Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Hill's latest
I'll admit that I was never likely to affirmatively like Hillary. She annoys the heck out of me with her very studied delivery and her utterly unchangeable power playing. But I liked the idea of a woman running for, and possibly winning, the presidency. It seems, however, that she will lose the nomination to Barack Obama, despite the increasingly thinner piece of gum with which she's holding on. I've been wondering why she can't let go. I've been astonished at each new fabrication (Bosnian fire fights, for example) and each new declamation of prejudice she says has been directed against her. Now Peggy Noonan has written a succinct response and I am taking the liberty of quoting a few sentences here because they are so exactly right.
One wants to be sympathetic to Mrs. Clinton at this point, if for no other reason than to show one's range. But her last weeks have been, and her next weeks will likely be, one long exercise in summoning further denunciations. It is something new in politics, the How Else Can I Offend You Tour. And I suppose it is aimed not at voters -- you don't persuade anyone by complaining in this way, you only reinforce what your supporters already think -- but at history, at the way history will tell the story of the reasons for her loss. . . . [T]the charge of sexism is . . . is, ultimately, undermining of the position of women. Or rather it would be if its source were not someone broadly understood by friend and foe alike to be willing to say anything to gain advantage.I have to believe her advisers have her read columns like this. I sure hope she ingests them, too, because it would be a shame to have her keeping playing it out until the gum thins so much that it snaps or just gives out altogether and sends her reeling that-a-way and the democratic party that-a-way. She deserves more, for herself and for us, but she's holding the only end that can be let go.
Labels: 2008 election, politics, writing
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