Dowd: The Nepotism Tango (Hillary Clinton)

[RamboLiberal]

Maybe it’s fitting that a woman who first sashayed into the national consciousness with an equation — “two for the price of one” — may have her fate determined by the arithmetic of dynasty.

The town is divided into two camps: those who think that, after 16 years of Hillary pushing herself forward, the public will get worn out and reject her, and those who think that, after 16 years of Hillary pushing herself forward, the public will get worn down and give in to her.

-----

Some of W.’s advisers were more cutting about Hillary in the Sammon book.

“This process is not going to serve her well,” one said, adding: “She’s going to be essentially saying, ‘Elect me president after I’ve spent the last 16 years in your face. And you didn’t like me much when I was there last. Give me eight more years so I can be a presence in your life for 24 years.’”

Others do not underestimate her relentlessness. As Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of The New Republic, once told me: “She’s never going to get out of our faces. ... She’s like some hellish housewife who has seen something that she really, really wants and won’t stop nagging you about it until finally you say, fine, take it, be the damn president, just leave me alone.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/opinion/30dowd.html?hp

[Xipe Totec]

1. Better than "elect me, cause you dissed my poppy" n/t

[Frances]

2. That quote from the editor of the New Republic

insults all women in my opinion. I think one can complain that Hillary is too strong, but a nagger she is not.

[goodgd_yall]

9. It's insulting that a DUer would even post it to make a point n/t

[PDittie]

10. Can't believe a woman used that quote

It's dripping with misogyny. That MoDo is some special blend of nasty.

(I post this as no fan of Hillary's. Dowd crossed a line of decency here.)

[ljm2002]

14. No kidding!

"She’s like some hellish housewife"...

Gaak.

I await the day when I hear (say) Giuliani described as "some hellish husband"...

I'm not holding my breath.

[PurityOfEssence]

3. The word is "no"

Some people need to learn this word, and Senator Clinton is one of them.

Nice riff on Tom Lehrer, by the way. Much as MoDo's hardly on my list of people I can really stand much of the time, she's on to something here.

This will get ugly.

It should.

[Nedsdag]

4. Dowd's colleague, Gail Collins, had an even better column

on the same subject.

Can someone link it for me?

[dragonlady]

7. Here you go

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/29/opinion/29collins.html?n=Top/Opinion/Editorials%20and%20Op-Ed/Op-Ed/Columnists/Gail%20Collins

A taste from the column:

She thinks she’s got it nailed as long as she doesn’t make any mistakes, and that can be a trap. It is possible to be so careful that you drive everybody crazy, make them so itchy for adventure, for a noble mission instead of a winnable hand of poker, that they’ll be willing to undo all your hard work just to juice things up.

[Frances]

17. Are you saying that Hillary should be swift-boated just like

Kerry and Gore?

I don't agree.

I think that supporting swift-boaters against Hillary will just encourage swift-boaters to go after all Dem candidates.

[PurityOfEssence]

19. Absolutely not; I'd never do that to anyone. The truth is bad enough.

Lying and distorting a candidates actions is unforgivable even against swine like DeLay and Bush; I believe that our honesty is absolutely necessary and straying from that path out of some justification is deeply wrong. This is straying very close to a straw-man approach of putting words in my mouth and then refuting them as if I'd actually said them.

She should be hounded with the simple truth of her performance in public life: she DOESN'T fight the right unless it's for personal advancement, she ducks virtually any controversial question or decision, she's a closet theocrat, she's a posturing warmonger out of some compensatory need to disprove her weakness, she's in league with corporations to the detriment of the rest of us, she has a terrible foreign trade record, she rubber-stamps appointees from this misadministration, her sense of entitlement rankles my sense of pluralism and all this makes her supremely untrustworthy.

Stating the facts of her machinations and tireless maneuvering are damning enough, and they should be trumpeted for all to hear. She has no right to claim the privilege of this nomination and should have to stand by her actions like everyone else. Her campaign's attempt to steamroller everyone is somewhat natural for someone in her position, but it invites the serious questioning that her stance on policies warrants: namely, that we should merely take her word for it that someday she'll fight and that she has the people's concerns at heart despite virtually everything she does.

Your intimation that my call for accountability is a call for distortion is completely unwarranted.

[Frances]

20. You make a lot of accusations against Hillary

and then you say that Hillary wants us to take her at her word.

It seems to me that you are asking DUers to take your word that the accusations are true.

I don't see you giving specific examples to back up each accusation.

I don't agree with Hillary on some issues. For example, just from reading DU, and from my own observations of the wars of my lifetime, I would not have voted as Hillary did on the original war resolution.

I also think that a single payer insurance system is the way to go. Medicare is a single payer system and while it has problems, I think the expansion of Medicare to other age groups would be a good thing. On the other hand, Hillary has tried that approach and was soundly defeated. I think that she has come up with a plan that has a chance of passing. Since I am not an idealogue, I would prefer to have an improvement on the current system rather than see the system stay the way it is.

[PurityOfEssence]

23. I've done so repeatedly elsewhere, but since you're being cordial...

She's the only one on the stage who voted for free trade with Chile and Singapore; Biden, Dodd and Edwards all voted against it. She's pro-NAFTA and she's pro-visas for high tech workers. This shows her to be more beholden to corporations than workers. The vast monies she's accepted from corporations is very telling: is she their foot soldier, or is she going to simply take their money and welch on the deal? Either way is bad.

She's a closet theocrat. As a member of the Sojurners, she wants to inject more religion in government and puts words in Obama's and Edwards' mouths about how all of them want to see more faith used in determining policy. She's for the unconstitutional faith-based initiatives.

The Iran vote shows her to be a posturing and swaggering tough-guy on foreign policy, which is PRECISELY what we don't need today. Her approach to drawing down the war leaves so much wiggle room that it amounts to virtually nothing. While positioning herself like this, it's the height of cynicism to claim that she's somehow out in front as being against the war.

She's both for and against nuclear power. She's not "putting anything on the table" regarding the fiscal future of social security and pompously dismisses that she should be called upon to do so.

She paints herself as a tireless champion of the people against the administration, yet she votes to confirm Negroponte and Rice.

The one thing she's been fairly consistent on is women's rights, but ALL THE OTHERS have been too, so big deal. Unfortunately, she supports a new version of the "Workplace Freedom of Religion Act" that specifically exempts police from being required to do their duty to defend threatened women's clinics when called upon to do so and also releases pharmacists from any obligation to sell birth control or the morning after pill if they don't want to. When directly confronted by women's groups about this, she's ducked the questions, which is precisely what she does about everything: avoid confrontation, be all things to all people and simultaneously portray herself as steadfast and uncompromising.

Somehow NOW still endorses her after this, but that's another story, isn't it?

Her record is deplorable, and specifically NOT what she says it is. The only things she's tireless on are self-promotion, her own elections and "positioning" herself by ducking controversy.

Not only do I disagree with her stances on these issues, I find her to be exceedingly deficient in CHARACTER by such deception. I simply don't trust her. I also don't trust her judgment.

Please mull these over and research these points on your own, and thanks for responding with a constructive tone.

[jillan]

5. Maureen Dowd can kiss my ***

[illinoisprogressive]

6. She may try to get in our face, but, many of us are doing our best to get rid of her

[Frances]

15. I assume you are a supporter of Obama

I don't think he would approve of your post.

I am strongly considering voting for Obama myself, but I don't like your post.

I prefer to hear why Obama should win the nomination, not why someone should not.

[goodgd_yall]

8. Republican white male speak

"Hellish housewife" indeed.

:puke:

[BootinUp]

11. The spin from these fools is nonsense and worse

They can make comparisons to hellish housewives if they want. I have never seen Hillary not in control of her emotions, good luck with that though.

Gotta have a horse race, time to reel in Hillary.

[wyldwolf]

12. First Frank Rich and now Dowd? You have some odd favorite columnists

[CBHagman]

13. Something about Maureen...

The most recent Vanity Fair took a strap to the collective backsides of the U.S. media and its coverage of Al Gore during the 2000 presidential race, and Dowd's posterior most definitely doesn't escape the whupping.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/10/gore200710?currentPage=5

Maureen Dowd boiled the choice between Gore and Bush down to that between the "pious smarty-pants" and the "amiable idler," and made it perfectly clear which of the presidential candidates had a better chance of getting a date. "Al Gore is desperate to get chicks," she said in her column. "Married chicks. Single chicks. Old chicks. Young chicks. If he doesn't stop turning off women, he'll never be president."

"I bet he is in a room somewhere right now playing Barry White CDs and struggling to get mellow," she wrote in another.

Meanwhile, though Dowd certainly questioned Bush's intellect in some columns, she seemed to be charmed by him—one of the "bad boys," "rascals," and a "rapscallion." She shared with the world a charged moment between them. "'You're so much more mature now,' I remarked to the Texas Governor. 'So are you,' he replied saucily." And in another column: "You don't often get to see a Presidential candidate bloom right before your eyes."

That pretty much sums up the depth of Dowd's politcal analysis. A clownish ne'er-do-well in a weak governorship flirts with her and she melts.

As for the nepotism thing, that's pasted on. Oh, after the media was all mad-keen to install another Bush, and suddenly they view the presidency of Bill Clinton, who is the son of a nurse and not the scion of a wealthy and politically powerful family, as some sort of troubling dynastic trend? Spare me.

[Frances]

16. Dowd is paid to ridicule

In 2000, she ridiculed Gore for being too serious and too smart. She wanted the "bad boy." Well, she got him.

Now Dowd is attacking a leading Dem candidate again. I agree that stereotyping Hillary as a nagging 50s housewife is just appealing to the white male Repub voter.

Dowd wants her job more than she wants to be fair about the huge difference between Dems and Repubs as far as the Constitution goes.

Hillary may not be the best Dem candidate but she is better than the best Repub candidate.

[applegrove]

18. Now Hillary is a nag. She wrote in her book that she stayed with the big

dog because they have had one long fascinating conversation their whole lives and she loves the big lug for that. Sounds not like a nag to me. Sounds like it might be fascinating. So why is she being portrayed as the worst kind of wife? Makes you wonder. It is simply a low blow. I don't even want to say it is sexist...it is more than that...it is such a personal insult. As if any President wasn't hanging around doing jobs that might play up his resume and get him elected. It is such a universal thing that politicians do. One could say what Dowd says about any of them.

[oasis]

21. Meeeoooowwww.

:eyes:

[mitchum]

22. That lightweight Dorothy Pucker hates all other women

[zulchzulu]

24. I refuse to read Dowd for a couple reasons

She does the GOP's work in emasculating Democratic candidates and just appears to me like some snotty cheerleader in high school who tries to start rumors about people so they can beat them up in the playground.

[janx]

25. I agree--she epitomizes all that's screwed up in

politics and journalism.