Posted on 11/20/2007 9:30:10 AM PST by rface
It was January 2005, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., had just finished a solemn speech about abortion rights urging all sides to find "common ground" on the issue and referring to abortion as "a sad, even tragic choice to many, many women."
Stepping offstage, she took questions from reporters, and found herself being grilled about whether she was moderating her own pro-choice position. And suddenly it happened: Clinton let loose a hearty belly laugh that lasted a few seconds. Reporters glanced at one another as if they had missed the joke.
But nothing particularly funny had occurred: It was, instead, a deployment of the Clinton Cackle.
At that moment, the laugh seemed like the equivalent of an eye-roll she felt she was being nitpicked, so she shamed her inquisitors by laughing at them (or their queries). But friends of Clinton told a different story: She has this fantastic sense of humor, you see, but it's too sarcastic to share with the general public because not everyone likes sarcasm.
So, instead of alienating Iowans who might not vote for edginess, Clinton goes for the lowest-common-denominator display of her funny bone: She shows that she can laugh and that her laugh has a fullness and depth.
Perhaps. The reality is, Clinton is the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination right now, and the commensurate political attacks and criticism are coming at her from all sides. She needs ways to respond without appearing defensive or brittle, her advisers say.
She often responds to attacks with a counterargument: At the televised debates, she has pushed back at criticism from her rivals by saying there is little difference between herself and them (over, say, the Iraq war) and recalibrates the discussion by focusing on the differences with President Bush rather than those among the Democrats.
And then, less often but more notably, Clinton copes with the pressure by using the Cackle. At a debate, for instance, former Sen. Mike Gravel complained about her vote on an Iran resolution and said he was "ashamed" of her. Asked to respond, Clinton laughed before answering, as if to minimize the matter.
Meanwhile, she appeared on all five of the major morning talk shows, and her laughter seemed heavily caffeinated. Chris Wallace, of Fox News, first pressed Clinton about why she was so "hyperpartisan," and that drew a huge cackle. (Coming from Fox, her aides said, the question was pretty funny.) At another point, Wallace switched gears and said, "let me ask you about health care," and Clinton responded, "Yeah, I'd love you to ask me about health care" and then let it rip, again, a bit quizzically.
The weirdest moment was with Bob Schieffer on the CBS News program "Face the Nation" when Schieffer said to Clinton, "You rolled out your new health care plan, something Republicans immediately said is going to lead to socialized medicine." She giggled, giggled some more, and then could not seem to stop giggling "Sorry, Bob," she said and finally unleashed the full Clinton Cackle.
The Schieffer moment seemed particularly calculated because Clinton most certainly has not laughed in other settings when she has been accused of pursuing socialized medicine. She faced that accusation at a forum in Las Vegas this summer, for instance; she turned frosty and traded barbs with the audience member who made the assertion. It clearly was no laughing matter there.
Jon Stewart skewered Clinton on "The Daily Show" with a compilation of her outbursts from the Sunday morning shows. Stewart said that some people found her to be "some kind of synthetic being that cries mercury," and he tweaked some of her laughs as a robotic expression of her strategic goal: to convey to the audience, "I'm joyful!"
Clinton advisers find the interest in her laugh a little laughable. They fall somewhere between bemused and irritated by questions that suggest Clinton is less than genuine like whether her use of laughter during an interview was a way for her to undercut a serious question or to avoid answering it altogether.
At a news conference in Iowa last winter, she was peppered with questions about whom she was referring to when she playfully said that she had experience dealing with bad and evil men.
"You guys!" she said to reporters, chuckling, after the third question on the topic. "I thought I was funny. You guys keep telling me, lighten up, be fun. Now I get a little funny, and I'm being psychoanalyzed."
It was a pretty amusing push-back, although it also prompted one reporter to become more direct and bluntly ask if she had been referring to her husband. "Oh come on," she said, tightening up a bit. The silly Hillary can disappear into the sober Hillary in a New York minute.
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Even though it’s not condoned, I think we can see why her husband sought the company of other women.
That’s wonderful!!
THANK YOU!
Hey! Grandpa!
the link on the picture works.... I screwd up the link on “MISS MISSOURI”
They misspelled “cankle”.
And... Miss Missouri WINS!
Good writer up there in North Dakota! Thanks for posting the article. I guess North Dakotans have to be good people to make up for the weather otherwise the state would be deserted.
She’s beautiful enough to be a Missouri cheerleader. GOP_Raider has the college football thread and the cheerleaders have been posted there.
Cackle here...( WARNING- - - BARF ALERT ! )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZTB62AaH-4
Sense of humor, my @##. It’s a sign of uncomfortableness.
“Mike Gravel complained about her vote on an Iran resolution and said he was “ashamed” of her. Asked to respond, Clinton laughed before answering, as if to minimize the matter.”
Drunks, children and mental defectives laugh when they should respond, too. That’s to buy time till you can think of an answer or to distance yourself from the question.
Joke’s on her! No one is fooled.
Another “Only the Best Come North - Why Not Minot”?
Ahhh, but it worked for Jimmuh Cahtah as well, tho’ his was more a cheshire cat grin often ‘poked in’ mid sentence. As Jimmuh learned, a $200 haircut, the right makeup, and a cheshire cat grin can get any communist elected.
Yep, definitely fake and a cover for what would otherwise be a visible, uncomfortable reaction.
Hitlery - all cackle, no eggs.
It’s also a sign that the Hildabeast is unable to ad lib. She can ONLY deal with scripted in advance questions and answers.
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