Will Hillary Give Obama The Vice Pres Nod?

while everyone is picking Hillary apart remember this... there is going to be a general election.... Hillary IS going to be the candidate.... the repubs will put up one of the pieces of unacceptable **** you're seeing on the news.

Do you want to support Hillary or give your vote away to an independent which will give the white house back to 4 more years of war and bush style leadership, or outright vote for a republican who will continue us on exactly the same path that has damn near ruined us?

Those are the realistic choices.

nimh, you described Hillary as "an aggressive and shrewd political animal" (I won't even bother with the 'shrew' etymological root) but that's a description that easily matches what we know of Lincoln, for example. I think we understand that if Obama didn't match those two adjectives, he'd simply fail in his run for top office. So, why does it have traction re Hillary?

Its not that voters are finding out that she is really not the agressive and shrewd political animal her critics have tried to make her out to be; perhaps she's in the lead because voters still think that's what she is - and that's what they want at this moment in time.

Brouhahaha
by Hendrik Hertzberg
October 15, 2007 Tex

Q: What don't we know about your spouse?

A: She has the world's best laugh.

?-Interview with Bill Clinton, Time.com, September 13, 2007.

In the great American tradition of Washington's teeth, Lincoln's Adam's apple, T.R.'s pince-nez, Nixon's five-o'-clock shadow, Ike's grin, Reagan's pompadour, and?-more recently, less nostalgically?-Gore's sigh, Dean's scream, and W.'s smirk, the small (but, thanks to the Internet, bigger than ever) universe of people who professionally or semi-professionally obsess about Presidential campaigns has been agog over Hillary Clinton's laugh.

This momentous subject began to elbow aside scarier topics like Iraq on September 23rd, when the junior senator from New York got herself interviewed on all five of the Sunday-morning political variety shows, a feat known as "the full Ginsburg," in honor of William Ginsburg, Monica Lewinsky's lawyer, who, on February 1, 1998, was the first to manage it. The Ginsburg may not be Clinton's favorite trophy, but she persevered. She met the press, she faced the nation, she rode down the fox. And, sure enough, whenever George or Wolf or Tim asked her something that struck her a certain way, she laughed.

The sound of Hillary's laughter, accompanied by urgent analyses thereof, has since been echoing from the tar pits of the Internet to the lofty peaks of the major mainstream media. It began with surprising amiability, on none other than "Fox News Sunday," just after that program's contribution to the Ginsburg. Chatting with the interviewer, Chris Wallace, about the way Clinton had burst out laughing at the opening question (which was about why she has "a hyper-partisan view of politics"), Wallace's colleague Brit Hume remarked that her laugh "is always disarming, always engaging, and always attractive."

By midafternoon, the Republican National Committee had rushed out a corrective to Hume's lapse into graciousness: an electronic "research briefing" titled "Hillary: No Laughing Matter." It was studded with subheads like "When Asked Whether Her Plan Is a Step Toward Socialized Medicine, Hillary Giggles Uncontrollably" and festooned with video clips of the former First Lady engaged in giggle-related activities. From then on, the commentary alternated between judgments of the quality of the candidate's laughter and assessments of its hidden meaning.

Media Matters, the indefatigable Web site that chronicles conservative broadcasting, kept track. Sean Hannity played an audio clip seven times and described the candidate's laughter as "frightening." Bill O'Reilly trotted out a Fox News "body-language expert" to pronounce the laughter "evil." Dick Morris, the onetime Clinton adviser turned full-time Clinton trasher, described it as "loud, inappropriate, and mirthless." Further down the evolutionary scale, the right-wing blogs bloomed like a staph infection. "Shrillary's" laugh is "chilling." It's "fakey fake fake fake." It's a "hideous hyena mating call." It's "a signal to launch her flying monkeys."

The respectables joined in, too, in their mannerly way. In the Times, Frank Rich wrote, "Now Mrs. Clinton is erupting in a laugh with all the spontaneity of an alarm clock buzzer." His Op-Ed partner Maureen Dowd wrote that Clinton's "big belly laughs" were a way of making the transition "from nag to wag." Meanwhile, in the news section, a story explored the question "What's Behind the Laugh?" And The Politico, a new online political newspaper, identified the problem as "a laugh that sounded like it was programmed by computer."


from the issuecartoon banke-mail thisHow a given laugh sounds is, of course, a matter of personal taste. More than two dozen videos of Hillary laughing are available on YouTube, some of them edited so as to make her appear ridiculous or hysterical, and after repeated viewings one observer?-this observer, actually?-has concluded that she is in fact laughing. That is to say, she is responding in a more or less normal fashion to a comment or situation that she perceives as absurd or humorous. (As Jon Stewart, the well-known humor expert, noted in the course of his own riff on the Clinton laugh situation, being called hyper-partisan by Fox News is, to borrow his word, "funny.") Hillary's laugh is unusually uninhibited for a politician?-especially, perhaps, for a female politician. It is indeed a belly laugh, if not a "big belly" laugh, and it compares favorably with the incumbent Presidential laugh, a series of rapid "heh-hehs," at once threatening and insipid, accompanied by an exaggerated, arrhythmic bouncing of head and shoulders in opposite directions.

The just published "Journals: 1952-2000" of the late Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., may shed some light on the question of whether Hillary Clinton is the sort of person who is capable of genuine laughter and, by extension, of the humanness that laughter is taken to signify. With reservations, Schlesinger liked the Clintons. But you don't have to take his word for it; you can take Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's. Schlesinger's entry for February 4, 1993:

Last night we dined at the [McGeorge] Bundys'. Jackie was also there. I asked her about Hillary Clinton. She could not have been more enthusiastic?-so intelligent, so pretty, so cozy, what a good sense of humor. This last item surprised me. I was ready to concede the first two adjectives and even the third, but I supposed her to be somewhat on the stern and humorless side.

In later entries, Schlesinger writes of Hillary's "charm and humor" and her "infectious joie de vivre." But it must be said that she doesn't always laugh, even when something's funny. In 1998, at the height of the Full Monica, Schlesinger, then eighty-one years old, is seated next to the First Lady at a formal White House dinner celebrating the National Humanities Medals, one of which he has just been awarded. They're having a jolly, dishy time?-she's "very easy to talk to"?-when Arthur gets a little too expansive:


I made the point that the liberals had stood by Clinton while the DLC [Democratic Leadership Council] people had deserted him and described the miserable [Senator Joseph I.] Lieberman as a "sanctimonious prick." Hillary said, "Well, he is certainly sanctimonious," but showed no eagerness to pursue this line of thought.

Speaking of which, or whom, if people want to find fault with Senator Clinton, there are juicier bones to pick than her funny bone. A week or so ago, for example, she was the only Democrat in the Presidential race to support a Lieberman-sponsored resolution putting the Senate on record as urging the Bush Administration to designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization. Her fellow-candidate senators?-Joseph Biden, Christopher Dodd, and Barack Obama?-opposed it, not because they doubt that the Guard dabbles in terrorism but because they don't trust the Administration not to treat the resolution as a green light for another war. A few days later, Clinton did a course correction, signing on to a bill, sponsored by James Webb, of Virginia, that would bar funding for military action against Iran without explicit congressional authorization. Complain about her triangulation if you wish, but our unhappy country needs all the laughs it can get. ♦

Rudy Giuliani is predicting pretty unequivocally that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic presidential nominee for 2008, and that she'll pick Barack Obama to be her running mate. "He's kind of earned it," Giuliani says. "He brings a kind of enthusiasm to the ticket that everyone desires and likes to have."

blatham wrote:

But for God's sake, if we consider the number of elections we have all seen in our lifetimes in western nations and then consider how few women have managed to achieve national leadership positions, I don't know how we can think about that fact without concluding that there is a bunch of stuff going on below the level of consciousness for most of us.

[..] But that's where I agree with nimh, too. This is not as zero-sum as you seem to make it. Of course, there is sexism. [..] But it's too simplistic to say that if you do not want Hillary to be the Democratic nominee, it's because of sexism.

There has been plenty of discrimination against Mormons. That's why you don't like Romney, right? Or even Richardson -- surely if you don't favor him over the other Dems it is because of your latent fear of Hispanics. [..]

You see?

Again, yes, smears occur, and yes, they're frequently damaging. But the fact that a smear is aimed at someone doesn't mean that they automatically become someone to support. One must look through and around the smears -- and when I do, there are things about Hillary that give me pause. [..]

In light of Blatham's argument, I thought this bit from Soz on the other page was worth repeating..

sozobe wrote:

blatham wrote:

But for God's sake, if we consider the number of elections we have all seen in our lifetimes in western nations and then consider how few women have managed to achieve national leadership positions, I don't know how we can think about that fact without concluding that there is a bunch of stuff going on below the level of consciousness for most of us.

[..] But that's where I agree with nimh, too. This is not as zero-sum as you seem to make it. Of course, there is sexism. [..] But it's too simplistic to say that if you do not want Hillary to be the Democratic nominee, it's because of sexism.

There has been plenty of discrimination against Mormons. That's why you don't like Romney, right? Or even Richardson -- surely if you don't favor him over the other Dems it is because of your latent fear of Hispanics. [..]

You see?

Again, yes, smears occur, and yes, they're frequently damaging. But the fact that a smear is aimed at someone doesn't mean that they automatically become someone to support. One must look through and around the smears -- and when I do, there are things about Hillary that give me pause. [..]

Seems straightforward enough..

Beyond the blunt, crude fact that America is getting less white, there's a more uplifting reason to believe that the political exploitation of race may be losing its force: As a nation we've become much less racist. The most dramatic evidence of diminishing racism is the way people respond to questions about a subject that once struck terror into white hearts: miscegenation. In 1978, as the ascent of movement conservatism to power was just beginning, only 36 percent of Americans polled by Gallup approved of marriages between whites and blacks, while 54 percent disapproved. As late as 1991 only a plurality of 48 percent approved. By 2002, however, 65 percent of Americans approved of interracial marriages; by June 2007, that was up to 77 percent.

Hillary on Obama: Fear and Hatred on the Campaign Trail

Hillary on the attack. That's the narrative of the Democratic contest this week [...] Senator Clinton has begun to swing hard at the Illinoisan. Not just at his ideas, but at him, at his character.

Clinton spokesperson Howard Wolfson said the other day, "Senator Obama is a fabulous orator, but we need more than words. We don't need someone who says one thing and does another, somebody who talks a good game but doesn't have the courage of their convictions. And on issue after issue, Senator Obama says one thing and does another." The Clinton campaign sent out an email on Monday calling Obama Karl Rove's preferred Democratic (ouch!) and blasting Obama for supposedly not understanding his own health care proposal, for lying when he has said he has not harbored presidential ambitions for years, and for allegedly running a slush fund (meaning a leadership political action committee, which he manages in the same manner Clinton runs her own leadership PAC). In other words, the fellow who has inspired thousands--if not millions--is a sleazy, hypocritical, incompetent sham. On Monday, Clinton called Obama a "talker" not a "doer" and a purveyor of "false hopes." [...]

This is much tougher an attack than anything Obama has hurled at her--and he has been critical of Clinton. [...] And it shows--take your pick--either the meanness or toughness of Clinton and her posse. [...]

When talking to Clintonites in recent days, I've noticed that they've come to despise Obama. I suppose that may be natural in the final weeks of a competitive campaign when much is at stake. But these people don't need any prompting in private conversations to decry Obama as a dishonest poser. They're not spinning for strategic purposes. They truly believe it. And other Democrats in Washington report encountering the same when speaking with Clinton campaign people. "They really, really hate Obama," one Democratic operative unaffiliated with any campaign, tells me. "They can't stand him. They talk about him as if he's worse than Bush."

What do they hate about him? After all, there aren't a lot of deep policy differences between the two, and he hasn't gone for the jugular during the campaign. "It's his presumptuousness," this operative says. "That he thinks he can deny her the nomination. Who is he to try to do that?" [..] A senior House Democratic aide notes, "The Clinton people are going nuts in how much they hate him. But the problem is their narrative has gone beyond the plausible." [..]

But the Clinton attacks [..] say something about Hillary Clinton. She's adopting a whatever-it-takes strategy, mixing legitimate criticisms with truth-stretching blasts. [..] Whatever-it-takes often works in political campaigns. But we all know that hatred can be blinding. Clinton is, as has been noted, running the risk of alienating those kindhearted souls of Iowa by slamming the lovable, likable and inspiring Barack Obama. She could end up looking a bit desperate. [..] If the Clinton campaign throws anything it can against Obama--with little regard for accuracy or decency--that will reflect her own character and values. It could, to turn her words against her, be a disqualification for the job.

Clinton is playing with fire. In explaining to reporters that she will be tougher on Obama, she said, "Now the fun part starts." That was tasteless. It's a remark that certainly can--and will be--used against her. And some Democratic voters might worry that the comment reveals too much desire for (political) blood.

In politics, there can be a thin line between tough and mean. (Ask Rudy Giuliani.) The future of Clinton's campaign--and perhaps the future of the United States--will be determined by how this woman navigates the difference.

I don't think their hatred of Clinton (which I beleive is simply a hatred when compared to Obama, when compared to Rudy McRomney I'm sure they love Clinton) would keep them from voting for a Clinton/Obama ticket.

What do they hate about him? After all, there aren't a lot of deep policy differences between the two, and he hasn't gone for the jugular during the campaign. "It's his presumptuousness," this operative says. "That he thinks he can deny her the nomination. Who is he to try to do that?" [..] A senior House Democratic aide notes, "The Clinton people are going nuts in how much they hate him. But the problem is their narrative has gone beyond the plausible."