with someone sympathetic to Fred Thompson?
Shit, that means I win, I guess.
Comment by Mona —
January 9, 2008 @ 10:29 pm
Oh, I see, there is no moral agency to attach to TAS, Limbaugh, Drudge, the rest of the MSM, all because of what Brock wrote about Anita (which has nothing to do for present purposes with the initial attacks on Thomas by the Dems, and I don’t think Anita is pure as the driven snow in her claims). And moreover, Brock/TAS didn’t stop there — TAS was wholly preoccupied with Bill and Hill’s sex lives, to a disgusting degree. And Rush followed.
Look, it did not start with Dems in the 80s. the GOP was running with crazy accusations of communism and other filthy smears well before then. (And I yield to no one in my contempt for actual liberals who fellow-traveled for Stalin, but they were a distinct minority.)
To get back to THE POINT. Hillary did not even cry in NH, her eyes filled with some tears, and all fvcking media hell broke loose. For what? Why did it even become this huge story about grrrl infirmity?
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 9, 2008 @ 10:40 pm
Oh, I see, there is no moral agency to attach to TAS, Limbaugh, Drudge, the rest of the MSM, all because of what Brock wrote about Anita…
I said they were wrong above. That’s not in dispute. I’m saying you can’t pretend the Left or the Clintons didn’t play a part in the mess.
Look, it did not start with Dems in the 80s. the GOP was running with crazy accusations of communism and other filthy smears well before then.
And the Dems were crazy with their accusations of fascism and other filthy smears. That’s politics. It brings out nasty behavior.
Hillary did not even cry in NH, her eyes filled with some tears, and all fvcking media hell broke loose. For what? Why did it even become this huge story about grrrl infirmity?
Because she’s been in the public eye for almost two decades, and she never did this sort of thing before, and that she did it just as it looked like her campaign was falling apart in front of the national media made it a big story.
How could it NOT be a big story?
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 9, 2008 @ 10:42 pm
I’ve been arguing with someone sympathetic to Fred Thompson?
There’s something appealing about a guy who doesn’t seem to really want the job.
Shit, that means I win, I guess.
Great. Go print this out and put it on your fridge. Mom’ll be so proud.
Comment by diana —
January 9, 2008 @ 10:59 pm
I saw the infamous tape of Hillary breaking down and blubbering on Youtube today. I must have seen the wrong tape, because she didn’t break down and blub. She got a bit emotional, her voice got husky, and then I saw that self-control re-assert itself. Cold heartless bitch!!
Look: if she had broken down & and blubbed, I’d call her an actress. But she’d have to be a truly great actress to have done what she did.
More to the point, Hillary won because New Hampshire is full of working poor people who are scared shitless of the economy George Bush has given us and who want to bring back the competence of the Clinton era without the pants problems. I canvassed there frequently in 2004 (first for Dean, then for Kerry) and was pretty surprised at the extent of the wreckage then. It’s probably much worse now.
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 9, 2008 @ 11:10 pm
Look: if she had broken down & and blubbed, I’d call her an actress.
No, she’d be a hammy actress, and she’s not that stupid.
But she’d have to be a truly great actress to have done what she did.
Okay. I thought it was alright, but you’re entitled to your opinion.
I agree that there was certainly more the Clinton’s win than the teary eyes. I stated that in the first post.
Comment by Stu —
January 10, 2008 @ 7:49 am
There’s something appealing about a guy who
doesn’tseems to really wantthe jobpudding.Fixed.
Comment by diana —
January 10, 2008 @ 11:07 am
“Okay. I thought it was alright, but you’re entitled to your opinion.”
Derek,
It’s quite possible she really IS a truly great actress. But can’t you say that of any politician? That is, they are great “actors” in the way that Cary Grant was a great actor. He said once that Cary Grant & Archie Leach met halfway over the Atlantic or something like that…
A pol finds a persona & inhabits it. In Obama’s case it’s the cool brilliant dude with the ace up his sleeve….in Hillary’s case the carefully prepped schoolgirl wasn’t workin’ so she got all sincere and everything. Sounds logical.
I don’t object to saying that her answer was, at the reptilian root in all our brains, calculated to get votes. It sure wasn’t calculated to alienate votes. I do not object to the charge of calculation at all, cynically believing as I do that all human behavior is somewhat manipulative. (Unless you are lashing out blindly, that is.)
But if anyone’s gonna charge Hill with calculation, then thats negate the charge of lack of self-control.
I’m happy you concede that Hill’s win is due to more than the teary episode. You are flat out wrong that Let’s there were “waterworks.”
Comment by Uncle Kvetch —
January 10, 2008 @ 1:28 pm
We’re talking about a person who will literally change her accent to suit the audience.
Gasp, swoon, faint. Unheard of in the history of American politics. Until now.
Christ almighty. This thread is so utterly sad and silly I can’t believe it’s not a “Hardball” transcript. Derek, get your resume to the cable news channels posthaste–there’s a bright future just waiting for you.
Comment by WTF —
January 10, 2008 @ 3:50 pm
This whole freaking discussion is a shame and an embarrassment. Clinton won the NH debate on Saturday night, as she has every other debate. The polls began to turn after the debate but weren’t published in time to register. The fact that there is a mass presumption that it could only have been the tears that pushed Clinton to victory is itself rampant sexism. How about the radical notion that she could win on merit? And no, tears cannot be turned on at will. And actually, I was astounded that she managed not to cry during the debate when she was set up for a rational, relevant question, then blindsided by the assertion that people just don’t like her. Imagine that – you are exposing yourself to the core and have to endure extremely public, extremely personal attacks that none of your competition could dream of facing. Who wouldn’t get emotional? Wait to see what happens when people actually start treating Obama like a serious candidate … more of the stammering and obfuscating and snide comments we saw in the debate, I’m sure.
One more thing; imagine people standing up and yelling racist comments at an Obama rally…then imagine how differently the media would respond…how much more seriously they would take that. And if you haven’t heard the news reports about the stickers being handed out at a NH Obama rally, here it is – they said “Bros before Hos.” HOW is this not news? How is this not a humiliation for him that will obliterate his phony good-guy image? If you are not horrified by this, I am sorry you have the vote. I have worked several candidate events and there is no way this could happen without his campaign’s knowledge, not with as tightly controlled and secured as they are. That he has failed to respond and distance himself from this at a minimum shames him completely, and at worst indicates that he approves. People need to know this…because this is the perspective from which Clinton is being judged for “crying.”
Comment by diana —
January 10, 2008 @ 5:14 pm
Here, here, what WTF said.
Can you source the “Bros before Hos?” Was that a plant?
“And actually, I was astounded that she managed not to cry during the debate when she was set up for a rational, relevant question, then blindsided by the assertion that people just don’t like her.”
I thought Hillary’s best moment was when she dealt with the likeability question. “That hurts my feelings….but I’ll go on.” Hilarious.
And yes, (Derek?) she delivered that line with the aplomb of a Shakespearean trouper. Judi Dench couldn’t have done better.
And it seems I’m not the only one who was appalled at Obama’s “You’re likeable enough” interjection. Moulitsas (who supports Obama) thought it was graceless. And there were others.
“Wait to see what happens when people actually start treating Obama like a serious candidate…”
Can they do that without being accused of racism? Donna Brazile has already charged the First Black President of engaging in racist code words because Bill Clinton called Obama a “kid.”
Comment by TGGP —
January 10, 2008 @ 11:04 pm
Why did we give anyone the right to vote? I’m with Spooner: “Women are human beings, and consequently have all the natural rights that any human beings can have. They have just as good a right to make laws as men have, and no better; AND THAT IS JUST NO RIGHT AT ALL.“