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January 30, 2007
More Hillary Absurdity
Yesterday, I got on the press for its absurd, idiotic focus and commentary of Hillary's "evil, bad men" joke. Today, from Greg Sargent, we get the actual video, and some more bizarre commentary. First, the video:
Now, back to Sargent, who writes:
Many are trying to interpret this as a sly reference to someone in her past -- Ken Starr, perhaps, or even that guy she lives with whose first name is Bill. She later said it had been what it sounded like -- a reference to Osama Bin Laden.
Is that really what it sounded like? Hillary slyly rephrases the question to say "what in my past prepares me to deal with evil, bad, men," gets a laugh line, cracks up herself, and Sargent thinks she was talking about -- what? Reading news coverage of Osama bin-Laden? Speaking to her husband after the bombing of the Cole? That's what we're to believe she finds funny?
Hillary was making a joke. She said she was making a joke! '“You guys!” she chuckled after the third question from a reporter on the topic. “I thought I was funny. You guys keep telling me, lighten up, be fun. Now I get a little funny, and I’m being psychoanalyzed.”' She was using a form of humor called "exaggerism," a "witticism that overstates the features, defects, or the strangeness of someone or something." That's a good thing. I thought there was nothing I could want less than to watch the press misinterpret and psychoanalyze her every stab at levity for the next year. But I was wrong. To watch progressives then react in a precisely opposite, perfectly proportional way will render an intolerable situation absolutely excruciating.
Watch that clip again. You know the saddest part of this whole controversy? Hillary's joke was actually funny. The sort of sly playfulness that makes a campaign bearable both for candidates and voters. She was funny, the swell of voter laughter rich and genuine. It was, and is, the press that couldn't crack a smile, and now I bet Hillary isn't either.
January 30, 2007 in Election 2008 | Permalink
Comments
I agree completely with your take, Ezra--the absurdity of the controversy, the absurdity of the defense, and the funniness of the joke. It actually makes me like Hillary more, but it may not be the wisest campaign strategy to respond to questions about national security with a joke comparing terrorism to adultery and that's probably why she later backpedalled.
Posted by: Joseph Hovsep | Jan 30, 2007 10:39:57 AM
The fact that people are making somewhat of a controversy over these comments epitomizes the level of absurdity our political process has achieved.
Posted by: AT | Jan 30, 2007 10:46:48 AM
I like it.
She is finally starting to be "real".
I say to Fox Noise, bring it on. The more you speak, the more people begin to see you for what you are, a sham news service.
I am leaning more positive towards her than I was last month and if she continues to be this way, she will have my vote as well as the vote of my wife.
The only person who would change my mind would be Al Gore, but I do not think he will come into the race unless she totally screws up.
Posted by: marcus | Jan 30, 2007 10:53:19 AM
"Is that really what it sounded like?"
No. It was obviously a joke about her marriage. But that's what Hillary said it was about when asked.
Posted by: Petey | Jan 30, 2007 10:54:51 AM
So when people say "we shouldn't nominate a Clinton, there is too much irrational hatred of them" well, this is what we are talking about. Not just high unfavorables, but a press corps that is singularly unable to focus on the issues whenever a Clinton is around.
For the love of jehosaphat, please nominate someone else.
Posted by: Tony V | Jan 30, 2007 10:57:21 AM
Tony V, I don't want HRC either, but what makes you think the press will provide sane coverage of any other Democratic candidate? The Clinton-focused idiocy is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our media problem.
Posted by: KCinDC | Jan 30, 2007 11:16:58 AM
that was probably the first time i have seen her smile. it looks good on her. she should try it more often.
Posted by: troep_post | Jan 30, 2007 11:23:40 AM
Tony, KC,
Lets not forget how they zeroed in on Gore (invented the internet,etc.) while giving dunce-boy a free pass. While they love attacking Clintons, they will attack any Democrat, ,not just hil and bill
Posted by: ken | Jan 30, 2007 11:32:47 AM
I believe everyone is correct above. This represents both HRC's predicament, but it also is what all Democrats can expect. That's why they must absolutely come out of the gates this time willing to define themselves before the press or GOP does.
One other thing- it is a sad commentary that our discourse is like this, but we must get over being shocked, over trying to explain, and do something more proactive about it.
Posted by: akaison | Jan 30, 2007 11:40:50 AM
One of the biggest reasons I liked Clark was that it seemed these kind of petty media attacks wouldn't work against him. I'm still not sure whether that was wishful thinking on my part.
Posted by: PapaJijo | Jan 30, 2007 11:49:56 AM
Wow. Hillary's going to be the next president. I wouldn't have thought it, but just as she won NY in 2000 by being the foil to the right-wing hate machine, she's going to win the Dem nomination by being the foil for the silly-season political media. I mean, framing it as Hillary against Fox News, even I am thinking she might not be so bad if Obama and Edwards can't make it....
Posted by: Jack Roy | Jan 30, 2007 11:56:43 AM
I don't get the joke. I wish someone would really try to explain it to me. What was being exaggerated? Whose defects? Bill Clinton?
Posted by: watb | Jan 30, 2007 12:04:14 PM
One of the biggest reasons I liked Clark was that it seemed these kind of petty media attacks wouldn't work against him. I'm still not sure whether that was wishful thinking on my part.
Sorry, it is wisful thinking, and most of the attacks came from the Left. Examples follow.
From Counterpunch:
[During the] Kosovo wars when Clark was NATO commander. . .Not only did Clark lord over the first unprovoked aerial bombardment of a major European city (Belgrade) since Adolf Hitler's Luftwaffe pounded virtually defenseless European cities, but he almost got into a shooting war with Russian peacekeeping troops in Kosovo. It was only the intervention of the British government, Defense Secretary William Cohen, and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Hugh Shelton that prevented Clark from starting World War III. When Clark ordered British Lt. Gen. Michael Jackson to forcibly block Kosovo's Pristina Airport to prevent Russian planes from landing, the Briton replied, "Sir, Ia*TMm not starting World War III for you.a** Jackson was backed up all the way to Number 10 Downing Street. Clark was forced to back down. Eventually, Cohen fired Clark as NATO commander three months before his term was to expire. . . .
After four years of Bush [this was written in 2003], the neo-con Fifth Column in the Democratic Party is trying to convince us that Clark is the "anti-war" candidate. Tell that to the people of Serbia, Kosovo, and Montenegro. Tell that to the coca farmer in Bolivia or Colombia who is trying to feed his family. Let's not fall for the deception and tricks of the neo-cons again. If you are tired of Bush, Cheney, and the neo-cons and their phony wars, Clark is certainly not the answer. He has been, and remains part of, the great deception of the American people.
From a 2003 article in The Nation:
His eyes are blank. Like a turtle resting on a rock in the middle of a pond, he simply seems never to move, no matter how long you stare. But then, just as you're about to pack up your picnic basket and go home, you catch him: His head pops out, and he slides off into the water....
It had always troubled me that people opposed to the war could have seen something in Wesley Clark. Because it seemed to me that no person who found the Iraq war morally repugnant could have gone on television and talked sunnily about how this or that weapon was ravaging Iraqi defenses. I remember watching Clark on CNN, and at one point he was actually playing with a model of an A-10 tank-killer airplane, whooshing it back and forth over a map of Iraq, like a child playing with a new toy on Christmas morning. A person who was genuinely opposed to the war as wrongful killing would be sick even thinking about such a thing.
Clark's new book, Winning Modern Wars, is 200 pages long, all about the Iraq war. Yet there is only one instance in the entire book in which he gives a physical description of the death of a human being, that being a mention of some Marines in Nasiriyah who were found with bullet holes in their heads. Everywhere else, human beings are described as "targets" or "objectives" or even "high-value targets," and their deaths are rendered with sports/ football metaphors ("going 'downtown' with air power," "Red Zone" attacks, "the Big Win," etc.) and bloodless euphemisms for words like "kill" or "assassination" ("destroy," "decapitating strike"). Moreover, he never mentions civilian casualties without qualifying his statements--the "alleged mistakes of the bombing campaign," the "hapless women and children reported to be victims of the bombing."
Ouch!
Posted by: p kibble | Jan 30, 2007 12:23:31 PM
Two thoughts -
- This was a very silly story stretched to the limits. No one should try to explain why something's funny. We all get that she thought it was funny. We can all speculate as to why she thought it was funny. But that's about it. Trying too hard to give only one reason for it being funny just drags this out and out.
- But that said, this shows a couple of things, one being that she needs to tighten up her presentation to the press, as she helped drag this story out by answering the question three times in three different ways. Second, this does go to something that many may miss, but some will get - there's a dark, sarcastic edge that sometimes slips into what Clinton does or how she says things. Most of the time, and I think she knows this, few if any people notice. But more people will notice if she keeps doing it, especially when she's not subtle about it. Hillary Clinton does a marvelous, thoroughly professional job of being someone who doesn't ruffle and who doesn't say negative things. But she's also clearly a very bright woman with opinions and an edge. And she needs to watch the snark, because it could really do her in.
Posted by: weboy | Jan 30, 2007 1:12:07 PM
KC, Ken:
The press isn't universally nice to Democrats, but after 16 years there is an obsession with the Clintons that isn't there for others. This scenario or the recent Broder column wouldn't have happened over any other Dem Senator.
Posted by: Tony V | Jan 30, 2007 1:14:58 PM
PapaJijo: IIRC, that was the reason that we all decided that John Kerry was so "electable". He was a "war hero" so they couldn't be attacked as a "draft dodger" like Bill Clinton or "only a journalist" like Gore. He was "serious" and "experienced" unlike Edwards "the Breck Boy". He was a "better campaigner" than Clark and so on and so forth.
Pick a Democrat. The Republican strategy is going to be to call them a "far left liberal" (even Zell Miller), find "scandals" in their past (e.g. "he sold a house for less than his asking price!"), accuse them of sympathising with "islamo-fascists", blah, blah, blah.
Listen to what Hillary says. Look at her record. Do you like what you see. If you believe what the press says about any Democratic candidate, you're going to be convinced that they are unelectable and probably need to serve a prison sentence
Posted by: J Bean | Jan 30, 2007 1:33:06 PM
Hi p kibble, yes those are brutal. But they're a different type of criticism, from a different type of media. I think the issue is more of who's vulnerable to the glib, dismissive attacks used by mainstream pundits.
Along the lines of what you quoted, I can see Clark being given another variation of the "crazy" label, but haven't actually see that happen, yet.
Posted by: PapaJijo | Jan 30, 2007 1:44:24 PM
Ezra, you've done as much psychoanalysis on this as anyone; maybe you just have a different theory--I can't tell. Just what do you think she was exaggerating? And you don't stop with Hillary; you analyze the analysts.
I agree with most people who saw the joke: it was funny because it made you think of Bill, and I think that's exactly what she intended. Of course it would be insane for her to say that was her intent, but it doesn't matter; almost everyone gets the joke anyway. I agree with you that it was a good joke, well delivered, and most people are just enjoying it, and Hillary's wink at us. This episode has been good for her.
I think you're making more of the press reaction than is there. The NYT account you assail at Tapped is perfectly fine, not at all what you make of it. There is always silliness about Hillary from her critics, but this episode doesn't show the rest of the world going silly too, no more than called for by the inherent silliness. The press knew this would be the clip to show on TV, so it was natural to ask questions about it, and, as weboy points out, when you get contradictory or strange answers, then analysis begins.
Posted by: Sanpete | Jan 30, 2007 2:05:04 PM
PapaJijo:
I can see Clark being given another variation of the "crazy" label, but haven't actually see that happen, yet.
"Yet" is the key word. But come 2008. . .
Posted by: p kibble | Jan 30, 2007 2:47:12 PM
I can see Clark being given another variation of the "crazy" label
I recall while watching Clark a few years ago having the uncomfortable sensation of something vaguely Al Haigy. Maybe it was just a fluke.
Posted by: Sanpete | Jan 30, 2007 3:13:40 PM
"and having the uncomfortable sensation," that is. I don't know what sensation he was having.
Posted by: Sanpete | Jan 30, 2007 3:17:09 PM
Maybe one of those great perspective questions.
If you thought "She's talking about Ken Starr et al.", then you are a Democrat.
If you thought "She's talking about Bill", then you are a Republican.
Posted by: Robert P. | Jan 30, 2007 3:25:56 PM
after i heard that comment, i thought..."what if edwards or obama or richardson made a comment like that about women they had known"... and it was picked up by the press.
....i agree with tony v, who posted earlier...who could handle four more years of this. one could only imagine what it would be like for the country to endure any more clintonphobia.
Posted by: jacqueline | Jan 30, 2007 5:23:23 PM
i might be wrong about this, and perhaps it is just my problem, but i wonder if other women have a difficult time relating to hillary clinton.
...the humiliations she publicly endured made her less of a role model for me as a woman. i did not find her defense of her husband ennobling, and i cannot help myself...i find them to be a disturbing couple. there was an element of disgrace in their whole situation, and in the personas or public masks they continue to wear, that i continue to find very wierd and chagrining. for me, it continues to cast a dark shadow on both of them.
...the sacrifice of personal dignity in the pursuit of power makes me very disinclined to consider voting for her..perhaps i just feel wary of people who are ruthless and overly driven at any cost.
Posted by: jacqueline | Jan 30, 2007 6:51:21 PM
Can we please drop this now and get back to critiquing her clothes?!
Posted by: jmack | Jan 30, 2007 7:54:49 PM
