Hatred of Hillary Clinton on the far right approaches the pathological and is so prominent it ought to be given its own name — call it That Damn Woman Syndrome. Tapping into that hatred is keeping a hopeless candidate like Rudy Giuliani at the current head of the GOP pack, with the simple logic that any hard-nosed conservative — most of whom would rather see him pilloried than elected, will vote for him if the other choice is that damn woman! Given that such hatred is the ultimate “street cred” for Progressives, it is surprising that TDWS is almost as pervasive on the Left as it is on the Right.
Months before the 1992 election, Hillary Clinton first brought infamy to herself by saying, during an interview on Nightline: “I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession which I entered before my husband was in public life.”
Conservatives didn’t need a whole lot more reason to hate Hillary; just her assertion that children should be declared legally competent (which would allow children to sue their parents) was plenty. But the “cookies” statement turned a storm of anti-Hillary sentiment into a hurricane. It was, in their view, arrogant, anti-family, anti-marriage, cold, and calculating. The rest of the campaign only hardened their opinion of her.
Clinton Alienates Progressives With Her "Never Admit Mistakes" Campaign
The view on the Left, meanwhile, was quite the opposite. The election of Bill Clinton in November of 1992 meant to Liberals and Progressives that there would be a First Lady who was anything but window dressing to her husband. She was smart, articulate, and had a strength of will that hearkened back to Eleanor Roosevelt. But a lot has changed in the last fifteen years, and now there are probably almost as many new-generation Progressives as there are old-school Conservatives who see Clinton as cold and calculating.
There are many reasons for this: First, there is the Iraq War. She voted to authorize it in 2002. So did a lot of other Democrats in the Senate, but most of them have disavowed that vote. But Clinton steadfastly refuses to recant that vote, or call it a mistake, as former Senator and 2008 hopeful John Edwards did in an opinion piece in November 2005. Even the fact that it’s costing her votes does not faze her. Progressives are starting to feel that the formidable Clinton shares one chilling trait in common with George W. Bush: Never admit you’re wrong, even when it’s painfully obvious that your lack of candor is costing you support.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Arch Conservative
There are a slew of other reasons conservatives have to hate Hillary that have nothing to do with the "cookies remark."
Here are just a few....
The fact that every scandal, and they are legion, that the Clintons have been involved in has been blamed on a "vast right wing conspiracy" by Hillary.
The fact that she is a carpet bagger riding on the coattails of her husband who would be nothing without him.
the fact that she and her husband felt it was ok for her to propose legislation to congress when she was first lady.
the fact that hillary and all her leftist cronies claim to be pro woman feminists but then so savagely attacked all of the women that Bill clinton had sexually harassed and gave slick willie a complete pass.
the fact that Hillary herself has said "I want to take those profits away." this little fruedian slip proves in fact that she is a socialist at heart.
the fact that she thinks Americans are dumb enough to believe she is actually a moderate centrist.
The fact that those who have known her personally have told the truth about what an unpleasant, loud, disrespectful absolute cunt she is when the camera isn't rolling.
The fact that records from the Rose Law firm magically reappeared in Hillary's office several days before the statute of limitations with regard to any crimes pertaining to those records expired.
I could go on and on and on but I won't.
The fact is that Hillary will probably win the Dem nomination and this will be the best thing she's ever done for this nation because it will ensure a Republican victory in 2008.
Liberals/leftists and other assorted clintonistas seem perplexed by conservatives disdain for Hillary. I don't think they are even close to understanding the pure hatred we have for this woman. But they will once she is nominated by her party.
2 - Zedd
Tim
I think that Progressives find Clinton irksome for a deeper reason that the one you just noted. I think that real thinkers will not dismiss a good candidate because they voted for the war.
Hillary Clinton is simply too political. She is playing the game too methodically. Its too obvious. While Progressives need to sharpen their sales tactics, it appears that she has over compensated. Its understandable that she would be so cautious considering the attack that she underwent during the administration. I mean really, that cookie statement was hardly anti family and anti anything. It was pro HER. But the insane barrage would send anyone in a bizarre frenzy. During her first year as First Lady, she was assulted for just about everything without reason. Men could not tolerate a thinking person as First Lady. At least one who showed that she was a thinking person.
It is customary for the wives of CEO to give up their careers (even VPs) to show submission to the greatness of their spouse. Having a Harvard grad of a wife who actually wanted to live out her one and only life was preposterous and anti family (what ever that means). When she didn't leave her husband for cheating on her, she was chided (yet one would think that was pro family)
Anyway, she is cautious. Overly cautious and it shows. She is too calculating and it scares people.
However, making a correlation with her and Bush is just, well, almost a sin.
3 - Nancy
Arch, the persons she wants to take the profits away from are the giant oil, pharmaceutical, & other monopolistic barracudas which have been raking in outrageous profits at the expense of ordinary working people like you or me.
Whether you know it or not, all your reasons given add up to one huge misogynistic scream of rage against uppity women who have the gall to be career persons first, & nice, submissive, good little christian wifeys & homemakers as an afterthought. Hillary is just the symbol of all that, on which your subconscious seems to have focused. I suppose you subscribe to the ideas that women shouldn't have been given the vote, are too venal & stupid to make decisions regarding their own reproductive systems, & should be kept ignorant, barefoot, & pregnant in what you deem as their 'rightful' place - the kitchen?
Geez, Arch; you really are an antediluvian anomaly for such a young man. Your attitude is more usual to doddering codgers in American Legion hats or Shriners fezzes. Or serial killers, come to think of it.
4 - Zedd
Nancy
On Arch's behavior. I thought the same thing.
Where's homeland SECURITY when you need them. KOOK alert!!
Just kidding (partially) Arch.
5 - Nancy
Well, I'M not-!
6 - Cleveland Euclid
It is amazing that you say she does not admit mistake: this is not true. Over the years and even in the campaign she has "repeatedly" admitted mistakes of the "healthcare reform" of 93 that she spearheaded, she goes even beyond that to say she continues to bear the "scars" of that experience. This is no George Bush.
When she left for Arkansas because of her husband's career, you do not say it is Pro-Family. When she stuck with her husband's many embarrasments you did not say it is Pro-Family. What is calculating in being the wife of Governor and a President? You are basically helping the Governor and President. Now she is a senator, it is easy for us to think she became senator by choice, this is not true. The former senator Moyniyan publicly pleaded with her for months to consider running, it is only six years ago, have you also forgotten that?
She won her election by two-thirds and even increased the margin considerably this last election. Much more than that she has delivered for New York as a Senator and fulfilled her campaign promises. Americans love her, her senate colleages respect her and even travel with her. In uncommon bi-partisan initiatives, she has co-sponsored bills in the senate with people that have done their best to discredit her in the days of her husbands Presidency; talk about forgiveness, talk about rising above pettiness, talk about moving on.
In the last 8 years, she has been "The most Admired Woman in America" except for two of those years where she came in as second. She has done a better job than most of us in raising up a child that grew up in our very eyes. She raised Chelsea into a woman the is enviable with advanced degrees and well-behaved.
If there was no "right wing conspiracy" when she said it, would you at least admit that there has been one since then and that there is one now? How many documentaries are being made about Barrack Obama, John Edwards, Tom Vilsack, Bill Richardson or any other candidate? How many organizations are being formed by concervatives to do all they can to defeat her? Are they "conspiring" to defeat her? Do you think so??? The reason they are doing this is because she is the only one that can win and take our country back to where it needs to be.
As for the progressives, they need to know that Hillary has said there are "no do overs" but that if she knew then what she knows now, she would not have voted the way she did". What she means is not the issue of "Weapons of Mass Destruction", she means if she knew then that George Bush and his cabinet were selectively picking intelligence to use, that they were not going to allow weapons inspectors, that Dick Cheney will keep visiting the FBI/CIA office to pressure them, that they were only getting information from a narror group of trusted loyalists, that they were not listening to Colleen Powell, Gen Chenseky and other Generals, then she would not have voted for this war. She thought a US President will put in his best for the country as her husband did. There is nothing to apologise for, there is everything to celebrate for in her ability to stop this war should it be on at the time she is president.
7 - Nancy
Zedd, you & I seem to see eye to eye on a lot of issues; are you sure you aren't my long-lost, separated twin? ;) Do you have a large, star-shaped beauty mark on your left shoulder? No? Then - SISTER-!!!!! (with no apologies to Gilbert & Sullivan's "Cox & Box")
8 - Sisyphus
Zedd: "She is too calculating and it scares people."
I tend to agree with your take on things. Clinton's calculating ways don't scare me -- "scare" isn't quite the right word. But the result is that she appears too artificial and self-serving.
Feelings of actual hatred towards Hillary Clinton are a bit puzzling and would seem to be due more to some sort of personal resentment than anything political.
9 - Zedd
Sisyphus
I didn't mean that people are afraid of her. I mean her demeanor is a deterrent.
10 - Lumpy
Yeah nancy. Down with those evil 'monopolistic barracudas' and their whopping 10 percent profit margins. Let's force them all to operate at a loss and then bail them out with tax dollars when they go under.
How can you spout your irrational, anti-business claptrap over and over without having your head implode from the vacuum created by anti-thoughts?
11 - Arch Conservative
Nancy..thanks for the idiotic rant in psot 3.
But you couldn't be more wrong. It has nothing at all with "uppity woman" or my desire to see woman "kept in thier place." This is so typical of Hillary supporters...if you don't support Hillary it automatically means you're a misogynist who is threatened by successful women. What horseshit.
My post addressed one woman, Hillary Clinton. It was not a diatribe on the evils of uppity woman or what the role of all women ought to be in our society so please don't go putting words in my mouth Nancy.
The fact is that I'd have no probelm voting for a woman for president. The right woman.
As I have already stated, which seemed to go right over your head Nancy, my opposition to this woman, Hillary is based on the fact that she is an extremely corrupt, power hungry, self serving, socialist hack who cares for nothing but her own ambitions.
But please feel free to keep up your "anyone who's anti Hillary is anti woman" rhetoric Nancy. It shows how simple minded you are.
12 - Nancy
Thanks, Arch; I aim to please by providing additional fodder for commentary. That said, I DO seriously thank you for clarifying your position. I drew the wrong conclusions based on incomplete statements you made which didn't say that. I retract my comment about your misogyny, because I really do understand not being able to stand Hilary (Hillary? How the devil IS her name spelled, anyway?) as an individual. As Zing says, she's obviously & openly very calculating.
Because I really AM interested, I'll ask: what woman would you consider voting for, should she run? Or who would you like to see run, for that matter? And why (I ask this because I don't know the records of many people & I'm interested to learn). Thanks.
13 - Arch Conservative
I think Kay Bailey Hutchinson would make a good president Nancy. I doubt she will ever run though.
14 - zingzing
nancy: "As Zing says, she's obviously & openly very calculating."
i didn't say that. maybe zedd did. what, do all us z-people look alike? typical. *sarcastic emoticon*
15 - Zedd
Its Zicism. Frothing at the mouth again.. grrrrrr
16 - Nancy
Zing, you're right: it was Zedd said that. Yeah, after a certain point all you Zs look alike.
Arch - why Hutchinson? What's her record?
17 - Dr. Tim
First of all, a general question about comments: Why do political themes generate so much more discussion than other themes? As some have pointed out, I'm new here at BC, but in my few short weeks I've noticed that my posts on medicine or culture generate little or no discussion but my take on the minutiae of politics lead to intense discussion. Just curious. Now as for specific responses...
Arch: Of course there's a vast right wing conspiracy, although it's not just out to get Hillary. It goes like this: Total Fabrication to Blogosphere to Wingnut Commentators (eg Bill OReilly) to Fox News to Mass Media. Works like a charm. Hillary doesn't want to get swiftboated. I don't want her to get swiftboated either, I just think there are much better candidates in the democratic pool.
Zedd: Point taken. Hillary is not W (for one thing her IQ is about double his) but I've seen enough of her to know I'd rather have any several other candidates.
Nancy: I agree, but I think we have to be aware that the converse of "women don't belong in politics" is also not true. That is, it's not true that women are by definition better suited for powerful jobs because they are more empathetic, understanding, etc. Can you imagine Ann Coulter as president? Forget Iraq, we'd be invading Canada and Mexico! As for Hillary, I just think she, like so many men and women in politics, has gotten slimed by the process.
Cleveland: Yes, there's a RW conspiracy (see above). But given Hillary's comments about the war, I'm not even sure she would get us out of Iraq if elected. The refusal to pull out of Iraq and continue to escalate as long as possible is an old Republican game of chicken with the Dems. Just keep increasing the stakes. Sooner or later, the Dems will cry foul and pull out, either at the presidential or congressional level. And even if 90% of the country supports such a measure when it happens, the Republicans will forever be able to blame "defeat" on the Dems. So I forsee Hillary, opportunist as political survivalist that she is, as be willing to go along with a huge presence in Iraq for a long time, so as not to be the president who "lost" Iraq.
Sisyphus: I assure you I have nothing personal against HC but I do foresee a lot of problems with her as a candidate and even, if she makes it, as president. Of course many conservatives hate her on principle because she's not afraid to fight back (and she has quite a machine of her own) but progressives have legitimate complaints.
Lumpy: ?
Hope that covers it...
18 - Arch Conservative
So there is no legitimate criticism of Hillary or any other liberal, only a vast right wing conspiracy Dr. Tim?
Gee I guess the next time a Republican or conservative messes up I'll just do like you and instead of actually debating the facts of the situation I'll just blame it all on a "vast left wing conspiracy" and rant about the New York Times and the mainstream media.
Nancy....
Kay Bailey Hutchinson is a Senator from Texas and the reason I like her is she has very conservative traditional values.... she's pro-life, anti big government and spending, she opposes socialized medicine, she's anti illegal alien, doesn't believe in worshipping at the altar of political correctness, she voted to confirm Alito and Roberts, she favors voter id legislation.
She's the anti-Hillary. She's a successful, powerful, accomplished, strong WOMAN and yes I would vote for her for president in a heartbeat if she ever ran.I would vote for her over a liberal, leftist, big government, pro infanticide, sissified, UN loving, male Democrat.
It's not about sex. I generally have a strong disdain for all leftists regardless of their plumbing. But we are going to see the Clintonistas scream sexist at every male who opposes Hillary as if there is absolutely no reason not to endorse her for president other than that she's a woman. And they will also label every woman opposes Hillary as a pawn of the republican patriarchal machine. The people that will say these things are the same ones that actively helped the Clintons destroy the lives of all the women that slick Willie had sexually harassed that had the gall to do something about it.
19 - Zedd
Who are the leftists politicians in our government?
20 - Arch Conservative
Well gee I could list a lot of leftist politicians but you'd probably deny they are leftists because you are a leftists yourself so what's the point.
21 - bird
you people in your left and right bullshit, you are all fucking up the country..
who cares...
22 - Victor Plenty
Bird has the truth of it. Clashes of "left" and "right" always make more heat than light. It's certainly no way to learn anything about the true merits of a candidate or a policy.
23 - queenie
Hilary Clinton is loved by none of the American people I know, but the I only associate with intelligent people.
24 - Christopher Rose
And these intelligent people tolerate you despite your reduced spelling abilities? Good folk indeed! ;-)
25 - bliffle
The article asks "if tens of millions of progressives were able to see through the Bush Administration lies that led up to the Iraq invasion (Iraq-Al Qaeda, weapons of mass destruction, 9/11 connection), how is it that a U.S. Senator was not able to see through them?"
Because she did not read the NIE issued before the vote. Pretty careless.