Hillary, The Moment, and Big Media
I’ve said before on this blog that I’m not crazy about Hillary since her positions aren’t what I wish to see in a Presidential Candidate. I’ve also said that she’s a helluva PERSON since she has to be twice as good as all the other candidates, and make half as many mistakes, just to get half as far. And since she isn’t half as far, but is instead neck and neck with Obama and Edwards (don’t count HIM out yet!) that means she’s probably five times better than either of them in many ways. I just wish I could agree with her positions– but I can’t. Not that I ever hear much about her positions from Mainstream Media. NOOOO, I have to go to her video footage and alternative online press for that.
Isn’t that what this is all about? What a candidate will DO once they’re in office?
That’s not what we’ve been hearing from the media. We hear about TEARS, we hear about EMOTION, and we hear NOTHING about where the candidate stands, and I’m not talking about just Hillary. This whole media circus is being run like some Reality TV Show or Dancing with the Stars instead of focusing on the information on each candidate that is most important to voters. And Hillary’s appearance is mentioned repeatedly. You rarely hear anything on the appearance of Edwards, or Obama, or Biden, or any of the other male candidates. Big Media, owned by Big White Men, has framed our expectations of Hillary with such vehemence that it’s hard to see her for what she really is– a very intelligent and highly capable person.
I’m not the only one fed up with this situation. From the Columbia Journalism Review:
It’s worth asking why, precisely, their national-media counterparts pounced on the Clinton story with such speed, ferocity, and, occasionally, thinly veiled glee . . . The pack mentality is part of it, perhaps, but there’s more to it. Guys may cry, after all, but tears, culturally, are a Female Thing. And the word ‘emotional’ is rarely used as flattery. (See John Edwards, who responded to a reporter’s question about The Moment with this: “I think what we need in a commander-in-chief is strength and resolve.”) As The Moment lives on in the media, we’ve witnessed comparisons of Clinton to Howard “Dean-Scream” Dean or to prior candidate-crybabies (Ed Muskie in ‘72, Pat Schroeder in ‘87). But if we’re going to play the comparison, the most obvious and immediate foil for Clinton is Mitt Romney, who had a misty-eyed moment very similar to Clinton’s last month on Meet the Press. And how much coverage did his moment get?
From an op ed piece in the NYT by Gloria Steinem:
But what worries me is that he [Obama] is seen as unifying by his race while she is seen as divisive by her sex.
What worries me is that she is accused of “playing the gender card” when citing the old boys’ club, while he is seen as unifying by citing civil rights confrontations.
What worries me is that male Iowa voters were seen as gender-free when supporting their own, while female voters were seen as biased if they did and disloyal if they didn’t.
What worries me is that reporters ignore Mr. Obama’s dependence on the old — for instance, the frequent campaign comparisons to John F. Kennedy — while not challenging the slander that her progressive policies are part of the Washington status quo.
What worries me is that some women, perhaps especially younger ones, hope to deny or escape the sexual caste system; thus Iowa women over 50 and 60, who disproportionately supported Senator Clinton, proved once again that women are the one group that grows more radical with age.
And from Maureen Dowd in the NYT, who thinks it was a carefully crafted Hillary strategy, and uses a Hillary quote to “prove” it:
“I actually have emotions,” she [Hillary] told CNN’s John Roberts on a damage-control tour. “I know that there are some people who doubt that.” She went on “Access Hollywood” to talk about, as the show put it, “the double standards that a woman running for president faces.” “If you get too emotional, that undercuts you,” Hillary said. “A man can cry; we know that. Lots of our leaders have cried. But a woman, it’s a different kind of dynamic.”
It was a peculiar tactic. Here she was attacking Obama for spreading gauzy emotion by spreading gauzy emotion. When Hillary hecklers yelled “Iron my shirt!” at her in Salem on Monday, it stirred sisterhood.
Well, if indeed Hillary is that calculating and capable of manipulation, then just maybe she’ll be able to stand on her own two high heels in the dang White House. Maybe she’ll be able to beat the media at their own game, as it seems she did this time. Maybe she’ll be able to push through that glass ceiling that every woman knows about and every man denies the existence of.
And I can’t say that would be a bad thing. Even if I don’t care for her positions.
Did she or didn’t she? You be the judge. And I’ll be damned if I’ll let some Big White Guys push their choice of president on me . . .
Rove and Feinstein say Hillary’s Moments were Crucial
Hillary’s Moment, and the Problem of ‘Seeming’ Sexism
