Laughter

It's good to know that when the national press corps was seized with a sudden desire to start talking about Hillary Clinton's laugh, it wasn't as if they were taking their cues from the RNC. Rather, Rick Hertzberg points out, they were literally taking their cues from the RNC:

The sound of Hillary’s laughter, accompanied by urgent analyses thereof, has since been echoing from the tar pits of the Internet to the lofty peaks of the major mainstream media. It began with surprising amiability, on none other than “Fox News Sunday,” just after that program’s contribution to the Ginsburg. Chatting with the interviewer, Chris Wallace, about the way Clinton had burst out laughing at the opening question (which was about why she has “a hyper-partisan view of politics”), Wallace’s colleague Brit Hume remarked that her laugh “is always disarming, always engaging, and always attractive.”

By midafternoon, the Republican National Committee had rushed out a corrective to Hume’s lapse into graciousness: an electronic “research briefing” titled “Hillary: No Laughing Matter.” It was studded with subheads like “When Asked Whether Her Plan Is a Step Toward Socialized Medicine, Hillary Giggles Uncontrollably” and festooned with video clips of the former First Lady engaged in giggle-related activities. From then on, the commentary alternated between judgments of the quality of the candidate’s laughter and assessments of its hidden meaning.

And so it began. Good work, national press corps!

Comments

On the tombstone of the Republic will be the epitaph "Killed By A Story Arc".

Posted by Davis X. Machina | October 8, 2007 1:04 PM

Is there any indication that these people actually see themselves as something other than adjuncts of partisan politics. We spend time shaming them when actually it appears that spreading the partisan word is what they're up to. They're proud of carrying Republican water. Icky as that may seem it's a job like fluffing or cleaning the sheets in a brothel.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | October 8, 2007 1:07 PM

It's nice to know we have the RNC around to correct Fox News when the latter is insufficiently biased.

Posted by Ron | October 8, 2007 1:16 PM

Good work, national press corps!

Man, those are some lazy motherfuckers.

max
['I'd research a story but that would take work.']

Posted by max | October 8, 2007 1:17 PM

The dastardly liberal media strikes again!

Wait ... what?

Posted by Woody Bombay | October 8, 2007 1:29 PM

Why Clinton do you have “a hyper-partisan view of politics”?

Such a dumb question... I'd laugh too.

Posted by Steven Neff | October 8, 2007 1:37 PM

of course, this is nothing new. The mainstream press literally took their cues directly from Republicans in the 2000 campaign.

see: The DailyHowler

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh120302.shtml

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh080202.shtml

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh080802.shtml

Posted by big man | October 8, 2007 1:59 PM

I don't disagree with the larger point -- the media all too often simply parrots information with no filter or countervailing evidence no matter how politically-motivated or simply inaccurate that information is.

However, I listened to the podcasts of all of Hillary's Sunday talk show performances and my immediate personal reaction to Hillary's laughing was that it was creepy and a bit programmed. It was as if her handlers said "every time an attack on you is made or referenced, laugh." For those that think she is too cold and calculating, it could have been offputting, which I think is a (minor) story.

That said, I thought that overall she did an extremely good job on the shows (and I say that as an Obama supporter that thinks that Hillary is avoiding way too many of the critical issues). To be fair, I think that most of the media coverage gave her pretty high marks for her performances as well.

Posted by Chunche | October 8, 2007 2:03 PM

Ehrenreich had the best bit on the front-runner's (sure thing?)laughter:

"...Hers is known as the “flawless” campaign, but no one in it seems to be able to turn off the endlessly triangulating tape in her head.

Lately she’s taken to emitting to sudden, inexplicable, bursts of deep laughter – known in the media as “the cackle.” Whether this is a deliberate “humanizing” touch or a glitch in the computer program no one knows. According to the New York Times, the “weirdest moment” came in response to a question from Bob Schieffer about Republican charges that her health plan would lead to “socialized medicine.” As the Times reports, “She giggled, giggled some more, could not seem to stop giggling –‘Sorry, Bob,’ she said – and finally unleashed the full Cackle.”

Maybe she has a better sense of humor than I’d imagined, because the thought that her plan to turn health care over to the private insurance companies might be “socialist” has me rolling on the floor too."
http://ehrenreich.blogs.com/barbaras_blog/

Posted by Peter K. | October 8, 2007 2:15 PM

one of the "journalists" who suddenly, out of the blue, thought that hilary's laugh merited deep-think attention was john dickerson at slate. i wrote him to ask why he was spending his time on idiot piffle.

he wrote back to say "do you really think it helps to insult people?"

i wrote back to say that his column on hillary's laugh was a total insult to thinking people everywhere even if he didn't use any nasty words.

and thus ended our dialogue....

Posted by howard | October 8, 2007 2:32 PM

I don't think the "Hillary Cackle" will hurt her any more than American liberals' propensity for calling Bush "Chimp". It's too beside the point.

A political smear has to be somewhat relevant to hurt, if it were true. If John Kerry really had faked his wounds to get Purple Hearts, for example, it would have said something about him (he didn't). Or if Gore really had said outright that he created the Internet, that would have been a bit loony (he didn't say that).

But mocking what somebody looks like, or how they sound, no.

Besides, an opening question at Fox News about why she has "a hyper-partisan view of politics" is ridiculous. What can you do other than laugh at it.

Posted by Bengt Larsson | October 8, 2007 2:35 PM

I actually think the Daily Show's piece might've given lots of folks the green light too.

Posted by jw | October 8, 2007 2:52 PM

I agree that the attention paid to the Clinton Cackle has been far too much. But, having seen her unveil it on Stephanapolous' show, I said to my wife, "Ugh, she needs to stop doing that." She looked phony, programmed, calculating and unlikeable, traits that should worry one about a Hillary Clinton presidency. In other words, it's a completely relevant story.

Now, if you're arguing that a candidate's personality should be a smaller issue in presidential politics, you won't get an argument from me. But I suggest you waste your energy on something else, because that element of politics won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

Posted by Ryan McC | October 8, 2007 2:55 PM

I disagree that she should "stop doing that." Changing with the winds is what looks calculated.

Posted by Bengt Larsson | October 8, 2007 3:53 PM

Bengt,
The reason why the laugh has roused a reaction is because it's fake. She clearly determined that her persona needed more likeability, more lightness in order to win over voters who view her negatively.
So, yes, if it were an authentic reaction, I'd agree that she should keep doing it and let voters deal with it. But that's not the case here. It's grating, but, worse, it's inauthentic. That's why she should stop it.

Posted by Ryan McC | October 8, 2007 4:00 PM

Before "The Cackle" I had been, at most, tepid towards Sen. Clinton's presidential bid. Too much corporatism, too much taint from her past Iraq positions, too much anti-Hillary hatred from the VRW conspiracy to overcome.

Then, when faced with the absurd and hostile questioning from FOX, the RNC's version of TASS, she refused to play into their narrative. She neither got defensive nor angry. Instead, she merely laughed in their collective faces at the stupid premise of the questions themselves.

The horrid whistling noise everyone heard on their TVs that Sunday morning was that despicable bully Chris Wallace's balls shriveling up as Hillary froze him with her laughter. There wasn't a thing in his playbook to counter her laughing in his face.

Can't say I came away from the encounter entirely smitten by Hillary, but I admired her moxie. Had fellow Democrats in the past laughed at FOX News, the Swiftboaters, et al, they might be in control of the country right now.

Therefore, I urge every Democrat, when confronted by the deeply unserious media, the faux outrage of the wingnut noise machine, and the Republican talking points to do as Hillary did. Roll your eyes, laugh in their face, and repeat the mantra: "It's about the war, stupid. It's about health care, stupid. It's about corruption, stupid. It's about incompetent government, stupid."

Lather, rinse, and repeat.

Posted by Rob_in_Hawaii | October 8, 2007 4:51 PM

The Daily Show is the only media reporting I ever personally saw of the cackle, and it was hilarious. She really needs to cut that out, because it is a little forced and creepy (or at least comes across that way).

Posted by Jimm | October 8, 2007 7:09 PM

I do like the idea of a chuckle as an initial response to a vacuous, gotcha or stupid question, and it's effective, but what Hillary is doing is not a chuckle.

Posted by Jimm | October 8, 2007 7:38 PM

The chance that Hillary will be the next President of the United States is well over 50%, as both the political betting markets and any informed observer of politics knows.

Republicans would really like to run against their characature of 1993's Hillary. But she is not going to play that game. She has completely retooled her image among those who don't get most of their information from the partisan right media, and way ahead in both the polls and in fundraising against all of the potential Republican candidates. She will never quite have her husband's touch, but she's learned a lot from him and is clearly a heck of a better candidate than Kerry and Gore.

I'd be pretty cheerful too if I know I was soon going to be elected president, probably by a bigger margin than any presidential election since 1996 if not 1984, and have a Congress led in both houses by my ideological allies (Pelosi and Rahm Emmanual; Reid, Schumer and Corzine).

Posted by Greg | October 8, 2007 11:40 PM

I'm late to this thread, but I think the real impetus for reportage on Hillary's laugh was Jon Stewart. Hate to spoil the Fox conspiracy party, but it happens to be true. BTW, I'm a junkie, watched 3 of the 5 talk shows that day (not Fox, never watch it), and noted immediately to my friends that Hillary was developing this odd and annoying tick of laughing, often in a forced way, at tough questions. I thought I might be crazy but then saw Stewart two nights later sending up the fake laugh. This is the kind of tic that should NOT matter, but often does, especially in the general election when the 2-person nature of the race causes ordinary voters, not just the dreaded MSM, to focus on things like "sighs" and other bad body language of candidates. The Al Gore sigh thing was not initally a big deal for the MSM but was part of water cooler conversation by regular folks.

Posted by RaymondA | October 9, 2007 8:44 AM

Well, I would like to withdraw my comments on Hillary's laugh. I had only listened to it a few times on Youtube. I shouldn't comment on what I don't know about.

Posted by Bengt Larsson | October 10, 2007 9:02 PM