Posted on 05/07/2006 10:03:07 PM PDT by Mia T
THE ABSURDITY OF THE 'HILLARY IS A BITCH' THEORY OF ELECTABILITY
This is why many believe nominating a woman - nominating Hillary - will play into the GOP's hands. If the public is looking for a tough guy, won't the public want a guy?
Maybe. On the other hand, if there were ever an American woman politician who could pass for a tough guy, it's Hillary Clinton.
Start with the purely cosmetic. The fact that she never quite figured out what to do with her hair or her clothes, the fact that she's not a raving beauty, and the fact that she has a manner that is almost pathologically unsexy all work in her favor - just as they worked against her as a traditional First Lady.
Those qualities have created an image of Hillary Clinton as unfeminine. This connects her to the successful female chief executives in other countries. Golda Meir was a hard-edged old broad, Indira Gandhi a dominatrix, Margaret Thatcher a battleaxe....
She possesses a hard-to-describe style that may be the perfect blend for the first woman president.
Hillary possesses a very complex mien. She is almost always calm and composed, but radiates an icy hauteur....
The qualities that make Hillary Clinton a not especially likable, even a dislikable, public figure are pretty good ones for the first serious female candidate for president. For here's the bitter truth:
The first woman president must not seem over-emotional, or flighty, or guided by intuition rather than reason. She must not seem demure or delicate, nor can she seem brassy and sassy. She must not appear to be in a girlish quest of a strong man to help make things right. Above all, she must not seek to excuse any flaws in her conduct by suggesting that they are due to her being a woman - from the natural excuse, like a hormone rush jangling her emotions, to a political excuse, like an unjust society that won't give the XX chromosome an even break.
Just for vulgarity's sake, let me put it this way: She's got to be a bitch. And Hillary is a bitch. Her challenge will be to play up her anti-feminine qualities without being completely without charm and appeal.
Republicans and conservatives are sure she has neither charm nor appeal. And indeed, she doesn't have much. But she probably has enough.
TOUGH ENOUGH
False premises, non sequiturs and Oedipal issues--not necessarily in descending order of importance--infect his argument. I examine the first two here; the last I leave for him and his mother (or shrink) to resolve.
THE ERRORS:
G. K. Chesterton
... While America appears not to be ready for a female president under any circumstances, the post-9/11 realities pose special problems for a female presidential candidate. Add to these the problems unique to missus clinton. The reviews make the mistake of focusing on the problems of the generic female presidential candidate running during ordinary times.
These are not ordinary times. America is waging the global War on Terror; the uncharted territory of asymmetric netherworlds is the battlefield; the enemy is brutal, subhuman; the threat of global conflagration is real.
Defeating the enemy isn't sufficient. For America to prevail, she must also defeat a retrograde, misogynous mindset. To successfully prosecute the War on Terror, it is essential that the collective patriarchal islamic culture perceives America as politically and militarily strong. Condi Rice excepted, this requirement presents an insurmountable hurdle for any female presidential candidate, and especially missus clinton, historically antimilitary--(an image, incidentally, that is only enhanced today by her clumsy, termagant parody of Thatcher), forever the pitiful victim, and, according to Dick Morris, "the biggest dove in the clinton administration."
It is ironic that had the clintons not failed utterly to fight terrorism... not failed to take bin Laden from Sudan... not failed repeatedly to decapitate a nascent, still stoppable al Qaeda... the generic female president as a construct would still be viable... missus clinton's obstacles would be limited largely to standard-issue clintonisms: corruption, abuse, malpractice, malfeasance, megalomania, rape and treason... and, in spite of Juanita Broaddrick, or perhaps because of her, Rod Lurie would be reduced to perversely hawking the "First Gentleman" instead of the "Commander-in-Chief."
Mia T, 10.02.05
AND OTHER PODHORETZ NONSENSE
By JOHN PODHORETZ
May 7, 2006
Adapted for The Post by John Podhoretz from his new book, "Can She Be Stopped?"
f the notion that hillary clinton's repulsive "bitch" affect renders her electable is silly, the assumption that the only real swing voter will elect another clinton in this Age of Terror is downright absurd. And yet, John Podhoretz, normally an intelligent, seemingly sane fellow, is trying to sell us the former by assuming the latter.
HILLARY'S COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF PROBLEM
(see descriptor morphs)
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Her head bobbed nonstop in servile compliance.... Her gaze was fawning, fixed on him.... Her mouth was frozen shut, corners upturned a carefully calibrated nine degrees above the horizontal.... Not a smile.... (Never a smile).... Just enough of an upturn to hide the always-present anger. His sock puppet was on display.... Finally....
He spoke for both of them, alternating between oily racist and reliable misogynist.
Instead of striking out as her own person in this friendly venue--it was the Coretta Scott King funeral, for heaven's sake--she reprised their '92 electoral refrain. 'Two for the price of one' would be, as it had always been, the order of the day.
NO BARGAIN
If they didn't know in '92 that one was not enough, they certainly know it now. (Refuting the axiom that 2 x 0 = 0), their 'twofer' construct remains the lifeblood of her electoral--(and, arguably, non-electoral)--life.
She of the 'plantation' blunder simply wouldn't play here. He, as First Black President?, was providing cover.
And still the central question remains: Can spilt oil raise a sinking ship?
THREE WOMEN AND A FUNERAL:
2.
HOW THE CLINTONS ARE HANDLING THE HILLARY DUD FACTOR 3
by Mia T, 03.18.06
3.
- by Mia T, 02.02.06
The clintons, as is their wont, are now taking this proxy scheme to even more outrageous extremes.
The latest: an actual hillary clinton proxy presidency, populated on both sides of the camera by assorted rodham and clinton ex-staffers, sycophants and should-be felons, witness the latest hire.
'Commander-in-Chief,' a show that sets out to crown a 'queen,' instead exposes the kitschy simplemindedness of Hollywood fantasy and the special sway and shortsightedness of the pathologic ego.
Mia T, 10.27.05
THE DANGER OF RUNNING VICARIOUSLY
Bill O'Reilly chews up and spits out the hillary clinton candidacy
(clip included)
unning vicariously, as we have argued, has its risks.
What was supposed to be Hollywood propaganda to make a hillary presidency marginally palatable has instead become a parable about missus clinton's own dystopian future.
ABC announced the other day that it is pulling "Commander-in-Chief" off the air "until spring." Missus clinton's proxy presidency, you see, has been in a ratings free fall ever since "American Idol" took it on.
In a perverse life-mirrors-art moment, support for the real-life missus clinton's presidency has plummeted, too. This even sans Rudy, her real-life "American Idol" opponent.
'Ars artia gratis.' Please!
Samuel Goldwyn must be turning over in his grave....
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Clinton Administration Veteran:
J. Bradford DeLong
Too many pundits, usually leftist and privileged, sneer at country music. To these critics, any music created by poor, Southern whites (at least those poor, Southern whites who didn't attend an Ivy League university) must be held in contempt, along with its correlatives: incest, racism and trailer parks.
Hillary Clinton? Who would even know her name were it not for her attachment to a man? Where would she be now if she as a child had to pick cotton from sun up to sun down?
Tammy Wynette stands alone, a legend; and she will be admired wherever people appreciate the honesty of the human experience. Human beings are vulnerable. We all should be thankful to any artist courageous enough to bare her soul on the public stage so the rest of us who are listening and know whereof she speaks might benefit.
Sean Smith
But the obsessively perfectionistic dodo wasn't able to fake even one wrong answer in the Letterman phony "pop quiz," a nostalgic electuary of "Twenty-One" fraud and (Groucho) Marxist left-wing crow.
Instead, this documented incompetent with no apparent creative or analytic (not to mention thespian) skills gushed forth with a lame--"It's the bluebird--I know that" --globally exposing herself to be the corrupt clown that the sentient among us already know she is.
It is no accident--and the Sheehy hagiography notwithstanding, it is certainly not because of any patriarchal society--that this reflexive kleptocrat never sought office. She never ran simply because she is a perfectionist and an incompetent who cannot tolerate personal (as opposed to bill-related) criticism, witness the prescreened, heavily controlled, sycophantic crowds, her pre-programmed, totally scripted appearances (or, alternatively, her totally mute "listening tour"), her unavailability to the press, indeed, her "bluebird."
Thus, the question begging to be asked is this:
Why would this compulsively perfectionistic grotesquerie allow herself to be unambiguously exposed as the utter incompetent and fraud and fool and horror that she is?
And why would this self-proclaimed protector of "the children" prolong her own child's profound trauma by forcing her own bottom-heavy self, soiled in its own right, onto the political stage?
The answer, I believe, resides more in liberty loss than in power gain.
Simply put, she is not running for office; she is running from indictment.
And I fear Starr successor, Robert Ray, is unable to catch her...
Ray's recent statement , " I have been charged with responsibly conducting the work of this office. Some of my responsibility is to ensure that there is no untoward effect on the political process," both confirms and encourages this latest round of clinton raping, pillaging, despoiling, destroying.
Will this nightmare never end?
"Hillary Rodham Clinton needs to be kept very far away from the White House for the rest of her life."
My two cents' worth--and I think it is the two cents' worth of everybody who worked for the Clinton Administration health care reform effort of 1993-1994--is that Hillary Rodham Clinton needs to be kept very far away from the White House for the rest of her life. Heading up health-care reform was the only major administrative job she has ever tried to do. And she was a complete flop at it. She had neither the grasp of policy substance, the managerial skills, nor the political smarts to do the job she was then given. And she wasn't smart enough to realize that she was in over her head and had to get out of the Health Care Czar role quickly.... there is no reason to think that she would be anything but an abysmal president.
professor of economics, Berkeley
clinton Administration veteran
Hillary Clinton?
Who would even know her name were it not for her attachment to a man?
Thank you, Gavin McNett, for your tribute to the incomparable Tammy Wynette. (TAMMY WYNETTE, 1942-1998)
Fresno, Calif.
Salon.com
"Bird of paradise" would have been a brilliant wrong answer for the New-York-state-bird question; in one fell swoop it would have flattered the necessary constituency, rendered hillary's cheating marginally believable and suggested a quick, secure, creative mind.
Or catch on. (On second thought, maybe the problem is that he does....)
COPYRIGHT MIA T 2000, 2005
December 7, 1941+64
AN OPEN LETTER TO TIM ROBBINS, DAVID GEFFEN, CHRIS MATTHEWS, MAUREEN DOWD + JEANINE PIRRO
RE: a not-so-modest proposal concerning hillary clinton
Dear Concerned Americans,
Hillary Clinton's revisionist tome notwithstanding, 'living history' begets a certain symmetry. It is in that light that I make this not-so-modest proposal on this day, exactly 64 years after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The context of our concern today--regardless of political affiliation--is Iraq and The War on Terror, but the larger fear is that our democracy may not survive.
We have the requisite machines, power and know-how to defeat the enemy in Iraq and elsewhere, but do we have the will?
In particular, do we have the will to identify and defeat the enemy in our midst?
Answerable to no one, heir apparent in her own mind, self-serving in the extreme, Hillary Clinton incarnates this insidious new threat to our survival.
What we decide to do about Missus Clinton will tell us much about what awaits us in these perilous new times.
COMPLETE LETTER
December 7, 1941+64
Mia T
AN OPEN LETTER TO TIM ROBBINS, DAVID GEFFEN, CHRIS MATTHEWS, MAUREEN DOWD + JEANINE PIRRO
RE: a not-so-modest proposal concerning hillary clinton
COPYRIGHT MIA T 2005
the danger of the unrelenting smallness of bill + hillary clinton by Mia T, 7.31.05
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how the clintons are handling the hillary dud factor by Mia T, 8.03.05
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ICKES + ESTRICH PROVIDE ROADMAP FOR HILLARY DEFEAT (oops!)
Susan Estrich attempts to tie the fate of all women to the fate of the hillary clinton candidacy in a cynical attempt to get the women's vote.
She argues that hillary clinton is the best chance, probably the only chance, for a woman president in our lifetime.
The false and demeaning argument and offensive gender bias aside, someone ought to clue in Susan Estrich. Gender feminism requires as its token a functional female.
So why is Susan Estrich making such a transparently spurious and insulting argument? She isn't that dumb.
For the same reason Harold Ickes is fulminating on C-SPAN.
The white woman, the only real swing voter, the demographic the Democrats MUST get in order to win the White House, has turned red.
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by Mia T, 4.28.06
READ MORE
IMPERIOUS HILLARY |
(ICKES + ESTRICH PROVIDE ROADMAP--oops!--FOR HILLARY DEFEAT) |
COPYRIGHT MIA T 2006
Hillary Clinton...you have been getting that right for years, Mia T.!
Thanks for your work. Outstanding. New Media, Citizen Journalist, BTTT!
Run Hillary Run!
bump
I guess John forgot about Geraldine Ferraro. The B**** thing didn't work too well for her. Neither did the Corrupt Husband thing.
I thing you meant to say "conflagration"
It's highly unlikely ever to come to pass. Her people will negotiate all debate out of all debates: Hiding hillary is the game plan. The only hope is an opponent willing and able to pierce the carefully crafted shield.
thank you :)
Great stuff, Mia, especially the headline.
HILLARY CLINTON VOTES FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
BEFORE SHE VOTES AGAINST THEM
HEAR HER NOW
thanks OKSooner. ;)
thx :)
When do you sleep?
"But sometimes we would have these debates where people would say, if I didn't take some military action this very day, people would look down their nose at America and think we were weak. And I always thought of Senator Fulbright.... So anytime somebody said in my presence, "Hey, if you don't do this, people will think you're weak," I always asked the same question for eight years, Can we kill 'em tomorrow? I don't think we can bring 'em back tomorrow, but can we kill 'em tomorrow? If we can kill them tomorrow, then we're not weak.... I learned that as a 20-year-old kid watching Bill Fulbright. Listening." bill clinton Bill Clinton, the Sultan of Swing, gave an interesting speech last week, apropos foreign policy: "Anytime somebody said in my presidency, 'If you don't do this people will think you're weak,' I always asked the same question for eight years: 'Can we kill 'em tomorrow?' If we can kill 'em tomorrow, then we're not weak, and we might be wise enough to try to find an alternative way." The trouble was tomorrow never came - from the first World Trade Center attack to Khobar Towers to the African embassy bombings to the USS Cole. Manana is not a policy. The Iranians are merely the latest to understand that.
UNITED 93:THE CLINTON-9/11 NEXUS
"We have to do it now. We know what happens if we just sit here and do nothing...."
CLINTON: 'Can we kill 'em tomorrow?'
(+ Albright-Fulbright-Nobel TERRORISM revelations)
Fulbright Prize address
April 12, 2006
BY MARK STEYN
The New York Sun
April 17, 2006
;)
(bill + hillary) CLINTON 'CULTURE OF CORRUPTION' part one by Mia T, 01.28.06 |
thank you :)
ping
ping
Note the cover pic. It's inconsistent with Pod's thesis. Whose choice was it? If it was his, it makes one wonder....
The absence of the pantsuit, with a subtle lace collar on a black dress in its place? Good point, but it's a subtle one to most. Again, just giving it a quick look one can tell that "somethin ain't right" but it takes a second look to notice it. I'm not sure what to make of it except that it is inconsistent with the pantsuit persona.
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