So, does Dowd establish the necessary proposition? Dowd points to Hillary's 2008 campaign and asserts that "Hillary scrubbed out the femininity, vulnerability and heart" because: 1. Mark Penn (her chief strategist) had written that voters look to the President as "the 'father' of the country," not a "first mama," and 2. Bill Clinton’s post-9/11 advice to all Democrats was that it works better to be "strong and wrong than... weak and right." Consequently, Hillary was too pro-war on Iraq, or, as Dowd puts it: Hillary "act[ed] like a masculine woman defending the Iraq invasion" and lost out to the "feminized man" who denounced it.
Yes, that's right: Dowd calls Obama a feminized man and equates resistance to war to femininity. So far, Dowd is looking utterly and confidently sexist.
After losing Iowa and watching New Hampshire slip away to the tyro, Barack Obama, Hillary cracked. She misted up, talking to a group of voters in New Hampshire when a woman asked her how she kept going, while staying “upbeat and so wonderful.”Hillary is a woman, so why talk about what it means to campaign "as a woman"? Hillary is a specific person. We all know her very well. If she's dialing weakness and strength up and down for political reasons and we can see it, she seems dishonest and devious. Dowd's word "authentic" hits that problem. To equate weakness and strength to femininity and masculinity is sexist stereotyping.
... [I]t was a triumph because she seemed real. As The Washington Post’s Dan Balz wrote in his campaign book, it “let a glimmer of her humanity peek through.”
Hillary always overcorrects. Now she has zagged too far in the opposite direction, presenting herself as a sweet, docile granny in a Scooby van....
[I]sn’t there a more authentic way for Hillary to campaign as a woman — something between an overdose of testosterone and an overdose of estrogen, something between Macho Man and Humble Granny?...
Dowd doesn't take responsibility for her sexism. In fact, she ends the column by projecting that sexism onto Republicans. Hillary's "Republican rivals... are coming after her with every condescending, misogynist, distorted thing they’ve got." I predict that the GOP candidates will go out of their way to seem gender-neutral and to avoid giving Hillary and her supporters material they can use to do more War-on-Women politics. It's Dowd who's plying misogyny right now, using stereotypes like "granny" and the masculinized woman.
Hillary's real problem is inauthenticity. Dowd's saw that and admitted it as she rambled along the gender track, where she needed to be to get where she wanted to go: Those Republicans are terrible.
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Proclaiming misogyny where none exists is the usual for SJW.
Republicans don't attack Hillary as a woman...they can attack her for lack of competence alone.
I blame Bush for Maureen Dowd's column.
I am not surprised that MoDo doesn't see the basic problem with Hillary!, that she lies through her teeth, and has been doing so for decades. Politicians tend to be dishonest, but she makes most of them look like Boy Scouts. This is the woman who is speaking for the middle class, etc, after routinely charging the cost of a decent house in much of the country for speeches. Whose family was allegedly broke when they left the White House, but now are worth > $100 million, and control many times that in their personal oundation/slush fund. And, yes, MoDo should remember her feminist candidate heading the Bimbo Eruption project, which destroyed any woman who had complained about her husband's sexual predations.
Special bonus points for Dowd's claim that "she followed her husband’s advice and voted to authorize the Iraq war," as though she could not think for herself.
Here's a secret: Mrs. Clinton comes off as confident and secure, even warm (likeable enough) in interviews, and how she balances her personality traits is not much of a problem.
How she carries on the campaign is a different story. For a former senator/Sec.State/etc. to have a "listening tour" is a cynical joke, and everyone has to know it. If she changes her policy positions based on what a receivables clerk in Iowa says, she has no right to ask to be president.
I don't think she can't figure out how to campaign as a woman, I think she can't figure out how to campaign as a human being.
Republicans don't attack Hillary as a woman...they can attack her for lack of competence alone.
for me, it isn't incompetence that is the problem, but rather that she is a sociopath. Verging on basically evil. And I think that the grandmother image is designed to minimize this - how can a doting grandmother be evil? Be a sociopath? And it may work.
Maureen Dowdy hates the Clintons. I'm sure she sees all those things, Bruce. Her problem is at least at this point in time, it appears Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee. Dowdy is going to continue to take potshots at Clinton, but she can't write or say anything too damaging because come November 2016, she has to leave room for Hillary to be the better choice over whichever Republican makes it to the ticket. We'll read about how Clinton can't campaign well, about the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pantsuit, maybe some slams at Bill, but nothing that would disqualify Dowdy from voting for her.
To equate weakness and strength to femininity and masculinity is sexist stereotyping.
Nagging too.
Man is an oak. Nature contains nothing sturdier.
Lautreamont
Man is the conqueror of chimeras, the novelty of tomorrow, the regularity which chaos bemoans, the subject of conciliation. He is the judge of all things. He is not a half-wit. He is no worm. He is truth's trustee, the store of certainty, the glory, not the outcast of the universe. If he humbles himself, I extol him. If he extols himself, I extol him the more.
Lautreamont
But the feminized man hates Hillary far more than the GOP guys ever hated her.
Can't wait to see what Dowdy days about Warren next when she is nominated.
I don't attack her on "competence" alone. I attack her on character issues. Watergate. Sniper fire. She has set a pattern of dissapearing files through her whole life. She got fired from the watergate committee for stealing files. She disappeared her Rose Law Firm files to conceal Whitwater doings. Now the emails. The private server and destruction of tens of thousands of public documents and exposure of who knows what to Russian hackers puts her up there with Bradley Manning. In a just world she'd be looking at a similar sentence and hoping for a pleanot running for a plea deal. Not running for president.
Andrew: [lifting bag] - God. You're gonna wanna use your legs to lift that one.
Mother: Andrew! Help her with those.
Andrew: I'd love to, but she won't let me do anything. She insists on doing it all herself. She's one of those... she's a feminist.[Margaret struggles with bag] Come on, sweetie.
The Proposal
Hillary figured out how to campaign as a woman: listen to what the men say who tell you how to campaign as a women.
Just meekly follow your husband's and your employee's advice.
And by God if someone walks toward you in a debate, scream to high heaven they are sexist fascist pigs fighting only to keep women subservient through the male gaze and bullying body language.
"Hillary is a woman..."
I'm not so sure. But I am unwilling to peak under that skirt to find out.
Yes, that's right: Dowd calls Obama a feminized man and equates resistance to war as feminine. So far, Dowd is looking utterly and confidently sexist.
Maybe Dowd has her reasons:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/7243/gender-gap-varies-support-war.aspx
Hillary's real problem is that she is a corrupt liar and incompetent to boot.
Hillary Clinton must not be president.
Carthage must be defeated.
Women have more obstacles than men.
The actual V is a corrupt, incompetent serial liar.
What is the best way to sell that dog.
Woof.
"Women have more obstacles than men."
And they're the primary victims of war.
David
Stop stealing my lines LOL !!!
Obstacles was the author of ancient Greek romantic comedies.
Personally, I consider Hillary more likable than Eleanor Roosevelt. On several occasions she has shown herself to have a sense of humor and, unlike Nancy Pelosi, her face still looks human........It's obvious that her guiding principle is her own self interest and that she considers that this self interest corresponds to humanity's highest achievable ideals. I suppose you can say the same about most politicians, but the contrast seems far starker with the Clintons than with other politicians......She drives around in a sleek black van. It's a vehicle of intimidating appearance. It looks like something a rap mogul would drive. By calling it a Scooby van, she doesn't humanize the vehicle but only calls attention to her phoniness.
Hillary was MACHO when she had to be to climb to the top. Now post brain trauma and RICH beyond all dreams, she can afford to evolve to HUMBLE GRANNY mode.
I am not so sure she really wants to be President. She seems to be sleep walking through the process —avoiding the press and lacking any semblance of a comprehensive reason for running other than she deserves to be the first female president just BECAUSE!
Hillary has always been the bagman for the Clintons and the most corrupt person to ever get close to the American presidency. Obama is next. His history is not as long and obvious.
What has she done for real accomplishments ? That is probably not a fair test for most American politicians these days although it was in the past.
Bill put her in charge of the health care project and she failed pretty miserably.
She was Secretary of State and failed pretty spectacularly. That has been done before with a couple of idiotic treaties outlawing war but her record is more recent and will get worse in the next 16 months.
The National Inquirer may finally tell us the real reason why she deleted the e-mails. She may have as big a problem with young women as Bill.
Wow, what a civilized but damning post. Proof that legal skills can be used for good and not evil :)
I thought the "feminized man" comment was referring to Barry.
MoDo is just being MoDo, because what else can she be, assuming the NYT would let her.
The question isn'y why do you oppose Hillary, there are literally dozens of reasons.
The question is...why would you possibly support her?
What has she ever accomplished?
What does she stand for?
What is her character like?
The only possible reason to vote for Hillary is power politics, she is a female Democrat
The whole idea that women are a certain kind of political entity is sexist.
Just as talking about the Hispanic vote, the black vote, etc are all racist.
We are all individuals and of course if you break us into groups and then decide what the majority of that group happens to believe, you can pretend you've found what the "group" believes. But it isn't true and I propose it is hurtful.
Hillary is a woman, she is campaigning. That's how you campaign as a woman. Same as it is for people.
"Hillary's real problem is inauthenticity. Dowd's saw that and admitted it as she rambled along the gender track, where she needed to be to get where she wanted to go: Those Republicans are terrible."
Right.
Hillary! can't even campaign honestly.
While she may not be able to campaign as a woman, she has a good chance of being elected as a woman.
What's a history of lying (carrying two devices is a pain anyway) and scumbaggery (where is Benghazi anyway?) when women can vote to break the glass ceiling?
Identity politics worked for Barry, it can work for Hillary! Especially since her historical, umm, flexibility shows that she's even more pragmatic than Barry.
Michael is correct.
The stink of corruption from that crew is overwhelming. Its obvious from the bare facts, there is no legitimate source of income to explain their wealth. And the rest of their crew with their system of Wall Street/media/federal agency revolving doors and payoffs is a mafia operation in plain sight.
As for her personal morals, I doubt they are in the same category as her husbands', who probably should have been prosecuted for statutory rape, along with many of his friends. Its also clear that he routinely abused his authority for sex. Anyone not protected by the media (any Republican) would long since have been driven from politics, for 1/10 of his well-substantiated improprieties.
If her husband got away with his abuses, whatever she has been up to is small potatoes and not likely to matter.
I don't know if there is substance behind that National Enquirer story, but the Enquirer is one of the more reliable sources in modern journalism.
@Althouse, Hillary has to campaign "as a woman" because that's really the only case for voting for her.
The case against?
Hillary Clinton is stupid. As Secretary of State she used a poorly-secured Email server for both personal and official business that essentially anyone could hack into (and foreign governments assuredly did). Back before people understood the hacker threat there might have been some justification for this, but a decade into the 21st century? The lack of cyber security awareness is appalling.
Hillary Clinton has no accomplishments. None as first lady, none as junior senator from New York, none as Secretary of State. As I like to point out, Sarah Palin successfully negotiated more agreements with a foreign country in thirty months as Governor of Alaska (one) than Hillary Clinton did in four years as Secretary of State (zero).
Hillary Clinton is venal and corrupt.
Hillary Clinton is poorly served by the sycophants and yes-women she has chosen to surround herself and she doesn't know how to reach out to experts outside her inner circle. Most tellingly, as head of the agency with the best translators in the federal government, she didn't think to reach out to an expert when she wanted to translate "reset" into Russian.
In summary, Hillary Clinton's uterus is all she can run on.
When one elects an American president, one is not electing just a person, one is swapping in a team, a crew, a group, a conspiracy, a network, a mafia. Clinton's whatever-you-call it trumps the woman, I think. Hilary is more figurehead than anything else. Her husband is the capo of this bunch.
Y'all are not giving Hilary! enough credit.
She's very pragmatic.
In every situation she's found herself, she did just enough to promote her interests and prevail.
Except once: pragmatic lost to ruthless in '08.
Other than that, she's very authentically pragmatic.
I think I read somewhere that it's a prime consideration in picking a president.
I don't normally defend Maureen Dowd, but when she uses words like feminine and masculine she is describing what she believes to be the perception of the electorate, she is not necessarily describing her own perception. I do not think it is fair to accuse her of sexism on that ground.
You can point out how something is perceived without being assumed to believe it yourself of course. Ann does this all the time.
I have always wondered about, and can anyone explain,the differing treatment of Bill Clinton and John Edwards?
"Maureen Dowd says Hillary Clinton "can’t figure out how to campaign as a woman."
That's a statement that is sexist IF the assumed proposition is true: that Hillary Clinton is trying to "campaign as a woman."
well is she trying to run a campaign as a woman with a vagina or a penis? Because you don't need vaginas to be women. What does it even mean to run a campaign as a woman since men can be women and women can be men.
I'm really confused at this point what running like a woman means to Maureen.
If she runs as a woman with a vagina as I'm assuming she is a natural born woman, is she actually running an inclusive enough campaign as a woman.
Maybe she can't figure how to campaing as one because they left makes it so hard to understand what the word even means anymore.
I have always wondered about, and can anyone explain,the differing treatment of Bill Clinton and John Edwards?
I think they were treated similarly at first: "These are tabloid allegations and even if they're true, they're unimportant."
But Clinton was president when the American economy did remarkably well. And with the Cold War fading, foreign affairs seemed to be going pretty well, too. Clinton had a tremendous reservoir of good feelings built up.
Edwards, on the other hand, had been a Senator who few people could identify with any special accomplishment. One of the few things that people could say was that he was a good husband to his cancer-stricken wife, Elizabeth. But when it turned out that he had
a long affair with someone else, that bit of good feeling vanished.
Why, he'd even had a kid with her. Bill never allowed that to happen.
Pot calling the kettle black, but she is right. HRC has no authentic identity after 50 years of calculating who she should appear to be.
Roger, maybe personae/appearances made a difference as well. Bill had that aw shucks demeanor and Edwards looked like a used car salesman. NTTIAWWUCS.
Edwards wasn't using State Troopers as procurers or to cover up scandals.
Edwards wasn't accused of sexual assault, or of offering to provide official favors in exchange for sex.
Edwards didn't solicit sex from a government employee under his supervision.
Edwards is not known to have run off to secret resorts owned by corrupt friends, in order, probably, to take advantage of underage girls, some of whom may have been kept against their will.
All Edwards did, really, was to keep a mistress.
Traditionally this was almost normal, even for US politicians.
Edwards got into trouble because of some of his previous, hypocritical rhetoric.
If Clinton had just kept a mistress, or even a string of them, it really would be no-ones business but his.
"Hillary Clinton "can’t figure out how to campaign as a woman.""
Maybe she can get some tips from Bruce Jenner.
Big Mike,
One quibble: please let's not continue the precious, disastrous notion that the spouse of a president is supposed to accomplish anything! Although if such a creature really does need some guidance, how about working on staying out of the public eye other than at official diplomatic banquets and the like? (I offer Denis Thatcher as Exhibit A.)
How can Hillary not campaign as a woman. She's a woman who is campaigning. The problem is not that she is a woman. The problem is that she is the only woman who is Hillary Clinton. She can't escape Hillary any more than she can escape being a woman.
It is silly how Dowd focuses on how awful and sexist she supposes the GOP will be against Hillary--while some low-level flunky or state rep somewhere is likely to send out a sexist e-mail or something (which the DNC will trumpet as though it came straight from the GOP nominee's mouth), for the most part they're going to be bending over backwards to avoid appearing sexist. As they certainly can--the knock against Hillary isn't that she's a woman, it's that she is a morally bankrupt incompetent who should never be in a position of power. We deserve to have a "first female president" who isn't terrible.
Dowd clearly dislikes the Clintons, and would do well to cut them no slack. It does the Left no good to bring those crooks back into power, even if or especially if it means the GOP taking the White House.
Kirk Parker said... [hush][hide comment]
Big Mike,
One quibble: please let's not continue the precious, disastrous notion that the spouse of a president is supposed to accomplish anything! Although if such a creature really does need some guidance, how about working on staying out of the public eye other than at official diplomatic banquets and the like? (I offer Denis Thatcher as Exhibit A.)
4/19/15, 5:39 PM
They are (or were) normally not expected to but Hillary! changed that when she demanded to be put in charge of policy (i.e. healthcare). She pushed to become involved and as such deserves to bear the cost of that involvement.
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