Tears for Fears

Why are we so surprised that Hilary Clinton has a heart? She answered a question, at the end of a juggernaut of campaigning with a simple unplanned moment of truth. Her obvious love for our country, of the true sacrifice a public servant makes and the one overlooked and biggest reason one would want to hear from a candidate, that they care, that they are grateful for the life they have been given by others who served before them.

It was a real moment, tears or not, and it seemed to cut through the bullshit that accompanies most answers on the campaign trail.

Michael Moore's analysis of her vote for the war was that as a woman she has to "be as 'tough' as a man, she has to be willing to push The Button if necessary, and give the generals whatever they wanted."

Why is a woman's natural emotionality, as well as incredible sense and judgment and compassion and strength, a liability. None of you would be here were it not for a woman's strength -- you men try giving birth, something Mrs. Clinton has done. Most of all, don't we really want a president with a heart, a big, open, warm, loving, mother's heart to lead us out of this bleak despair, into the light of hope and peace.

Please don't just classify her tears as a hoax or a "woman's moment". Classify it as a human contact made in a time of great need and I for one am proud of her commitment to service and duty and honor and yes, tears, for we have so much to be sad about and so much to hope for in the future.

Comments

[nohobear]

"Most of all, don't we really want a president with a heart, a big, open, warm, loving, mother's heart to lead us out of this bleak despair, into the light of hope and peace."

You're kidding right? Hillary? Makes a lovely Hallmark greeting card sentiment though.

With all due respect, I would have wanted Barbara Jordan, or Anne Richards, as president years ago. But our backward country wasn't ready. It's ready now, but sadly, Hillary is not the one. Her best way to serve her country would be as Senator. Now if Barbara Boxer were running, she'd have my vote in a heartbeat.

[cae]

Agree, Jamie Lee! Thank you!

[Impeachthechimp]

I wasn't expecting Arianna, Stephanie Miller or the rest of the left to openly support Hillary. Hey, we all have our favorites. But for the good of the party I at least expected them not to attack her. I was sort of expecting..."we have a great field...lots of strong candidates...they are all far better than anything the Republicans can offer...etc...

Instead we got nonstop hate for Hillary. You guys talk about taking the higher ground, but when push comes to shove I see very little between some of these Hillary haters and the right-wing nutjobs.

Zealots of a different kind is still a zealot.

[chappelforpres]

"Crying?...crying??? There's NO crying in Baseball"

Tom Hanks
League of Their Own

Voting for a candidate based on gender, race, faith, age, looks or emotion, would seem to resonate at the lower levels of consciousness.
Just look at where "fear" has driven us today.

[ranchobob]

Bravo! Thanks for saying that.
I felt the moment was genuine. The demonization of Seantor Clinton is appalling not only for its cruelty, but for its mindlesness as well.

[drricklippin]

Thanks Jamie Lee Curtis!

I agree! Also Hillary has some very human "GESTURES" like her smile,her laugh,her holding her hand over her heart.

These are NOT contrived in my opinion. These are her humanity!

Tell her, if you have a chance, to be herself.

Dr. Rick Lippin
http://medicalcrises.blogspot.com

[IowaMom]

Thank you Jamie. It takes a lot of guts to speak out for a candidate other than Obama (believe me...as a resident of a white, educated, upper middle class neighborhood in Iowa I know). I have seen all of the candidates in the Democratic race within the last 6 months. Hillary and Bill Richardson were the most authentic. She has devoted her life to the causes of women and children and anyone who is willing to question this fact has not read her resume. Period. I encourage them to look it up before they continue to rant that she is rode on Bill's coattails her whole life.

I do not believe that any of the other candidates will be a louder voice for the issues of women and children in this country. Obama continues to speak about building schools around the world (including in the Oprah Obamathon event I attended where he said something along the lines of, "Oprah isn't the only person who should have to build schools across the world"). How about devoting some dollars and energy to building/improving schools in our own country first and leave it to the private sector to build schools overseas? Hillary is a passionate advocate for education right her in the United States. Works for me.

[sureofit]

"don't we really want a president with a heart, a big, open, warm, loving, mother's heart to lead us out of this bleak despair, into the light of hope and peace."
Yea, BUTY how can we get that from a woman who sent thousands off to die in a war just because she wanted to be president. That is the only reason she voted for that war and I doubt that any day soon your earth momma will ever visit that dark place in her soul and see that.

[Impeachthechimp]

Well said Jamie. I am sick and tired of people piling on Hillary. Everything she does is twisted into some grand conspiracy by the Clinton haters. If she had come in second in NH it would have been a huge COLLAPSE. Strange, the same thing happens to Obama and I don't see articles about Obama's COLLAPSE. Why is that?

The facts are most Democrats in this country like Bill and Hillary Clinton. Most just don't have television and radio shows (or websites) to launch attacks from.

I'm waiting to see the next round of hate, because these people won't stop until they have stopped the Clinton campaign. What is wrong with these people?

[DasBoot]

Dear Jamie,

Oh dear. I don't know where to start and I will be brief since otherwise I will become too upset. I believe that you don't really grasp the fact that Hillary Clinton is first and foremost a politician. The fact that she has given birth has no bearing whatsoever on her abilities in that function.

You know what would have been tough in 2002? Voting AGAINST the war! Imagine how Hillary would be able to sell herself if she could say "look, I voted against the juggernaut of war. This shows how tough and independent-minded I am." She missed that boat, so now she has to send out her husband attacking the guy who made the right call when it counted.

Second, I cannot judge if her recent show (and as an actress you know a thing about shows) was genuine or not. But I do know that without taking a break she went right back to attacking Obama, saying that she is so involved because "some are wrong and some are right." I am sorry, but that is unacceptable, man or woman. I for myself feel she is manipulating me, and I don't like it a bit. Sorry.

[NABNYC]

Sorry, I don't buy it. You know what they call a person who only feels emotion about themselves? Narcissistic sociopath.

For heaven's sake, HRC is a woman who has enthusiastically supported a war of aggression against the people of Iraq, an international war crime for which she could be tried and convicted for crimes against the people of the world.

She has voted again and again to support the bombing, the killing, the unleashing of private mercenary squads who act without consequence or sanction in routinely murdering innocent civilians who happen to get in their way. She has voted again and again to give more money to Bush and Cheney for them to use to destroy homes, sanitation, roads, hospitals, schools, water supplies. It's all been blown up.

In the little town of Falujah, the U.S. forbade males from 14 to 70 from leaving the city, surrounded them (think WarSaw Ghetto and the Nazi assault), sent in tanks, troops, and killed every single living person that remained. Destroyed. It's called a deliberate and intentional assault on civilians and it is an international war crime.

I don't recall HRC getting weepy or teary-eyed about that.

No, HRC only has tears and compassion for herself. Poor me. She even made the statement that when people meet her in person they always tell her that she is so much prettier in person, and so much nicer. What a twisted world view for a national leader to be sitting around thinking about how pretty she is. Tell the people of Iraq how pretty she is.

Or, as I learned, "Pretty is as pretty does." And engaging in mass murder, wars of aggression, and attacks on civilians, is not pretty.

HRC brags that she got healthcare for 7,000 children in NH. She forgets to mention that those children's parents lost their jobs because of Hillary and Bill's trade policies.

Most people would prefer to have a good job, and pay for their own healthcare. Thanks for nothing Hillary.

[bluestatelib]

It looks like celebrity and other high-profile white women (e.g. Roseanne Barr, Jamie Lee Curtis, Gloria Steinem) are getting behind Clinton, and using blatant gender appeals to justify their support. Why isn't there any outrage directed at them from those HuffPo commenters who were so morally outraged at Oprah for her support of her home state's senator, Barack Obama?

To think that Gloria Steinem suggested in the NYTimes the day of the New Hampshire primary that black men had advantages over white women in American society. Wow. Here we have white women making blatant gender appeals for votes for Hillary, Hillary saying in a national debate, "I'm a woman, that would bring change to the White House" and constantly talking about her gender in the campaign; yet she gets away with it.

Barack, on the other hand, only mentions his race when he's responding to direct questions about race. Oprah makes a non-racial appeal for support of Barack, yet she's viciously attacked as a race-baiter in some quarters just because she's the same race as Obama. White women, like Jamie Lee Curtis, make BLATANT gender appeals in support of Clinton, yet it barely goes noted by HuffPo commenters. The hypocrisy and double standards are sickening.

[mojopo]

Jamie, thanks for this blog post. While I am a cautious cynic when it comes to politics, I didn't feel played when Hillary became choked up. I would even say that I have seen this Hillary before.

It was after Bill's first election, and I was living in NYC. Hillary was visiting the city, and I remember that she came out of a building near Grand Central around the same time people were leaving the office for the evening. Many, people stood by to get a peak of our new First Lady, which was remarkable because NY'ers are always on a hurried mission to get somewhere and not loiter. Anyway, I remember watching, and Hillary stopped to wave and banter with the crowd.

At one point, I watched her look up and around, and to the people on the street, and she looked like someone who was completely honored to be in her own shoes. She was choked up then, too.

I don't always agree with her, and I am not sure which Democrat I will support, but I do believe that Hillary is far more gracious and sincere than she is given credit for.

[vbond]

Jamie, this is a beautiful commentary, and I completely respect you if you are (as you seem to be) supporting Hillary.

I hope, though, that we will not let the ham-handed misogyny of much of the main stream press inappropriately universalize Hillary because she misted up this past week.

The sympathy that many - myself included - felt for her during the debate and at her moist-eyed roundtable was completely valid.

But what, in our actual experience of this hyper-prominent woman over thirty-five years of public life, reinforces your characterization of her as a "big, open, warm, loving, [mother, who can] lead us out of this bleak despair, into the light of hope and peace"?

This is what I mean by "universalization."

Either Hillary's responses revealed the "mother's heart" that has been kept impossibly carefully concealed for thirty-five years, or this marks a transformation in her personality, or it was a manipulative sham.

I am not at all convinced that it was a sham, but if it was, enough said.

If it was a revelation... well, I do not believe for a minute that it was a revelation, after thirty-five years filled with a vast array of completely reasonable and compelling reasons to publicly shed a tear.

If, however, it was neither, then we are witnessing - after thirty-five completely public years - an epic transformation of a public personality, in the middle of a campaign for the Presidency.

The instability of such a transformation would concern most of us, except for the fact that the transformation is toward that universally appealing "mother's heart."

The fact that she is the most prominent woman politician in our country should not blind us to the possibility that she may not in fact BE the woman that we want her to be... the kind of woman whom we would most value as the leader of our nation.

Let's read that again: "big, open, warm, loving, [mother, who can] lead us out of this bleak despair, into the light of hope and peace"?

Hillary?

Really?

[brabc1]

Thanks Jamie. All the piling on by the media and Edwards and Obama has made me really start to think. I was for Edwards, but have switch to Hillary. She is an older Baby Boomer like me and has been through all the years of fighting for women to be heard.

It's time and I am proud to cast my vote for her.

Maybe it's time to get out the rallying song: "I am woman, hear me roar, in numbers too BIG to IGNORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"