Says Camille Paglia, in the interview embedded 2 posts down. Paglia also says — responding to the question "Is Hillary Clinton kind of your worst nightmare as a woman?" — "No, she's exactly my age. I feel I know her completely. Our accents are kind of the same. I understand her completely. So I see all the games and falsehoods and so forth. So I've enjoyed it. I've made an entire career practically—in fact I wrote the cover story for The New Republic 'Ice Queen, Drag Queen'—that was 1996, it was way back there."
I'd like to read that 1996 piece. This is the best I can do: here. I have a New Republic subscription, but a search for the title turned up no results. But I can excerpt this:
Ice queen, drag queen: the Great White Feminist Hope is a far more conflicted and self-destructive creature than either her admirers or revilers understand.... The woman her classmates called "Sister Frigidaire" has the "mind of winter" of Wallace Stevens's poem "The Snow Man." She, too, in Stevens's words, has "been cold a long time."That's the woman who lives and is completely understood in the brain of Paglia.
This coldness is the brittle brilliance of Hillary's calculating, analytic mind, which at its most legalistic has a haunting, daunting impersonality.... Hillary had to learn how to be a woman; it did not come easily or naturally....
ADDED: The idea that Hillary would not have had a viable legal or political career without lashing herself to Bill is utterly ridiculous. There is every reason to think she would have had a far better career if she hadn't gone off to Arkansas. The idea that her legal credentials weren't good enough to get her a job at Rose law firm is pure fantasy. As for failing a bar exam, that's not an intelligence test. Take a look at the eminent folks who have failed bar exams. Kathleen Sullivan, former Dean of Stanford Law School. Benjamin Cardozo, the Supreme Court Justice. Franklin D. Roosevelt. Paglia rattles off ideas as if to bury us in sheer volume.
But, of course, I agree with her that the first woman President should not be someone who built her career on top of her husband's success and who is implicated in the destruction of women who got in her husband's way. Here I am, last May, making (half of) this point in 37 seconds (along with another reason why I don't think Hillary should be the first woman President):
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This is why conservatives need to be kept out of academia. Who needs more intellects like Paglia's?
So Camille,
Don't hold back, tell us what you really feel :)
I love the way Camille thinks and writes, but I cannot stand to hear her speak. Elocution lessons could have helped.
If Dennis Miller were a lesbian, would he be hailed as a heretic critic of all things the way Paglia was? He has the same tendency to jump from idea to idea, ADHD fashion, very quickly.
*is
Heh. Paglia thinks she "completely understands" a lot of things.
By the way, "award", not "reward", and "was that", not "was because". Paglia is supposed to be a wordsmith. This is crappy smithing, but might be also crappy transcripting.
"But, of course, I agree with her that the first woman President should not be someone who built her career on top of her husband's success and who is implicated in the destruction of women who got in her husband's way."
But what about the SECOND woman President?
I am Laslo.
Like her or not, Camile is in fact her own woman every day of her life. If she were elected president she wouldn't be the first woman president, she'd be the first Camile Paglia president.
Hillary does have a certain shrewdness about herself, but it is a very shallow shrewdness. Watching her is like watching a smart toddler connive to obtain a desired object that it wants, but doesn't even know why.
Hillary probably does effectively represent the mindset of many mainstream American women. Personally I find her to be a miserable little creature almost beneath contempt.
America deserves her.
The idea that Hillary would not have had a viable legal or political career without lashing herself to Bill is utterly ridiculous.
Take "political" out of that sentence and you're probably right. There is absolutely no reason to believe she would have had a successful political career without being Bill's wife. She's an incandescently bad politician.
I agree with Scott M. It's difficult not to suspect that Hillary might not be that smart. I think without Bill, she'd have been a paper-pusher hoping for partner status somewhere.
Hillary is a whore who wants revenge on the men who bought her, used her and abandoned her. Hide and watch her go.
The second woman president should be the first woman president's spouse.
Tax breaks for softball leagues.
I am not sure she's so wrong about Hillary's career prospects, Althouse. Remember, not only did she fail one of the easier bar exams in the country, she also had done great damage to her reputation while working on the Watergate investigation. One might say her career was a shambles when she moved to Arkansas.
Some Ivy grads crash and burn as lawyers.
Not the article Althouse was trying to find, but a 2008 essay by Paglia on the subject of why Hillary should not be President.
I am Laslo.
Despite her inevitability from her Wellesley days what evidence of a viable political career is there? We are oft reminded of the difficulty women have in politics- why would she have overcome? Charisma? Compassion? Interpersonal skills? Superior policy intellect? Riight.
In any event, Scott M. makes a good point. Even if she might have had a decent career as a lawyer, she has almost zero political abilities. She's painfully awkward. Her voice is shrill. She's vicious enough to a political operative, but not warm or likable enough to be a good politician. Her success is completely derivative of Bill's. People like her and vote for her because they imagine Bill would be at her side.
The idea that Hillary would not have had a viable legal or political career without lashing herself to Bill is utterly ridiculous.
What is the proof that she was capable of ANY political career without Bill? Legal, sure. Political? Did she ever run for anything on her own?
Hillary needs a Homeric epithet for her campaign.
I suggest multi-breasted.
That would appeal to both women and men.
"Paglia rattles off ideas as if to bury us in sheer volume."
It happens to the best of us.
I am Laslo.
Paglia said: And let’s not forget Hillary, the governor’s wife, pulling out a book and rudely reading in the bleachers during University of Arkansas football games back in Little Rock.
Hahaha. Never heard that one. Good for her. So which is it though? She's bitching about Hillary putting on a false persona and then she bitches when she doesn't.
This was Hillary's best political moment ever. Hear the emotion in her voice, and the exhaustion in her words.
I always enjoy the reasons Althouse finds for disagreeing with Camille Paglia. Fundamentally they agree with each other on almost everything. I can't think of anything substantial where they would disagree.
Looking over all the Paglia posts, I think Althouse just doesn't like her.
My only problem with Paglia is that she's always saying the same things. Criticizing academia for things that happened 40 years ago is not relevant anymore. Yeah, we know. If you hear one interview you've heard them all. All her books are pretty much the same. It's interesting, but once you get it you got it.
A really fascinating question is why conservatives like Paglia so much. She is not a conservative at all. It's not just because she is critical of radical feminists. There's something about her message that appeals to conservative men.
"If you hear one interview you've heard them all. All her books are pretty much the same. It's interesting, but once you get it you got it."
Could be said for Keith Richards on guitar. Of course, this came to mind because she is starting to look like the old Keith Richards.
I am Laslo.
Althouse said:
"The idea that Hillary would not have had a viable legal or political career without lashing herself to Bill is utterly ridiculous."
She wouldn't have had a viable political career because she has no political (as opposed to policy-making) abilities. Can you imagine her, without her connection to Bill, winning election as, say, mayor of New York? She would top out at member of the school board of a medium-sized city.
As for a viable legal career, it's easier to imagine her as a senior career attorney at the Justice Department or some other government agency. I doubt she would have more than middling success in a private law firm. She spent a few years at the Rose Law Firm, but nothing I've read indicates she would have been a high-flyer on her own (or even that she was a high-flyer because of her connection with Bill). She doesn't seem to have the imagination that really good lawyers have. Hard, plodding work just isn't enough.
She's saying she's tired of being Atlas. Tired of holding up the world. It's a tough job, and I'm tired of doing it, but maybe we can fix things if we just get this next election right.
It's not that you want power, lady. What do you want, actually? Money?
Haven't read the comments, but every time I hear an older person lament the state of the world and how everything is going to hell in a handbasket, it sounds like they're talking more about themselves.
Bill Peschel-
Yes, that is true. I call it the Boomer Apocalypse. "I'm dying, so the world must be dying, too!"
It's not the end of the world, it's just the end of you.
"Anyone who believe in sexual harassment guidelines should have seen that the disparity of power between Clinton and Monica Lewinsky was one of the most grotesque ever in the history of sex crime. He's a sex criminal!"
I have never understood this. By any definition I've heard a committed feminist use, the disparity of power between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinski makes what happened there defined as rape - except when applied to Bill Clinton.
All the 1990's talk about how Hillary was the king-maker... remember the joke about Bill and the gas station attendant?
Looking like we didn't give Bill the credit he deserved.
The liberal feminists destroyed their brand during the Lewinsky scandal. Hillary number one, Gloria Steinem, and the others who all paraded around the talk shows to defend Bill's breach of their standards, which only applied to men on the conservative side of the aisle.
It is interesting that certain feminists let themselves be subjugated by the liberal male warriors who claim some difference to all the other 'bad' guys. Like Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda.
Even in "Forrest Gump",Zemeckis played out the scene where Jenny's anti-war warrior smacked her in the face at the Black Panther Party. No different from her abusive father. Watching Forrest beat that guys ass was one of the best parts of the movie.
Forrest Gump was the Feminist. He demonstrated it though the love, loyalty, and the respect he had for Jenny and his Mother. It required a degree of old fashioned chivalry.
Sorry I got into a fight at your Black Panther Party
Not only did Hillary enable Bill, but her core personality likely drove him to seek out sex where ever he could find it.
All the 1990's talk about how Hillary was the king-maker
IMO, all that 'Hillary is the smart one' stuff was just anti-southern bias. They found it hard to believe that he was the smart one with his accent. And I'm sure he used that to his advantage.
Paglia said: And let’s not forget Hillary, the governor’s wife, pulling out a book and rudely reading in the bleachers during University of Arkansas football games back in Little Rock.
That's funny, but I live in Arkansas and never heard of it, so I don't think it was a big deal. The big deal was she kept using her own last name instead of Bill's until somebody realized that wouldn't fly. And her hair.
The idea that Hillary would not have had a viable legal or political career without lashing herself to Bill is utterly ridiculous.
Sorry, but it's patently obvious that it is true. Her legal career was nothing without Bill's interference (she was kicked off the Nixon impeachment, which speaks poorly of her professional qualifications) and, politically, I've seen few pols worse.
It makes the feminists' blasting of Palin baffling. Say what you want, SHE was a self-made woman. She got into office without her husband making it happen.
Without Bill, Hillary would be just a busybody.
She lacks his charm. She is hardly personable. Nobody seems to actually LIKE her.
A really fascinating question is why conservatives like Paglia so much. She is not a conservative at all. It's not just because she is critical of radical feminists. There's something about her message that appeals to conservative men.
Well, the same could be said of Orwell and Christopher Hitchens. There's something in leftist heretics which amuses the American conservative.
Personally, I can only take Paglia in very small doses. She's a terribly disorganized thinker, and has always struck me as wilfully undisciplined. But that isn't because she's a woman, it's because she's a McLuhan acolyte, who also was an undisciplined, deliberately shallow thinker. McLuhan was easily the most-overrated and least useful prominent intellectual of his generation, and that generation was plagued with a horde of deluded, overrated, and dishonest public intellectuals.
ADDED: The idea that Hillary would not have had a viable legal or political career without lashing herself to Bill is utterly ridiculous..[and the rest of that paragraph]
Thank you, Prof. Althouse!
I was surprised Paglia rattled off the usual right-wing talking points there.
Hillary's chilling personality, is best illustrated by the way it has temporarily stifled Laslo's creative imagination for anal jokes.
Some interesting thoughts from the transcript:
reason: If you went to college up through the late '60s to mid-'80s, there was no in loco parentis. There were fewer and fewer required courses. It was a kind of temporary autonomous zone. Then it started getting ratcheted down.
Wow, was that ever true!!! my freshman year at Wash U, we did absolutely anything we wanted.
Let me just say something about the in loco parentis because when I arrived in college in 1964, in loco parentis was operative. I was in a girl's dorm. We had a sign-in at 11:00 at night. The boys could run free. They had panty raids. We threw water at them out the windows and so on. My generation of women rose up and said, "Get out of our private lives!" And the university said, "No, the world is dangerous. We must protect you against rape and attack and all those things." And we said, "Give us freedom! Give us freedom to risk rape! That is true freedom!"
Classic Camille! She defines freedom for women.
Now, I've encountered these graduates of Harvard, Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, and Princeton, I've encountered them in the media, and people in their 30s now, some of them, their minds are like Jell-O. They know nothing! They've not been trained in history. They have absolutely no structure to their minds.
Camille trashes the Ivy League.
So I know what they're getting in school, and it's basically zero. What they're getting is they're being taught is "Don't bully. Like everyone. Negotiate and compromise." They've never been taught geography. They know nothing about history.
Camille trashes modern K-12 progams.
Hillary's primary political strength, after the fact that she married Bill, is that a lot of professional women around her age identify with her and a lot of those women hold influential positions in the media.
She may have had a great career in law sans Bill, but as a politician?
By any definition I've heard a committed feminist use, the disparity of power between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinski makes what happened there defined as rape - except when applied to Bill Clinton
Fen’s Law: The Left doesn’t really believe in the things they lecture the rest of us about.
Mike's Law: If it werent't for double standards, the left wouldn't have any standards at all.
I first realized Hillary's lack of personal accomplishments in 1996. Right before the 1996 election, PBS did documentaries on Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, and also on Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Dole. The documentaries on Bill vs. Bob caused me to vote Republican for the first time in my life. And as for Hillary vs. Elizabeth, there was no comparison. Elizabeth Dole's resume was amazing, yet Hillary got all the hype for her brilliance, etc., when she had really done very little on her own at all. And the hype has never stopped and the other women who are more deserving of the office of President don't have a chance as long as the MSM is on Hillary's side. Of course, most of those other women happen to be republicans, so that doesn't help their chances either.
Mark Steyn on the genre
MARK STEYN: Loretta Lynch is being held up because she's Loretta Lynch, not because she's the first this or the first that... I'm so bored by this. We are living in epic times. And this idea that we're supposed to be excited because it's the first Native American transsexual to be head of the Department of the Interior bores the pants off me. Is there nothing else than this shabby, worthless sort of identity-politics notches on your escutcheon that any of these guys play?
Hillary's candidacy violates the spirit and intent of the anti-dynasty clause of the Constitution:
"No person shall be elected [...] President more than twice."
In spirit and intent, that law should apply to spouses, and arguably to a former president's siblings and children too.
A really fascinating question is why conservatives like Paglia so much. She is not a conservative at all. - John Lynch
Neither was Christopher Hitchens, or Andrew Sullivan before he went "full-retard."
There is a recognition of the validity of certain conservative ideas in her writing, and a tendency to take them seriously and to recognize that they have value. Something most "liberals" in the role of public 'intellectuals' completely lack.
Most liberals today honestly and deeply believe that conservatives are somehow less than fully human. This is of course their own inability to see and understand, but there is not explaining that to them.
Jonathon Haidt is another self-avowed "liberal" who understands conservatives, and so is popular with us.
It's really liberals who avoid hetorodox opinion, like "I can't listen to her..." Althouse is no conservative, but she doesn't give us the "conservatives in the mist" treatment either.
Mickey Kaus is another one.
If anybody really wants to understand why conservatives like Paglia, even though she is not a political conservative, they should read What Makes People Vote Republican
Conservatism at its best is a way of thinking, not a set of conclusions.
Tim in Vermont said: "Neither was Christopher Hitchens, or Andrew Sullivan before he went "full-retard."
Yeah. Sullivan used to be a good read and seemed pretty intellectually honest. I think he caught a lot of shit at the cocktail parties and didn't want his invitation revoked for the reindeer games.
His whole crusade about the maternity of Palin's Down Syndrome baby was disgusting.
Hitchens was always entertaining, especially when he would take on that douche bag Labour MP George Galloway.
Paglia understands some things about human nature and freedom that most of the left, and pretty much all modern feminists, are willfully oblivious to. Such as that men and women are actually different, and human society has developed the way it has for reasons other than class subjugation in the Marxist frame.
(Not that classes of human beings have not historically subjugated one another, but as Paglia says, this is not the sum of all human experience)
Because her views are not based on childish denial of reality, and because she is clearly a very sharp individual who delves into all sides of the culture and thinks for herself rather than parroting dogma, we can respect her even when her conclusions seem wrong and be interested in how she got there.
One reason why I like Paglia is that she is an open-minded and original liberal thinker, first. The mainstream feminists (and other so-called liberals) are mostly partisan democrats first. And that is why non-Paglia 'liberals' are so boring and corrupted.
are willfully oblivious to
It's not willful. Read the Jonathon Haidt piece I linked above. They actually can't hear conservative arguments.
Haidt had conservatives reword and recapitulate liberal arguments, which they generally could do.
Liberals, even in the context of a psychological study, and not in the context of open debate, were unable to recapitulate conservative arguments in their own words. They simply could not do it.
Haidt's famous description of liberal argumentation of "Reject first, ask rhetorical questions later!" applies a *lot* on Twitter, for example.
His whole crusade about the maternity of Palin's Down Syndrome baby was disgusting.
Yeah, what are the odds of a woman late in her child-bearing years having a Down's syndrome baby? It's a mystery I tells ya!
There is a commenter here though, who is still obsessed with Palin's uterus.
The idea that Hillary would not have had a viable legal or political career without lashing herself to Bill is utterly ridiculous.
Viable legal career, possibly. In the 1970s being a lawyer on the House Watergate Inquiry committee was quite a ticket to have punched. Against that is the 1998 statement by her supervisor that he would not have given her a recommendation (see the otherwise sympathetic to Hillary discussion in Snopes.com). As to a viable political career, hold on there, Professor. If you think plain old Hillary Rodham would have gotten much past chairman of the PTA with her tin ear for politics then IMO you need to reconsider local politics.
There is every reason to think she would have had a far better career if she hadn't gone off to Arkansas. The idea that her legal credentials weren't good enough to get her a job at Rose law firm is pure fantasy.
See my analysis above. Once upon a time they checked back with former supervisors. The Watergate Inquiry gig was a great ticket, but lack of a positive recommendation by a former supervisor, which he says would not have been forthcoming, would have hurt.
And without the credentials of being the governor's wife, would Hillary have made partner at Rose? How much business would she have brought in without her hubby in the governor's mansion?
As for failing a bar exam, that's not an intelligence test.
No, but it suggests to me someone who's too lazy, or too full of themselves, to study properly. And it would not have helped ordinary Hillary Rodham (vice Mrs. Governor of Arkansas) make partner.
@Michael the Magnificent, there's also Cole's Law, which is made with shredded cabbage.
Blogger Mitch H. said...
A really fascinating question is why conservatives like Paglia so much. She is not a conservative at all. It's not just because she is critical of radical feminists. There's something about her message that appeals to conservative men.
Well, the same could be said of Orwell and Christopher Hitchens. There's something in leftist heretics which amuses the American conservative.
No. It's their honesty.
Paglia is always enjoyable to read, and almost dead on about Hillary. Shameful that hers seems to be the minority opinion among feminists--they'd have far more credibility if they'd call out Hillary for the charlatan she is.
I agree that Hillary probably would have had a decent legal career without Bill (she did have a Yale degree, experience on the Watergate committee and family connections) but what evidence do we have that she even would have tried going into politics? She isn't good at it and doesn't seem to enjoy it. I sort of feel sorry for her, as she is probably putting herself through all sorts of humiliating crap simply for Bill, who rewards her like a true creep.
Had she not been Bill's wife, the nasty temper that spewed "F***ing Jew Bastard" would not likely have gone far in politics. Or as a partner in a law firm.
Rusty:
"No. It's their honesty."
Which is why I have a soft spot for Robert Cook.
We agree on roughly nothing. I find his premises questionable and his conclusions objectionable. He'd probably be appalled at my praising him.
But he's intellectually honest, seems to consider and respond to the actual points his opponents make, and carries water for no one on his side.
"But what about the SECOND woman President?"
Funny, Laslo, I almost wrote "or second" in that sentence as a parenthetical. I only left it out because it was distracting. Sometimes, it's like you're reading my mind, Lasla. Sometimes.
Laslo, not Lasla.
Your hair looks good short.
ADDED: The idea that Hillary would not have had a viable legal or political career without lashing herself to Bill is utterly ridiculous. There is every reason to think she would have had a far better career if she hadn't gone off to Arkansas.
Nonsense, although Hillary may have had a "viable" career, the notion that she would be a player on the world stage without Bubba is total BS. Ia am goin with Paglia on this one.
I'll go with Buster on Hillary's career prospects as a lawyer.
Yes she graduated from an Ivy League law school. And that would normally gain her easy admittance to the biggest law firm in Podunkville Middle America.
But getting accepted as a new associate in the "biggest law firm in town"--even the Rose law firm in Little Rock, doesn't mean you're going to make partner there, or even if you do make partner that you'll stay there.
Intellectual horsepower is important as a lawyer. So is character, whether you're in a private firm or government practice. And finally there's likeability or personal charisma of a sort. You need that to convince juries. You need that to find and keep clients.
Hillary is a total washout on character (fired for lying, lack of ethics from her first law job---and she kept it up and got better,or at least more seasoned as a world class prevaricator).
And as for charisma or personal likebility? One of Obama's first lies to the American people occurred when he looked at Hillary and said, "You're likeable enough Hillary."
Sorry Charlie--she flunks the charisma/likeability test big time.
Could she have had a successful legal career in a big law firm, or a Federal agency? Yes--so long as she was kept in the backroom. But would she ever have been a big time rainmaker on her own? No way Jose! Billy Jeff was the answer to this unlikeable Iron Maiden's problems in that regard.
I would like the first woman president to be elected because she is the best candidate, not because she is a woman.
We recently elected the first African American president, and we did so because he was African American (does even Althouse still cling to the belief that BHO was a better president than McCain would have been? -- a low standard, I grant you). I expect that it will be a long time before we elect the next Black president, for much the same reason as it will be a long time before we elect the next Bush president.
It may be another decade or so before a woman comes on the political scene who will command majority support because of what she's done and what she persuades us she will do, and not because of what her organs symbolize, but it WILL happen.
A really fascinating question is why conservatives like Paglia so much. She is not a conservative at all. It's not just because she is critical of radical feminists. There's something about her message that appeals to conservative men.
Speaking for myself, I find her to be thought-provoking and interesting. I like that she has an appreciation for history, and also that she's a feminist who doesn't automatically denigrate men or masculine values.
Hillary in her life has had any number of things virtually handed to her on a platter, e.g. her senate seat and cabinet position. She performed brilliantly at neither (and she wasn't so hot at being "co-president" either).
She washed out in DC. Her supervisor on the Watergate committee declined to recommend her for another position in government and she didn't pass the bar. Her alternative was hitching her stalled wagon to Bill's rising star.
After her husband was elected attorney general, she was hired by the venerable, politically-connected Rose Law Firm as its first female associate. After her husband was elected governor, she was made its first female partner. Would she have accomplished either of those things as plain old Hillary Rodham with no husband in the state house? Maybe, but highly doubtful.
She has no talent for politics and comes across as unlikable, dull and phony. She's got a screechy voice and the worst fake laugh I've ever heard. She's the most pedestrian of thinkers--I'm not sure she's ever had an original idea.
Was she capable of having a better than decent career in academia or the practice of law? Sure. But the idea that she could have had a far better career without Bill than she's had with Bill is, frankly, ludicrous.
I though Valerie Jarret was the first woman President.
Interesting that those good old boys in Arkansas hired her as their first female associate, and then, later on, their first female partner. She must have some stellar qualifications. ROTFLMAO
Here's Camille's full article in the New Republic:
https://archive.org/details/ice-queen-drag-queen
This comment will probably get flagged as spam because it has a link, but hey I'm just trying to help.
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