The Anchoress
You know, I might be better at this political analysis stuff than I knew. A few weeks ago I predicted Hillary’s Pre-New Hampshire Primary tears and a day later (maybe it was just the new year’s champagne) I wrote this:
Team Clinton has just given Team Obama the weapon which could well take Hillary down: mockery. Since it is unlikely that the mainstream press will ever cover the fundraising issues and shady connections that would bring down any politician other than Mrs. Clinton, her opponents cannot rely on “scandals” to whittle Mrs. Clinton down to size. Therefore, the candidate who can – by simply shining a humorous light on her own words, actions and tactics – get the country laughing at Mrs. Clinton, is the candidate who will defeat her.
Seems that the Obama campaign has come to the same conclusion:
Barack Obama has stepped up his campaign against Hillary Rodham Clinton, and he’s trying to use humor to bring her down before this weekend’s Democratic presidential caucus.
[…]
Obama began by recalling a moment in Tuesday night’s debate when he and his rivals were asked to name their biggest weakness. Obama answered first, saying he has a messy desk and needs help managing paperwork – something his opponents have since used to suggest he’s not up to managing the country. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards said his biggest weakness is that he has a powerful response to seeing pain in others, and Clinton said she gets impatient to bring change to America.“Because I’m an ordinary person, I thought that they meant, ‘What’s your biggest weakness?'” Obama said to laughter from a packed house at Rancho High School. “If I had gone last I would have known what the game was. And then I could have said, ‘Well, ya know, I like to help old ladies across the street. Sometimes they don’t want to be helped. It’s terrible.'”
“Folks, they don’t tell you what they mean!” he said. Obama chuckled at his own joke before riffing on another Clinton answer in the debate, when she said that she is happy that the bankruptcy bill she voted for in 2001 never became law.
“She says, ‘I voted for it but I was glad to see that it didn’t pass.’ What does that mean?” he asked, again drawing laughter from the crowd and himself. “No seriously, what does that mean? If you didn’t want to see it passed, then you can vote against it! People don’t say what they mean.
Oh, my. This is trouble. There is no more powerful weapon on earth than mockery founded on truth. If Obama succeeds with this, and I’m thinking with that voice, that timing and that charisma he very well may, then Hillary might be toast.
This man is no one to take lightly or toy with. And the Republicans had better pay attention to this. If the “people don’t say what they mean” meme catches on – and I do believe it may, because it is an articulation of how everyone currently feels about politics, but presented as a punchline, like “sock it to me,” or “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more” – then the GOP candidates better be ready to say what they mean or get creamed for doubletalking by an American public eager to use the new, buzzy line. Pop culture is, after all, simply the glamorous cousin of the mob mentality.
Obama finished his routine:
“Those kinds of tricks, that kind of approach to politics is what has to stop because what happens is then nobody believes anything,” Obama said. “The voters don’t believe what politicians say. They get cynical. Folks in Congress, they’ll tell you they’re looking out for you – they’re looking out for somebody else. We have to change that politics and that’s why I’m running for president.”
If any politician thinks that is not going to resonate with the American electorate, circa 2008, well…buh-bye, then.
Quick aside: Chris Matthews has apparently apologized to Hillary Clinton for saying the following, on January 8:
the reason she’s a U.S. senator, the reason she’s a candidate for president, the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around.”
His apology:
Was it fair to imply that Hillary’s whole career depending on being a victim of an unfaithful husband? No. And that’s what it sounded like I was saying
Well, it’s not what it sounded like he was saying – it was what he said. Probably what he had meant to say was something more along the lines of, “where would Hillary be without Bill Clinton? If she hadn’t married him, what would she be today, lead council for Ms. Magazine? Would she be defending Ms. Magazine for refusing an ad from Israel that didn’t follow the magazine’s narrative? Would she have any sort of political career without Bill Clinton?”
I can’t speak for Matthews, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what he meant to say. In any case, I’m not sure what it was he was supposed to apologize for – for being mean to Hillary, somehow? If implying that Hillary uses a victimhood strategy to succeed politically is hurtful to her and makes her such an victim that she needs an apology, doesn’t that sort of prove Matthews’ whole point? And if she can’t stand up to a really minor tweak from Matthews, how in heaven’s name will she be able to withstand a full-press onslaught (assuming they’d ever try one) in the manner of what President Bush has endured for the last 6 years?
I mean, I know Mrs. Clinton probably assumes – with sound reason – that she will not have a White House Press Corps demanding apologies and admissions of mistakes nearly every month, but just imagine if it does happen. What is she going to do, tell people to stop being mean to her and to apologize immediately?
Hillary gets apologized to a lot, and I don’t think it helps the public perception of her. When her minions demand apologies, and the sensitivity-challenged miscreant who displeased her does the public retraction/grovel, it doesn’t make Hillary look strong. It makes her look weak and hypersensitive, and it also makes her look remote and cold. When Elizabeth Edwards made the mistake of daring to suggest that she was a more joyful person than Mrs. Clinton, her apologetic retraction was swift, but to my way of thinking, it diminished both women by displaying their lack of artfulness, and politics is an art:
…If Mrs. Clinton had the political acumen of those who’ve gone before her – or of her husband – she might have…made a thoughtful and, if not self-deprecating, at least gracious statement, herself.
[…]
It’s not really that difficult. It takes a willingness to drop the imperiousness, think a thing through and be a little warm. Instead, Hillary did the silence, then the apology-acceptance, but she left us all with the same sense we’ve always had of her: Joyless, humorless, entitled, Godfather-esque. Kiss the ring and back out. Very good. You can go back to your little life, now, Mrs. Edwards, and when I need you, you’ll be there for me.
Can we stipulate that a president or a presidential candidate is entitled to a certain amount of respect, and that either of them should be apologized to for truly disgraceful remarks, such as Rep. Pete Stark’s recent burp that President Bush derived entertainment from the deaths of his troops. A stupid crack about race or gender might deserve an apology because it harms the society itself, but otherwise, honestly, Mrs. Clinton – and all the candidates – need to grow thicker skins.
As president, you have to live with it – you can’t shut everyone up, or spend a part of every day demanding apologies.
By the way, President Bush the big “nazi” who wants to “take away freedoms” and “silence dissent”? He’s not the one who does that. Never has been.
It’s going to be very interesting, in the day of the blog, hard-drives and alternative media, to watch how a more dictatorial president with a thinner skin will compare in the “free speech” columns, with this president. Assuming, of course, that such a one is elected.
UPDATED: I like this bit from Siggy:
A president of the United States of America must guide this nation without regard for appearances or immediate gratification or adulation. He must guide this nation based on the principles of freedom and the preservation of freedom.
A president of the United States of America must believe with every fiber of his being that ‘All men are created equal,’ not just those born here and that all people, everywhere, are best served if they are free.
The legacy of a president of the United States of America is not a list of achievements or accomplishments, but rather the health of the office he leaves. If the temporary occupant of the White House carries on the work begun by Washington or Jefferson and their successors, then the legacy is a good one. If the legacy tramples on the ideals of this ‘great experiment,’ then we are all poorer for the experience.
Great presidents are not born of the ideologies of one political party or the other. Great presidents are those who share the same values as the people they represent.
Protein Wisdom is thinking similarly to me.
As does Ann Althouse
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