« More O'Hanlon | Main | Let's Argue About JFK Some More » Fake Stories07 Jan 2008 11:01 pm I wouldn't be surprised if this inane "Clinton crying" pseudo-story winds up redounding to her benefit; it's a stark reminder of how much sexist BS there is out there which, in turn, gets people back to thinking about how the first woman president in American history would be a pretty damn transformative event all on its own terms. UPDATE: Indeed. Comments (28)
Matt, I am deeply sorry to see HRC teary-up. Knowing the Clintons, it was manufactured. Yet, I feel sorry for her. I cannot imagine others thing differently even if you did not like HRC. Thus, I see myself voting for her. I suspect either HRC comes in a close 2nd or defeats Obama. If Clintons wins the nomination, then Jan. 7 will be a good day to remember. What an act? Perhaps, there is an image maker/actress helping her become a regular woman. Just like someone was helping Gore with earth-tones. 
Regardless of the merits of the story, the problem with this whole line of argument is that when people think about whose election "would be a pretty damn transformative event all on its own terms", Clinton has just a bit of competition.
Like someone else pointed out, what were the tears for? Herself. How about the million dead Iraqis her vote and her attitude about Iraq and her AIPAC sponsors helped create? How about the half million her husband created with his sanctions - the ones her adviser Albright said were "worth it"? It was a manufactured moment. The questioner was almost certainly a shill, since it was about as softball a personal question as it gets. I can't feel sorry for a woman who, as Bill Clinton was alleged to have said once, was "born forty and stayed forty." That was her choice - to the degree any of us get to choose our life histories, anyway. Maybe on that basis, one could feel sorry for her. But then, you might as well feel sorry for Osama bin Laden if that's the only basis for feeling sorry. And some people do feel that way out of principle or an excess of empathy. I can't. And it doesn't matter anyway. Edwards was right to say he has no sympathy. It's about policy and character. And Clinton has no character and no rational policies. And I'm not sure that being the first woman President would be all that "transformative". In fact, I think it would last a year, if that. The novelty of being "Madame President" would wear off fast when people look around and see nothing substantial has changed - and there wouldn't be If we hadn't had Margaret Thatcher, or for that matter, Benazir Bhutto in a frickin' Muslim country, or Indira Ghandi, it might be really novel to have a female political leader. Sorry, it's been done. If nothing else, if she didn't have an overwhelming Democratic majority in the Congress, the odds are she'd never get any legislation passed for four years, anyway. (Obama might have the same problem, or any other Dem Prez.)
If I were Hillary I'd be upset too. There's something truly remarkable about a political party that, after years in the electoral wilderness, is about to gain real political power and instead chooses a candidate that promises to compromise with its opponents. Its as if the Democratic party doesn't really want to see its agenda in action.
eorse: "Just like someone was helping Gore with earth-tones." Please, someone kill me, now. And this is our side. Kill me again. BTW, I thought Clinton's rally tonight, particularly at the end, was very good. But it is pretty bogus that I did not see any reference to the national Rassmusen poll on any channel tonight. (Edwards sorta-surging Obama static).
I think it's more likely that the choking-up moment, if anything, becomes a "there's no crying in baseball" kind of thing that hurts Clinton in the form of the dare-not-speak-its-name kind of sexism that keeps people from voting for a president who might break down and cry in front of the communists (or, god forbid, the Arabs). But more than likely, it will have no effect on the campaign, because it comes much too close to the NH primary to make any real dent in anyone's numbers, and a Hillary loss in NH (which looks increasingly likely) will screw her campaign up so much, any benefit that might redound to her will be swallowed up by the ugly death throws in South Carolina and beyond.
Andruw, you should not kill yourself. Violence has no good thing. I voted for Gore. Gore was good. He is great. He will always be my hero. The earth-tones comment was to show that someone was hired to consult him about his image. He was being manufactured. May be I am not a good political analyst. Just a comment. HRC was good in the rally. I do feel that the teary-comment was to negate the Sat. "outburst" in the debate. Some women were put off by that, and this would calm many. Also, Clintons are good at staging. The new book about them (forget the title, a woman author) shows their emotional fights in White House. Nonetheless, I think she is being treated unfairly by all. So, I feel sorry. Women have a harder time in our society. Thus, I suspect she will come in a close 2nd (that will help her for 2/5 tuesday) or barely defeat Obama (perhaps, his voters may become lazy - wishful thinking by Mark Penn). It does not matter. It was just a comment. You know best. Bottom line: Violence is not a good thing.
I'd like to know exactly which product eorse concentrated the contents of and inhaled, so I can make sure never to have any of it in the house when I have kids.
I don't think so. People are largely going to reach the conclusion that Richard Steven Hack reached. Those were tears of self-pity. Not incredibly flattering. If the tears were manufactured, what was the Clinton campaign aiming for? That there would be a bunch of media coverage and that people wouldn't look at the actual content and instead go meta on media sexism and ultimately like Clinton? That seems like a silly aim, though perhaps given their intimate knowledge of US media reactions, they could have engineered such an event. Personally, I see it as a display of frustration by a sleep-deprived politician who has just been badly shaken by a huge defeat in the first actually electoral contest.
This is "ready to lead from day one?" Folding like origami? So, Obama (and Edwards, and the voters) didn't get the message that your presidency was inevitable. I'm sorry I'm not sorry.
What was that thing Hillary was saying that she does "not want to see the country fall backwards"? As in, fall backwards if the torch is not passed correctly Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton? Or what?
Bomin may be right - it could well have been a mere effect of sleep deprivation, jet lag, or something she ate, or the air in the room. People get teary-eyed for all sorts of reasons. My nose gets stuffed, I get tears. I eat too much ice cream, I sneeze like hell and my eyes run like water. Big frickin' deal. It was either manufactured or irrelevant. In fact, while typing this, I just went back and watched the video on HuffPo. It's bullshit. It was barely a second of voice catch, if that. I saw no actual tears. She did look physically tired. It even seemed to me that she did the voice catch thing TWICE fairly far apart. And she immediately launched into the usual politician bullshit about "it's our country, it's out children's future", blah, blah, blah, throwing in a dig at Obama for not being someone who "knows what they're going to do on day one", etc. The whole thing was either faked or manufactured by the media over a nothing event. Incredible.
I watched the video, and was stunned that people were making a big deal out of it. If anything, she seemed much more human and likeable at that moment than in most others I've seen—even her voice had a pleasant tone, instead of the usual foghorn.
I haven't spent a lot of time listening to Hillary, but it's clear from the few videos I've watched is that she definitely can appear likable and even charming. Which is irrelevant since most politicians can do that quite nicely or they wouldn't get past square one. But I thought in this video she talked too damn much. In answer to one softball question, she turned it into an entire campaign speech - which is why I suspect it was a staged event, similar to other staged events people have reported in her campaign. She was READY for that question with an entire speech intended to portray her as an "overworked underdog", a poor aging woman trying to "save America" by defeating some young male schmuck who doesn't know half what she knows, yada, yada. Yeah, right. Sorry, not buying it, Hil.
I wish she had cried over the senseless loss of life in Iraq rather then her loss of a caucus in Iowa.
Matt, you seem conflicted. You call the story "fake" and "inane", but then go on to say it is "a stark reminder of how much sexist BS there is out there which, in turn, gets people back to thinking about how the first woman president in American history would be a pretty damn transformative event all on its own terms." The latter seems for all the world like a non-inane journalistic justification for the coverage after all. You were closer the first time around. It's true that there is a double standard in American politics in that a male can cry once or twice in public about the time he had to shoot Old Yeller, or about how his mom made him breakfast every day with the gruel she bought from selling matchbooks, or how he lost his buddy in the Great War, but women get called on the tears right away. But there is also another double standard too. According to this one a women can create a sudden and magical sympathetic bond, and total amnesia about her actual behavior and record, by sobbing a bit. Many women can be counted on to experience this sympathetic bonding effect, while many men seem to be hard wired to feel anguish over a woman's tears, and can be counted on to flock around with condescending, chivalric paternalism, and pull out their hankies for the little lady in distress. Doesn't this all seem a bit too much like Little Princess Who Didn't Get Her Pony? While I'm about 60% sure the crying was sincere, I reserve 40% for the possibility that these tears were squeezed out on cue. Clinton allegedly "took over" her campaign yesterday. Now today we have two public personalizing events: one where Hillary calls Bill on his cell phone while he is speaking to a New Hampshire crowd, and they exchange a few cute "I Love You"s. The other in which H. Clinton cries in response to a question that conveniently comes right at the end of a very long policy-driven session, and yet while crying manages to slip in Edward's "this is very personal to me" line. Coming at the end of a New Hampshire campaign in which Clinton has notably failed to establish a personal bond with the electorate, this just seems a bit too convenient. And remember that this is a campaign that was caught once before using audience plants.
When I first heard about it, I assumed it was a ploy to regain the sympathy of women voters. Having seen it on the interwebs, it seems real but not necessarily unplanned. The thing that struck me, though, it that she was worried that HER losing (not Edwards or Obama losing in the general) was what would make the country "fall back". She's not worried about the country, she's worried about her place in it. On the gender issue: All of the candidates are tired and stressed and emotional. I'm sure all of them have cried privately in worry and joy and fear and celebration. If any of the male candidates had cried in the same circumstance (they're tired and worried about their prospects), they would face an even harsher treatment. It would be like Dean's scream times a million. I imagine Hillary gets a bit of a pass BECAUSE she's a woman. In the end, there is a gender bias in the reaction to the crying, but I don't think it hurts her.
As a 56 year old woman, just slightly younger than HRC, I can tell you with no reservation that any hard driving, high powered woman that came through what we did in our time would NEVER cry at a job interview. We might lose control and come to tears, but we would dunk down as if we'd dropped something, sneezed, done anything we could to not show it. It's how we were wired through years of having to be better, faster, smarter, more prepared. If that wasn't manufactured, I will eat my hat and HRC's hat as well. There was too much language, too many glances at the camera, too much of everything. What made me madder today though was listening to the lame journalists waxing poetic about discrimination...one even compared this to male pols during 9/11, speaking of war loss. There were lives lost in those instances and that deserves all our tears very openly public. I can't believe HRC pulled this, I can't believe the simpering press falling for it. Just remember for one moment the calculation this woman has shown us over the years. She is not dumb, she is not weak and she would never have cried in public without the slightest attempt to hide it if it was real.
I can go on and on for hours about how much I dislike Hillary, her ideology, the process of her politics, the particulars of her approach to governance, the peccadillos of her personality and, most importantly, that horrible, insipid manifesto she penned in the nineties, but... I don't think the crying was scripted. In fact, this may be the only time I've ever seen an actual human being beneath the fake golden hair. I really felt for her. But I'm still glad she won't be president.
I think she faked it, and the sleep deprivation helped. I took an acting class, so I know a thing or two about faking, and the thing is, it's never completely fake, in that you have to manipulate yourself into crying. You can do that with the situation your playing, but if that gets stale you conjure up something else to "get you in the neighborhood" and then sleep deprivation makes the tears come a lot easier. I think she faked it. That is, I think she went into this situation saying to herself, "I am going to tear up at some point in front of the camera today." I'm not completely sure, but I think she meant to do that.
it's a stark reminder of how much sexist BS there is out there It's a stark reminder of what a ridiculous, trivial politics we have that this is a story at all and that it's supposedly about 'sexism'. If there's any sexism here, it's that our stupid political press (and I hate to say this includes TPM) has decided that HRC actually showing emotion is a story. On the 'merits' of the story, imagine if you will: Thatcher or Indira Gandhi, or the late Bhutto! - crying for herself on national teevee because of an electoral political setback. I wouldn't want any candidate breaking down in pathetic self-pity like that in public, man or womaN (and HRC's moment was very brief anyway). Come ON. As far as 'transformation' goes: what, exactly, would be so transformative, in itself, about a female president? There *is* lots of sexism in this country, and it's exemplified by people of both genders, and both feminists and not-feminists, who think this kind of crap matters in the slightest. We are a very silly country - VERY silly - and often richly deserve the ridicule we get from the rest of the world.
What jonnybutter said. Americans can be so ridiculously naive about themselves.
If she faked it, so what? Is anyone really naive and foolish enough to believe that all the emotion in Obama's stirring speeches isn't faked to some extent?
The idea that ANY story about Clinton would result in good coverage of her is just asinine.
God knows, I am the last person to defend Hillary Clinton. I think her politics are way too far right and I am glad that she seems to be losing to Obama. But it's becoming clearer and clearer that her supporters are right that she is being held to a double standard. Her wardrobe is analyzed, her cleavage is analyzed, her emotions are analyzed, all of which are for the most part off limits with the male candidates. If I were Obama, especially after Edwards' criticism of Hillary over this, I would stand up and make a point of defending her. Say that of course every candidate, male and female, is investing his or her emotions in this because the stakes are so important, and that people should therefore lay off Hillary Clinton on this one.
Will a pity vote really kick in? Geez, I hope not. Look, save property management lawyers- most people have a heart. I could feel sorry for Hitler. To quote Hillary- he didn't have it easy, either. Larry Craig I felt sorry for. But, the Clintons felt a lot more sorry for Marc Rich than they did for Leonard Pelletier. A choked-up moment or a manipulative one- who cares? These people are not to be trusted
If I were Obama, especially after Edwards' criticism of Hillary over this, I would stand up and make a point of defending her. What Edwards said was more apparent than real, and he (and his wife) did speak up again a little more sympathetically, and Obama did say that campaigns are tough and....this is all about nothing, except a weird kind of solipscism we have in this country, as well as a 'feminism' which is an insult to actual feminism. Yes, the MSM's coverage of HRC is not fair and is unbelieveably trivial - their coverage of ALL the candidates - Obama less so - is stupid and trivial. THAT'S the problem, not gross subjugation of women (at least in this case). To paraphrase Gitlin, who was a douchebag about this: the Chris Matthews School of masculinity does not shame my whole gender, because very few men I know - nobody I know under 50 - has anything like that sort of adolescent attitude about women. Working class or 'educated', it simply has nothing to do with most men. I notice less coverage of the nasty shit HRC said after she had her Moment, like the stuff about Edwards exploiting dead teenagers or trying to spank Obama as being a mere figurehead-type leader like MLK (???), not to mention the scare tactic vis a vis terrorism. (As MY mentioned, she might have a point if it's vis a vis Kennedy vs Johnson rather than MLK/Johnson. Funny though, that in that context in this race Edwards is more like Johnson; whatever you think of Johnson, he really did care about poverty, partially because he came from it. That's what Edwards means when he says it's 'personal'. Hillary appropriated that word as a mere tactic.). Whether she showed emotion altogether willfully or altogether spontaniously, my impression over the years is that Hillary - and Bill, BTW - are extraordinarily dreadful people, personally. Lots of public figures are privately dreadful. So what? I knew that about Bill when I voted for him at least once. If HRC were the best candidate in the field now, I would support her too, regardless. I think MY's right that this will redound in her favor with some voters. The ABC news clip about it mentioned that two Obama supporters who were in the coffee shop during the incident said they were switching to HRC because of it. Not much you can do about people who think it's their god-given right as Americans to be pinheads. I feel less annoyed, however, by regular people being casual pinheads than by a prominent feminist blogger knee-jerking, switching her support from Edwards to Obama. Wow, not only courageous, but obviously deeply serious, too. The bottom line is that HRC simply showed some emotion - blubbering self pity - for a nanosecond, brought on probably by sleep deprivation and just being upset, reporters ambushed Edwards (who said he hadn't seen the tape) and Edwards said a president has to be strong. Controversy? Yes, if you're a nitwit. There is a lurking critique here of our suburban, heavily-marketing oriented American feminism which will have to wait But just this: Amanda, in the post I linked to above, and Dilan in his upthread comment, are basically saying HRC needs 'defending'. Neither of them is switching support to her for this, but they both see a double standard: if she withholds emotion, she's a cold bitch; if she shows it, she's weak. But I see it another way: if she is grim and cold, which is her idea of being 'presidential', she is seen to be grim and cold; if she has a mini-Nixon moment of damp self-pity....well, it is what it is. She's not unappealing because she's a woman, but because she's kind of an unappealing person, at least in public. She *is* a brittle personality. The logical conclusion to the binary double-standard argument is that the patriarchy - in the guise of John Edwards - is deforming any or all (suburban, American) women's ability to cope with *being* a woman. I know plenty of actual fairly strong women who would beg to differ with that. And I'd say a woman HRC's age or older knows a lot more about true discrimination than does, for instance, Amanda. I don't see anything 'transformational' about having HRC be president. The idea that her election would be that is an example of our dumb-ass literalist/magical thinking: yes, HRC wouldn't be where she is notwithstanding her marriage, but she is biologically a woman, so technically..well, it's a moment of unbelieveable import. Yes, Obama's father was not an African American man from Chicago, but an actual African, but he is still our first 'black president' since he still has 'black blood', so technically....See how grotesque this sort of thinking can be? It makes me vomit. It's insulting to all involved. It's also, unfortunately, typical of this country that the first woman would be there by virtue of her spouse, and the first African would not be from a family of American slavery. BTW, imagine if you will, that it was Edwards - Edwards, who lost his dear teenaged son, and who is shortly going to lose his wife; who poured his heart and money out for the last three years only to lose in IA to a relative newcomer - imagine if it were *Edwards* there in NH who broke down on tv, in obvious self-pity and exhaustion, and said 'I'm just so worried that the country is going to slide back!!!!'. It would be a moment of pathos, and it might get him some sympathy, but I doubt it would get him many votes (nor would he deserve them). Maybe no sympathy at all, just scorn. Now THAT'S a double standard. If she had a real rationale for her campaign, I'd feel much more sympathy for the fact that she - and Edwards - have gotten a very bad press. But I frankly began to not respect HRC when she decided that, despite that lack of a real, core reason for running, it was *she* the country needed at this incredible historic moment. Because she's a woman. blech.
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Heads in the Sand
it's a stark reminder of how much sexist BS there is out there
I'm sure this is totally lost on her campaign. I'm sure they're unaware that she tends to be most popular when she's being attacked, from the time she was First Lady, to Lazio crowding her, to whatever event generated any number of fundraising letters. Doesn't make the garbage being spewed in response any less grossly sexist, of course.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | January 7, 2008 11:08 PM