“The Media” is an amorphous term that seems to mean, as Alice says, whatever you want it to mean. “The Media”, according to Hillary Clinton, has been soft on Obama. It wasn’t “soft” on her when it nearly led the coronation back in September– that was simple inevitability. Hillary was enchanted. How rude of “The Media” to betray her trust. And she has always put her confidence in strangers.
Gloria Steinem, in an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times, opines that it would be somehow unjust if a woman were not the nominee this year because, after all a woman, has never been the nominee before, and this is the best chance ever of that happening.
So, so unjust.
Why, I never!
Who is this… this interloper!
Clinton has been steadily feeding the perception that Obama is a charismatic pretty boy without substance. That’s kind of odd– I first became aware of Obama when some journalists began writing about his new, broad-minded, non-partisan approach to politics– a rather daring approach given the eight years of Bush’s intensive partisan and vindictive approach to policy. What is more substantive? To challenge political orthodoxy like Obama, or to immerse yourself completely in the “the game” like the Clintons?
I’m liking Hillary Clinton less and less as the campaign wears on. Her attacks on Obama seem petty and mean-spirited. Her determined insistence that she has “experience” is ridiculous and tiresome– it is based on poll results, not on any kind of reality.
If the media themselves swallow the canard about the media being “soft” on Obama, it might also spare some indigestion for the idea that Clinton represents “experience”.
When Clinton’s team showed their “3:00 a.m.” ad to the media, a curious reporter asked when Ms. Clinton had ever experienced a “3:00 a.m. moment” in her career. Apparently, you could hear the crickets chirp in response.
I expect that a Hillary Clinton presidency will get the U.S. into a new shooting war within 18 months of her taking office. She will be out to prove to the generals and the Republicans that she has the toughness to take on America’s enemies, and she doesn’t have the creative independence of an Obama to stand up the maestros of international conflict.
[2022-05: well, Hillary got her chance, and lost the most winnable election in U.S. history. Would Steinem have you believe it was because she was a woman? Or was it because she campaigned badly, ignored the advice of her own husband, and used her own private email server — illegally– instead of the official White House server? Or maybe the most repulsive fact of all: she was the wife of a former president. The whole idea of a former President’s wife running for President is really, really appalling.]