Camille Paglia, who voted for Obama in '08, delivers a fine rant about why she's not voting for...

althouse.blogspot.com ^ | October 26, 2012 | Ann Althouse

[neverdem]

Camille Paglia, who voted for Obama in '08, delivers a fine rant about why she's not voting for him this time.

She's interviewed on video here, by Glenn Reynolds. Most of the interview is about art in America and her new book "Glittering Images" (which I just bought, in Kindle). But in the end, she's asked why she's not voting for Obama — she's voting for Jill Stein — and out flow the words, which I started transcribing without knowing how long she'd go on. I kept transcribing, because it was all such great material, so here it is (with a few screen grabs, taken from the art section of the interview):

I was very excited about him. I thought he was a moderate. I thought that his election would promote racial healing in the country.

This is the point at which I started transcribing, thinking: This is how I felt, when I voted for Obama in 2008. Except I wouldn't say I was "very excited." I wasn't caught up in the ecstasy. I thought it was the better bet, compared to the GOP alternative, and I hoped for the moderation and advancement in attitudes about race.

It would be a tremendous transformation of attitudes. And instead: one thing after another. Not least: I consider him, now, one of the most racially divisive and polarizing figures ever. I think it's going to take years to undo the damage to relationships between the races...

[hinckley buzzard]

Paglia is an anomaly, a lesbian feminist who understands and appreciates the masculine in human culture. Her being subverted by obama in 2008 is a disappointment, I always thought she had better discernment. But ideology is powerful, and can obviously override critical judgment. At least she won't make that mistake again.

[Anima Mundi]

I sent this to the hardcore feminist Liberals I know and it made them come unhinged because they know who Paglia is and it really put their brains in a bind that she didn’t despise Romney because they respect her. Cognitive dissonance for them.

[nickcarraway]

Hardcore feminists haven’t like Paglia in a long time.

[bigbob]

She has a fine mind, and an independent way of thinking that is worthy of respect even when you disagree. A liberal feminist you could actually like! One of her quirkiest characteristics is that she’s a big fan of talk radio, Rush Limbaugh, and admirably defended Sarah Palin! I always look forward to reading what she’s go to say (on the political front, when she gets into the artsy-fartsy, not so much...)

[Kickass Conservative]

Funny how my then 85 Year Old Blind Aunt told me Obama was a Phony the moment she heard his voice and this Educated Elitist Idiot took four years to figure out the obvious...

[Baynative]

"...Aunt told me Obama was a Phony the moment she heard his voice"

I heard him on the radio when he was gaining on Hillary and thought there might be something fresh and realistic about him. Then, I watched a speech he gave in Portland and finally the one in Denver and I was convinced that he was a complete fabrication with no substance at all. The Denver speech was so phony it creeped me out.

[Kickass Conservative]

>”there might be something fresh and realistic about him”<

Yeah, I get that feeling when I go pickup the Dog Poop in my Backyard. You learn to stay away from the really “fresh” stuff though, but it gets “realistic” if you step on it by mistake.

[MasterGunner01]

Camille Paglia is a brainy and complex woman. I disagree with her on most issues, but I believe she tries to do the right thing. I respect her for that. Her thinking is sjewed from my perspective, but she does get it right and she has NAILED Barry Obama. Welcome to the party Camille! Have a beer and lets get rid of Barry and his ilk to save this country, the United States of America, the last, best hope for the world.

[Hetty_Fauxvert]

I’ve always liked Paglia. Was disappointed in her choice (to say the least) in 2008. I like her even better now!!

[bruinbirdman]

Paglia, "Obamacare is, to me, a Stalinist intrusion — okay? — into American culture."

yitbos

[Billthedrill]

Every time I despair over the very real damage feminism - or what happened to it - has caused to our culture, someone like Paglia surfaces to remind me that at one point it really was all about freedom and not hatred. Unfortunately, like many such movements its most vocal adherents adopted a "liberation" model, in which freedom is a zero-sum game and it's all really only about theft, one group against another.

Here, though, is a clear appreciation of fact over image:

This is how the Democratic Party lost me — by trading freedom for statism.

And here is what led to it. There's still a whiff of the collective in this but I think Paglia is correct:

All I see is white upper-middle-class liberals who speak in this unctuous way about the needs of the poor... They have no connection whatever with the working class.... It's the professional class gone amok. And that's why they don't notice what a bureaucratic nightmare Obamacare is.

Shall we enumerate the membership of this professional class one more time? The academics. The media. The members of government itself. If there is one common characteristic among these pieces of the New Class it is the degree to which its members are insulated from the outcomes of the policies it promotes. Institutional feminism has found a home in its embraces. So has institutional racism. And the reason we have academics, bureaucrats, and media celebrities in thousand-dollar suits upbraiding us all for our racism, sexism, homophobia, et dreary cetera, is that it, too, serves to differentiate them from us, to insulate them from the horrors they have every intention of inflicting on everyone else. Those are 0bama's people, they are 0bama himself, and the lot of them have, as their first priority, the maintenance of this immunity, this insulation, this barrier between parasite and victim.

[RitchieAprile]

a nutcase. who else would waste a vote on a Greenie with no chance?

[Slyfox]

She is still a huge idiot, because by voting for Jill Stein she is really voting for Obama.

[gotribe]

“...but I would have never agreed to this land war in Afghanistan, this endless land war, as well as things like this Libyan incursion that Obama appears to have been pushed into by these women, like Hillary Clinton and Samantha Power, the chaos in foreign policy, the bowing to foreign leaders.”

Wow, nailed hillary. I wonder if in fact she did push obama into libya? He seems incapable of making strong decisions.

[AwesomePossum]

This is tame compared to what Paglia wrote about the Clintons as they were exiting the White House........

8:}

[LRoggy]

No, a vote for Stein HELPS Romney. Just not as much as directly voting for him, but it still is one less Obama vote.

[ican'tbelieveit]

What part of Obama’s past performance ever led people to believe he would improve race relations in this country? Reverend Wright? Seriously people? Ugh. Do some research on “your” favorite pet of the moment (not you, them).

[wayoverontheright]

I’m sorry, but to attribute great intellect to this woman who comes to a conclusion in hindsight that many plumbers, housewives, and used car salesmen PREDICTED is foolhardy.

I too take great comfort in witnessing conversions to our side, but this one isn’t even converting to our side, and given she did the same thing with Clinton, this is the second time she’s chosen wrong.

I have this female friend who has a penchant for choosing the wrong men to be in her life. And she will continue to do so because she uses the shallowest of criteria to judge them while ignoring their very obvious faults. When the faults, obvious to everyone else, surface, she’s dumbfounded, and worse, angry at the man.

This is Camille Paglia. The fact that she’s voting for someone other than Obama is considered to be progress. No it’s not. It just displays the fact that she too continues to embrace liberalism at a time when it has never been more obvious that it is the ideology of small minds.

Ok, she writes well.

[Slyfox]

No, a vote for Stein HELPS Romney. Just not as much as directly voting for him, but it still is one less Obama vote.

I hadn't thought of that . Thanks.