She “Thicks Men’s Blood with Cold”: Hillary Derangement Syndrome

I like Hillary Clinton. Although my heart belongs to John Edwards, I voted for her as the candidate most likely to succeed, and even succeed superbly, at the thankless damn task that cleaning up after George W. Bush is likely to prove. After all, it’s not a
job for someone who can’t deal with being hated. But what a lot of people are saying now is that Hillary is too hated generally to make it to the White House; therefore Dems should get behind Obama.

I say that Obama would be much better off if he let Hillary do the cleaning up before he takes the presidency; it’s going to be a nasty, unpalatable job for the most part involving choices between one decision with consequences that are hard to stomach and another that is even worse. But Obama has signified that he would like to be president now. And many of my friends want him simply because they’re sick of the sound of Clinton-bashing. At least with Obama, mused one, we’d hear new, fresh contumely.

And we all know it’s true: Hillary is hated by many-many-many. In fact, she routinely gets reviled by right, left, and center. At The New York Times, Stanley Fish discusses the loathing that Hillary Clinton evokes from her detractors (not all of whom are Republicans), compared to which, he says, " the Swift Boat campaign against John Kerry was a model of objectivity."  Fish lists some of the crazier allegations against Hillary.  As he says, when the question presented is  "“Have the Clintons ever murdered anyone?” — and it turns out to be a rhetorical
question like “Is the Pope Catholic?” — you know that you’ve entered cuckooland."" (NYT)

But I’m more interested in the allegations of Hillary-haters who aren’t actually certifiable.  As Fish points out, many of the allegations against her are flat-out contradictory.  She is damned by her detractors (who aren’t limited to Republicans) no matter what she does.

In the January issue of GQ, Jason Horowitz described the world of Hillary haters, many of whom he has interviewed. Horowitz finds that the hostile characterizations of Clinton do not add up to a coherent account of her hatefulness. She is vilified for being a feminist and for not being one, for being an extreme leftist and for being a “warmongering hawk,” for being godless and for being “frighteningly fundamentalist,” for being the victim of her husband’s peccadilloes and for enabling them. “She is,” Horowitz concludes, “an empty vessel into which [her detractors] can pour everything they detest.”…

This is not to say that there are no rational, well-considered reasons for opposing Clinton’s candidacy….But the people and groups Horowitz surveys have brought criticism of Clinton to what sportswriters call “the next level,” in this case to the level of personal vituperation unconnected to, and often unconcerned with, the facts….

Horowitz warns that as the campaign heats up, this “type of discourse will likely not stay on the fringes for long,” and he predicts that some of it will be made use of by Republican operatives. But he is behind the curve, for the spirit informing it has already made its way into mainstream media. Respected political commentators devote precious network time to deep analyses of her laugh. Everyone blames her for what her husband does or for what he doesn’t do. (This is what the compound “Billary” is all about.) If she answers questions aggressively, she is shrill. If she moderates her tone, she’s just play-acting. If she cries, she’s faking. If she doesn’t, she’s too masculine. If she dresses conservatively, she’s dowdy. If she doesn’t, she’s inappropriately provocative.  (New York Times; emphasis added)

Yes, exactly.  And I don’t understand it.  I’d have said, looking at her with respect and mild liking but no special fondness, that she’s an exceptionally attractive woman for her age with a kind expression, a well-modulated voice, and immense dignity and self-possession ("robotic," says Hillary-hater Andrew Sullivan).  I’d also say that she dresses in an age-appropriate manner. 

What, specifically, do Sullivan—who has called her, among many other things, "Cheney in a pantsuit"— and  Chris Matthews—who actually had to apologize for crossing the, or a, line in his anti-Hillary commentary— know about her that disqualifies her for the office of president?  They must know something, but if they do, they never say (or not at any time when I’ve been listening).  It seems to me that they just don’t like her and that they think this is sufficient disqualification.  What did she—she herself, Hillary, as distinct from her husband Bill— do to get herself so hated?  Why is she so widely accepted as the whipping girl for everyone’s aggression?

Which brings me to the only argument for preferring Obama that I personally find somewhat persuasive: given the nastiness of those who oppose her, is Hillary "electable"?  In a head to head match with John McCain, would moderates choose Hillary? Would they choose her over Romney? 

If she’s not electable, why? People don’t like her? Why? Because she’s "polarizing." Why? Because she’s "ruthless" and "self serving." Why—or rather, how? How has she been more ruthless or self-serving than any other politician currently in, or running for, office?  Nobody ever gives a rational response. They tell you their perceptions and their emotions and their personal metaphors, but they don’t give their reasons. Is this because they don’t have any or because they are embarrassed by them?

Bill Maher—with whom I often, though not invariably, find myself in agreement—asked this question in Friday night’s Real Time—-of Congressman Darryl Issa..  Maher said:

I think the world of Hillary Clinton. And I’ve said this before on this show: anyone who hates Hillary Clinton just hates themselves. [applause] There is nothing hateful about this woman. She is just not – [to Issa] you really think there is? You made a face at me? Hillary Clinton? (Bill Maher: Transcript)

Issa replied, "She is one of the most polarizing figures in public life." And Maher asked Issa why.  "Is it coming from her?  Is she a hateful person with hateful positions?"  Issa said, "No, she’s not."  So why? Why?

She took on an issue that is yet unresolved, and she polarized people by scaring them that they were going to die without health care…while not fixing it.(Bill Maher: Transcript)

"Oh, Darrell, you’re kidding," fellow panelist Clarence Page protested.  He took the words right out of my mouth.  Let’s see if I can follow the logic:  She stepped out of her place while First Lady to draw attention to an issue and predicted an outcome which has turned out to be completely true and accurate?  And didn’t—single-handedly, I guess, because Issa’s party hasn’t exactly been backing sound health care policy during these last seven years— "fix the problem"?

So Hillary is—or was—too progressive in her views and turns out to have been scarily, castratingly right about health care.

Earlier in the same episode,  "renegade journalist" Matt Taibbi of The Smirking Chimp said (and fair enough):

I think Hillary Clinton’s whole thing about, you know how – “Well, I voted for the war; I voted for the authorization, but I didn’t know he was actually going to go in there.”…I mean, really. I mean, back in November, I mean, Bush and Cheney were practically already modeling their desert fatigues back then. [laughter] We all knew they were going into Iraq. I mean, the idea – I mean, the Democrats basically – they were afraid the war was going to be over in two weeks, that gas was going to be 50 cents a gallon and that Bush was going to be doing parades all summer. And they were going to be left out of it, looking weak….And it didn’t matter that it was the dumbest…idea of all time…or that American teenagers are going to die behind it. They just didn’t want to be on the wrong side of it if it happened to go right. You know, this whole idea that, you know, “we didn’t know,” it’s ridiculous.(Bill Maher: Transcript)

He also said:

I think one of the things about Hillary is…whenever there’s anybody who’s on the streets, who is protesting, she’s always going to be on the other side of that issue. If you pay close attention, you know, with free trade, with the war, with the Patriot Act, Hillary is on the other side of that issue.(Bill Maher: Transcript)

So perhaps the problem is really that she isn’t progressive enough She keeps listing right. She’s not in touch with the real, raw issues. In this article called  "Hillary Clinton: The New Nixon?", Taibbi has even more to say.  You probably can get the gist just from reading the title.

But no. It turns out that her views on the war are simultaneously too progressive and too right wing. Taibbi said during Real Time that if the candidates boil down to Hillary and McCain, the war "will be…off the table." (Bill Maher: Transcript)  And Issa subsequently criticized her because she will end the war.  "She’s going to cut and run from the war she voted for?" (Bill Maher: Transcript)

Is pleasing no one just the reward of being, at heart, driven to pull to the center?  I don’t think so. Because I see plenty of criticism of Hillary from self-styled centrists and moderates as well as the left and the right.

During Real Time, one of the panelists suggested that the Hillary haters are mostly conservative males.  As demonstrated above, not so.  In fact, Hillary hatred is rampant among other women, including powerful, outspoken women with resonant (note that I didn’t say "shrill") voices.

After Clinton’s New Hampshire win, Maureen Dowd wrote an exceptionally nasty piece referencing her "meltdown," so-called, because besides—being "robotic"—she’s not evidently supposed to be vulnerable or to show signs of wear and tear or emotion.  Ann Althouse has ripped on Clinton often and with gusto (at one point prompting this piece by satirist Jon Swift).  Camille Paglia has taken more than one swipe at her at Salon, portraying her as a "sado-masochist." (No, no way.  Read the piece—in which Paglia purports to "plumb the inky depths of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s warren-riddled psyche"—if you want to know why Paglia thinks you should fear Clinton.

Several months ago, I  commented on the atavistic horror which Hillary seems to inspire in both men and women from both sides of the political spectrum and semi-seriously tallied up some of the allegations and implications and metaphors deployed against her:

So where are we?  Hillary is:

• inhuman
• quasi-divine
• a "blood countess," which I am going to presume is a literary
  reference to Bram Stoker or Swinburne or Goethe or an obscure
  Pre-Raphaelite painting
• bone-chilling and mirthless
• an arrogant over-achiever who "intrude[s] and domineer[s]," bullying hapless men into "a passive torpor"
• a vampire who sucks all the energy out of her male competitors
• Rosie O’Donnell
• comfortable in her own skin, now that she’s given up wearing Bill’s
• an android who has been reprogrammed to seem "less programmed" and/or "effortlessly charming"
• Bill Clinton’s sock puppet
• Bill Clinton’s brain

Are you scared yet? I know I am….How did Bill Clinton dare, I wonder?  Or did he, in the immortal words of Basil Fawlty, have to sew them back on?)

Of course, the overblown hyperbole surrounding Hillary Clinton might suggest to a truly detached, adult electorate that Clinton is exactly the right man to run the presidency.She’s scary because she is powerful and because she emanates self-control and self-possession—-and because we Americans still have trouble coping with a woman of such superior force and intelligence. Don’t we yet deserve a president of seemingly mythic scope and capacity?

She intimidates people. She’s wily, wary, politic and intellectually supple—qualities we don’t trust, even though all are useful traits in the leader of the free world. People say that she’s morally supple as well; I don’t believe it for a second, but they do say so. If so? I don’t care. I don’t need another amateur theologian or self-styled moralist as president, thanks.

She’s doubly or triply scary because she doesn’t need our love or our liking; she just wants us to let her work for us.If she is elected president, she will own the part in a way her husband and George W. Bush never would and never could. She would get the job done, and efficiently, and whether it’s done “ruthlessly,” “brutally,” “robotically,” or “manipulatively,” or in any of the other manners commonly imputed to Hillary, I don’t care, provided that it’s done.

It’s quite possible we’ll never know for sure. Obama—like John Kerry— is seen as the less controversial, more "electable" candidate. He hasn’t been swift-boated (yet) He has in many respects a similar platform and the easygoing charm which male candidates can afford to emanate without being called manipulative or accused of using sex appeal to draw voters. I’m told by many people whose judgment I trust that he’s a great candidate and far more electable. I wouldn’t be sorry to see him get the nomination—-only sorry to see Hillary never get her chance to show us what she can do.

CROSS-POSTED AT BUCK NAKED POLITICS