Fed up

[clevermanka]

I got an email from Working Assets this afternoon.

"Can Hillary Cry Her Way Back to the White House?"

That was the headline of a Maureen Dowd column in today's New York Times.

Hillary Clinton's win in New Hampshire last night was shocking. The performance of the national press corps in the last couple of days, unfortunately, was not.

Tell the media: Stop pimping prejudice.

Journalists have been replaced by a punditocracy that makes its living (and gets its kicks) by perverting our democratic process. The misogyny that was unleashed by the media's feeding frenzy on the video of an exhausted Clinton tearing up at a small New Hampshire roundtable of voters was just the tip of the iceberg.

Whether we agree with Clinton on the issues, the assault on her candidacy based on gender is unacceptable. So too is biased and uninformed commentary on the minority status of other candidates (Obama's ethnicity, Romney's religion to name just two).

To be clear, we are not endorsing any candidate. This is not about who we choose for president, but rather how we choose our next leader. Voting based on sexist logic propagated by media monopolies is no way to select a candidate.

Our nation is at a critical juncture. A sober citizenry must make informed decisions about who will lead our country in addressing more crises than any previous generation has faced: global warming, unending war in Iraq, and multiple constitutional crises.

Stop pimping prejudice

Big media is perverting our democratic process. The sexist coverage of Clinton's tears was prejudicial and beyond the pale. Tell them to knock it off.
##

To sum up: I agree. And please keep in mind, I am far from sold on Hilary. Far from sold.

But.

I am sick to the point of disgust over the feeding frenzy (in the general media and on my f-list) over Hilary's tears. Real or not, contrived or not, I do not give a shit if she got a little teary. It's another example of people letting themselves be distracted by entertainment instead of issues. Putting personality over ability. Sound bites over the whole story. And it makes me furious.

Any woman in any career that removes her from the fake stereotype of wife-mother-homemaker is damned if she does and damned if she doesn't behave in any manner--take your pick. Hilary is double-damned, having such a loaded history. So why don't people lay the fuck off worrying about if her emotion was real, if it was "contrived" (I swear if I see that word one more time I'm going to eviscerate someone), or any other stupid goose chases that have something to do with anything except the actual issues. If Obama or Edwards had shown a similar emotional moment, it would have already been page three news by now.

If McCain had shed a tear, I would've been stocking up for the coming apocalypse. But that's a different situation.

Here's something to keep in mind:

They are all liars.

All of them.

Every lifetime politician out there is, to some extent, A Big Fat Liar.

Even the ones we might like? Liars. Liars! They have to lie to us to get where they are. It's a sad fact of our political system. So get over the fact that someone shed a crocodile tear or two at a stump speech and get over it already.

Comments

Good points here.

[bodandra.livejournal.com]

We will not find any President candidate who does not have their sticky fingers in other's pies. 0h, not gonna happen in these times.

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

Boo ya.

...but I'm hoping FFS that Obama takes the candidacy.

[emeder.livejournal.com]

*high five*

[redheadfae.livejournal.com]

Well, it isn't so much the teariness (and quite frankly it was a simple welling-up, not *tears* and yah, you're right, BFD) but the inane comment she made.
"I would find cleaning out closets and drawers *gratifying* on a Saturday when I had nothing to do."
*That* I found just bloody annoying coming from her.

Talk about sexist? I think she's playing it up herself.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

"I would find cleaning out closets and drawers *gratifying* on a Saturday when I had nothing to do."

Really? I loved it. And, honestly, I think she's a crazy control freak, so I can see why this would be a true comment from her. I mean, I love cleaning out closets and organizing drawers, too. I know I've got a bit of the control freak in me--so why wouldn't she enjoy that activity too?

I'm tired of everyone thinking that every little thing she does or says is fake. Say a white-collar, slightly pasty man (say, oh, John Edwards) had said "I would find sitting around watching football with my brothers gratifying on a Saturday when I had nothing to do." Do you think people would have scoffed at him and said "Oh, he's just trying to be more butch!"

No. Everyone's passing judgment on her (and always negative) because she's a woman. Like I said in the post, she's damned if she does and damned if she doesn't. It's infuriating.

[redheadfae.livejournal.com]

I think we disagree on it for different reasons. But for me,
a) would she really have "nothing to do" on a Saturday?
b) doesn't she have other people to do those things for her?
c) yah, cleaning closets and drawers is about as gratifying to me as a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, lol.

I *do* wonder at times if there was a bit of "we'd rather be sexist than racist" going on in Iowa. Dare we even say things like that in today's political climate?

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Well, *looks around nervously* I think we do, but other people are afraid to.

[tessagratton.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of a conversation I had with my Dad sometime in 2004, I believe. I don't remember exactly how it came up, but I was probably complaining about the Bush administration. I distinctly remember lifelong Republican, military Dad saying that he'd vote for Hilary Clinton before he'd vote for Bush or one of his cronies again. I was SHOCKED. I probably stared at him like a cod fish for a minute before managing to ask what exactly made him feel that way. "They lied to us, to our faces, and a lot of Americans are dead because of it. And they don't care that they've been found out, and keep lying. They have no respect for us."

I do care that Clinton teared up, but then, I'm a presidential race junkie. I'm addicted to the ins and outs of the process. I'm fascinated by how watching that made me feel, how is shifts or doesn't shift my opinions and feelings. However, I think of myself as a fairly informed voter, and her tears are only a small part of the mass of information constantly shaking around in my head to become a whole picture. I've admitted before that my biggest issue with John Edwards in the 2004 race was purely that he annoyed me when he talked. I couldn't pinpoint it, and it definitely didn't have to do with the issues - it just was.

You're spot on about the media coverage, though, and Clinton's particular situation as a woman. I agree with you completely on that. When the tears are compared to the other candidates, it makes me furious. It's only when I think of her, as a character/politician, in isolation, that the tears take on significance.

[geekmom.livejournal.com]

I was thinking the same thing. It wasn't the almost-tears that got me, it was how it was overplayed. Jon Stewart had it right when he said, "That! That's the big deal?!" and then went to commercial over a montage of male politicians crying.

Arrg. I'd vote for her over a lot of people, but pleasepleaseplease don't let her be on the ballot in November.