Letters to the Editor
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Kos post, Update II
Color me a tad skeptical, although it's at least partially true. It seems clear to me that, on balance, the abusive treatment given to Hillary by the media has harmed her substantially.
My own experiences with others' attitudes reflect the surveys that show she has very high "negatives." Certain acquaintances of mine, when the subject or image of Hillary appears, erupt into the most absurd, juvenile, and irrational vitriol against her -- much of it highly, highly sexist. Grown adults who should know better.
This effect has much to do with not only a default chauvinism, but no doubt also the tireless right wing campaign to sully her image and get the media to join the chorus. Then, the pattern develops into a positive feedback loop, where the higher the number of prominent people that scorn her begets the perception that she is disliked, which begets a grudging avoidance by some of her would-be supporters who fear the baggage of a candidate that is so widely disdained.
I agree with Markos in the following, more limited regard. Isolated incidents such as her tearing up in New Hampshire can tilt the scales of outrage against her attackers. If coincidentally occurring just before an election, it can indeed produce a backlash. In the usual course, however, particularly where Hillary has ignored the attacks or sternly faced them down, all the bile just accumulates and eventually weighs her down by sheer attrition. In spite of her merit and resolve not to succumb to the unfairness, the additional constant force of societal sexism partially isolates her and compounds the relentlessness of the attacks.
Also, whereas similar biases against racial minorities have become taboo (at least in the open), the animus against women still retains enough societal legitimacy to operate with relative freedom. I won't venture to postulate here why open expressions of sexism, in my opinion, have been able to survive more than open racism.
At any rate, Hillary is indeed tough as nails, and I mean this in the best way. Every bit as resilient as her husband, if not moreso due to the added social forces working against her. Count me admittedly among those who emotionally sympathized with her in that vulnerable moment. Also, even though my first choice is Obama, if she does win the nomination, I would love nothing more than for her to have 8 years of magnanimous success as President in the face of all this blind hate.
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WHY YOU ARE WRONG
Chris Matthews is doing PARTISAN JOURNALISM. He is NOT looking at things judiciously, fairly, evenly, with an even temperament. He takes sides. He is like a carnival barker drumming up excitement for an event, to boost his ratings. He creates "heroes, villains, enemies." After watching him steadily for three to four years, I've decided to tune him out, PERMANENTLY. What he is really about is creating a dogfight, to see who bloodies and kills whom. We're supposed to buy tickets to this dogfight, make bets, and feel glee. I thought dogfights were illegal Michael Vick was put in jail. But I'm sure you think that this is not a dogfight. It's hardball. No, it's not. I've grown up with baseball. And his show is not that by a mile.
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Reilly..
I won't belabor the point but I will say this: the art of argumentation through the effective use of reasoning is all but lost in our political landscape of propoganda and soundbites and absolutely nonexistent in our mainstream media, but it is resurgent in the great democratic tool of the internet.
Finding people IRL who are interested in argumentation through the effective use of reasoning is all but impossible.
Where else are ya' gonna go but teh intertoobz?
Even here if the position you wish to argue is sufficiently unpopular or embarrassing mostly you get insults and ad hominem arguments.
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Military Patriot
Dan Abrams who is the MSNBC legal correspondent and now has his own show after Countdown had a discussion on Jan 7 with Rachel Maddow and Pat Buchanan criticizing the media piling on Hillary.
I watch Abrams on a fairly regular basis now. I remember his old show, which was on earlier and used to focus mostly on Nancy Grace-type tabloid "legal" stories. He's really found his voice in the new format, and I agree that he's another wise move by MSNBC.
As frustrating as Chris Matthews can be, and as downright annoying as Tucker is, I think MSNBC is our best hope right now for a "mainstream" TV outlet that can actually handle issues in a reasonable way. (No, I am not affilliated in any way with that station.) I think it's also important sometimes to remember not to expect perfection from anything coming out of TV. Even Olbermann can say insipid things from time to time -- conversely, Scarborough and Buchanan sometimes offer nuggets of startling wisdom. And when David Shuster is on attack mode, it is a thing of beauty. Chuck Todd, Charlie Cook, and Chris Cilliza are often more insightful than not too, but only for those who can stomach political prognosticating.
Like it or not, despite everyone's best efforts to raise the salience of blogs, television news is something we cannot ignore. I like to think of myself as "rewarding" MSNBC for its positive, if halting, steps.
End commercial.
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--- Aycharaych
Even here if the position you wish to argue is sufficiently unpopular or embarrassing mostly you get insults and ad hominem arguments.
Yes that's true and unfortunate, but not everybody engages in that way and my point was that whatever the nature of the question it should be addressed (or ignored) after it is asked for the reasons I stated.
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A word about the woman and the african american
I find it interesting that the first woman and african american man that have a shot at the presidency are really unrepresentative of their so-called base group. Basically, the message here is, if you're a woman running for president, you'd better have been first lady first--which excludes just about 99.9999999 percent of the population.
As far as African Americans are concerned, Obama's father is from Africa, and, during his short life was an academic. Obama was raised by his white grandparents in Hawaii. The question is not whether Obama is black enough; the question is whether anything in his personal narrative intersects with the peoples that his candidacy claims to represent. And it doesn't.
Something to think about when we talk about milestones. Clinton and Obama are sort of anti-milestones, and their candidacies may by their very nature, close, rather than open the door for women and african americans.