Liberals suddenly decide that the Clintons have gone “too far”

After worshipping the Debauched One for years, the liberal media have suddenly turned en masse against Bill Clinton for his excessive role in his wife’s campaign. See this, this, this, this, this, this, and this.

And it’s no joke. Tim Shipman in the Telegraph reports:

Bill Clinton will play a bigger role in his wife Hillary’s election campaign than her vice presidential running mate if she wins the Democratic White House nomination, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.

In late night strategy sessions Mr and Mrs Clinton have decided together that the former president will stay in the spotlight for the rest of the primary campaign and then take the fight to the Republicans in the general election. …

One Clinton camp figure familiar with discussions in her inner circle told The Sunday Telegraph: “WJC [William Jefferson Clinton] is going to be there from now on. Bill’s doing what running mates normally do; he’s acting as the lightning rod. Whoever is the running mate will have to get used to the idea that he is in the lead.

“Just as, when she’s president, whoever is her secretary of state will have to deal with the fact that Bill can just get on the phone to Gordon Brown and go to Britain and ask him to help out on an issue. That’s a fact of life.”

If the libs truly do not like the weird spectacle of a former presidential wife running for president with her former presidential husband as her co-candidate and hatchet man, they could support my proposed “Hillary Clinton Amendment” to the U.S. Constitution:

No person shall be elected to the office of the President who is the spouse of a person who is ineligible for the Presidency under the Twenty-Second Amendment to this Constitution.

Of course, it’s too late for such an amendment to take effect before the 2008 election. But even to support the amendment now would be a way for people to protest this unseemly situation. The Clintons debauched our country for eight years, and now they are in gear to do it again, and bigger than before.

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Mark K. writes:

VFR has discussed the issue of male and female votership in a democracy. My gut feel is that Bill has essentially became the fulcrum of Hillary’s campaign because it is a male-female type thing. The male is the aggressive, go-getter, issue definer, authoritative voice, etc. This was bound to happen. It is natural—Clinton is an alpha male type; there was never going to be any containing him. The race between Obama and Clinton has become for me the race between Barack and Bill, as Bill is the one who has set the tone and tenor of Hillary’s campaign.

At none of the debates that I have seen has Hillary ever come across as assertive and commanding vis-a-vis the other males on stage. Dodd, Biden, Richardson, Obama all have better stage presence than Hillary who frequently defers to them on stage. Why? Because it’s a man thing. It is simply too natural for a man to command people’s focus towards him; not a woman.

This Friday I sat at a business meeting with a company. That’s company’s chief representative was a VP—a woman. She came with four other males (all with lesser titles). Guess who defined all the issues, spoke more authoritatively and attracted the interests of others around the table? The males that came with her. She was more compliant and deferential—“You think?” “Can we do this?” “What can we make of this” and so on—so many hypotheticals in her communication. The males all had definitive and concrete ideas. She was a facilitator, not a doer.

What does anyone think will happen around the cabinet table in the White House? Hillary will be a facilitator and discussion opener. The males will assert themselves and create policy. That is, when Bill doesn’t do it all himself. We essentially will have for the first time in our history a co-presidency.

LA replies:

What a situation. An incarnation of racial correctness and the de-Europeanization of America versus a debased, manipulative, and unconstitutional co-presidency.

Mark K. writes:

BTW the one guy who comes across to me as a confident male is Mitt Romney and I like him for that reason. A male who looks and acts like a male. Perhaps we will not have the historical firsts of a black or female presidency but the precedent of a Mormon as president. The media focusses on the first two “firsts” and there may well be the third one.

Or if Hillary chooses Obama as VP, we may wind up with a triumverate (didn’t they habe those in Rome?).

Sage McLaughlin writes:

Mark’s comment in your recent thread concerning the Clinton candidacy got my attention. I think the greater male propensity for formal charisma is something that anyone who has walked this earth will find inductively obvious. I have my own definition for what constitutes normality, which I composed when some sophist demanded I define what is “normal”: That which is common by virtue of its being natural.

According to this meaning of the word we should consider it entirely normal that Mrs. Clinton would fade behind the overpowering charisma of Bill—attempting to shutter him would be the most impossible of contrivances, and not one in any event that a man like him could ever accommodate himself to.

But Mark’s comment also reminds me of why I absolutely despise contemporary depictions of male-female relations, especially in film but to a lesser extent in television as well. First, of course, is that they are a transparent distortion of common experience. The unnaturally assertive women who constitute the professional norm on screen bear almost no relation to actual, living women with whom ordinary people have contact. Moreover, in an effort to ape the behavior of men, these actresses—who are real people, after all, unlike the characters they depict—struggle mightily to portray their characters as anything other than bullying and rude, and their hard glares do not communicate the kind of calm, confident authority that inspires loyalty, but rather the angry and grasping lust for power that inspires fear and hatred. The script-writers, of course, do them few favors by writing unforgivably awful insults and haughtiness into every line that escapes their subject’s mouths.

In short, if the spitting harpies of film and television are to be our guide to what a powerful woman is likely to be, then I think most people will recoil from the thought. Every woman I know—even the most radical feminist—has reported to me that she would MUCH sooner work for a powerful man than a powerful woman, for exactly the reason that they trust men far more to treat them with justice and consistency. Mitt Romney’s appeal, I do agree, is that he radiates a peculiarly masculine kind of comfort with authority. The contrast with Hillary is very sharp.

Finally, it is my experience that people are only able to “disappear” into their roles when they are in a position that is consonant with their natures. Romney can easily represent the American people in general, through the office of the Presidency—Hillary will always represent no one but herself, and her identity as a woman can never be made to vanish. This is true of police officers, soldiers, and other such offices as well; it is always a great strain for a woman to quash enough of her womanhood to dissolve behind a badge, so that the observer sees only a representative of the state. (The image of a female Marine in these latest recruitment commercials positively leaps off the screen, while the men remain somehow utterly forgettable.)

Tim W. writes:

Mark K. is correct in noting that the media have focused heavily on the possibility America might have its first black or first woman president, while not mentioning that we could also have our first Mormon president. But in the general election that will change. If it’s Romney vs. Hillary, we’ll be reminded ad nauseum of Mormonism’s alleged sexism, its past tolerance of polygamy, its refusal to ordain women as ministers, and its acceptance of traditional sex roles. If it’s Romney vs. Obama, the media will focus on the Mormons’ refusal to ordain blacks as ministers until about 30 years ago, the fact that most Mormons are white, etc. In either case, Romney will be forced to distance himself from his faith and perhaps even apologize for it. Hillary can go back to Wellesley and praise the school for being all female, and Obama can belong to a race-based church, but white males aren’t permitted such a privilege, and they won’t be unless and until they (to put it bluntly) grow a set and stop apologizing for every perceived slight.

Also, any Republican candidate who beats Hillary or Obama will immediately be declared suspect by the media based on the lack of “diversity” among those who supported him. I can recall media pundits arguing that the sweeping GOP wins in 1994 weren’t a real mandate because it was mostly white males who propelled the party to victory. White males don’t count. They’re just “angry, white males,” not sainted women or minority voters. A landslide is only a landslide if it’s driven by women, minority, and homosexual voters. Romney could win with 60% of the vote and carry 49 states and we’d be told that his failure to win the black, Latino, gay, and women’s vote makes his win suspect. We’d be told that his win was illegitimate from the start.

Thucydides writes:

Liberals are still in the grip of their fantasy that a state-led universal human community can be brought about by some charismatic new leader. No matter how many times they are disappointed in reality, their hopes spring eternal, for they are quasi-religious in nature. However, no leader, no matter how charismatic, can make liberal policies work because they are rooted in a false sentimental view of human nature and the human condition. Oblivious to this reality, liberals feel great frustration as the Clintons engage in the expectable tactics to undermine the idolization of Obama, a completely inexperienced young man who serves as a blank slate for the projection of liberal dreams.

Set off against this is the idea that the Clintons probably can run a more effective campaign in the general election, which these days means demonizing the opponent. Liberals, many of whom live off the government directly or indirectly, are desperate to regain control of the White House with its immense patronage. After the current phase of perfunctory muttering over the nastiness of the process, they will duly fall in line behind the nominee, most likely the Clintons, and then turn a blind eye to the use of the same tactics against the Republican candidate.

Any current frustration with the Clintons is likely to be soon forgotten, and I am sure the Clintons know it.

LA replies:

I agree entirely. Doesn’t anyone remember the universal disgust liberals expressed over President Clinton’s pardons at the end of his presidency? It was all rapidly forgotten. The sharp disapproval liberals express toward Bill Clinton from time to time is like the “No” that a woman mutters to some unworthy man, before she says Yes. The “No” is to keep the illusion of self-respect.

Mark E. writes:

And Julia’s voice was lost, except in sighs,
Until too late for useful conversation;
The tears were gushing from her gentle eyes,
I wish indeed they had not had occasion,
But who, alas! can love, and then be wise?
Not that remorse did not oppose temptation;
A little still she strove, and much repented
And whispering ‘I will ne’er consent’—consented.

Byron, Don Juan, canto I, stanza 117

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 27, 2008 01:38 AM | Send