The Clinton Campaign: Running on Ambien
Just a year ago the hot question was: Is America ready for a black or female president? As the campaigns wear on, the question has shifted to: Can America survive the tedium of its black and female candidates?
Obama, for example, hasn't turned out to be any more challenging to white America than re-runs of the Cosby Show. He was slow to pick up on the Jena 6 case and never showed up at the rally - although, to be fair, neither did Clinton or Edwards. Like the others, he has refrained from noting that Giuliani, in addition to being a cell phone exhibitionist and a 9/11-abuser, presided over a New York City police department famed for its torture and killing of young black males.
But it's Hillary who's causing the citzenry's heads to pitch forward and collapse on their chests. Every time she opens her mouth, her flat, monotonic voice lays out yards of opaque white gauze, muffling any possibility of "discourse." Where does she stand? Over here, and a little to the side, and maybe a few steps to the right. Hers is known as the "flawless" campaign, but no one in it seems to be able to turn off the endlessly triangulating tape in her head.
Lately she's taken to emitting to sudden, inexplicable, bursts of deep laughter - known in the media as "the cackle." Whether this is a deliberate "humanizing" touch or a glitch in the computer program no one knows. According to the New York Times, the "weirdest moment" came in response to a question from Bob Schieffer about Republican charges that her health plan would lead to "socialized medicine." As the Times reports, "She giggled, giggled some more, could not seem to stop giggling -'Sorry, Bob,' she said - and finally unleashed the full Cackle."
Maybe she has a better sense of humor than I'd imagined, because the thought that her plan to turn health care over to the private insurance companies might be "socialist" has me rolling on the floor too.
I just wish I could work up the same degree of enthusiasm for Hillary as my friend Katha Pollitt, who recently told the Times: "If people don't stop saying incredibly sexist things about Hillary Clinton, I may just have to vote for her." But what are these incredibly sexist things? True, there was the whole faux "cleavage" issue, and the occasional whack-job who writes to enlighten me about Clinton's bisexuality or Chelsea's true daddy.
Then, in of all places - feminist Maureen Dowd's column on Sunday - I found a genuinely sexist comment about Hillary. Dowd apparently approvingly quotes Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of The New Republic, saying that Clinton is "like some hellish housewife who has seen something that she really, really wants and won't stop nagging you until finally you say, fine, take it, be the damn president, just leave me alone."
Now I'm all for having literary editors, poetry editors, and the like commenting on our political process, but the "nagging housewife" image is not only a sexist stereotype - it's about 50 years out of date, stemming from an era when most married women were financially dependent on their mates. Besides, male politicians are never likened to stereotypical husbands, even though some of them can be equally hard to dislodge from the recliner in front of the TV or, as the case may be, the Oval Office.
But the "hellish housewife" comment does not make Hillary a feminist martyr, nor does it make me any more willing to listen to her, either now or for the next five years. Trying to say nothing to offend, she ends up saying nothing to inspire or even inform, and Obama, though still far more engaged and human-like, risks ending up with another Ambien candidacy.
Part of the problem is structural. We make our presidential candidates campaign for at least a year at a stretch. Take a normal person and subject him or her to month after month of trail mix and chicken Caesars, sleep deprivation, and the need to be "on," smiling and handshaking, 16 hours a day. No solitary moments of reflection, no walks in the park, no escape into thrillers. What do you get after a few months of this? A golem, the artificial, man-like creature of Kabalistic lore, a personoid incapable of normal responses.
So yes, America is ready for a black or a female president. Just be sure to wake us up when it happens.
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I loved the post Barbara. Especially the part about the yards and yards of white gauze. Several times common people have asked her legitimate questions and what they have gotten in return was hostility. That is who she really is. This is how you find out about what people are really like, under pressure in an uncontrolled situation. That is exactly why Hillary is no different than Bush. The more you control the environment, the more you can control the message!
As said, the fact that Hillary can sell her Health plan as a form of socialized medicine and people are buying it when what it truly is is a huge payout to the Health Industry is nothing more than her becoming Slick Hillary.
She has become Bill Clinton all over again.
The fact that she was so gullible and voted to invade Iraq, that she has beat the war drum wanting to deal with Iran, that she is owned by AIPAC and has unconditional support for all thing Israeli, would not say she would not use torture but rather hedged her response by saying that we should have no "policy" permitting torture, that she voted for the Patriot Act without reading it, voted for the authorization of warrentless surveillances, the Military Commissions Act and voted for an amendment to ban the burning of the flag all make her record as being hardly different than those of most Republicans. The straw for me is that she stuck with a man who was screwing other women and then humiliated himself, his family, and the country. She is without the necessary courage to do that which is right. She should have booted his ass out of the White House like any other wife and filed for divorce. How can we trust her to do the right thing when a nation's fateis at stake when she couldn't even do the right thing when it came to her family? Sorry Hillary, no pass! And no vote!
Damn straight.
Issues pertaining to her integrity? The "cattle futures" bullshit . . . the unjustified firing of the White House travel office employees . . . hundreds of FBI files on Republicans showing up in the White House . . . the now-you-see-'em, now-you-don't Rose Law Firm billing records.
Dr. Ron Paul for President.
Well I hope you get the Republican right winger you deserve.
Yeah, it doesn't really strike me as progress if the basic idea is just to require people to buy the insurance that they can't buy now because it's too expensive.
Starting out that way, I can hardly wait for the fallback position - Not!
Hillary is going to win both the nomination and the presidency.
She is very smart,
best polling in the world,
works on her weaknesses,
the best politician of them all,
works very hard,
always comes prepared,
the non ideological approach that intellectuals find difficult to swallow are exactly what get her to front run.
She knows what not to say if she needs to say something later she will know earlier than anybody else because her pollster Penn will tell her as soon as it happens
Smart women don't usually stay married to serial philanderers. I want a strong, independent woman to run for president. Hillary is neither. If she were, she would be running under her own name and not using her husband's name and reputation as her own. She's riding his coattails to the White House.
Did you do a survey of smart women? I suppose we should wait for your next survey of the best strong and smart women.
There is something very unoriginal about Hillary. Aside from her prodigious ability to raise huge sums of money, what makes her stand out? That she's a woman? That her husband was President? I can picture this woman having a hard time ordering dinner, leaving the waiter confused with her uncertainty. I think Hillary as the Democratic candidate will be a disaster. Of ALL the Dem candidates right now, I find her to be the most boring, most overly cautious, and most uninspiring. Give me John Edwards - unfortunately, Edwards probably won't make it through all the primaries, but he deserves a true Democrat's vote.
So if Hillary is such a poor choice perhaps the DNC has been secretly taken over by Karl Rove himself and it is all a big conspiracy to nominate an unelectable democrate candiate. Guess what, they win again. Get over it
Hillary is the establishment candidate. She can traingulate, cackle, and refuse to answer questions. But we all know who she is and what she represents.
The question is whether Americans have waken up and had their fill.
I'll never vote for Hillary. If she is the nominee, I'll vote green, independent, or not at all.
Hillary's "cleavage" moment was cackle and vomit inducing,but her vote for war in Iran was too much.She can always say she didn't think the imbecile was really going to do it.
Stay home or vote Republican
I will have a preference in the primary election but the democrate nominee will be decided long before I cast my vote here in Texas. For those that say they will not vote for Hillary please qualify that you mean only in the primary. Surely, you would prefer Hillary over any Republican candiate. There is a lot at stake. Karl Rove is out there - be very very afraid.
Hillary is hardly more than a spit away from from any of the Republican candidates. Forget about what they say they will do in order to get elected, look at their record as Molly Ivins used to point out. Hillary's record does not distinguish her in any way from the opposition.
I vote my conscious, which means I'll vote for Ralp Nader again if he runs or I'll vote for another third party candidate with some honesty and integrity until the rest of the idiots finally realize that voting for a Repug or Dementia is no choice at all!
Good idea...Vot
It'll will help you conscious to stick with what you know.
no I don't
Can't you at least wait until she's nominated before telling progressives they have to hold their noses and vote for her unanimously?
Finally, a Texan with some common sense.
Silly point about Obama going to a "Jena 6" rally. 6 thugs with criminal records, kicking and stomping a boy for nothing. The kid could have had brain damage, concussions, etc. Pretty sickening, only liberals could turn thugs like that into heroes.
Regarding Hillary, she's not bad, but she has a real problem answering reasonable questions. Where she's coming from, no one knows.
Shows that you didn't brush up on what really happened in Jenna any more than Obama did!
Don't be silly, Obama's been using the law against racist injustice, not kicking the heads in of young know-nothing racists, for decades. That's the fight we must fight - the unequal justice, not stake it all to defend someone who used violence then demands due process and justice. Sure he should get equal justice, but the nation shouldn't lose our best hope for meaningful change on the world and national stages to defend him. The Rev. Martin Luther King led a successful movement for over a decade, leading to the Voting Rights Act, desegregation in education, and the Civil Rights Act, by not responding to provocation, violence, even murder, bombings, dogs, tear gas, police batons, jail time, and lynchings. Our sought-after legacy is not an eternal revolution with hatred and despair on both sides. Hope was literally killed in 1963 (JFK), 1965 (Malcolm X after preaching reconciliation), 1968 (MLK), and finally two whole months later in June 1968, Bobby Kennedy. I choose Obama for real change, based on his whole record, not punditry.
Ehrenreich's statements are the same kind of nonsence we heard from her ilk seven years ago about Al Gore, and its the reason Bush has been in charge since then.
The reason Bush is in charge is that the similar comments about Gore happened to be TRUE. Enough of killing the messenger!.
I find Clinton's voice annoying, but it's anything but soporific. I think it is loud and hectoring.
That's an intelligent comment. I find your writing annoying and hectoring.
I think John Edwards is the best candidate and don't understand why we are all so hung up on the female and/or black issues.
We are electing a PRESIDENT. We need a person who has the guts and the character to undo all the bad things that have been done under the Bush administration.
Edwards is that person so why are we all babbling about Hillary and Obama?
I am not sure Edwards is that person since he would not promise to have the troops out of Iraq by 2013. Dennis Kucinich has all the right answers but not the look people want.
Hillary is in the lead because she has been chosen by the corporate media to be the Democratic candidate that possibly could be defeated. Similar to John Kerry--somone that a lot of people just do not like or trust. And if Hillary is elected, the power elite think she will be the most likely candidate to continue the war and the war profiteering.
You know that Dodd and Biden voted against this Kyl-Lieberboy Amendment crap and Kuchinic voted against the War Funding Appropriations Bill, and these guys plus Richardson are in the race for the Democratic nomination too. You don't have to vote for robot lady or the new kid with the corporate funding.
Hillary Clinton is anything but flat and monotonic, at least at a personal gathering. She is warm, spontaneous and genuine. I don't begin to understand the hostility she elicits from educated women like Ms. Ehrenreich and Ms. Dowd and Ms. Collins. But I am educated enough to recognize that this woman is one of the highest examples of the best America has to offer. Is she careful? Uh, don't you think after 8 years of relentless Whitewater harassment she would learn to be careful - since every syllable she utters is parsed beyond endurance? The real question is: can she lead this country? You bet she can. I think the criticism about her being a corporate hack is laughable. She knows how to get the money; she knows how to make compromises; she knows how to get a deal made. If that's being a hack, you better hope your own representatives are half the "hack" she is. This is politics, folks. Grow up already.
Being attacked from the FAR left is just what Hillary needs. Good work, Ms. Ehrenreich.
http://www
Great post..The far left is never satisfied and has a great need to keep Republicans in office so they can moan and graon for another 8 years.
I a dumb founded that you have not found Obama captivating. Did you see the NY rally two days ago? Have you seen the number of new contributoers? Wake up woman!!
Obama has exceeded every expectation and now as the rest of America begins to know him, it feels like the Goliath that is the the HRC is about to be brought down. That cuckle and Bill now behaving like he is the one running show panic. That means that Obama is exciting the nation.
amen!!!
Actually, I've consistently likened Bush and Cheney to the abusive husband or parent. But who am I?
If Hillary would ust say that she would withdraw all US troops from Iraq in 2009, I would forgive her all her other flaws, and she would have a lock on the Democratic nomination and a lock on the election for president in 2008. Unfortunately, she seems to be following another game-plan. To her and all our loss...
I'm sure Hillary is sitting up at nights worrying whether you'll forgive her flaws.
I guess you don't care what the GOP candidates say but when it comes to Hillary you must have a specific withdrawal date.
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