# Why the hatred of Hillary? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 26, 2007, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-of-hillary/424080 "2007-10-26T05:24:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-of-hillary/424080/41 "2007-10-26T17:44:26Z")
[QUOTE=foolsguinea] OK, fine, but then you’re not to whom I am speaking. Because presumably John Edwards falls in that category as well, no? Who are those who are giving her higher negatives than Edwards? [/QUOTE] White Southern males would be my guess. ---
**Author:** ![Bobotheoptimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/919ad9/32.png) [@Bobotheoptimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bobotheoptimist)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-of-hillary/424080/42 "2007-10-26T17:49:03Z")
[QUOTE=foolsguinea] OK, fine, but then you’re not to whom I am speaking. Because presumably John Edwards falls in that category as well, no? Who are those who are giving her higher negatives than Edwards? [/QUOTE] I hope this isn’t offensive, but much like earlier “Why does everyone hate Hillary?” threads, you’re going to get several dozen responses that all have different and equally valid reasons why someone doesn’t like her. Rejecting responses that don’t fit with a preconceived notion, or narrowing down responses to only certain types of opinions will result in all Hillary haters being sexist, slack-jawed, rednecks. Edwards isn’t as obnoxious and doesn’t have 16 years as much in the public eye as Clinton. Everyone knows everything she’s done, yet the only time I hear about Edwards is during the runup to an election. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-of-hillary/424080/43 "2007-10-26T18:54:15Z")
Most people hate Hillary Clinton because there has been a eighteen year long media campaign telling them they should hate her. Enough selling and you can convince most people of anything - including the belief that they form their own opinions and weren’t sold anything. The people who have run this campaign oppose Hillary Clinton because her interests are different from their interests. But they know that meaningless button pushing issues are more effective in manipulating other people than an actual debate on the real topics would be. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-of-hillary/424080/44 "2007-10-26T19:24:19Z")
[QUOTE=foolsguinea] **Why the hatred of Hillary?** [/QUOTE] Partly because of braindead shit like [this.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9083024&postcount=50) Yes, there actually are people who can call the most right-leaning Dem candidate in the field a “Communist” with a straight face or its online equivalent. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-of-hillary/424080/45 "2007-10-26T19:46:25Z")
> [@Beware of Doug](#): > > FWIW, I associate female heads of state with smallish social-welfare states such as Norway, or turbulent Third World countries such as Pakistan. 😕 How many countries does that leave outside those two categories, though? I mean, your “smallish social-welfare state” category apparently includes Western democracies up to the size of Germany (chancellor Angela Merkel, population over 82 million). And your “turbulent Third World country” category apparently includes non-Western countries as stable as India (former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi). I agree that having a female head of state still isn’t very common worldwide, but AFAICT it’s a phenomenon that defies simple categorization of the sort you’re attempting here. Not that many countries have had a female head of state, but the ones who have have been a pretty diverse bunch. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-of-hillary/424080/46 "2007-10-26T19:57:05Z")
Couple reasons. Bush Clinton Clinton Bush Bush Clinton is one. The other is that I can’t stand her phony public persona. And I don’t like that she apparently doesn’t have a single principled political position of her own. She’s a communitarian, I’m a libertarian, which means she’s on the wrong side of just about every issue from my point of view. Does that mean I must love George Bush, as Calm Kiwi so illogically concluded? No, I dislike George Bush for all sorts of reason. Can’t I hate both of them, for Christ’s sake? Now, just because I don’t like Hillary doesn’t mean I will automatically vote for her opponent. In a choice between Hillary and Rudy I’ll go with Hillary. Hillary vs Romney I go with Hillary. Personally I hope that the Democrats can nominate Obama, I’d vote for him happily. Hillary’s main pluses are that she’s a cast iron bitch, and I mean that in the nicest possible way. It would be nice to have a president who makes their own decisions for a change. Plus her utterly pragmatic machine-style status quo approach to politics at least has the effect that she’s not going try things that are both incredibly stupid and incredibly unpopular, again, a nice change. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-of-hillary/424080/47 "2007-10-26T20:17:13Z")
**Why the hatred for Hillary?** It’s like the old song tells us. “You have to be carefully taught” how and whom to hate. The Hillary-haters have been very carefully and relentlessly taught to hate her. They believe a richly embroidered, finely crafted web of smears and lies. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-of-hillary/424080/48 "2007-10-26T20:36:25Z")
[QUOTE=AskNott] **Why the hatred for Hillary?** It’s like the old song tells us. “You have to be carefully taught” how and whom to hate. The Hillary-haters have been very carefully and relentlessly taught to hate her. They believe a richly embroidered, finely crafted web of smears and lies. [/QUOTE] So, what makes you think that you haven’t been carefully and relentlessly taught to hate them? What makes you think that you don’t believe a richly embroidered, finely crafted web of smears and lies about them? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-of-hillary/424080/49 "2007-10-26T20:37:36Z")
[QUOTE=Lemur866] And I don’t like that she apparently doesn’t have a single principled political position of her own. She’s a communitarian, I’m a libertarian, which means she’s on the wrong side of just about every issue from my point of view. [/QUOTE] If she’s a [communitarian](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communitarianism), that **is** a principled political position. At any rate, that brings up another prpblem: There are Americans (not **Lemur,** I’m sure) who are too stupid to distinguish “communitarian” from “communist.” ---
**Author:** ![newdoctordec](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/2acd7d/32.png) [@newdoctordec](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newdoctordec)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-of-hillary/424080/50 "2007-10-26T20:50:08Z")
Here’s one reason she pegs my hate-o-meter. There are others. I own Exxon-Mobil stock and am not ashamed to say it. The stock symbol is XOM for those of you that want to make some money in the next year. In a speech about eight months ago Hillary was talking about the large oil company profits recently announced. Her exact statement (I watched the speech again) was “I want to **take** those profits and I want to put them in a strategic energy fund…” Notice she didn’t use the word “tax” but used the word “take”. A confiscatory mindset like hers will whack me right in the wallet hard enough to hate the woman with a passion. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-of-hillary/424080/51 "2007-10-26T21:08:41Z")
> [@newdoctordec](#): > > Her exact statement (I watched the speech again) was “I want to take those profits and I want to put them in a strategic energy fund…” Notice she didn’t use the word “tax” but used the word “take”. A confiscatory mindset like hers will whack me right in the wallet hard enough to hate the woman with a passion. Hi **newdoctordec** , and welcome to the Straight Dope. Are you telling us that you seriously believe that Hillary Clinton, if she were President, would actually seek to tax oil company profits at a literally “confiscatory” rate of 100%? Did anything in her husband’s two Administrations provide any evidence to support such a radical notion? Do you honestly think that **any** of the Democratic candidates is actually in favor of 100% tax rates on the profits of **any** industry? ---
**Author:** ![Malvert\_P.Redd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Malvert\_P.Redd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malvert_P.Redd)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-of-hillary/424080/52 "2007-10-26T21:16:10Z")
[QUOTE=AskNott] **Why the hatred for Hillary?** It’s like the old song tells us. “You have to be carefully taught” how and whom to hate. The Hillary-haters have been very carefully and relentlessly taught to hate her. They believe a richly embroidered, finely crafted web of smears and lies. [/QUOTE] Indeed. It takes a village. [QUOTE=foolsguinea] OK, fine, but then you’re not to whom I am speaking. Because presumably John Edwards falls in that category as well, no? Who are those who are giving her higher negatives than Edwards? [/QUOTE] Me, for one. John Edwards just gives me a mildly distasteful Pat Sajak vibe. With Hillary, it’s pretty damn near full-blown contempt. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-of-hillary/424080/53 "2007-10-26T21:26:14Z")
[QUOTE=Malvert P. Redd] Indeed. It takes a village. [/quote] Why, I wonder, does that old soundbite keep getting quoted **against** HRC? All she was saying was that children need to be educated and socialized by more than just their own families – a statement not only obviously true, but so utterly innocuous, middlebrow and Rotarian in tone that I cannot see how the most radical conservative or libertarian could have the mildest objection to it. [QUOTE=Malvert P. Redd] Me, for one. John Edwards just gives me a mildly distasteful Pat Sajak vibe. With Hillary, it’s pretty damn near full-blown contempt. [/QUOTE] Care to provide specific reasons? And something more susbantial than you have in this thread to date? ---
**Author:** ![newdoctordec](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/2acd7d/32.png) [@newdoctordec](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newdoctordec)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-of-hillary/424080/54 "2007-10-26T21:32:04Z")
“Are you telling us that you seriously believe that Hillary Clinton, if she were President, would actually seek to tax oil company profits at a literally “confiscatory” rate of 100%?” Absolutely ! She said it with a straight face. Why would she say it if she didn’t mean it ? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-of-hillary/424080/55 "2007-10-26T21:48:24Z")
[QUOTE=scr4] It’s because the right-wing media have spent the past 16 years attacking the Clintons. It doesn’t actually matter _what_ the actual allegations are - if you put that much time and effort into propaganda, some of it is going to stick. [/QUOTE] [Not only that, but they’re getting better and better at it.](http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071112/hayes) > [@](#): > > On February 27, 2001, two members of the American Gold Star Mothers, an organization of women who’ve lost sons or daughters in combat, dropped by the temporary basement offices of the new junior senator from New York, Hillary Clinton. They didn’t have an appointment, and the office, which had been up and running for barely a month, was a bit discombobulated. The two women wanted to talk to the senator about a bill pending in the Senate that would provide annuities for the parents of those killed, but they were told that Clinton wasn’t in the office and that the relevant staff members were otherwise engaged. The organization later submitted a formal request in writing for a meeting, which Clinton granted, meeting and posing for pictures with four members of the group. > > But the story doesn’t end there. In May of that year, the right-wing website NewsMax, a clearinghouse for innuendo and rumor, ran a short item with the headline “Hillary Snubs Gold Star Mothers.” Reporting via hearsay–a comment relayed to someone who then recounted it to the column’s author–the article claimed that Clinton and her staff “simply refused” to meet with the Gold Star Mothers, making hers the “only office” in the Senate that snubbed the group. > > At first the item didn’t attract much attention, but it quickly morphed into an e-mail that started ricocheting across the Internet. “Bet this never hits the TV news!” began one version. “According to [NewsMax.com](http://NewsMax.com) there was only one politician in DC who refused to meet with these ladies. Can you guess which politician that might be?.. None other than the Queen herself–the Hildebeast, Hillary Clinton.” > > Before long, the Gold Star Mothers and the Clinton office found themselves inundated by inquiries about the “snub,” prompting the Gold Star Mothers to post a small item debunking the claim on their website. When that didn’t stem the tide, they posted a lengthier notice. “These allegations were not initiated by the Gold Star Mothers… This is a fabricated report picked up by an individual using the Gold Star Mothers as an instrument to discredit Senator Clinton… We do not need mischeivous gossip and unfounded lies to promote our organization. Please help stop it now.” > > That plea notwithstanding, the e-mail continues to circulate to this day. Anyone who’s been following politics for the past fifteen years won’t be surprised to find Hillary Clinton the subject of a false and damning right-wing smear. We’ve all become familiar with the ways the Republican noise machine transmits lurid bits of misinformation and tendentious attacks from the conservative fringe into the heart of American political discourse, the process by which a slightly misdelivered joke by John Kerry attracts the ire of Rush Limbaugh and ends up on the front page of the New York Times. > > But in some senses, the kind of under-the-radar attack embodied in the Gold Star e-mail–which never made the jump to Fox or Drudge–is even harder to deal with. “It’s a Pandora’s box,” says Jim Kennedy, who served as Clinton’s communications director during her first Senate term. “Once [the charges] are out in the ether, they are very hard to combat. It’s very unlike a traditional media, newspaper or TV show, or even a blog, which at least has a fixed point of reference. You know they’re traveling far and wide, but there’s no way to rebut them with all the people that have seen them.” > > Such is the power of the right-wing smear forward, a vehicle for the dissemination of character assassination that has escaped the scrutiny directed at the Limbaughs and Coulters and O’Reillys but one that is as potent as it is invisible. In 2004 putative firsthand accounts of Kerry’s performance in Vietnam traveled through e-mail in right-wing circles, presaging the Swift Boat attacks. Last winter a forward began circulating accusing Barack Obama of being a secret Muslim schooled in a radical madrassa (about which more later). While the story was later fed through familiar right-wing megaphones, even making it onto Fox, it has continued to circulate via e-mail long after being definitively debunked by CNN. In other words, the few weeks the smear spent in the glare of the mainstream media was just a tiny portion of a long life cycle, most of which has been spent darting from inbox to inbox. Or, in the words (near as I recall them) of Ellsworth Monkton Toohey in Ayn Rand’s _The Fountainhead:_ “A dead issue, like a dead organism, does not vanish entirely, but leaves a decomposing residue behind.” ---
**Author:** ![Malvert\_P.Redd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Malvert\_P.Redd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malvert_P.Redd)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-of-hillary/424080/56 "2007-10-26T21:58:18Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Or, in the words (near as I recall them) of Ellsworth Monkton Toohey in Ayn Rand’s _The Fountainhead:_ “A dead issue, like a dead organism, does not vanish entirely, but leaves a decomposing residue behind.” [/QUOTE] Oh dear God. If you’re going to quote an author in regards to Hillary, try Machiavelli. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-of-hillary/424080/57 "2007-10-26T21:58:40Z")
> [@](#): > > Why the hatred of Hillary? Because she’s a socialist. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-of-hillary/424080/58 "2007-10-26T22:01:21Z")
[QUOTE=Crafter\_Man] Because she’s a socialist. [/QUOTE] Ahh . . . yeah. Right. See posts #44 and 49. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-of-hillary/424080/59 "2007-10-26T22:04:31Z")
> [@newdoctordec](#): > > Absolutely ! She said it with a straight face. Why would she say it if she didn’t mean it ? Um, because she (or her speechwriters) assumed that any halfway-sentient audience would be able to figure out that she wasn’t intending a casual use of the word “take” to imply a literal proposal of a 100% tax rate? I mean, you don’t have to indulge in this kind of voodoo textual analysis to get an idea of what HRC’s opinions are on corporate taxation. Look at her record. Look at her stated positions. Hell, look at her list of corporate backers. Do you think they’d be giving her money if they thought there was a chance in hell that she might even think of imposing such an unprecedentedly draconian tax policy? There is nobody outside of FrootLoopLand who seriously considers it plausible that **any** major candidate’s views on corporate taxes are literally “confiscatory”. Not even Kucinich, who is far to the left of Clinton, would even consider proposing such a thing. Saying that Clinton wants to tax oil company profits at 100% is like saying that Mike Huckabee wants to conscript all American 18-year-olds into the military and have them convert all American non-Christians to evangelical Protestantism via fire and sword.\* It simply is not anywhere in the galactic neighborhood of the realm of practical politics. And if there’s one thing that Clinton has made it clear that she is, it’s a practical politician. \*Now **there’s** a scenario that would make the fantasy world of email spam more interesting, don’t you think? ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-of-hillary/424080/60 "2007-10-26T22:12:07Z")
[QUOTE=jackelope] I’m liberal on most issues, and my refusal to vote for Hillary has nothing to do with her politics. I won’t vote for her because there will be registered voters in this election who have never known a president who wasn’t either a Clinton or a Bush. To me, this appears to totally subvert the purpose of electing the nation’s leader from among the citizenry. I don’t know what portion of the anti-Hillary crowd are following my same reasoning, but that’s where I’m coming from. (Thanks, **vibrotronica** , for pointing this out to me.) [/QUOTE] What **jackelope** said. I find it appalling that America’s history of electing family dynasties like the Adamses, Harrisons and Roosevelts seems to be solidifying with the ascent of the Bush and Clinton dynasties. Let’s not forget that Jeb Bush is still a possibility down the road, and there are enough Kennedys in the wings for a whole new Camelot. My girlfriend is a French citizen, and claims that this trend makes America less a democracy than France. I don’t know that I agree with her, but I don’t feel like arguing it much. I voted for Bill Clinton twice, but I really don’t want to see Hillary elected. The only way I could see myself voting for her will be if the Republicans nominate a religious righty like Brownback or Huckabee, and even then I will be holding my nose. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-of-hillary/424080.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hatred-of-hillary/424080.md?page=4)