Letters to the Editor
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Someone once said that the best stories tell you what you already know
I can't say I knew what Rebecca said, but I felt it. I felt exactly what she was talking about. It was so amorphous as to be beneath thought, but it was visceral, it was guttural, and it came out in a yell when New Hampshire was called for Hillary. And now that she has described the phenomenon, I realise that was what was going on inside me.
I'm a man, so I may not understand it the way she does, but I was frustrated and angry with how Hillary was being treated. Bullied, attacked, picked on, and it infuriated me.
Unlike Rebecca, I can forgive Hillary her senate votes. She was making the best of a deeply flawed system. That knowledge is exactly why I decided against working in politics myself.
And though last week was the most obscene example of this behaviour, it has been going on since 1992. Hillary's not strong, she's a bitch. She's not calm and collected, she's cold and calculating. Bush's tears get ignored, Hillary's tears get ripped to shreds.
Hillary has never done anything to earn the enmity that is vomited towards her on a continuous basis. And the fact that she hasn't turned bitter twisted and angry under the pressure (as I believe most people, including myself would) leads me to believe she is and admirable woman.
Someone I will be proud to cast my vote for in the Georgia primary.
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One Small Point
Rebecca's article is a theory, not fact. Nowhere did a sizable group of female voters from New Hampshire come out and say "we are here to support Hillary because she is a woman getting prematurely lambasted by the media."
The media got everyone all riled up about Obama's win in Iowa, and they are getting you riled up now, just in a different way. This article is really just another piece telling us NOT to vote for her by portraying her NH win as just a byproduct of the sisterhood.
Can we please return to election coverage that talks about issues and positions instead of race or gender?
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Sigh, yeah
I have had all the same obersvations and disgust about the smarmy boys club of the punditry class -- and that includes the women who smugly chuckle alongside the boys. Remember Tucker with his Hillary nutcracker? I wanted to use that thing as a vice around his bloated little head.
But for me, I guess I look at it like, the enemy of your enemy is not your friend. translation: even though it was gross watching the pundits' giddiness over Hillary's Iowa defeat, it didn't make me feel sympathetic toward her. She plays the game. She'd do anything to win. She's really no better than them.
And the pundits aren't JUST mysogynistic; they're sort of equal opportunity smug and condescending. Remember Bill Bennet saying that Obama will "teach the black community how to act."
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to me...
To me, it boils down to a question of what kind of person you want running the country.
Regardless of whether you agree with specific points of policy with a candidate (and no one will ever agree with any candidate 100%), Clinton endured 8 years under the most intense national scrutiny that anyone had ever seen given to a First Lady. As a public figure, as a politician, and now as a presidential candidate, she has weathered more criticism, more nitpicking into her life, more petty insults, more hatred, more creepy obsession, than any other candidate. Compare the grace and dignity with which she has faced all these tribulations to the childish glee expressed by Obama and Edwards, let alone the Republican candidates, at the thought of her demise, and it seems painfully obvious who among these distinguished people is best suited to govern the world's most powerful nation.
I think the reason women are coming out to vote for Hillary is because they are finally realizing that people who intentionally and eagerly cast their vote against Hillary, instead of for someone else, are not voting on policy. They are voting on the social revulsion of seeing a powerful, calculating, intelligent woman on the brink of achieving the most important seat of power of our time. Many women are finally beginning to see that they are Hillary. Hillary is them. Chris Matthews does not just hate Hillary. He hates the idea of Hillary, and that idea is inextricably tied up in her womanhood and society's presuppositions of what womanhood is supposed to entail. Women are beginning to realize that the insults, criticism, undeserved hatred, and cannibalistic fervor displayed against Hillary are really an assult on womankind itself. And that assault is terrifying. There is no justification for what Hillary has endured. No one could honestly look at the wildly differing treatment she has received at the hands of her opponents and the media and say that she had it coming for some reason other than that she is a woman.
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Damsel in Distress
HRC patronized MLK (her comments screamed barely veiled racial insult) and then cried. Is that the feminist way to win? Congratulations, girls!!
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I should note
That until very recently, I was an Edwards supporter. Now I can't imagine giving my vote to anyone other than Clinton.
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I was undecided
I have to go to a caucus in a few weeks, and none of the "front-runners" really thrilled me in a big way. I like Obama, but he seems untested and I'm not sure how effective he would be. I like Hillary, but I'm not a big fan of political dynasties, although I think she is the most competent and has the best resume of the three front-runners. I don't really like Edwards, mainly for his behavior during the 2004 campaign.
If Gore or Wesley Clark had gotten in, I'd have been out there with a sign.
Then Iowa happened - and with it, something odd. I felt sick at the thought of Hillary losing and the media calling for her head. The first woman who might be president, a competent, intelligent, talented individual who would be a FAR better president than W (to be fair, so would everyone else) - and she was being pressured to just leave. I realize, now, I was reacting to the "cakewalk" idea of a nomination and am thrilled that we might have an actual race.
And I'll probably be caucusing for Hillary - not just because she's a woman, but because I think she's the most competent individual in the race.