I ran across this article today and found some interesting stuff in it. I've been kind of concerned with the "feminist" reaction to Hillary lately; I've seen a lot of supposed "feminists" claiming they'll vote for McCain instead of Obama, or not vote at all, and this seems so absolutely counterproductive to the whole movement that I've been having to rethink things. I'm a guy, but Paglia touches on that and other things. I don't agree with all she says, but I'll get into that as we go.
Bulletin to all nations: help! Tornadoes, typhoons and earthquakes batter the globe, while the U.S. is teetering into recession and paralyzed by a stupid war it can neither win nor quit. But somehow we are locked at the hip to Hillary Clinton, who won't stop her manic tarantella until her party whirls into ruins, like the run-amuck carousel in Alfred Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train."
I know it's not always popular here, but I don't much give a fuck about being popular if I can't be truthful, so... I do have my doubts that Hillary is trying to ruin the party. I don't buy into "supervillain" stuff much in real life. I do think that she's damaging it, but I'm not sure that it's a calculated move. I think her campaign and some of the choices she made (coughMarkPenncough coughlettingBillrunloosecoughwheeeze!) has prove that a Dr. Doom she ain't... I don't think things are nearly as calculated as our sometimes-Word-Wrestling-Federation-like approach to politics might have us believe.
So, I don't know that she's trying to destroy things... but that damage is being done is pretty undeniable at this point, when her protracted campaign has nearly half of her supporters claiming they'll vote for McCain.
There is something deeply wrong with this false-hope, hail-Mary campaign when it's turned people I've long considered reasonable, and who started out supporting Obama and not even wanting Hillary to run because they knew she'd never be electable in the general to now hating Obama so much they're not sure they can stand to vote for him. That kind of unreasonableness has been generated by this nonstop, never-give-up-even-after-it's-over, false-hope-offering campaign of Hillary's. And I think it's been a very cruel thing she's been doing... not to Obama as much as to her own backers. Torturing people with a scant possibility, and making them believe they've been "robbed" somehow when they haven't (what Paglia refers to as "showboating solipsism"), is cruel. And it's dishonest.
But at this point, even with strong wins in Appalachia, Hillary has no true rationale for her candidacy, other than her inflamed gender and her putative Washington "experience" -- which has yet to produce a tangible legislative achievement. Her persistence is now keyed to her hope (chillingly close to a curse) that her rival will make a major gaffe or be besmirched by some unknown past scandal. And her message maliciously undermines the presumptive nominee by targeting his presumed weakness in the general election. But the gifted Obama is just getting started on the national stage, while his opponent, John McCain, is a clumsy, fusty, narcissistic waffler whose party is in disarray and revolt against him.
Can't argue with that much.
I'm puzzled by the optimism of so many commentators and Democratic functionaries who are prophesying Hillary's graceful withdrawal by mid-June. Is there anything in the Clintons' tawdry history to support such a thesis? Why wouldn't they play smiley-face rope-a-dope now and smash-mouth alley-and-ambush fisticuffs right to the bitter end -- meaning the convention in August? It's now or never for Ms. Hill. Even if Obama loses this fall, there's no guarantee whatever that she would win the Democratic nomination in 2012. That hoss will have been around the rodeo way too many times. The infusion of fresh new blood into the party -- especially women governors -- has already started. Who will want to resurrect all those 1990s mummies?
I know there's speculation that Hillary is trying to set herself up for a run in 2012 on the hopes that she can cause Obama to fail. Sometimes I can believe that, even though it does head into "super-villain" turf. But, of all things that Hillary is and may be, I don't think she's stupid. It would surprise me if she really thought she could get away with spoiling our chances for the White House in 2008 and would then be welcomed back in 2012, "I-told-you-so" factor or not.
This draws on another thing that Hillary supporters would do well to keep in mind: if Obama loses because Hillary's supporters either voted for McCain or stayed home on election day, they're going to justify all the things Hillary's critics have said about her divisiveness... and that will haunt her for the rest of her political career. It won't just be Obama losing... it will be Hillary losing it for us, due to her inability to rally her supporters to vote Democratic. Not voting for Obama just because you prefer Hillary is stupid on a hundred different levels... but that's definitely one of the biggies. Costing the Dems the White House on her behalf will only make her more of a pariah.
Republican operatives have been salivating for Hillary to be the nominee. Her vainglorious claim to have been fully "vetted" is ludicrous. She and her husband left a mountain of manure in Little Rock and Washington that hasn't even begun to be thrown.
This is very true, and made obvious by the attempts from Republicans to make Hillary the nominee. Her non-electablility due to unhinged Republican hatred of her and their long-standing desire to defeat a Clinton (which would translate to major GOP voter turnout, as well as help McCain in fundraising) was the main reason I didn't support her candidacy. The campaign she's run has given me many other reasons since then, but that one still stands.
The mainstream media, despite its tilt toward Obama, has been amazingly protective of the Clintons during this campaign. Where were the chronologies of the voluminous Clinton scandals that voters (especially young ones) needed to evaluate Hillary's professional judgment and character? That the conservative Washington Times has now begun to make document drops about Hillary's stonewalling and duplicity (such as over the Rose Law Firm billing records) suggests that Republicans have concluded her candidacy is kaput.
I have heard Hillary supporters despise Obama because they think the media has been tilted toward him... and I'm sorry, but I just don't see that, given all the relentless coverage of Wright, the "Obama/Osama" smears that repeatedly show up, the kindness toward Hillary's doomed campaign, etc. I know perceptions can be guided by what we wish to see, so I'm not blaming them for seeing things the way they do... but, I don't agree with the validity of what they're seeing at all.
Surely, given Hillary's claim of expertise on the basis of her service as first lady, every major or ambiguous episode in her husband's two presidencies should have been systematically reexamined by the media. I for one have renewed questions about the 1993 suicide of Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster, Hillary's former law partner and longtime friend, whose files were purged by Hillary's staff before they could be examined for evidence. One must always be skeptical about Web rumors, but my interest was piqued last year by claims that Foster was shattered by the role he had played three months earlier in the outrageous order for federal agents to attack David Koresh's ranch at Waco, Texas, producing a conflagration that led to 76 deaths, including 21 children. Why has the Waco fiasco been forgotten? It triggered the worst case of domestic terrorism in U.S. history, the 1995 revenge bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
Here, I think Paglia goes off the rails, bringing up Vince Foster or trying to make Bill Clinton culpable for what Timothy McVeigh did. I disagree strongly with that stuff. But, it is true that she's only gotten credit for things she did as first lady, without those things getting much real examination. Her failed health care plan actually set us back in that regard, and that would be valid criticism, rather than unhinged "Vince Foster" theories.
Meanwhile, Hillary's flying of the feminist flag has become much more ostentatious as her campaign wanes. Sexism will inevitably be the lurid postmortem apologia for why she failed to break the ultimate glass ceiling. Never mind her faults, limitations and dizzy-making multiple personality disorder as a candidate -- or her depressingly unfeminist professional attachment to an alpha male who may be the real reason she won the votes of many working-class white men. I repeatedly heard sound-bite interviews with rural male Pennsylvanians who said they were voting for Hillary either because Bill Clinton would actually be running her White House or because Bill had produced the prosperity of the '90s (a highly questionable assertion) and thus can cure our ailing economy.
Hillary has certainly given a blast of artificial resuscitation to male-bashing paleo-feminism, which is back with a vengeance. The blogosphere is awash with accusations of "traitor" against women who have the temerity to vote for Obama. Gloria Steinem's anointed heir, Susan Faludi, weighed in with a recent New York Times op-ed about Hillary bizarrely arguing that a sports referee or umpire is "coded feminine" (huh?) and parallels the vintage American feminist as "prissy hall monitor" and "purse-lipped killjoy" -- a stereotype that Hillary the pugilist has broken. (Oh, really? When has Faludi ever endorsed pugilistic feminism before?)
This does bear some examination. I do think that Hillary's campaign is going to be a setback to feminism. Given the reaction of many feminists to her candidacy, their swearing to vote for McCain rather than Obama (when Hillary and Obama have about 95% the same approach to policy), is going to make the party hesitant to consider another female nominee for quite some time. People are skittish about even floating an idea out there if a large demographic can't handle the possibility of them losing.
And while there are definitely many valid claims of sexism against Hillary, I don't think a lot of those outcries have been fair. Much of the ugly sexism (such as the "Hillary Nutcracker" or the "C.U.N.T." tee-shirts) have been Republican products... yet the (understandable) rage they inspire too often gets thrown over Obama and his supporters as well... when we weren't guilty. I know I've gotten called "sexist" by so many Hillary supporters, for no other reason than I support Obama instead, that I'm going to be gun-shy about backing feminist causes for a while. It's hard to get motivated when your rewards for good behavior are the same as your punishment for bad behavior. Too large a brush has been used, too freely, and I'm afraid that will be a setback for feminists.
And that's especially sad when much of the resistance to Hillary is because she's a Clinton... not because she's a woman.
Another point: Most of the media fell hook, line and sinker for the "Iron my shirt!" stunt at a Hillary campaign event in January in New Hampshire, where two scruffy male hecklers were clearly in collusion with her staff. (The signs -- including one suspiciously permitted on the stage itself -- were carefully positioned and lit, and Hillary had a pat prepared line to draw camera attention to them.) Those dorky guys, at least one with a link to a radio station, are far too young to have the slightest knowledge of an era when women ironed men's shirts -- or when shirts needed ironing at all! Businessmen's shirts go to the cleaners nowadays, and everyone else's gear is just tossed into the dryer. That hoax was designed to reawaken the atavistic resentments of older women voters -- and it worked.
I'm not sure of Paglia's idea that the "iron my shirt" jerks were Clinton plants... that's a pretty strong claim to make. But, I'll admit, it does make me think. In any case, I've seen a lot of anger directed towards Obama over that... and I don't think there's any evidence whatsoever that Obama or any of supporters would pull a stunt like that. I think those guys were amazingly fucking ignorant, whoever they were.
Anyway, there's more stuff if you read the whole article... that's just some of my take on it.