Hillary Clinton’s Teary Eyes: Real Incident Or Exaggerated Anti-Hillary Hype

I was driving near Riverside, California when I heard the news on talk shows and on radio news. New York Senator Hillary Clinton had apparently cracked on the campaign trail. They said her eyes welled up with tears and her voice broke. Was it real? Calculated? Was it a 2008 version of Senator Ed Muskie’s crying in New Hampshire — a sure sign she was finished?

And then I got home and watched the YouTube.

And I realized how in our present culture so many events can be exaggerated.

Yes, Ms. Clinton showed that she’s human. But President George W. Bush has teared up several times during his time in office. Did anyone then suggest he was unfit for office? If someone did, it would have been silly. And it is in the case of Clinton, too.

But don’t take my word for it, watch it yourself and see if the descriptions — which BECOME the career-influencing reality — match what you see with your own eyes:

Be sure to read TMV co-blogger Dave Schraub’s excellent post on Hillary hatred (and hatred of women). And to see how the story is playing out on blogs GO HERE.

Talk show and press coverage was about Hillary’s tears — leaving the impression of her sobbing, with tears trickling down her cheeks.

And her two biggest political foes?

Illinois Senator Barack Obama — the guy who upset the Clintons’ plans and decided to run this year and has created a huge problem for charisma-challenged Hillary Clinton — reacted with class. Senator John Edwards reacted like a politician who was not about to look at an opponent with a cut, grab the cut and try to rip it open as wide as he can:
Edwards offered little sympathy and pounced on the opportunity to question Clinton’s ability to endure the stresses of the presidency.

“I think what we need in a commander-in-chief is strength and resolve, and presidential campaigns are tough business, but being president of the United States is also tough business,” Edwards told reporters Laconia, New Hampshire.

Do you think Edwards might have a candidate he thinks can fit that bill? Of course! Dennis Kucinich!

NOT!

Edwards jumped on the chance to express his readiness to face the strenuous demands of the presidency: “What I know is I’m prepared for that and I’m in this fight for the middle class and the future of this country for the long haul, through the conventions, straight to the White House.”

And Obama?

During a campaign stop at Jake’s Coffee in New London, New Hampshire, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was also asked to comment about Clinton’s teary moment.

“I didn’t see what happened,” he said, but added, “I know this process is a grind. So that’s not something I care to comment on.”

‘Admirable? Yes…but perhaps in another sense, no.

As blogger Tom Watson notes, Obama has essentially remained mum while the media (new and old) seemingly go after Hillary Clinton with gusto — doing the work for him that surrogates would normally do for a candidate. And, Watson writes, it raises several issues:

What kind of progressive American leader would stand silent, supporting with the cold reserve of ambition the disgracefully sexist, blatantly anti-feminist attack on a well-respected woman of the same party, a political foe perhaps, but a national Democratic leader?

Barack Obama – so far.

Make no mistake, Obama’s breakthrough says something wonderful about the state of racial politics in our nation – or perhaps the lack of racial politics – and the involvement of young people in politics. But his silence in the case of the cynical media lynching of Hillary Clinton by a national press corps obsessed with her gender is telling. And unless Barack Obama speaks out, his campaign’s chilling acceptance of the gender bias stirred by our national media will also remind many of Ronald Reagan’s acceptance of the race-baiting southern strategy – because if Obama accepts the presidency, at least in part, because of abject sexism, a brutal gender attack on a female rival – the most famous female Democrat in history – he will set feminism in our country back a generation.

Watson also notes Edwards’ reaction — which truly seems to have revealed a self-absorbed soul interested in advancing his own personal ambitions at every turn:

There is no hope for John Edwards, of course. His cruel, stony reaction to the news that Senator Clinton got a little emotional during a New Hampshire diner visit was a window on the man’s soul, a window into an empty room.

But Obama claims a mightier throne, one forged in liberal ideals of justice and equality and hope. He is the secular messiah of the Democratic Party, ordained by Oprah Winfrey as the chosen one and given to preaching about transcending petty politics. Yet there he was at the New Hampshire debate, throwing a scornful “compliment” at his rival when asked about Senator Clinton’s “likability,” one of the many sexist code words deployed against her in this race. “She’s likable enough,” he smirked, looking downward.

I think every woman reading this post knows exactly how Hillary Clinton felt in that moment.

Obama has benefited mightily from sexism in this campaign, and has remained silent. And that sexism is starting to be noticed, and commented on – even in places you don’t expect it.

There’s a lot more, so read the rest..

You don’t have to admire the way Clinton has run her campaign, its seeming use of surrogates, its apparent assumption early on that the nomination would be a kind of coronation or the return of a belonging to a family brand to say this: what is ON that video is not quite as momentous as how it was described in many circles today.