Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Hillary's Tears

The news media has been trying so hard to make Hillary Clinton look like she is either lacking in humanity or lacking in strength. Throughout her campaign, she has shown herself as tough and as articulate, if not more so, as any of the male contestants on the campaign trail. Though I am not a Hillary apologist--I am no more for her collectivist economic proposals or her lifestyle socialism than I am for Stalin's--I believe the questionable media attention she has received concerning her emotional state betrays an underlying prejudice against her as a woman. She has been called "mannish," "lesbian" for her persistance and toughness and "lacking humanity" for her straight-faced speeches. All these labels are intended to diminish her to the point of making her seem an unviable candidate. A label of "feminine" is not likely to be helpful either because the connotative definition of the word precludes such attributes as decisiveness, self-control and risk-taking that are reserved for the male character only. I guess that's politics.

So what happens if Hillary should emote more than usual, as she apparently did yesterday when she received disheartening polling news in the New Hampshire primary? Various media pundits swear they saw her get "choked up" and "her eyes glistened" (if you looked closely enough and used your imagination) and they have not stopped harping on whether the "tears" were manipulative or genuine. If genuine, has she demonstrated her humanity or has she shown the weakness that is assumed innate in the female psyche (that makes women unfit for leadership duty)? Or was she just calculating and manipulative? She didn't make anybody happy, but I guess that's politics.

This whole media debate about Hillary's tears is like debating the physicality of ghostly ectoplasm. Neither exists. She did not cry, tear up or choke up. She calmly, and dare I say professionally, expressed her disappointment in the polls. But can you blame the (tabloid) media for spending so much air time on Hillary's "tears" since they rank with the Kennedy asssassination in national importance? With only the Iranian threats against U.S. warships in the Straight of Hormuz , riots in Kenya, fallout from Bhutto's assassination, nuclear Pakistan, nuclear Iran, nuclear North Korea, more threats from Bin Laden, more threats from Al Queda in Iraq, Bernanke giving in to political pressure.....to report on, it must have been a real slow news day.



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