Don’t forget Ralph “Liquid Sex” Nader.
She’s always had the “Anybody But Hillary” movement following her waiting for her to fuel their fire, and she has over and over again. It’s not that she’s a woman, it’s just that she carried a lot of baggage to the fight. Same thing happened with Kerry, same thing would happen to Teddy Kennedy, Newt Gingrich, among others.
In fact, same thing is currently happening to McCain.
Much of the criticism launched against HRC has everything to do with her gender and little to do with anything else. This type of misogynistic garbage seeps into the mainstream media and dominates the tone of pundits and spin doctors.
Have you not read any of this thread? I’d never vote for her in an election and it’s not because she has a vah jay jay. Questions will be asked about her gender, because it is unique, but that doesn’t mean that’s the only reason people hate her. Hell, it’s not even the top 50 reasons for the vast majority of her detractors.
But how much misogyny are you seeing from Democrats?
I think we’re discussing two different things here. One issue is why has HRC engendered so much hatred, and the other is why has her campaign gone tits-up.
Umm, maybe that’s a bad metaphor. Ahh, I’ll let it stand, it’s a Friday.
Anyhoo, obviously her campaign has been swamped by Barack Obama’s. And I don’t think that was due to the intense loathing that she instigated during the White House years–I think that once Obama won Iowa, voters saw that he was a viable candidate. And while policywise there’s little different between the two, his message is a hell of a lot more sunny and optimistic, and HRC pales in comparision.
I don’t see a lot of irrationality about her on liberal message boards, the kind you’d see from the far right. Sure, there’s some taunting from BO supporters, but I also see lots of bitterness from her side, which I think explains it.
In fact, that bitterness is starting to piss me off. It’s hurting the party and helping McCain. It carries a stench of thwarted entitlement that is hugely off-putting.
If you go to Snopes.com and read the “Make the Pie Higher!” poem, you’ll see that most of the quotes are from 2000. And he was lampooned for being Mr. Subliminable before he was elected, too. Yes, the Bush hatred ramped up after 2002, but he was widely laughed at for the way he spoke. And the comparisons of Bush to a chimp - which predate the war and probably the PATRIOT act - aren’t political criticisms justified by his actions, they’re personal criticisms fueled by politics. I have no objection to calling Bush a chimp, but its not something that is justified by his actions any more than it’s justified to make fun of Obama’s ears because you disagree with him about healthcare.
And that personal animosity is, indeed, something that Bush and Clinton have in common. I’d say they inspire roughly equivalent levels of hatred, but maybe on this level, you have a good point: people who hate Bush generally do it because of what he’s done. People who hate Clinton mostly hate her because of who she is.
Another example: I was impressed to learn that Hillary’s campaign was providing sandwiches, cookies, and bottled water to Iowa caucus-goers. Then I learned that this is against caucus rules. (And they only provided a dozen sandwiches for about 60 people.)
I’m anti-Hillary because to me she appears to be a quintessential political creature. She stayed with a philandering husband for no reason I could see except that he was powerful, and she left her home state to run for the Senate elsewhere. When she decided to run, she was anointed by the media and she acted entitled from day one.
I’d love a woman President, but not this one. I would have voted for Barbara Jordan in a heartbeat. Or Ann Richards.
Would you care to answer the question, please? If she’s such a bad person and a bad candidate, why are Obama’s results just about exactly the same? :dubious:
But never mind, the evidence is that this thread is indeed just another bashfest.
For instance:
And the taunting is not?
I do want to support Obama if he gets the nomination. Bus ome of you are making that be a decision for me when it used to be granted. And I’m far from the only one. Note that the latest LA Times poll has both * of them losing to McCain * anyway - do you see any value in continuing this divisive hatefest, or is it just too much fun?
Andrew Sullivan nails it:
She has a really hard time because she isn’t qualified to be president.
Compared to whom?
I have read the thread and understand valid criticism of Hillary Clinton. I am certainly not suggesting that everyone critical of Clinton is a misogynist. My point is to emphasize the Right-Wing smear campaign waged against Clinton that exploits gender stereotypes with hostile, denigrative, and patronizing language. This characterization of Clinton has been perpetuated in blog-sphere and ultraconservative news sites and eventually trickled into mainstream media. I observe a maniacal hatred towards Clinton that seems based on nothing more than her voice or some other meaningless trait.
Again, not to suggest that everyone critical of Clinton is a woman hater or that Clinton’s politics shouldn’t be criticized. I am not a die hard Clinton supporter. I voted for hope. But, I think it is important to recognize the smear waged against Clinton and honestly examine the castigation of her by the media.
The people who dislike Obama - why do they do so?
I hear things like this all the time about Clinton from women just like AuntiePam. Why is that? I hear people who have been feminists for decades state they would never cast a vote for Clinton because she had a clear agenda to stay with a man who cheated on her in front of the nation. I hear all manner of reasons not to like Clinton from her rise to NY senate, to her cold nuances with party insiders and yet nary a one as to why she should get my vote. Except maybe from those who think she will do a better job than Obama sitting in the oval office because he hasn’t been around long enough to earn it. Or that he just isn’t the right person for the job.
Have you heard Clinton take a slice of humble pie even once during this campaign? I thought I heard it when she offered a hand to Obama saying she was honored to sit next to him. Then it turns out that not 12 hours later she’s slamming him into the concrete for using tactics her own campaign perfected.
How is doing that somehow OK? Is Obama supposed to sit there and take it and not fire anything back? What makes Obama so inferior to Clinton to be president? Clinton’s entitlement is disgraceful if you ask me. And the behavior of Bill - where do I begin? He’s not the same guy I voted for twice more than 10 years ago. Perhaps he’s making up for his infidelity…
So forget all the Obama lovers who spout his praises. Tell me why Clinton doesn’t deserve the critisizm she is getting.
I hate this criticism. I don’t really think we’re equipped to cast judgement upon what must have been an intensely personal decision for her. Hell, maybe she gets off on the idea of her husband running around. At any rate, the idea that sticking in a marriage through rockiness, even on this scale, is some kind of moral failing, well, it makes me uncomfortable.
I get really tired of this.
Hillary Clinton is loathed by most of us on the right for insinuating herself into a presidency for which she was not elected, for holding secret meetings behind closed doors to concoct a health care scheme outside public purview and without public portfolio, and for blaming the very true reports of her husband’s philandering (which she has to have known of, and turned a blind eye to, for years) on a “vast, Right-wing conspiracy”.
She is smug, arrogant, superior, and blatantly and uncaringly usurporious. She’s a carpetbagger, a schemer, and a phony who virtually refuses to give a straight answer on anything…apparently in the belief that to say what she really means would be self-defeating. And she is on an equal footing with her husband in terms of dishonesty and morals determined only by what they can get away with.
All of this is her own doing and none of it has anything to do with a “right-wing smear machine”.
Freaking anybody!
Or maybe Bill Clinton has a big dick that’s hard to come by.
(for Indistinguishable )
She’s the *least * qualified person in the entire United States? Really?
Yep. Bashfest. And not even an entertaining one, either.
Er, give him my thanks but tell him he can keep it.
Can anyone tell me why she doesn’t deserve the criticisms and Obama does?