A confession
I’ve been having a very strange experience with regard to the presidential campaign, an experience so unreal and unsettling I’m embarrassed to speak of it. But the truth is the truth.
I have been having positive feelings toward Hillary Clinton.
I’ve seen quite a bit of her on tv the last few days, and she has changed. She is not the mechanical, artificial, controlled and controlling person she’s always been, the woman whose every gesture, every expression, every molecule of her being seemed fake and calculated, the woman whose only “real” self showed when she raised her voice and shouted like an angry radical.
Part of it is that she is deflated by her Iowa defeat and lack of sleep, with the result that that the usual fierce energy of her ego, which has always kept her surrounded as in an iron vest, is no longer there. She seems like a normal human being to me for the first time, a sympathetic and genuine figure. She’s not striding in a queenly procession, she’s fighting stalwartly for her besieged candidacy, and is admirable in the way she is doing so, showing impressive ability. Of course, I’m against all she stands for, which is the socialization of every human need, open borders, the transformation of America into a European-style bureaucratic state under the reign of an unaccountable elite. And I will never forget or forgive the way she and her husband viciously corrupted the politics of this country, not to mention their criminal and thuggish behavior toward real people like Juanita Broaddrick. But leaving aside policy and ideology, leaving aside her history, and just looking at her as she is now, looking at her qualities and demeanor as she campaigns, one must admit that she is a plausible candidate for president of the U.S., the first woman one could ever see in that role.
I’m not supporting her in any way politically. I’m merely describing my reaction to her. It’s weird and incredible to me that I feel this way, that I—here it comes—like Hillary Clinton, and it may quickly pass when her usual artificial self returns, but the experience is so striking that I thought I would share it for what it’s worth.
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Tim W. writes:
Don’t buy it! :-)
Remember when Bill bit his lower lip and said, “I feel your pain”? This is Hillary’s version of the same schtick, only in her case it’s, “Come feel my pain.”
Harry Horse writes:
Be careful not to cross the line between useful discussion topics and voyeuristic
interpersonal feelings, as we see in so-called “reality television.” We aren’t that audience, and I’m sure whatever you’re feeling, will pass
LA replies:
To talk about liking a public figure is not voyeuristic, I don’t think.
James W. writes:
The Bill bubble she has always lived in burst and this is the result. She permitted herself the self-conceit that she was the long-suffering woman when in fact it was she who made people to suffer; the type of person who abuses the help. Man shows his character best in trifles.
When the matter was put to a vote, she seems to have been told anybody but you, and those were her friends.
I like the chastened Hillary better also, but I’m sure Adolf and Joe had their weepy moments as well.
This solves her dilemma. Obama is a weak candidate essentially hand-picked by the Clintons to have someone to run against, and is only made strong by her great unattractiveness. Now her challenge will be to balance the plate of humility on her head as she walks through the primaries. It’s not natural to her.
Mencius Moldbug writes:
You write: “she’s fighting stalwartly for her besieged candidacy…”
Mrs. Moldbug commented to me the other day that Hillary could be cast as the evil-queen figure in any Disney movie. She is just stretching her Jedi mind tricks to their absolute maximum edge of the mojo envelope, like Luke in the cave when the ice monster is about to eat him. Feel your own strength! Resist her powers! This may be the last time you have to do so.
Hillary is crying because she feels herself slipping away from the throne, which she feels she deserves. Or is “deserves” strong enough? She feels it is hers by right. Imagine if burglars robbed your house and took away your most prized possession, which you could never recover, and whose loss would blight not only your life but your memory. You would cry like a little girl. Hillary is much, much stronger than you, and still she chokes up a little. This will be enough to finish her—these sharks have absolutely no mercy.
Richard B. writes:
DON’T BITE THE APPLE!
A. Gereth writes:
I share your truly weird experience of newly-developed positive feelings toward Hillary Clinton. I find it amazing after having literal nightmares about her during her terms as co-POTUS.
Two newsclips triggered this sea-change. First, the clip of her tearful expression of concern for our country. I’m quite sure the tears were caused by extreme fatigue and I’m equally sure her concern is of the “our-country-can’t-be-run-right-unless-I’m-the-one-running-it” variety; nevertheless, she was extremely appealing.
Second, last night Bill O’Reilly showed clips of his trip to N.H. to see all the candidates. When Hillary was made aware he was in her audience, she introduced him to the crowd with the light of battle in her eyes but also with genuine good humor. I realize she was among a crowd of supporters so she could afford to be gracious. On the other hand, she was tired, newly-arrived from a crushing defeat and battling to save her campaign. O’Reilly himself mentioned twice how “gracious” she was.
It riles me no end when people automatically assume that those who do not like Hillary feel “threatened” by a strong, intelligent woman. My objection to her has always been on moral grounds. I don’t trust her any more than I did before yesterday. But I must admit, I do like her now. It could be that she’s a good loser and a poor winner. When on top, she seems authoritarian, harsh and almost inhuman. Her recent setbacks and fatigue have humanized her, something all those campaign ploys failed to do. How ironic, if the only thing that can make her seem truly appealing is being a loser.
LA replies:
Thanks to A. Gereth for confirming my experience, and stating the point so well.
I’m reminded of Richard Nixon. When he was politically active and president, his artificiality made him repellant. Everything about him was fake. After he left office and was humiliated and then began his comeback with his many books, he had a different persona. I remember once seeing a long interview of him by Morton Kondracke, around 1990, and I found Nixon a completely engaging, intellectually fascinating figure. I thought, why didn’t he act like this when he was president? His whole presidency would have been different. People wouldn’t have hated him, he wouldn’t have felt driven to allow his aides to break the law to get back at his enemies. There would have been no Watergate.
I’m also reminded of Gore. If Gore in 2000 had not felt this total, insane NEED to be president, which made him behave like a shark on steroids, he would have been more relaxed and normal and he would have won the election.
Paul W. writes:
If you feel yourself developing a warm and fuzzy emotion with regard to Ms Clinton, a brief speed-read of Barbara Olson’s “Hell to Pay” or “The Final Days” should soon snap you back into the correct attitude.
Bill and Hillary are both on record as looking forward to the day that white Americans become a minority. Hillary is now faced with the unthinkable; much of the 80 percent black American vote so relied upon by the Democrats has been stolen from her personally and granted to Mr Obama.
From what I can gather, 70 percent of Democrat voting blacks favoured Obama rather than Hillary in Iowa.
I would love to be a fly on the wall in the Clinton homestead. I wonder what her attitude toward ethnic minorities will be if the policies she has championed all of her life should negate the ONE thing she has wanted all of her life?
Dennis C. writes:
As I was reading the following,
“I’ve been having a very strange experience with regard to the presidential campaign, an experience so unreal and unsettling I’m embarrassed to speak of it. But the truth is the truth,”
a previous experience came to mind—much like waiting for you to confess the “embarrassing” truth. About 20 years ago I was at a K.D. Laing concert in Toronto. She was a young, hip Country and Western singer (“torch and twang” she labelled her style). At one point she stopped the music onstage and said in halting words, “I have something to confess to you guys tonight.” “I am a L…, a L…, a L…, darn it’s not coming out.” We all expected her to say “I am a lesbian” since rumors had been rife in those years about her. So she started again, “I am a L…, I am a L…” Then she blurted out, “OK listen up, I am a Lawrence Welke fan! There it’s out! I love his music, I grew up on it with my parents.”
LA replies:
That’s amusing.
In fact, as I was writing the post, I was aware that my opening paragraph made it seem as if I was about to make some personal revelation. So in order to make it sound a little less personal, I added, after the words, “very strange experience,” the phrase “with regard to the presidential campaign.”
Do you think K.D. Laing was deliberately pulling the audience’s leg?
Dennis C. replies:
Oh yes, she knew what we were all expecting. When the first “L” rolled of her tongue, there were gasps in the audience, then stone silence. She had that ironic smile on her face as she played around with the “L’s”—and then the audience caught on.
Dimitri K. writes:
Whatever hatred we have to each other, right towards left and left towards right, we should not give away our power to strangers. That’s a lesson I learned when I was living in Israel. I mean, Mrs. Clinton is still much better than Mr. Hussein Obama, because with all her drawbacks, she is still the representative of our nation, though maybe not its best part. But what Mr. Obama represents is still a big question.
Sebastian writes:
I second your reaction to Hillary.
We are men. We do not like to see women cry, women distressed and shaken. Our feelings, I think, are the result of a certain gallantry and male protectiveness she ironically wants to erase. Part of me knows I am being played but the other half doesn’t care. She plays on our male instincts; she is savvy yet we fall for it up to a point because we have not become the sexless creatures she advocates we become. There is something of my mom in Hillary, and of girls I’ve known who show vulnerability at just the right time. It may or may not be a show, but it makes her human and, more importantly, feminine. I could never treat her as badly as I would McCain or Edwards.
I think there is something unmanly about being too nasty to Hillary. It’s hard to describe—this is the kind of emotion Peggy Noonan can write about. If I am correct, it begs the question whether a not altogether unattractive woman can run for president without an unfair advantage based on gender. To deny her that advantage is to become a modern brute; to grant it is to be untrue to oneself. That’s her genius I think. Besides, let be honest, a white, preppy liberal woman is better than an arrogant man with Third World sympathies and a Kenyan father, who spent time in Indonesia and belongs to a Black Power church, has been influenced by Edward Said and is married to everyone’s worst nightmare of entitlement and resentment. I oppose Hillary’s politics bitterly, but I also know she will never be as radical as she hopes to be or as Obama may turn out to be. If elected, she would cut a deal with Wall Street, for she is a limousine liberal in the truest sense.
MJF writes from Portugal:
I live in Europe, I don’t watch television, I haven’t see Hillary Clinton in that disguise, so I’m speaking from a purely a priori position:
It works all the time!
Now tell me, if you guys cannot resist a woman in distress, how can you even dream about running a family—much less a country—on your own…?
LA replies:
If you’re speaking about the reason for my changed reactions to her, it wasn’t about her distress. That’s been overplayed by the media. It was that the false personality with which she is normally clothed was no longer there. For the first time since 1992, she seems like a normal person. For example, in the Sunday night candidates’ forum on FOX (which you can see on the Web, I think this is it), she didn’t have her usual pose of the “frontrunner,” with some calculated facial expression. She had no particular facial expression. She just sat there, with a serious demeanor, and made her arguments. The aspect about her that I and millions of others can’t stand was no longer there. That’s what I’m talking about.
Yes, I think her defeat in Iowa, by chastening and deflating her, had the effect I’m talking about. But the effect is not that she’s a damsel in distress, the effect is that her usual pretentiousness and fakery are gone.
A. Gereth writes:
You’re welcome. I was confused by the naysayers’ comments to you. They either didn’t see the newclips I mentioned or they refused to see the difference in Hillary’s entire demeanor that was so apparent in those clips. She seemed approachable and reasonable and above all, human. My suspicion that her tears were more for her setbacks than for her country didn’t detract from that impression. After all, it’s only human to want to win.
Yesterday was literally the first time I was ever able to imagine Hillary as having a private persona, as being just a regular person with any emotion other than a craving for political power. Of course, a traditionalist such as myself could never find her to be an acceptable candidate for any political office. But if she’d displayed her “human side” consistently and frequently before now, she’d have had a much better chance with others.
The contest between her and Obama would not then be about “experience” vs. “change” but about a woman vs. a black. Liberals could vote for her with a clear conscience, knowing they were helping her to “break through the glass ceiling.” Now, a vote for her looks like a continuation of a “dynasty.” I think her camp failed to gauge just how much “change” people want.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 08, 2008 10:25 AM | Send