I sort like what Huckabee said about the CLintons, they've done better than many Republicans running for president in keeping their marriage together. Something works there, even now. And people like the Clintons can't be all bad for that alone. I might not like their politics, but as people they're okay. No "hate" from this Republican. Would love to share a beer or a good cup of joe with either one anytime. Maybe meet at that dinner featured in her campaign ad. Very nice ad, that and the ad running in Iowa about caucusing is easy.
Posted by peter at December 9, 2007 06:58 PMearly morning tomorrow, past my bedtime ... tired of pondering how hideously the young will pay for my somehow letting this nazi horror show happen...saying "sorry kids" seems a bit inadequate
anyway *mwah* Mary, and thanks for doing what you do
Posted by Sharkbabe at December 9, 2007 07:27 PMThis is an excellent post. Fantastic job, Mary.
Insightful and right on target.
How nice, a non-hateful republican. God, that's so great and civilized. I'm totally moved. Go restore the lives of four million fellow humans just like you, who have been robbed of their daily existence.
What IS it that's so tasty about Cheney's dick, anyway? I mean, I know he's a sexy guy ...
Posted by Sharkbabe at December 9, 2007 07:37 PMMary,
Interesting indeed. The only thing I would add, sadly, is that as I have discovered in the past few months, there is also an irrational hatred of all things Clinton amongst a portion of the "left". The reasons are different, but that's a sad reality that we should also acknowledge.
Posted by eriposte at December 9, 2007 07:38 PMHow much of the hell Janet Reno went thru was because she was a woman?
Meanwhile women continue to make 75 cents on the male chauvinist dollar.
Posted by TIKI AL at December 9, 2007 07:58 PMWhy is Karl Rove giving advice to Barack Obama on how to beat Hillary? Why are Limbaugh, Hannity, right wingers,.... all attacking Hillary, but not making peep about Obama (and are in many cases actively pulling for him). Why if they think Hillary cant win would they be doing that?
Why is it that the mainstream press essentially giving Obama a free pass but raking Hillary over the coals? I dont know, it just "seems like" were being set up to lose.
Posted by Jonesy at December 9, 2007 09:14 PMRight-wing Clinton hatred doesn't surprise me in the least. The Clintons are the first effective national Democratic figures since the movement conservatives seized control of the Republican party and upset the triumphal apple cart. They can't beat down these two, and it drives the right bonkers.
What is disheartening is the wholesale importation of right-wing Clinton hatred by large swaths of the netroots. It is frightening to know that a significant portion of the people who blog will condemn Paul Krugman as a tool of the Clintons because he criticizes Obama, or will revile Wes Clark as some kind of soulless shill because he endorsed HRC, rather than take a step back and say "If people whose views I have valued and learned from in the past consider HRC to be a solid progressive, perhaps I should revisit my opinion of her. I may still prefer [candidate name], but maybe my extreme view is not accurate."
I can see why people would prefer this or that candidate to HRC. I still prefer Gore, for example, and would switch my support should Al enter the race. What is mystifying is the visceral, screaming rage I read on DKos, TPM Cafe, HuffPo, FDL, etc. aimed at HRC, emotions and positions utterly out of proportion to anything HRC has done. It is as though all the disappointment and sense of impotence on the left has been directed at these two people.
Posted by Fergus at December 9, 2007 09:45 PMI was fuming mad at Clinton for a while, a couple years ago, because of her very public support of the Israeli wall"/fence" (she gave a speech supporting the wall, standing with it behind her - on land that until construction of that wall had belonged to Palestinian farmers. That's when I knew she was serious about running for President. And then I came to understand that anyone who wants to have a serious chance at getting elected has to do that kind of crap, so I got over my anger.
eriposte is correct with the observation that " there is also an irrational hatred of all things Clinton amongst a portion of the "left". The reasons are different, but that's a sad reality that we should also acknowledge."
Good that you have discovered this. It does need to be acknowledged. And the Moyer's interview was awesome. But I think it is limiting to only compare the United States with England where, as Hall Jamieson points out, Margret Thatcher was not that country's first female leader. The graphically sexual imagery right-wing haters of Hillary Clinton deploy remind me of what happened to Mary Antoinette in the years leading up to the French Revolution. There was an amazing amount of pornography produced, much of it attacking her. None of the slanderous things about her sexuality that were used to justify her execution were true. Even those who were not predisposed to oppose her and her husband were affected by this slander. Supporters of the Church had been gravely offended by Louis XV's sexual behavior. And there was much unease in French society about changing gender roles. Those who opposed the political status quo of the day effectively exploited this anger and fear ... and this insanity didn't just suddenly melt away with Louis XVI's execution. (Antoinette's followed shortly.)
Reading cultural historian Lynn Hunt's work has helped me understand why people react so strongly to Hillary, both right and left. (I highly recommend any of these titles: The Family Romance of the French Revolution , Eroticism and the Body Politic , or The Invention of Pornography, 1500-1800: Obscenity and the Origins of Modernity .) She writes about how pornography has evolved as a political tool over time, how models of patriarchal authority have changed (especially in, but not limited to France), and about the role collective unconscious images of the familial order played in the French Revolution. I was reading her work last year, because I was trying to understand the French public's reaction to Ségolène Royal. I'm not sure if I ever will really understand the French, but trying to figure out why people responded to Royal the way they did definitely helped me figure out some things about Clinton. The "irrational hatred" she elicits should be observed and acknowledged, but don't try to convince yourself it can be willed away anytime soon. It can't.
So the full size Hillary in pant suit "personal companion" dolls will be hitting the sex store shelves soon?
And didn't you mean MARIE Antoinette? ...Mary Antoinette is a 27 year old Tampa Bay woman on My Space looking for "friends".
Posted by TIKI AL at December 10, 2007 03:47 AMTiki, I guess it's "only" your women that go through hell in the political world, right? Ours, don't count.
And how soon y'all forget how much of a step brother Bill is to George. How much acceptance he has into the Bush family.
Posted by peter at December 10, 2007 03:50 AMNo matter how much effort you might expend, or how far and wide that you look, you'll never find any evidence that cavewomen overtook and raped cavemen into submission. Not much has changed, unfortunately.
Posted by B Merry at December 10, 2007 05:36 AMjonathansword, I haven't read those books, but they look interesting and probably have some things that look familiar in today's politics. If you're interested in discovering some of the deeper roots of misogyny, you should get Servants of Satan, which explores the witch hunts in Europe in the Middle Ages. (TIKI, this is the book I carry to the door when Goober Godbot comes a-knockin') Or read the Malleus Maleficarum, the witch hunter's bible, where every stereotype of the evil that is woman was first collected in a volume for propaganda purposes. You would be surprised at how familiar most of the accusations demonizing women are in a book so old. In addition to being a volume devoted to systematically demonizing women, it is also a chronicle of male sexual insecurity stemming from the female ability for multiple orgasms.
You're correct, this deep-seated hatred for women won't go away anytime soon; not as long as there's rampant sexual insecurity among men who are sexually immature. In other words, Republicans - or more specifically, the knuckledraggers who are attracted to the archaic authoritarian idealogy that epitomizes the Republican party. It's no accident that the majority of the sex scandals today come from the right side; for them, sex is power, not intimacy and connection. A strong woman is a huge threat to supposed "manly men" like Republicans for 2 reasons: she has the power to say "no" which has pissed some men off since the beginning of time, and she has the power to "castrate" men by the mere fact of her ability to have multiple orgasms (in other words, she's never satisfied and her mere existance damns men 'cos they can't keep "up"). For women like Hillary, there's a third and fourth reason: she's past her youth and beauty stage, (as well as her childbearing ability) so to some (scout's Jezebel/crone ravings are good example), she's no longer a viable human and should fade into the background like a good little old lady. And she's connected to Bill, who came in and "trashed the place" by becoming president at a time when the GOP thought they had a god-given right to hold and keep power.
Obviously, I've simplified and generalized here, but I've gotta get some work done, and this could become a book. Also, a lot of this stuff is subconcious, though Chris Matthews quite clearly spews his inadequacy when talking about Hillary, women, and power. Still, when the GOP tickles the lizard brains of their followers, they're doing it with words that evoke these age old stereotypes, which is why it works so well.
Posted by iamcoyote at December 10, 2007 09:26 AMSharkbabe: What IS it that's so tasty about Cheney's dick, anyway? I mean, I know he's a sexy guy ...
jeebus! nearly threw up my lunch
but Sharkbabe, I think you're talking about the wrong orifice in regards to trolls like pants pissing peter
Posted by Gay Veteran at December 10, 2007 10:21 AMThe sad thing about the drooling Tweety is that he has no idea that he is a blatant MCP. He should be tied to a chair and made to watch on a loop all of his condescending, patronizing, and negative remarks targeted at women from his shows thru the years.
Ironic that a woman security guard saved the day by killing the shooter bent on wiping out Ted Haggert's old MCP congregation. You can bet those good old boys scrotums felt a little lighter on the way out of the church.
CNN reported on large numbers of women being killed by vigilantes in Basra for dress code violations. I remember when women in Western dress were being interviewed on the campus of Baghdad U. about the free education they were receiving from Sadaam. Chalk up another one for the chimp.
Oh, and for the record, Adam's Apple Anny is a tranny.
Posted by TIKI AL at December 10, 2007 10:51 AMBrown has declared victory in Basra.
Delusional since Tony steeped aside.
Posted by peter at December 10, 2007 02:12 PMpoor pants pissing peter, Brown is lucid enough to get his troops OUT
Posted by gay veteran at December 10, 2007 05:09 PMIt's not just Hillary, and it's not all women. The same kind of hatred was directed at Bill Clinton, and before him at Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, according to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, at Huffington Post. I remember it also being directed at JFK. (And some at Geraldine Ferraro.) I don't know whether any Dems got it from the Left as well, though.