Responding to the post below, Tony V comments: "So the only problem with this analysis, MY, is that HRC and her camp are among the worst practitioners of 'testosterone based foreign policy' in the Democratic Party." I don't think that's the problem with my analysis, that's the problem with Hillary Clinton's approach to foreign policy issues. At the same time, one of her great strengths in the primary is that precisely because she's a woman I think a lot of the dovish Democratic primary electorate doesn't really see the stances Clinton's adopted for what they are. It's ironic that the candidate in the race most committed to the politics of machismo is the woman, but most indications you get from the campaign is that they're committed to this political approach in part because she is a woman and so they think it's necessary to double-down on "toughness" to stay viable in a general election.
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Irony
04 Nov 2007 12:46 am
Comments (22)
Is it really unsurprising that Hillary has to overcompensate to prove that she's tough enough to be president?
One need only look as to the media's reaction to the recent gender card flap to understand the degree to which she is being held to a different standard than male candidates by male members of the MSM (see Digby's post on the subject for an explication).
"when you ask [Democrats] 'but would you hurt American interests to do something that looks tough,' they tend to say 'well, no.'"
That might be the perfect Rorschach test question/filter for voting behavior: Democrats think it's counterproductive to hurt national interests to *look* tough; Republicans think it's the defining feature of self-defense to invest whatever it takes to make *sure* that we look tough.
Mustn't show weakness in front of the Russians, Bar...
Rather than overcompensating because she's a woman, I think she is doing what she generally does, namely, trying to present to the public the kind of image she thinks they want in a president. In America, that image is one of standing up strongly for the right of America to decide how the rest of the world should act. The sad thing is, that probably is in fact what Americans want in their leader.
So if she can convince the public that she'll continue bullying the rest of the world, she'll probably win. As soon as she shows some weakness, her chances go down. This has little to do with gender; the same thing happened to McGovern and Dukasis.
I'm sure this is a function of daylight savings time, but my second comment showed up before the one from anonymous, which it was *supposed* to *follow*, since I refer to what s/he wrote, which requires either (1) knowing what it was, or (2) being telepathic.
Or, (3) taking advantage of a DST-related timing quirk to look quite prescient (and yeah, now this'll probably leapfrog a few comments, too...)
How much evidence is there that female _leaders_ wage fewer wars than male leaders? Let's see, Mrs. Thatcher, Mrs. Gandhi, Mrs. Meir ...
I think you could make the case that women leaders are less likely than men leaders to be conquer-the-world maniacs like Alexander, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, or Hitler, but those are awfully rare even among males. Otherwise, the historical record seems to show similar propensities for getting into wars.
Q. Who was the most effective American president of the 20th Century at staying out of wars?
A. Probably the man with the best war record, the Victor of D-Day, General Eisenhower.
Similarly, if I had to pick a current American politician I'd most trust not to get us into needless wars, I'd likely say it would be the man with nothing to prove in warrior department, Sen. Webb.
Exactly. The Republicans have really mastered this style of campaigning, and the Democrats are fools to think they can beat them at it.
You see it most in domestic policies, where they force the mainstream debate on issues to be about one thing (like, say "size of government") when actually there's very little party difference on that particular issue. They claim it is the fundamental issue & what separates the parties when they are caught admitting their actual domestic policies, which are pretty unpopular.
Likewise, this machismo. It's an attempt to change the subject from their objective failure in foreign policy. In 2007, we have OBL still on the loose and with more capacity than he had in 2001, we're mired down and grinding away our army while bleeding our treasury in Iraq, North Korea has nukes, Pakistan is heading for very bad times while still remaining a safe haven for Al Quaeda, our vital alliances are fraying (Turkey? anyone?), "democracy building" has become short for "we'll unleash an anarchic civil war," our national reputation is at an all-time low...by any sane standard, their achievements are zero and their failures have been spectacular.
But, the Republicans say, we're TORTURING people! Those pussy Democrats would never do that! We have Guantanamo, we have resolve, we won't take bombing Iran off the table! We'll do "whatever it takes." All you need is tough.
It's working because the Dems say stupid things like we're safer today than we were before 9/11, and they won't put forth an alternative strategy. Instead, they say "yes, all you need is tough and we have tough, too!" But they always lose that argument, because when you ask them "but would you hurt American interests to do something that looks tough," they tend to say "well, no."
Matt is being sexist by saying that being tough is playing the gender card. He is equating toughness and manliness. Playing the toughness card is not the same as playing the gender card.
I am a man and I'm not that tough, am I less of a man than some neanderthal who enjoys banging his head against a wall?
Hillary reminds me of short guys. They need to overcompensate for their perceived weakness by becoming obnoxious muscleheads. The last thing the US needs right now is another obnoxious musclehead in the White House. We can be outraged all we want (so unfair blah blah blah), but it doesn't change anything. She'll still be an obnoxious musclehead because enough of the electorate will jump all over any sign of "weakness" from a woman. Bush can get all teary-eyed and choke-up talking about his dog all he wants. Hillary does that once and she's finished. And she knows that. And thus her obsession with "toughness" and the size of her dick. Not a sound basis upon which to run a country or a foreign policy.
Steve Sailor's logic points to Wesley Clark even more than Webb.
The problem with HRC is that she's dragging out general-style policies for the liberal, Dem primary crowd. Put her up against a Rudy or Romney and she looks like a pacifist...
http://www.political-buzz.com/
Re: In 2007, we have OBL still on the loose and with more capacity than he had in 2001
While I agree with your criticism in the main, I don't think bin Laden ahs more capacity than he had in 2001. Then he had the resouirces of an entire state, albeit a weak one, at his disposal. Today's he's got what: however many lackeys he has waiting on him in his cave?
A lot of women are outright lying to themselves when they pretend that Hillary doesn't really believe the things she says. They are doing this because they want another woman to be president so badly that they don't really care what kind of president she'll be.
If any of the dems want to beat hilary they need to point out an important fact. a vote for hil is not a voe for bill, i wish that was my line but it isn't check out this commentary
http://joeleonardi.wordpress.com/2007/10/28/how-to-halt-hillary/
"It's ironic that the candidate in the race most committed to the politics of machismo is the woman. . . "
It isn't ironic, it's predictable. In fact, it was predicted. I caught Scott Ritter and Seymour Hersh on a C-Span Book TV weekend about a year ago discussing our militant belligerancy in the Middle East and the prospect that it would expand to encompass Iran. Ritter explicitly predicted that if Clinton were to be elected she would "have to prove that she is just as tough as a man." Just as with the WMD, Ritter appears to have been correct.
"It's ironic that the candidate in the race most committed to the politics of machismo is the woman. . . "
It isn't ironic, it's predictable. In fact, it was predicted. I caught Scott Ritter and Seymour Hersh on a C-Span Book TV weekend about a year ago discussing our militant belligerancy in the Middle East and the prospect that it would expand to encompass Iran. Ritter explicitly predicted that if Clinton were to be elected she would "have to prove that she is just as tough as a man." Just as with the WMD, Ritter appears to have been correct.
I fear I must take issue with your attacks on short guys as "obnoxious muscleheads." Surely there are some obnoxious short people, but is there any evidence that there's a higher ratio of them than medium-height or tall people? Or is it just a stereotype?
I was referring, of course, to jim's 1:52 A.M. posting.
Has it ever occurred to any of you that Hillary is actually a right-winger who supports hawkish imperialist neoconservativism in foreign policy, and is not simply pretending to be right wing to compensate for the fact that she is a woman?
After all, it's not as if she had this long record of caring about peace before running for President, and it's not as if her husband had that record either.
Julian, I ignored his retarded post under the assumption that at some point a short, muscular man stole one of his girlfriends.
"Then he had the resouirces of an entire state, albeit a weak one, at his disposal. Today's he's got what: however many lackeys he has waiting on him in his cave?"
First, bin Laden never had the "resources" (which is basically a joke) of Afghanistan under the Taliban to draw on. They let him stay there and didn't interfere with him is basically it. There's no evidence they ever directly supported him. In fact, they actually offered to turn him over to the US if Bush could provide ANY evidence that he was involved with 9/11 - which Bush, of course, couldn't.
Second, bin Laden is clearly not in any "cave". And his resources today have been estimated to be pretty much as good as he had before. His organization is having no trouble functioning in Pakistan and is now, along with the Taliban, a potential threat to Pakistan's central government.
Comments closed November 17, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
"At the same time, one of her great strengths in the primary is that precisely because she's a woman I think a lot of the dovish Democratic primary electorate doesn't really see the stances Clinton's adopted for what they are."
Yeah, that's a bit of a paradox.
Reminds me of the line about how Hillary has the *most* liberal reputation and the *least* liberal policies/position/attitude/etc. among the major candidates. I could swear I've seen someone write more, and more intelligently about that.
Hell, Matt, I think it might've even been you, a couple months ago... (h/t Google):
So, we can expect Hillary to do better than her record would suggest in the primary because she's got the centrists covered with policy, and the base covered with simple identity politics by being, well, a woman.
Then, in the general, she'll have an unenthusiastic base, a middle that's needlessly afraid she's liberal, and a right-wing candidate/base who think she's the fucking anti-Christ.
I'm sure that'll turn out well.
(and yes, that's *mostly* sarcasm, though, OTOH, the Clintons *do* tend to win political campaigns (well, elections, anyway), and if the right wants to bitch about "Bush-hatred" we've got a natural comeback that it was "Clinton-hatred" that was the *model* for it, minus the actual, sensible grounds for disgust. Ask Senator Lazio how certain *that* is to work for the right...)
Posted by Chris | November 4, 2007 1:01 AM