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Why do you think it’s sad? Swift’s post doesn’t actually explain anything. It just says, ultimately, that such criticism could potentially be made of any woman, regardless of merit. He doesn’t actually address any claims made by Dowd in the article; he merely satirizes it.
My first reaction on seeing Hillary choking up was the same as Dowd’s. I thought she was acting, playing a scene that she and her advisers wrote based on the polls and their analysis of what they thought the public wanted to see from her.
The Clintons, both of them individually and especially together, are master manipulators of public emotions. The moment could be spun in so many ways… for those who were beginning to doubt her humanity, it humanized her; the staunch feminists could rally around her, angrily denouncing the very video clip itself, and certainly the ensuing coverage, for even hinting that females are criers, and the doubters of her sincerity can be cast as plain ol’ Clinton-haters, part of the VRWC.
And hey, she and her advisers were right. She played it perfectly and came away with a victory.
Pat: it must be great to be able to look into people’s heart. Where would be without people with special powers like that?
Hillary flew in from Iowa and probably hadn’t slept during the flight to NH. It wasn’t like she balled her eyes out, MD didn’t attack her for being "overly hormonal female". If she had this sniveling after a good nights sleep and under no stress then it would be a Muskie moment.
Michael, so you’re saying you’re going to accept every single thing a candidate does at face value, without any skepticism or further analysis? Without considering their past behavior or anything other than a cold hard smoking gun piece of evidence to show that they are being intentionally manipulative?
I don’t claim to be able to look into anybody’s heart. But Hillary’s past behavior, her long history at rigid control over herself and her campaign, lead me to believe that this was acting, not reality. You are of course free to disagree But given Sen. Clinton’s past history, I really think a bit more analysis is called for (unless, as I say, you’ve decided to accept all acts and all emotions shown by all candidates at face value).
Because I don’t have your special power Pat.
Maybe Pat is a bit too sure of his own judgments, Michael, but he’s right to say that the cynical reaction is often appropriate in politics in general and specifically has been proven right by the past actions of the Clintons.
I said the other day, and still believe, that Hillary’s tears seemed genuine to me (though to me they showed her vain belief that she’s the only one who can save America, and that in turn shows that she thinks big government solutions are the cure for what ails us.) I’m still also cynical enough to note that, real or not, the display of humanity and vulnerability has worked toward Hillary’s advantage. Also, I had a feeling that the Clinton campaign itself may have been feeding the media narrative about pulling out of the race, taking a calculated bet that this would actually help her more than it would hurt her by mobilizing her supporters to rally around her.
You have to admit, her campaign seems to have figured out that the way to deal with the Hillary bashing is to welcome it and then allow it to create a backlash of sympathy for her. It seems to me that this has even created a bit of an immunizing effect toward substantive criticisms; for example, I find it amazing that the Hsu finance scandal story didn’t have legs.
Bingo, Christine. That’s long been the Clinton approach to criticism and scandal. Ignore the substance and turn the tables on any who dare to attack them, with a very loud "how dare you!" It worked for Bill, and it’s working for Hillary. They are very, very good at it.
Remember that time, after his famous finger-wagging denial about "having sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky" but before his confession to the grand jury, when President Clinton paraded his entire cabinet in front of the TV cameras to personally vouch for him, for something he knew at the time to be a lie? Even the most die-hard Clinton supporters on the cabinet looked terribly embarrassed as they did it. And yet there on the podium after Iowa, standing just behind Hillary and 2 spots down from Bill, was Madeline Albright.
For that matter, remember how very sincere, how very righteously indignant Bill sounded while he was wagging his finger in our face while lying to us? He’s very good at acting, too. I was fooled into voting for them once, 16 years ago. I won’t make the same mistake twice.
To preempt any effort to write this criticism off as Clinton-hatred from the VRWC, I don’t think that the Clintons are evil. They didn’t kill Vince Foster, they don’t have horns and a tail. But they are master manipulators and extremely adept at the hardest of hardball politics. Don’t for a moment believe that anything she does is unscripted.
Exactly, Pat. I don’t put it past Hillary to have possibly staged the tears, but I didn’t think in this case that she did. And for the record, no, I didn’t believe Bill when he gave his finger wagging denial, and I’ve never found him to be very convincing at all. Yet he’s a better natural actor than Hillary is, so perhaps that’s why I felt that her emotional response was probably real rather than staged. Plus I think it would be consistent with her to actually feel that choked up about the possibility of losing.
I don’t see how this is drivel. Hillary was trailing in the polls and her show of emotion, genuine or not, energized a certain part of her base. Dowd is just correctly calling and analyzing the turning point in a campaign that had been nearly written off.