Hillary Chokes Up -- Carla Bruni Would Approve
On first glance, steely, determined Hillary Clinton has nothing in common with the Italian-born, Parisian-bred temptress Carla Bruni, who began dating French President Nicolas Sarkozy last month and is said to be marrying him in February.
Bruni's calling card is her gorgeous baby face and well-honed aura of fragility and vulnerability. Hillary's got those pantsuits.
Bruni, 40, a former top model turned singer-songwriter, often talks about how nervous and timide she is in interviews. She said she was distraught and almost had a breakdown when her first album, "Quelqu'un M'a Dit," became a huge and unexpected smash in France more than three years ago.
Clinton and Bruni embody two different kinds of women: those who wear a scarlet V for Vulnerable on their heart and those who don't. Those who cry in public and those who don't.
I usually scorn women who cry. And I've found that women who advertise their fragility are the first to put the carving knife in your back.
But when I saw the video of Clinton welling up in New Hampshire, I thought, bingo, it's working. I like her more. I'm back to rooting for her again. Damn that Obama.
Maybe we can all learn a lot from Bruni, who despite her Italian blood, puts the f's in femme and fatale. In fact, I did just learn something about Bruni, from someone who has known her and her family a long time.
"Elle est calculatrice," my friend said. One of the most calculating women he's ever known. "She's tough," he said. "She really knows how to get what she wants. "
Hillary Clinton is tough and knows how to get she wants -- or she has up until now -- and she doesn't hide it. Just the way a guy wouldn't hide it. I admire that. But I also think it's why so many people hate her.
Which is why channeling a little bit of Bruni right now is not a bad idea.
Three years ago, a French friend told me Bruni was the woman every French woman wished they could be.
She's the stepdaughter of a wealthy Italian industrialist and heiress to the Pirelli tire fortune. Mick Jagger ran off to be with her when Jerry Hall had just given birth. She also dated Eric Clapton, Kevin Costner and Donald Trump.
But her French conquests were more scandalous. She was living with Jean-Paul Enthoven when she dumped him for his son, a philosophy professor named Raphael Enthoven.
Raphael, in turn, ditched his wife, the novelist Justine Lévy, the daughter of the philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy. Justine Lévy then wrote a book involving a woman who steals someone's husband and called her a "praying mantis" with a "Terminator smile."
Bruni, who's just back from a PDA-filled romantic holiday with Sarkozy in Egypt, is currently splashed over every glossy magazine cover in France.
Pictured in teeny, white short-shorts and a straw hat while playing the piano, Bruni smiles winsomely from the cover of this week's French Elle. The headline reads: "Une Star a l' Élysée? L'Incroyable Saga d'une Femme de Passions."
The Élysée Palace, of course, is the French White House. Carla Bruni is on track to be living there after a presidential campaign that's lasted, um, less than a month.
C'est la vie.
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What are you saying?? Your article makes no logical sence. More like fuzz picked from some mushrooms off the top of your head. If Hillary looked like Italian born Carla Bruni she'd be using that to get what she wants.
She's getting so much criticism for this and it isn't necessary. It's rare to see the person beneath the persona and we should welcome it. Kerry Gladden at dailycents.com wrote about how the other candidates should react to it: http://blogs.dailycents.com/?p=790
Clinton wasn't "welling up" becasue of some tragic event - she was feeling sorry for herself. She was having a pity party. I don't like that in anyone especially not a person who wants to be the leader of our country.
Clinton get badly needed 'shot in the arm'!
If watching hillary get heckled by an alleged 'male chauvinist pig' doesn't suck enough old-school 'women's lib' voters back to Hillary, she's going to have to resort to getting shot in the arm, like Taiwan's president Chen did, turning around the last election, one he was forecast to lose. He won just enough sympathy votes to squeak by.
A key difference between Bruni and Hillary: Bruni doesn't believe that marrying Sarkozy will qualify her to be President of France!
Hillary is sickening. during the Abc debate she says she is the agent of change and plays the gender card. Obama has not voice "I am black' card so I am the real change. Then she reads the polls results for when she said "it hurt her deelings" and gets it. So she comes up with a little weeping act. Edwards has made all of these others "change", but they can't fake real. Rubbing some onion on your wrists or pulling at a nose hair are old stage tricks to make the eyes tear. A woman putting a little cry in her voice on command, tactics, as old as the profession itself. Mitt even welled up himself last week. If McCain does it I'm gonna hurl for sure.
It wasn't all tears for Hillary today. She found time to play to her Republican base:
"...she warned voters that the Al-Qaeda terror network was closely watching the outcome of the elections which will choose a successor to President George W. Bush.
"In one of her most overt plays of the national security card yet, she noted that days after Gordon Brown became British Prime Minister, militants planted bombs which failed to explode.
"'I don't think it was by accident that Al-Qaeda decided to test the new prime minister,' Clinton said. 'They watch our elections as closely as we do ... they play our allies.'"
Hillary's entire independent political career evolved in the fear-crazed Bush years. She has hitched her wagon to that fear, and is desperately trying to pull us back into it.
The real loser in Hillary's emotional display is John Edwards who, in his zeal to attack, criticised this moment of honesty.
Of course big boys don't cry but BIG MEN do! And big boys also apologize.Edwards will do neither.
Dr.Rick Lippin
http://medicalcrises.blogspot.com
My understanding is that Hillary has a 100 million dollars or so, she and Bill essentially control the party machinery, and she has a double digit lead over Obama in the states that count.
And the Clintons have a reputation of removing anyone that stands in their way.
I'm glad I'm not Obama.
The second comment is exactly the reason that Hillary is losing. Some of us are sick of the baby boomers and their superiority in harkening back to accomplishments that are decades old. I am so sick of fans of HRC portraying her as this visionary who has stood up for women and the poor. It seems to me that neither, Bill nor Hillary, is pro woman and they tend to be pro-poor only during election season. They had no problem destroying the reputations of women who asserted their right not to be sexually harrassed by Bill Clinton. And her most defining moment as a feminist is when she decided to "stand by her man" who was getting it on with an intern a few years older than their daughter. Her experience as a senator is nothing to crow about either. To constantly talk about the damage that George W. Bush has wrought, without examining her role in giving him a free ride is ridiculous. Her propensity to vote in lockstep with this administration bespeaks of politics at its worst or incompetence at the very least. I cannot say whether she votes with the courage of her convictions because I am not sure that she has either courage or conviction.
The comment section of Hufpost is fast becoming a spam recepticle for idiots.
WTF has Obama ever done that would prompt a sane human to vote for him for the most powerful position in the known world ? For God's sakes people, get a grip. It's not American Idol.
The right wing will ruin Obama in a national election like fresh meat for slaughter.
You better pick a fighter who can withstand the onslaught thats brewing.
Look who is in office RIGHT NOW !! Who do you think put him there ? You think they evaporated when they found out the media and 20 republicans in Iowa voted for him ? C'mon you morons.
Your being rope a doped, again.
Your letting the republicans pick your candidate knowing they can beat him.
Hillary's platform position on issues is almost identical to both Obama's and Edwards. The weakest candidate out of the entire cadre of both republicans and democrats on issues and experience is in fact Obama.
I'm tickled that America will have a chance to have black man be president....whoopie. I'd be more excited if some of you idiots would read the issues instead of voting for personality. And while your at it, you might pick someone who can fight against the republicans AND WIN !!
Mark my words, the dems are going to shoot themselves in the foot again for another 8 long long republican war torn years.
And I want you to remember Pippens' words when you do.
People keep confusing winning the nomination and wining the office. They seem to forget that there is no real prize there. Yes it is possible that Obama could win the nomination. Democrats who are not black tend to be very tolerant of our differences. As I like to say, "Not all Republican are racist but all the racist vote Republican."
I really don't find the tears or the laugh to be genuine. Calculating, played for a sympathy vote or hormonal I don't think V. Putin till be impressed.
I don't recall Bhutto or Thacher resorting to tears.
If you don't think the "tearing up" is just as calculated an action as anything else Sen Clinton has done...you're smoking!
Please! It's all "for the children" Whine: "Some are ready...some are not!"
TAMMY FAYE BAKER never gave this good a performance!
I heard Hillary on the radio, and I have to admit that she had me going for a few seconds. Then, her voice still cracking, she launched into her stump speech and I realized how contrived the moment was. It was the hammiest display of bathos since Ollie North.
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Posted January 7, 2008 | 06:45 PM (EST)