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Tear Heard 'Round the World
"Look at me, I'm as misty as"...well, anyway it seems this moment has turned the tear into a Rorschach test for just about every person imaginable!
How fascinating to watch the reactions and unending analysis over what essentially was a slight show of emotion and vulnerability: Was it real? Was it fake? Was it planned?
What was it?! What does it say about us -- this fetishistic fascination with a loved and hated woman? Oh, the humanity. If it's weak to show real emotion and strong to show no emotion then maybe a robot should run for president (not counting Romney who, by the way, had public bouts of tearing up and wasn't called out for it).
If this is what sways elections then policy positions, experience, intelligence, a grasp of the issues and a vision for America are absolutely meaningless in this context.
Is he or she nice? Who would you have a barbecue with? Who would you date? Who could be left alone with your children? How real are their hunting skills? How does their spouse treat them? What do their kids look and act like? Who famous people are endorsing them, and of course what the candidate looks like is very important. Wow!
Are we still in high school or what? How can we as a nation be taken seriously if we treat our leaders as celebrities and not leaders. Not to mention the breathless frothing at the mouth of certain cable news personalities with their adolescent glee at every permutation in this campaign.
If ever there was a need to properly present the candidates and maturely educate ourselves and other voters, maybe there is some hope. But right now we are all caught up in things that have nothing to do with the real qualifications to run for office.
Let's just get it over with and have a swimsuit competition and a talent competition and very, very simple questions for our contestants. I mean candidates!
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We're not still in High School. Sadly, we're still in Junior High School.
Richard
What a sad commentary. In your blogs for the New Year and “Only?????” you decried the inhumanity of our society and our government in particular. I think that the thrill over a tear is symptomatic of our longing for people to be real.
How many times has a blogger told you that they would vote for you for president? I submit that is based as much on your willingness to be open and express your humanity through your opinions as it is on the opinions themselves. You are made even more attractive by your celebrity status. We who blog with you feel somehow that we “know” you because we have interacted with you and know your thoughts.
Humans long to know and be known and accepted. That is why you and I and others gravitate to dogs and animals. We are known by them and accepted unconditionally. Unfortunately, their love is limited. Only God’s is not but we Christians have misrepresented him and his love so often that even that is unbelievable to many if not most.
You are absolutely right. That tear doesn’t qualify one for leadership. But it did touch a cord in people who are wanting a leader with true feelings of compassion in contrast to our president who is able to put on an expression of sorrow or sadness and then turn around and make a decision that will only bring true, deep sorrow to thousands. And many don’t see beyond that superficial sorrow in front of the cameras.
We ache for leaders who are truly compassionate yet strong. So, for many, a tear is a good start. Unfortunately, there’s a whole lot more required.
Right on target, Richard, real or not the tears were meaningless compared to what she was saying at the time. The main stream media, hungry for ANY scandal that will attract viewers, completely overlooked the 'issues' being spoken about by her while shedding those tears.
Hillary's words during that moment were about how 'we've come so far, and she just didn't want to see us slide backwards'.
Here then is an 'issue' for you.
Does Hillary believe the last 7 years have been 'progress'?
For OUR country's standing in the world community?
For the Constitution?
For integrity in Government?
For the Rule of Law?
For WHAT...exactly?
Could she name progress in ONE area that equals the 600 year slide in 'habeas corpus'?
The substance of real issues, or lack thereof, was evident thoughout even this tearful interchange, but the main stream media CHOOSES to no longer comprehend those issues, being now a much more manipulated part of that 'corporate problem' in OUR politics. The msm prediction of a Hillary loss in New Hampshire was another great example of how they're ALL becoming 'talking heads' - just parroting the words of others.
One of my favorite topics, Richard, is the corporate msm role in what's become OUR country's apparently 'one-party' political system, thank you.
Yes, Belzer, there is a Schanta Klauss. AND we are still in high school, and that is a LIBERAL estimate. Personally: I would have said 6th grade maybe; 5th grade probably; 4th grade definitely. We are infantile, ignorant, ill-bred primates, barely able to walk erect --sorry: upright (that's not much better, is it?) -- muchless THINK. We are the lowest and most detrimental species ever to 'walk' the planet, and our 'leaders' reflect that. And let's keep in mind that Karl Rove, Rudy, Georgie, Scooter, DICK, and the rest, ALL knew this 7 years ago. And used it against us to seize power. Not to help. Not to repair. Not even to control damage. But to seize, and hold, power.
And, com'on, Belz, buddy, you know as well as I do education is NOT our strong suit (and by 'our,' I mean, of course, the good ole U.S.OF A.). Hell -- we're barely capable of it. Or are we?
You brought a very good point Belzer. Great article!
Major problem with elections today is that the average American doesn't want to work hard enough to figure out which candidates positions he or she agrees with (too much like doing homework for Civics class). So by and large we get the government we deserve. Large numbers of people don't even bother to vote and others seem to vote using either the eeny, meeny miny moe method or their gut instinct.
The news networks (and I call it news only out of habit) may as well treat political races as reality programming, no one is really complaining, are they?
Richard, the elections are just a show that keeps us distracted while the real bosses/magicians perform their sleight-of-hand. And you know this, Belzer.
Ah Richard,
You have been like a laser beam of late.
Of course it is a "Beauty Contest", with an extremely distorted definition of what constitutes "Beauty". It has been for most of our (Mine and yours Richard) lives. In 1960 John F. Kennedy won the office, in large part, because he "looked" a hell of a lot more "Presidential" than Richard M. Nixon. It didn't hurt as much back then because he was ALSO eminently qualified to be the President, but that doesn't change the reality that it was his "looks" that got him a huge number of votes. Welcome to "T.V. Politics". Then we had "Fatherly L.B.J.", gave Dick another shot when the Democratic Ticket lost another Kennedy (and it became evident that the "powers that be" were absolutely NOT going to let a Democratic Candidate win), got handed a Ford to replace the ugly Edsel when the Media decided T.D. wasn't just ugly on the surface, but all the way through, and then we were taken by the "down home" Peanut farmer (who also happened to be the most qualified, but that isn't why he won).
What happened next, of course, was the final culmination of just how powerful the "image" manipulation could be. "Father Ron" (played by a "B Movie" classic leading man), a "family values" Patriot, defeated one of the most devout, honest, knowledgeable and dedicated (to WE THE PEOPLES interests) Presidents we had seen in over two decades, by selling Americans some "pie in the sky" homilies, and by having some of the best "makeup and special effects" people in the business.
Since then, it's been an ongoing sham, and with the "dumbing down" process working to FULL EFFECT, it's not likely to end any time soon.
Bring on the bathing suits, because "qualifications" are only important to the "also rans".
Richard,
It isn't so much the filures of the candidates (although, as a group they aren't all that inspiring) but the failures of the society. We are a shallow, sensation-seeking bunch of numbskulls, and we tend to elect to high office exactly the kind of reptiles we deserve.
The reality is that if one of the male candidates teared up the way Clinton did, they would be out of the race. And that is indeed a sad commentary on our society. Not about the acceptability of emotion, but the double standard. She is somehow more human because she cried, but a man would be considered weak. And if I hear one more sixty something feminist talk about a "click moment," I am seriously going to vote Republican. Well not really, but I'll think about it.
Belz, I agree 100% with what you're saying, however I really don't want to see Obama in a sequined G-string trying to twirl a baton to "God Bless America." Nor do I want to see Clinton balancing plates on sticks while reciting the alphabet backwards. (Repugs, don't feel left out -- you have your own circus acts running for president.)
What I'd like to see is the media giving us some real background on *all* the candidates, rather than leaving us to sift through the endless rhetoric, theatrics and inevitable name-calling, er, labels that are thrown around so freely every election year.
Is asking for an intelligent, caring, feeling, human being to preside over this country too much to hope for? Or, *would* we be better off with a robot? Pondering the question is almost enough to make me shed a few tears. Uh, would that make me 'human' or just 'weak'?
You can't be an actor without producing the goods, why should we believe that the politician does not have a standard of competance as well? The problem is that the American people who are hiring this CEO are, as you point out so well, incompetant at the job. Maybe this long election period and the constant drone of the pundits and tweety birds will get through to some and raise that level of competance in the population in spite of themselves. As for HC? From where I sit watching cable and regular news and reading the liberal papers like Huffington and the NYTimes, it seems the country is afraid HC is trailer trash and not up to the level of a John Kennedy or his popularity at the time of his death. You remember, he was so popular that the children cheered in Dallas as he died and nubile starlets swam nude in the Whitehouse Pool. In other words it seems like old fashioned sexism and economic elitism.
REH
How is it the DLC rules the Democratic Party?
Hillary, Obama, and John Edwards may look different but behind the curtain are the same players.
The hilarious part was when Hillary Clinton explained that she's "always so other-directed." So when someone asked about her, she became emotional. See, the Clintons are just so damned giving all the time that they never think of themselves. They simply can't!
Tis is exactly what I think, so, I thank you for writing this article and expressing it so well.
Thanks,
Lisette
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