Why We Love to Hate Hillary

By Jack Hitt, Mother Jones
http://www.alternet.org/story/46237/


"Hillary Clinton is like our national Rorschach: She stokes our every emotion, from our deepest fears to our darkest hatreds."
....

"Hillary-hating is such a national pastime, for both Democrats and Republicans, that it should be its own verb: "Hillarating." "
...

"The source of the strong feelings goes all the way back to when we were introduced to her as Bill Clinton's copresident," says Nora Bredes, director of the Susan B. Anthony Center for Women's Leadership in Rochester, New York. After the health care defeat in 1993, Hillary retreated into being a wife and then a proper first lady before emerging again "as an international leader and then in the late '90s re-creating herself as a victim of his infidelity and then again stepping out as a candidate for the Senate," says Bredes. "People get uncomfortable when it's not a neat story. Is she a progressive feminist or a cautious moderate? People don't know exactly who she is, and so different reactions are almost invited."
...

"She is a Cosmo quiz of an enigma, so let's cut right to the answer key in the back pages and find out what kind of Hillary you see.:

The Martha Stewart Hillary: For you, the New York senator is, as Newt Gingrich's mother once observed, "a bitch," or, as William Safire phrased it, "a congenital liar." You tend to relish the catty details that reveal her as a petty-minded overachiever, like when she peevishly denied her ghostwriters writing credit....

The Tammy Wynette Hillary: The famous invocation of the country-western singer happened during a 60 Minutes interview in 1992. Hillary defended her husband's philandering by saying, "I'm not sitting here some little woman, standing by my man like Tammy Wynette." And this is where it can get tricky. Most people forget Hillary's next line: "I'm sitting here because I love him." The cognitive dissonance is confusing, because, of course, that is the Tammy Wynette position....

The Eleanor Roosevelt Hillary: This Hillary first emerged at her 1969 college graduation, when her commencement speech was considered so controversially feminist that it landed her in the pages of Life magazine...

The Dianne Feinstein Hillary: You see her as a phony centrist always triangulating toward the ideological middle, willing to betray her true liberal self for power.
....

The Lisa Simpson Hillary: We're seeing of lot of this conscientious Hillary lately.

The Diana Prince Hillary: Bill's wife is the secret identity of Wonder Woman. Is there anything she can't do? Even if you hate her, you admire her fundraising ability and her $8 million book advance...

The Lady Macbeth Hillary: You fixate on pictures of Hillary wearing big dark sunglasses, behind which she conspires to take over the world.

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I recommend reading this whole article - the gist of it is that sexism plays a big role in people's attitude toward Hillary. even liberals and democrats.

I was discussing Hillary Clinton with a feminist friend of mine recently, and the thing that bothered her the most about Hillary, which she couldn't let go of, was the question " Why didn't she leave Bill after the Monica thing?"

I'n not a big fan of Hillary, but this article made me rethink some of my own criticisms of her and what lies beneath it.

I recommend reading this whole article - the gist of it is that sexism plays a big role in people's attitude toward Hillary. even liberals and democrats.

I was discussing Hillary Clinton with a feminist friend of mine recently, and the thing that bothered her the most about Hillary, which she couldn't let go of, was the question " Why didn't she leave Bill after the Monica thing?"


Isn't there something weird about those last 2 paragraphs?

Give us all a brake.

I guess I missed it...

You know wife of this one, son of that and they all seem to be just stealing us blind. I would just like to see a whole new group of people and hope for some better than we have had. It is just a dream I guess as I am sure power is like sex and greed. It goes to DC and does well in that place.

We have demands of Hillary we would NEVER make on a man.

Of course, I've never had any problem understanding why she stayed with her brilliant bad boy.

Someone here at DU called Hillary "heartless." Nope. A heartless woman could not have raised Chelsea Clinton.

But she is ambitious. And I believe ambition brought about the pro-IWR vote for those 28 senators who disappointed us. BUT WE AIN'T GETTING A CANDIDATE WITHOUT AMBITION. NEITHER ARE THEY.

There are many, many reasons to be wary of Clinton that have nothing to do with gender.

with a few exceptions. However, when it's Clinton, she is consistently made out to be worse, even if she has made the same bad decisions as the other candidates.

I'm not a big fan, but there are definitely sexist undertones when most people talk about her.

to do with gender.

Enough Said!

the October 2003 IWR, with its compromise language, because the alternative was to watch the Republicans take over Congress in January and pass a much worse Republican-only version of the IWR -- giving Bush a free hand to attack not only Iraq, but anywhere in the Middle East.

So the real choice was: vote for the October IWR, with all its conditions, and hope that Bush would abide by them. Or help it go down to defeat -- and then, in January, watch the Republicans pass a new IWR (one that wouldn't require even a single vote from a Democrat) giving Bush a blank check.

Enough Said!

from coming before a Republican-led Congress in January?

That makes a lot of sense.

:sarcasm:

Hillary giving a speech to AIPAC over the week-end, and refusing to rule out a strike on Iran.

'Nuff said. Screw Hillary, and anybody else, male or female who backs an attack on Iran.

And just for the record, John Edwards, who would have gotten my support, just blew it with that same line.

how's that?

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and welcome to DU! :toast:

I have been here for years, I just don't have the time or inclination to post very much.

Nice to meet you...See you around the board.

:hi:

It's not generally a word we use to describe men in politics.

I've heard some pretty mysogynistic words in DU, and they always make me squirm. I hate seeing Rice get called "whore", I hate seeing Clinton get called a "whore". There have to be other words... aren't there?

Painful words for painful deeds.

many DU'ers will deny it.

These include Biden, 2 Nelsons, and a few others. Is that misogynistic?

in the Senate. That's quite a feat.

:sarcasm:

We need leadership on the war, and she is beholden to AIPAC.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

but hey, whadddeye know?

While a misandrist hates men.

I mean, I don't approve of Edwards talking tough on Iran, either. Doesn't that make me an equal opportunity disapprover?

I won't support her in the primaries for the same reason I won't support Biden. War, war, war. She had a chance to say something years ago. She has chances to do something now. She didn't and doesn't.

I hate Hillary because she is wasting her talent and her powerful position of privilege to further pervert, subvert, and destroy this nation, the world, and the whole concept of democracy.

I would LOVE to love Hillary--I did, back in the early days. But knowing now what she's been doing lately, all I can say is, "Get thee behind me, Satan!" She is offering fool's gold, her own brand of Koolaid, and I ain't buying, and neither are a lot of other, once bitten, twice shy people.

To have the first woman be the WRONG woman would be infinitely worse than having NO woman in the office.

that's a very clear mark of underlying sexism -- conscious or unconscious.

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

I think it refers more to their perceived behavior (selling themselves out in an unsavory way) than gender.

:shrug:

She looks like a mediocre political hack to me. Nothing to do with her gender.

In fairness, there are lots of people that hyperventilate over her name, but mostly because they listen to Limbaugh and the like.

Now she is Hugo Chavez's blond sister-

http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0207/0207clintonchavez.htm

female...

"The Dianne Feinstein Hillary: You see her as a phony centrist always triangulating toward the ideological middle, willing to betray her true liberal self for power."

...there are a couple of male Democrats I could name who fit this description - some of them are running for President.