A Challenge to Hillary Bashers: Tell Me Exactly Why You Hate Hillary?
The occasion was a symposium on the presidential candidates held by the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable which sponsors a weekly public policy discussion series in Los Angeles. Midway through a heated discussion over the relative merits of Democratic presidential contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, a member of the audience let loose with an impassioned I-can't-stand-Hillary blast and punctuated it with the quip, I'd vote for anybody but her. I asked him a simple question: Why do you hate Hillary?
He sat with his mouth wide open and a perplexed glaze on his face, no sound issued from him. His mute response was no surprise. My question to him is the same question to the legions that slam Hillary: tell me specifically what terrible thing she's done that stirs such froth around your mouth. Skip the personal attacks, vitriol, innuendos, slurs, and don't repeat hearsay, gossip, or what you heard someone say about Clinton, and that includes Bill. Give me one tangible thing that she has done to piss you off so much that you are proud to be a charter member of the anybody-but-Hillary club. Name one tangible thing?
I asked the man in audience to tell me one thing that she's done politically or even personally that ticked him off, so that without batting an eye he'd say that the thought of her winning sends him into a paroxysm of rage. The question continued to dangle for a long and pregnant moment with no response.
He, of course, is no different than the swarm of other Hillary-bashers. The visceral dislike, even loathing of her, is so deep and broad that it welds together a strange mesh of the usual suspect Hillary haters from the Christian fundamentalists, ultra-right Republicans and conservative talking heads, through a bevy of her former Hollywood pals and Bill Clinton campaign bankrollers, all the way to self-styled progressives and ultra radicals. They have absolutely nothing in common other than the ecstasy they get from pounding Hillary for her alleged political and personal sins.
But what are they? And what did she do that has earned her the label of everything from the devil incarnate (the late Jerry Falwell) on the right to branding her a shill for fat cat lobbyists and corporations on the left. That's just cheap shot name calling, trashing, and vilification from the rank and file. But the press has also gleefully jumped in on the Clinton beat down. It spins, twists, massages in reverse, and blows to smithereens any and every piece of nasty Clinton gossip or dig.
I asked the Hillary hater a third time to name one specific thing that she's done to earn his obsessive enmity. The silent Hillary denouncer after some fishing, fumbling and stalling, said that she cheer led Bush on the Iraq war when she voted to authorize it. OK. But so did her Democratic presidential rival John Edwards, and though Obama says that he wouldn't have voted for it if he had been in the Senate then. However, in two subsequent votes he backed spending measures that continued war funding. If the other top gun Democratic presidential contender Bill Richardson had been in the Senate he almost certainly would have backed war authorization.
In fact, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus was sharply divided over support of the original Iraq war resolution in 2002 that gave Bush authority to wage war. Edwards later apologized for backing the resolution. Obama joined with 13 other Democratic Senators to oppose the crucial big money Iraq war appropriations bill in May. One of the other thirteen senators was Clinton. She is no different than other Democrats that have cut and run from Bush's war. They all recanted when public opinion turned sour on the war and Bush and it suddenly became politically fashionable and popular to do so.
The Iraq war support certainly doesn't explain the vehemence of the Hillary targeting. Her centrist, cautious, and sometimes fuzzy stance on health care, education, taxes, and immigration are legitimate issues to dissect, debate, and criticize. But these are issues that all of the contenders can and should be held to the fire on. They are fair game for that. But intense political debate and disagreement on the crucial public policy issues in and of themselves is simply not enough to stoke visceral dislike of a candidate, let alone explain the intense hate for Hillary.
My challenge then to all Hillary bashers is the same as it was to the guy at the Urban Policy Roundtable in Los Angeles: tell me exactly why you hate her so much?
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Latino Challenge to Black America: Towards a Conversation between African-Americans and Hispanics (Middle Passage Press) hutchinsonreport@aol
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
I don't hate Hillary.
But, i am EXTREMELY ANTI-WAR, and i will not forgive her for supporting the Iraq war. It's not just that she voted for it, but that she vocally supported it- right up until she realized she wouldn't win the primary unless she flipped on it. She called Obama "naive and irresponsible" for saying he would meet with other world leaders for diplomacy and criticized Obama for saying he would never use nukes to target terrorists. (crazy talk)
Based on my strong anti-war, pro-diplomacy stance, i would not support her. And in addition to that, she has presented her healthcare plan in the most dishonest way- it's flabbergasting. She calls her plan "universal" so it sounds like Kucinich's single payer plan, but in reality she just wants to force the uninsured to buy insurance from for-profit insurance companies.
Hillary keeps using the phrase "individual mandate" without making it clear to those who may not understand, that she would impose a LAW to make people buy private insurance THEMSELVES. Hillary remains vague on how she would enforce her mandate. At least Edwards is willing to admit peoples' wages would be garnished, or the IRS would go after you.
I was uninsured for 10 years, and i know from experience that people aren't uninsured because they want to be, but because they can't afford the high premiums. Hillary trying to force me to buy insurance won't put money in my bank account.
Hillary's campaign has twisted the truth regarding her own campaign, and has twisted the words and policy of her opponents. Her campaign managers are the most aggressive, dishonest, nasty, say anything, bullies i've ever seen.
Her arrogance and air of self-entitlement is annoying, and so is her flagrant pandering to EVERY interest group.
It's also annoying that she has claimed her husband's success and presidency as her own and lied to everyone about her "experience" (she is NOT the most experienced, and has held less time in office than Obama).
Frankly, i don't know why any dem would support her.
I don't hate Senator Clinton!
I am uncomfortable accepting that she will do what she says she will get accomplished. Further, I believe Senator Clinton is a strong lightning rod for Republicans who do, in fact "hate" her, and I don't think she can get elected because of that simple fact.
If Senator Clinton did get elected there would be so much fighting in Congress that nothing would get done--sorta like with GWB running the Whitehouse now.
I do believe that OBAMA does not have that baggage and is on the right track, so much so, that Republicans and those who refuse to state their affiliation, are getting on board the OBAMA EXPRESS.
One last thing, to sorta borrow from the late Senator Benson, "Senator Clinton, you are no Bill Clinton!"
6. She is the kind of woman, and we all know some, who will step on you to get where she wants to be. She claims to understand the plight of the working class woman, though forgets to leave a tip for a waitress.
7. She says that she represents feminism, but she has achieved her place in this world because of her husband's position and his ability to call in favors in the political community.
8. She failed to reform healthcare in 1994 because she went behind closed doors, refused any degree of compromise, and was derailed by the very healthcare
9. She is misrepresenting her healthcare plan, saying it will cover everyone, when we know that mandates do not work to cover everyone. She won't tell us what the penalty will be for non-participation, and the insurance industry stands to profit from her mandates.
10. She hired Mark Penn and Howard Wolfson to run her campaign. They represent everything that is wrong with American politics today. They are manipulative and they insult the intelligence of the average American voter.
Thank you for asking, Earl. I'll be happy to share my thoughts with you.
1. She voted for a war that has killed 4,000 and injured 10's of thousands. She did not read the intelligence made available to her prior to her vote, and she has yet to apologize or accept responsibility for this vote.
2. She voted against restricting GWB's power to execute the war.
3. She voted for the Lieberman-Kyl Ammendment, giving GWB the ammunition necessary to go before the world and make declarations about WWIII. The next day, oil prices increased by $30 a barrel.
4. She uses her gender as both a sword and a shield. She encourages women to vote for her to make up for all injustices against women, and then when she is called out on her inability to answer a question, she sends her surrogates out into the world to say that she is being "picked on" because she is a woman.
5. She denounced "attack politics" while ahead in the polls and then immediately threw out this belief when it became clear that she would lose Iowa.
Part 2, to continue:
Also, it bothers me that he criticizes Hillary for the Iran ammendment vote. At least she turned up to vote. If it was so important to Obama, why didn't he himself cast a vote? He also failed to vote on the Senate's condemnation of MoveOn.org. Hillary had the guts to show up and vote against it. (Also on the Iran vote, it seems there was another anti-Iran vote earlier this year which Obama did turn up for and he voted yes!)
I wonder how many of the Obama groupies and progressive Hillary bashers know these details.
As for me, I was leaning to Edwards until the debates started. When he started calling, or at least strongly implying, that Hillary was corrupt, it turned me right off. He would have done better to positively promote his own positions in the debates, and confine his attacts on corruption to the system itself (of which he is a part), not Hillary.
Anyway, since Edwards went too negative and Obama is not progressive enough, I've decided Hillary is in fact "my girl". Go get 'em, Hillary!!
Thank you for this excellent question.
I think these Hillary haters on the Left are actually playing into the Republican playbook(in Hillary's own words). The masterminds of the right wing crowd started this whisper campaign (actually has grown far beyond a whisper now), and one of the whispers was "Beware. You can't trust her." This one really bugs me. What has she ever done to betray our trust. GWB has betrayed our trust up the wazoo, and somehow that mistrust has been re-directed to Hillary Clinton. Go figure. Stop blaming her for Bush's war. The resolution she voted for required of the president that he "work with the U.N. to resolve the Iraq problem." When the U.N. said they found no evidence of WMD and needed more time, Bush told the U.N. to get lost and started his war. Bush broke his agreement with our Congress. He didn't even abide by the resolution he signed. So please stop blaming Hillary and other senators who voted for that resolution specifically so the president would work with the U.N.
Another argument from the Left is she is not more progressive. Excuse me! Her programs for both the Environment and Health Care are way stronger than the so-called progressive Obama. (She's said no to coal and nuclear; he says yes. She gives the option of choosing non-profit health care for those who want it; he does not.)
Also, I like it that Hillary committed completing one full term in the Senate before running for president; Obama not. What kind of commitment is that to the people of his own state who elected him? He does have an impressive resume, but it's mostly on the local level. He has very little experience on the national and international levels. He's young and it would have been better for him long-term to have fully committed his whole first term to the people of Illinois.
I was there! Thank you Mr. Hutchinson for inadvertently helping the Barack Obama campaign by inspiring this amazing collection of reasons NOT to vote for Hillary Clinton (who knew?).
My memory of the encounter differs slightly from Mr. Hutchinson's. The subject of the meeting was advertised as "Will Oprah help Obama?" Then it became about supposed "Hillary-h
I was the person to whom he addressed the question the third time, but not the first two times, and I did mention the Iraq war.
The first two times he addressed the question to the self-identified Republican who originally made the anti-Hillary statements. I don't actually hate Hillary, and, up until then, I had said nothing about her.
Later, privately, he asked me the same question, as he notes, being that I'd publicly declared my support for Obama. I said that while I don't hate her, among other things, I wasn't particularly impressed by her vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq. He then tried to say that Barack Obama was in favor of the war also even though everyone knows he opposed it from the start, when 70% of the American people supported it.
What's more immoral, voting to invade in the first place and then looking for the exit ASAP when the going gets tough, or risking your entire political career to oppose it from the start, and then failing to march in perfect lockstep with the crowd of former war supporters now trying to save their political careers.
It's might easy to be against the war in Iraq now. Even Bush claims to want to get out. But even the most lefty liberal would admit that we if a genuine genocide broke out in our wake we would have to go back in.
Of course, he didn't report about any of that in his column, I'm sure because his thoughts were already deep into the implications of his supposed "gotcha" moment against Hillary-haters.
Earl, let's start with the candidate most accepting of OUR country's legalized form of bribery, that being lobbyists' campaign donations, and then move on the her stated support for institutionalizing ancient religious bigotry with the Defense of Marriage Act, preventing same-sex marriage. She champions NAFTA - not unions, and would change OUR Constitution to permit homophobic intolerance because of her religion.
Or, let's start over with her stated position that pre-emptive war is never 'off-the-table', and then move on the fact that she STILL does NOT think her vote to authorize a criminal invasion and occupation of Iraq for oil a mistake. Pre-emptive war was NEVER the America I was brought up to believe in and 35% to 40% of citizens were against invading Iraq even before the war. I myself was ALWAYS against it, openly said to conservative audiences that history would not forgive us, and ALWAYS believed it was REALLY about the oil. Now, why would I support someone as OUR best possible President that's apparently not as intelligent as the 35% to 40% that KNEW IT WAS WRONG. The megalomaniac we have now is a great example that 'the type' believes they are never wrong. SHOULD we want another?
And, let's not even mention she has gone on the record in the past as being against a woman's 'right to choose', or that she is without a doubt, hands-down, the MOST republicant of ALL the Democratic candidates.
Now, why is it Hillary's 'shrillers' NEVER have answers to these ISSUES, just evasions and prevarications, and repeating the question, "Why do you hate Hillary?", but yet never seeming to HEAR the answer?
I really have problems with how this column was formulated -- addressed to "Hillary-bashers". All those who criticize Hillary Clinton, whether from the rabid right, from the left-of-mainstream Democrat, and the mainstream Democratic liberals were all lumped together as if all had the same sentiments (hate) and essentially the same motives.
I see TWO questions -- how do I feel about HRC and why do the many who do hate her feel that way. I can say as a leftist that she does not stand out among Democrats as a single target. Most of my fellow leftists would similarly condemn ALL the mainstream Democrats as 'corporate', and only SOME would even consider supporting Kucinich (most would not support ANY Democrat for president).
On the other hand, rightwing radio talk shows have focused on HRC as a target for hate now for 15 years. One might also look at the example of Yoko Ono, and possibly some other figures; these figures are attacked, among other reasons, as a way to get a foot in the door against their husbands (John Lennon and Bill Clinton, respectively). That explains a lot of the huge RW focus on her.
Much of this has an impact on liberals also. Her image is tarred by scandal, association with a failed health plan, her relationship to Monicagate, and her being closely associated with the CLintonian idea of "triangulation". A classic example, cited in an earlier post, is her proposing a flag-burning law? What could possibly be the purpose of that besides crass opportunism?
I myself feel that however unfair many of these attacks are, they make her much harder to elect than Obama (who generates a very strong sense of leadership, unlike Edwards). If HRC gets the nomination, I'll have no choice but to support her against one of the awful coterie of Repugs. In the meantime, I'm pulling for Obama.
I don't 'hate' Hillary, I just don't like her and won't say why here because then she'll fix it and I don't want her to do that either.
Mr. Hutchinson,
I am some what amused by your headline..
I know Hillary supporters have been die hard fans...She certainly deserves respect.
I know her supporters have donated to her campaign in large amounts.
BUT. The way I see it, is that the conscious decision Hillary Clinton has made to continue war on and endless basis and her following these Republicans to the erosion of our civil rights, leads me to believe she has placed her eggs in one basket. This basket is not where the majority of Americans place their eggs.
I do not understand why you feel the American people should follow THIS leader off a cliff, solely because she has based her whole entire political career following a doomed foreign policy.
I understand the fact that leaders have to go down with the ship. This is what they DO!
BUT!
Why do you feel the American people should feel compelled to go down with this ship, as well?
Just because you feel you have hung your hat on these same failed policies, do not question others why they decide not to.
Americans can admit mistakes and move on and change their views of things.
POLITICIANS CAN NOT.
People bash Hillary because of this voting record and NOTHING else.
MILITARY COMMISSIONS. RP NO.....HC YES
PATRIOT ACT 1.. RP NO ..........
PATRIOT ACT 2. .RP NO ..........
IRAQ WAR.. .RP NO........
WAR WITH IRAN. .RP NO........
WIRETAPPING. .RP NO........
INCREASED AID TO ISRAEL. RP NO.....HC. YES
EMINENT DOMAIN..RP
NAFTA.....
CAFTA.....
IMF.......
WORLD BANK....RP
WTO.......
NORTH AMERICAN UNION..RP.
NATIONAL ID....RP..
IMMIGRANT DRIVER LICENSE..R
CONGR. PAYRAISE..
This is good. Mr. Hutchinson has done a fine job with this post. As I read over the answers to his question, I read some truely uninformed posts, and many that put a definite point of view on Senator Clinton's personality, behavior, and actions. I see a strong sense of idealism.
Let's talk about health care. Does anybody really believe that Kucinich, as President, could pass a single payer healthcare program? Is it possible that Senator Clinton, having learned from her past efforts, has learned what will work to get to universal health care? That maybe it will take a balance of public, private, left, and right involved to actually get an effective program passed.
Yes, some want a canditate who promises change; who will proclaim a firm, resolved position; unwavering. Give me someone who wants to hear what everyone has to say, looks for a soultion that weights the social and economic consequences, and attempts to implement a workable solution.
Some call it triangulation, I call it good governence.
For the same reason I hate Notre Dame football. But I can't explain what that is either.
Actually, I don't hate her at all, I just want a different Dem as president. I'm Clinton fatigued. I thought we had put all the Clinton scandals behind us when we elected Gore, then that got snatched from us, and the Clintons are back like a stubborn rash. I don't want 8 more years of a white house with a cloud of Flowers, Jones, & Lewisnki hanging over it, and why do I think previously unknown trysts and shenannigans might rain down on the White House?
They had their day. I want a different 1st family (spelled OBAMA)!
I had serious issues with Bill Clinton. It seemed that he was always too ready to reward his enemies and punish his friends.
And I certainly don't like Hillary's positions on Iraq, Iran or Palestine.
But I have to say . . . I am afraid all this rabid Hillary bashing is going to make me like her. Much as all the idiotic nonsense about Bill forced me to support him.
And I really don't want to do that.
But I will if she is the nominee.
The right-wing wimps need an icon whom they believe will keep them safe from outsiders. Only tough guys (or people who speak like a tough guy) can fill that role. Obviously, that rules out any woman.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
