Jason Linkins, at HuffPo, has an entertaining compilation of “One Hillary Clinton Think Piece To Rule Them All“:
This week, we were faced with the daunting prospect of having to make sense out of all the Hillary Clinton think pieces that were microwaved into existence after she decided to formally enter the 2016 presidential race. And there were so many pieces of “think” to go through! Millions of microscopic particles of thinking! It was all way too tiresome.
So, in lieu of adding to an already crowded canon, what follows is a Frankenstein’s monster of everyone else’s hasty Hillary musings:
HERE IS A WRY COMMENT ABOUT A THING THAT HAPPENED …
MY ATTENTION SPAN WAS SUFFICIENT TO WATCH A BRIEF VIDEO…
I REMEMBER SOME STUFF THAT HAPPENED BEFORE…
TIME FOR SOME FACT-FREE ASSERTIONS…
USING SOME CLICHES, THE PIECE BUILDS TO AN ERSATZ CLIMAX…
Click the link to enjoy the full neatness of Linkins’ bricolage. Yes, it is going to be a very long nineteen months.
Back in the day, one of the very first folktales I learned by heart was the Kreplach Joke. Short version: Little kid has hissy-fit every time his frugal Jewish mom serves her delicious kreplach. Mom asks the local wise man to help, and he tells her the kid fears what he doesn’t understand, she needs to show him the process. So, Mamma brings her darling boy into the kitchen, and shows him: Here’s how the dough is made — nothing dangerous. Here’s the ground meat filling — yummy meatballs! Here is the chicken soup, mmm good! Fold the meat into the dough, adorable little dumplings, drop the dumplings in the hot soup, and —
The kid falls over backwards, screaming “YAAAAAGH! KREPLACH!”
Midwesterners tend to give me a blank stare when I share this parable, so I’ll add a helpful summary:
Well, no amount of rationality can assuage us of concerns which are not based in the realm of rationality.
Of course, there are many honest reasons to reject Hillary Rodham Clinton as a potential Democratic presidential candidate, but far too often — from True Progressives as well as natural born idiots committed Republicans — what I get from those who reject HRC’s candidacy sounds like YAAAGH! KREPLACH!!!…
R. Johnston
If the punchline is “YAAAAAGH! KREPLACH!” and the joke doesn’t involve a jewish Klingon, the joke is a failure.
NobodySpecial
If you’re a Democrat, objectively, she’s a terrible candidate.
However, her brand of terrible is still light years better than the GOP has on their side.
Of course, that’s not the real objective of many of these scold posts.
grishaxxx
…or Kishka (which is the version I learned). :-)
Gonna be a long 18 months.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
Reasons I don’t like Hilary Clinton as a presidential candidate:
1) She’s too hawkish and too pro-Israel for my tastes. I’m hoping that Obama boxes her in on some of these issues by striking deals before he leaves and that she doesn’t want to break out of that box.
2) She’s too beholden to financial interests. However, this bothers me less than it does a lot of people, for several reasons. The biggest is that I think that a lot of progressives (the kind that screeched about how worthless Dodd/Frank was) overestimate the extent to which Democratic officials are in bed with the finance industry, and that includes Clinton. I also think that re-regulating the financial industry requires a scalpel rather than a sledgehammer, so I’m more tolerant of certain kinds of behavior than others are.
3) I absolutely loathe the idea that we’re going to hand the presidency back and forth between a few families. This is not excused by the fact that the Bushes did it. This was a bad idea when John Quincy Adams was elected and it remains a bad idea. I don’t like spouses or children inheriting a congressional or senate seat, either. This is a big strike against Clinton.
4) Clinton was a hopeless candidate in 2008. I hope that she’s learned a bunch of lessons but I’d just as soon not entrust the general election to someone who has exhibited the tendencies that she has because I’m afraid that, while she may understand those lessons now, under pressure her previously demonstrated instincts will reassert themselves.
5) On a personal level, I just don’t like Clinton. This covers a wide spectrum. I think she has developed an ability to hold grudges and look for vengeance that, while understandable given what she’s been put through, remains a character flaw. I expect that, as president, she will take the centralization of power within a small clique to a whole new level (as if it wasn’t bad enough already) because she just doesn’t trust anyone.
I also get vibes off of her as someone that doesn’t have any real sense of empathy for other people. There are lots of little things along the way that have made me feel this way but the one thing I can point to is the way the entire first family abandoned the pets they adopted while Bill was president as soon as he left office. I also worry that Hilary is less capable of faking empathy than her husband is; I don’t believe for a moment that he has any, but he managed to convince a lot of people that he does and in politics that’s probably more useful than the real thing.
I don’t know how much of a negative the personality is. I can’t stand Bill as a human being, either, but he was a pretty good president. But it makes the idea of voting for her less appealing.
Major Major Major Major
I haz a blog now. https://imjustthisguyyouknow.wordpress.com/
People helping will help. According to humans I have a decent take on today’s screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
That said, whatever. Etc.
SWMBO
@Major Major Major Major: Linky?
ETA Thanks.
SWMBO
@Major Major Major Major: I read your review of Raiders. Verra Nize! Maybe our esteemed bloghost could put it in the list sometime? Nor in the read and mock category of course.
SiubhanDuinne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
I mostly agree with your points, although I don’t have quite as visceral a negative reaction to Hillary, but this is a bit hyperbolic. There were only two pets: Socks the cat and Buddy the dog. The two famously detested each other and when the Clintons left the WH, they gave Socks to their friend/Bill’s secretary, Betty Currie. How is this different from Cole finding another home for Ginger or Zsa Zsa when he realized that the animal just wasn’t a good fit for his household? You make it sound as though they left him in a cardboard box by the side of the road. Socks died at age 20, which is a good long life for a cat. Buddy went with them to Chappaqua; he wasn’t “abandoned” at all. And the carelessness that resulted in his death-by-automobile at age 5 is on the Secret Service, who were on the premises and in charge, not on the Clintons, who weren’t even home at the time.
Major Major Major Major
Thanks all. Just hoping to get it out there.
Major Major Major Major
@SWMBO: I’m trying to type “thank you” but my cat has other ideas
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@SiubhanDuinne: If that’s what happened, then I retract the comment. The way I’d heard it, Currie adopted Socks because no one in the First Family wanted him.
SWMBO
@Major Major Major Major: Of course. Your ideas do not involve feeding, petting, brushing or worshiping the cat. Therefore, your ideas are stoopid and should be replaced with better ideas. See the list.
@SiubhanDuinne: Was the SS drinking at the time? Ah, the questions we could have asked if we’d known at the time…Actually with what we know today, was the SS driving at the time?
SiubhanDuinne
@Major Major Major Major: Nice! You make me want to see Raiders again — I saw it only once, in the theatre when it first came out, however long ago that was. You write very well, and I’ll enjoy following your new blog. May it live long and stay troll-free.
Baud
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
Wait, some of the things said about the Clintons aren’t true?
Major Major Major Major
@SiubhanDuinne: Thanks a lot! IIRC you’re one of the smarter folks among the regular commenters :D
And by all means watch it again. Ebert gave it 4/4 you know.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
Interesting horizontal view in the mobile theme, although it reminds me of Windows 8.
I didn’t realize Major Major Major Major wasn’t your real name.
Zinsky
Agreed, Anne – it is going to be a very, very long 19 months. Hillary is as far from my core beliefs as you can get and still be a Democrat. She is a Republican by upbringing, so she brings a lot of these Republican Lite ideas to the table honestly. Liberals, true liberals, have done a shitty job of messaging and pushing thier ideas forward. This is what we get, as a result…
David Koch
Countdown: 10 days to the NFL draft
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: As my ex’s dad used to say, we can’t all be the goddamned easter bunny.
My last big gig was making a responsive wordpress design so i’m just not even. Sorry.
OzarkHillbilly
@SiubhanDuinne: WHAT????? YOU ONLY WATCHED IT ONCE????? KILL THE HERETIC!!!!
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: I want a mobile kajigger just as much as you do but I only have so many fucks to give right now :)
NotMax
Thots?
And fried kreplach are much better, all the more if fried in schmaltz along with a little onion.
NotMax
The classic kids vs. food cartoon.
David Koch
This is gonna make Cole high.
Anne Laurie
@NotMax:
Circastic intent marker.
Hobbes
@Major Major Major Major: Well with that blog name you have my vote for President of the Galaxy.
greennotGreen
To all the progressive Hillary haters:
Look, neither Elizabeth Warren nor Bernie Sanders is going to be elected President in 2016. We have a two party system. One of those parties has gone off the deep end. Any Democrat is going to be light years better than any Republican. In 2000 purists on the left helped give us George W. Bush.
Learn from history.
Anne Laurie
@SiubhanDuinne: Also, IIRC, Bill was really allergic to cat dander — Socks was Chelsea’s cat. The cat tended to hang around Betty Curry anyway, and apparently all parties were happier when Socks moved in with Betty after Chelsea went away to college.
Major Major Major Major
@Hobbes: See post #1, dorkfish :) thanks
OzarkHillbilly
@Major Major Major Major: Nice write up. A little jealous that you still have your father around to enjoy. I wish I had appreciated mine more when I had the chance. By the time I did, Alzheimers was creeping in around the edges.
magurakurin
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
1. So, then Warren is too hawkish and beholden to Israel for you as well, right?
straight from Greenwald even
2. Sounds reasonable to me.
3. So, FDR would have been out as well. And she’s Bill Clinton’s wife, it steals a fair amount of her agency as a person with the constant dynasty meme getting pounded out. They are related by marriage not blood, there is a difference.
4. Yes and no. She started out very badly, but towards the end she got her shit together and started putting in some good showings on the stump. She did almost win. It was very close by the end. And everything at this point indicates that this time will be very different. But, yeah, it’s a fear that she turns out to be Martha Coakly on a national scale.
5. Honestly, I don’t think there is anyway you can know this shit. And your big point proving that she lacks empathy, as pointed out below, is just bullshit. But there is no way I can know anything about what is in Hillary Clinton’s heart either, so, believe what you will, I suppose.
my 2yen
brantl
My problems with Clinton start with the inexorable triangulation, which will water down all her values, all the time, and her claiming to be shot at, in Bosnia, which speaks to exceptionally poor judgement, reflexes and moral character. This still puts her way ahead of the Republicans, on each and every one of those fronts, but we should still be able to field a better candidate than her. If not, I don’t understand where they went.
FlipYrWhig
@brantl: Yes, you do understand. There aren’t that many liberals in the first place, and most self-proclaimed liberals (already a small segment) actually like both Clinton and Obama. Thus the number of liberals that comprises the “we” of your next-to-last line is very, very, very small. And it’s not surprising that Democrats don’t knock themselves out catering to a very, very, very small group of people, especially one temperamentally and ideologically prone to dissatisfaction and disillusionment.
Patricia Kayden
@SiubhanDuinne: Thanks for the clarification about the Clinton’s pets. Romney actually admitted to placing his dog on top of a car IN COLD WEATHER and driving to Canada. Now that’s animal abuse, in my opinion. The poor pooch ran away.
Keith G
Is it now a thing to alternate gender pronouns within the telling of a single joke?
Yikes!!!!!
Bobby B.
I learned about this joke from a Thomas Pynchon novel, where it was called the Secret of the Fearful Assembly.
Keith G
If I were a conservative media/political strategist, I would consider trying to weaken Hillary by attacking one of her main advantages. It seems like most everyone has heard a great deal about Hillary Clinton for much of the last 25 years.
I would recommend to all partisans who have a role to play in this to do what they can to generate even more Hillary coverage. Good, bad, or indifferent it would not matter (tho the last two are better). Just keep pitching stories. The pet comment above would be an example as would the sniper story.
Make folks so tired of hearing HRC’s name, so burnt out, that they break out in hives at the mere mention. I think that is among the reasons that Hillary is trying to under play this point in the process. I wish her well.
rikyrah
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
don’t disagree with you at all
rikyrah
@magurakurin:
Mathematically, the Democratic Race was OVER the night of the Wisconsin Primary. OVER.
It was held February 19th.
Everything post February 19th was a Hillary Clinton vanity project.
You can pretend otherwise, but it was done February 19, 2008.
Omnes Omnibus
@rikyrah:
You have said this a couple of times now. Could you post a link or an explanation of why you say the race was over at that point? Thanks.
Kerry Reid
And Maureen Dowd is writing snarky gender-based “analysis” of Hillary Clinton that buys into the worst GOP talking points while pretending to be defusing them. Because of course she is. Also, MoDo still needs a Big Strong Daddy-Man President.
Every time I pay for my NY Times subscription, I cringe a little thinking about MoDo, Douchehat and BoBo.
Ben Cisco
@Kerry Reid:
As long as they can keep getting subs even with those three there, they will. Just saying…
SuperHrefna
@Omnes Omnibus: As far as I remember almost all threads here from late February to the time when Hill finally, finally conceded were full of the math that meant she had lost. Obama and Plouffe understood the math behind the nominations process and locked up all the votes thry needed early. Hillary kept going on and on long after there was no mathematical chance for her to win the nom. She really did run an incompetent campaign.
SuperHrefna
@Omnes Omnibus: Here’s a link to some math: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/03/13/475879/-Clinton-is-losing
Omnes Omnibus
@SuperHrefna: @SuperHrefna: I remember 2008 well enough to know that Clinton was behind (and I also remember being happy about that). I am looking for some support for the proposition that the race was over after the Wisconsin primary.
dogwood
@Omnes Omnibus:
After the Super Tuesday primaries, which were essentially a draw, Obama netted a few more delegates than Clinton but not enough to wrapt things up. The nine caucuses and primaries in February were in states and territories highly favorable to Obama. No Kentuckys, West Virginias or Ohios on the schedule. What was clear on the night od the Wisconsin primary was that Hillary would not be able to secure the nomination with elected delegates. Obama still had a chance to win that way, but it wasn’t obvious that he could do it either. Everything after February was essentially a fight for super delegates.
Omnes Omnibus
@dogwood: This matches my recollection.
dogwood
Also too, the process definitely ended for Clinton the night of the North Carolina and Indiana primaries where she won a squeaker in Indiana and got blown out in NC. Forging on to Puerto Rico, Montana, and North Dakota etc, was completely absurd. And it didn’t serve her well. It was in ND that she made her Bobby Kennedy statement.
shortstop
Nora Ephron.
Tree With Water
Clinton took council of her presidential ambition and wholeheartedly supported the Bush-Cheney War to advance it (or so she believed). She will lie about that fact for the rest of her life, wherever life takes her- including the Oval Office. Good people were not misled by faulty intelligence. That is a simple truth, one that I believe exposes her as entirely unfit for the presidency. I will never understand democrats who either deny that fact, or overlook it all together.
By the way, it’s OK to know all this and attack Clinton politically over it.. It won’t transform rank and file democrats into berserk republicans to hammer her about it. People well know they were lied to about 2003 Iraq War, even if the politicians don’t dare speak that truth aloud…
“Were good people misled by faulty intelligence pre-March, 2003”? That’s a fair question, and one that should be asked of all the presidential candidates. It is a good question, too, chock full of implications..
Kerry Reid
@Ben Cisco: Well, they do also have Charles Blow, Krugman, and other writers I enjoy. Plus, it’s sort of a job requirement to keep up with the cultural coverage.
Bill
I keep seeing this accusation – that somehow those of us who aren’t thrilled with HRC as the nominee feel that way for non-substantive reasons – and I just don’t see it. As you point out, there are honest and good reasons to not be thrilled. Some of those reasons are well articulated in this thread, and in my experience are the reasons liberals wish we had another option.
What is equally true is that every liberal I know is saying he will will vote for HRC if she is the nominee. (Which is very likely.) This whole discussion just seems like a non-issue. Some of us would like to see her challenged in the primary. But we recognize that she’s likely to win. If she does, we will support her.
Isn’t that how the system is supposed to work?
John Revolta
@Bill: But the triangulation! Th-th-the inexorable triangulation!!
Aleta
@Major Major Major Major:
That Vonnegut quote you added to the description of watching and hearing Raiders in a theater setting. Describes so well my feeling. It (and the sounds, too) relieved me from a deeply alienated mood while living in a harsh city in a new country. Walked out so connected. Thanks.
mclaren
In the absence of alternatives, no. This is wrong.
Given the current insane Republican political environment, you only reject a potential Democratic candidate for anything if there’s not a reasonable danger that a Republican will win.
Once upon a time, when Republicans were sane, it didn’t matter that much. Now we’re facing a political environment in which a R-controlled president+House+senate probably means…oh, something like war with Iran, elimination of Medicare + Social Security + food stamps, legalization of human slavery, poll taxes set at the millions of dollars, etc.
mclaren
@Tree With Water:
There. Fixed that for ya.
Yes, all Democrats in office between 2000 and 2008 (except Obama and Feingold) are unfit for office because of their massive overwhelming relentless and sociopathic support for the Iraq debacle. But you don’t go into an election with the Democratic party you want, you go into an election with the Democratic party you have.
mclaren
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
These are all reasonable reactions and at the end of the day, they don’t matter a damn.
If you’ve got a choice between another fucking Bush who has wholeheartedly embraced his halfwit lunatic brother’s failed and disastrous policies, and a semi-sane person like Hillary…seriously, WTF???