A Calumny a Day To Keep Hillary Away

The responses to my column on Hillary Clinton-hating have been both voluminous (the largest number in the brief history of “Think Again”) and fascinating. The majority of posters agreed with the characterization of the attacks on Senator Clinton as vicious and irrational, but in not a few posts the repudiation of Hillary-hatred is followed by more of the same. Lisa (No. 17) nicely exemplifies the pattern. She begins by saying “I agree that there is a rabid nature in the manner in which numerous conservative groups attack Hillary Clinton,”, but in the very next sentence she declares that “most of Hillary’s reputation is well earned” and then she spends nine paragraphs being rabid. A significant minority of posters skipped the ritual disavowal of hatred and went straight to the task of adding to it.

These Clintonphobes said things like “there’s nothing to like about her”(394) and wrote at length about her clothing, her voice, her laugh, her arrogance, her “countless plastic surgeries” (an inference it would seem from the fact that at 60 she still looks good), her insincerity, her stridency, her ambition, her love of power, and her husband. In their view, the hatred they expressed was not irrational at all, but was provoked by a record of crimes and character flaws they are happy to rehearse. Their mirror image on the left objected to my saying that President Bush fills the same role for liberals that Clinton fills for her detractors. No, no came the protest. However free-floating hatred of Clinton may be, hatred of Bush is firmly grounded in the record of a disastrous presidency that has left us at war, in debt, and in bad odor throughout the world. The two groups differed only in the bad qualities they attributed to their nemesis. Bush haters derided him as stupid. Clinton haters complained that she is too smart (the word “brilliant” is used as a pejorative), seems to know it all, and makes those who hear her speak feel they are less intelligent than she is.

Comments like these would seem to lend support to the view (voiced by many respondents) that sexism is what ultimately motivates the Clinton bashers. “A woman who doesn’t apologize for who she is. What’s not to hate?” (79). “Any woman who is anything more than a wallflower will always be attacked” (105). “People just can’t tolerate a woman in power” (111). “Why not get right to heart of the matter? It’s sexism. Most women on this planet face it every day” (168). If so, they face it from women as well as from men, at least on the evidence provided here. Carol Maloney (158) reports that many of her intelligent women friends are unable “to discuss Hillary in a logical manner.” Kat (23) wonders why “women seem to be on the Hillary hatred bandwagon.” Carol (359) says “What I find most disturbing is the amount of hatred spewed at Hillary by those who are so much like her … It is very odd. Is it really self-hate?”

One might ask, can it really be sexism if it is women who are practicing it? Sure it can. If sexism is defined as the conviction that women are unsuited by gender to perform certain tasks or hold certain positions, that conviction is as available to women as it is to men. Still, sexism doesn’t seem an adequate explanation of the Hillary-hating phenomenon if only because so much of the venom in the comments is directed at the Clintons as a team. The idea is that nothing but evil can emanate from them; they are a moral blot on the nation’s escutcheon, a canker-sore on the body politic, and they must be removed (perhaps by any means necessary). No doubt sexism is a component of such sentiments–a number of women respondents accused her of riding on her husband’s coat-tails and lambasted her for not leaving him–but sexism doesn’t really account for an anger that sometimes borders on the homicidal.

Perhaps, as I suggested in the original column, nothing accounts for it; it’s just an ineradicable and ever-mutating virus. The important thing, then, would be not to explain it, but to acknowledge it and move on from there. That is exactly the conclusion reached by a huge number of posters who then add it to it a pro-Obama twist. It goes like this: Yes, Hillary-hatred is irrational and unfair. But it’s a fact and it’s not going away. Indeed it will only intensify in the general election. Therefore we cannot nominate her, for she would surely lose. Alberta (118) confesses, “I am probably not going to vote for her simply because of these irrational and pervasive feelings of many Americans. It may not be the best reason to give Obama my vote.” Brendan (144) warns that “to nominate Clinton in the face of this clear hatred … would simply arm the G.O.P. machine with a powerful tool to motivate its base.” Barney Scott (153) predicts that “if she were to run against the Republican nominee it would unleash the snarling dogs of unlimited hate, half-truths, and just plain venom.” Jorita Madison (75) sums it up: “The fact that Hillary Clinton is hated is true and real. Therefore if the Democrats want to recapture the Whitehouse, they better think long and hard about electability in their choice of a candidate.”

Electability (a concept invoked often) is a code word that masks the fact that the result of such reasoning is to cede the political power to the ranters. Carolyn Kay (456) makes the point when she observes that if you vote against Clinton because you fear the virulence of her most vocal enemies, “you have allowed the right-wing hatemongers to decide who our candidate will be.” Underlying this surrender of the franchise to those least qualified to exercise it is the complaint (rarely overtly stated) that the Clintons have had the bad taste to undergo the assassination of their characters in public and have thereby made us its unwilling spectators. This is of course the old ploy of blaming the victim, and Ava Mae Lewis (16) is at least explicit about it. After deploring the “wild accusations” and “rabid hate”, she declares herself “disappointed that the Clintons force us to make this final and public rejection.”

In other words, by being the targets of unwarranted attacks — that is their crime, being innocent–the Clintons are putting us in the uncomfortable position of voting against them for reasons we would rather not own up to. How dare they? Given the fierceness of the opposition to her candidacy, why doesn’t Hillary do the decent thing and withdraw? “What bothers me about Hillary is that she must know this, yet she apparently thinks so much of herself, or wants to be president so badly, that she’s willing to risk compromising the Democrats’ chances of winning in November to stay in the race” (Matthew, 440). How inconsiderate of her both to want to be president and to persist in her quest in the face of calumny.

In a piece of serendipity whose source I cannot fathom, when I was reading these comments with one eye, I was watching an old B western with the other. In “At Gunpoint” (1955) the hero, played by Fred MacMurray, is brought before the town council and told that he must pack up and move. Why? Because a bunch of thugs is coming to town to kill him, and if he isn’t there, the town will be spared. The MacMurray character refuses to run and says to his “friends,” wait a minute, it is they who are coming after me, and you’re saying that I’m the one who should get out? In the end, the townspeople come to his aid, but this is a movie, and in the real life of the present political scene it doesn’t appear that the lady in distress is going to be rescued by those who profess to respect her.

The beneficiary of this she’s-a-victim-so-we-must-expel-her logic is Barack Obama, and some respondents suspected him of fostering the divisiveness he rails against. “When Obama calls Hillary divisive he, of course, is pandering to these crazies Stanley Fish is describing” (dehud, 128). “Barack Obama is working hard to provide fuel to the Hillary haters” (Meryl B, 339). Actually, Obama doesn’t have to work hard at all. The media, as many who wrote in pointed out, are doing it for him. A number of commentators perceived an anti-Hillary bias at work in the op-ed pages of our major newspapers (including this one) and in the remarks made by radio and TV personalities. MSNBC was singled out as a network that has become an extension of the Obama campaign. Chris Matthews, a liberal warhorse, is obviously in love with him. But so is the entire editorial page of the New York Post. On Thursday, Dick Morris, Eileen McGann, and Kirsten Powers wrote mash notes to Obama in the disguise of columns, and the lead editorial warned Democrats not to miss out on the “excitement and promise” Obama brings. Today (Sunday) Peggy Noonan worried that the Democrats might fail to “recognize what they have in this guy.” With unpaid employees on both sides of the media aisle, Obama doesn’t have to do anything but be his usual inspirational self. Unencumbered by the record of achievements and missteps that comes along with political longevity, he can present a clean slate to the electorate. Nothing hazarded equals nothing to be criticized for.

Of course Obama has every right to take advantage of the enmity his opponent has garnered over the years. It is the politically savvy thing to do, just as it is politically savvy for him to insist that the superdelegates follow the voters in their districts, given that a majority of them is known to favor Senator Clinton. But political savvy is perhaps not what Obama wants to claim. His boast–problematic down the road–is that he is not a politician at all.

Hillary Clinton is undoubtedly a politician, and experience — good and bad — is the trump card of her campaign rhetoric. It is a card some posters want to take away from her. OM (421) erases two years from her tenure. “You have had elected office for six years.” Syzito (134) observes that “Hillary has NEVER been elected to anything except as Senator from new York.” (Why being a two term senator from a major state is a small, inconsequential thing is not explained.) It is comments like these that lead Marsha (450) to say, “Many of the posters confirm your conclusions.”

Perhaps so, but these same posters vigorously deny that it is Clinton-hatred that moves them. They are pleading, with JF (566), “Please don’t lump us with the haters.” But if I may take some liberty with the words of an old song: You made me lump you; I didn’t wanna do it.

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anon1972 February 10, 2008 · 9:42 pm

So good of you to point out everyone else’s biases. But wasn’t it you who wrote a few months ago that we may as well have Hillary choose a Vice President, because she will/should be the Democratic nominee? And then — to your great irritation, it seems — someone came along in this great democracy of ours and challenged her self-annointed incumbency status.
Your political analysis is subjective at best, sloppy and ill-considered at worst. Please go back to writing about literature, a subject in which you are exceptionally capable and much better qualified.

Lori February 10, 2008 · 10:11 pm

I see plenty of events in her past that warrant the reputation that have nothing to do with gender. Taken in isolation, no single event is a deal breaker — but put them all together over the years and they should disqualify her from being the President. The President (and his or her family) should be able to lead while being a indisputable role model for our great nation.

Its the countless stories like this that cannot be ignored:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/opinion/05brooks.html

Deirdre Condit February 10, 2008 · 10:13 pm

Any student of history will recognize the hating-Hillary syndrome; see the Salem witch trials. Good women burned or drowned as evidence of their purity. So too, Hillary’s withdrawal would demonstrate to some that she really was qualified to be President after all. Read the witch trial transcripts; they were as irrational and full of loathing for women as are the daily columns of our (and your) print media and our “public” airwaves today. Fish is near right in his analysis and attribution of misogyny. Men and women learn along side each other from birth what women “are.” They learn to hate women even as they learn to worship men. No male candidate for president would be pilloried by South Park with a cartoon blowing up his penis with a bomb; smilar desecration of Hillary’s body on the show simply allowed them to sell more soap. No mind that she’s a human being with feelings who might be injured by such threatening vomitus. Bill Maher’s seething hatred for women anywhere but in his sex chamber is so thoroughly projected onto Hillary that when her name comes up on his show, he literally can’t even focus on her as a topic. He can’t see her. We understand woman-hating men; they kill us, maim us, burn us, rape us, cheat us, steal from us, devalue us, and erase us regularly. But it’s tougher to accept it from another woman until we remember that we women grew up hating women and ourselves right along side our boyfriends and brothers. As Robin Morgan reminds us, Harriett Tubman explained the same problem with freedom-hating slaves; it’s internalized oppression stupid. Our exaggerated and idiotic response to this extraordinary woman (surely she’s more vile than even Hitler; his press was much better when he was running…), Hillary Clinton, clearly tells us that America isn’t mature enough to elect any woman to the Whitehouse and probably won’t be for at least another 50 years. But when we as a nation finally grow up intellectually and emotionally, and get over this childishness, we will still have Hillary Clinton to thank for having blazed the trail, whoever we set up to destroy next time around. She will still, always, be America’s first. And for that and for her bravery and for her desire to try, she deserves our thanks and our respect. The irony in all of this, is that America will probably elect a very likeable guy, who wants to be a uniter rather than a divider, who has little experience with or command of the vast complexities of governance, who will soon be toe-to-toe with the likes of Putin, Haliburton, and Exxon, and at time of economic collapse and global violence, just because we’d all like to listen to him speak. As one Obama supporter said to me the other night, “Well, at least Obama can make full sentences.” Now there’s a resume for you. We get the government we deserve.

unismundi February 10, 2008 · 10:16 pm

I don’t hate Hillary Clinton at all, I’m an independent who votes democratic. I just look back through all of the scandals including the ones in Arkansas and feel uneasy. I see top campaign strategists who were represented by scooter libby in the 80s, or who are the top “pr” people in the country, testing words and phrases to appeal to people. I don’t feel comfortable about that. I don’t care if she’s a woman of if he is bi-racial. Have you ever seen bbc’s “the century of the self?” If you haven’t please watch it on youtube or google video.

Carol February 10, 2008 · 10:29 pm

It was about 10 years ago I didn’t really know how I felt Hillary Clinton. As a woman trying to make my way in the working world since the 60’s, facing gender stereotypes, closed doors and the infuriating hypocracy of covert sexism, I couldn’t help being a little resentful of someone like her who had been so successful in life. Then a polster called and asked me what woman I most admired in the world. With only a moment’s thought, I said: “Hillary Clinton” -and I meant it. I realized then how much I owuld like to have strengh like hers – to be able to stand up to so many mean spirited attacks and not be defeated or discouraged by them. Sure, don’t we all hate those smart girls who always make the right move, the teachers pets, the one with all the answers, the one who may be smarter than us? But that is who we need in leadership!

HJBoitel February 10, 2008 · 10:33 pm

Professor Fish,

Having reviewed the strident anger of the “Clintonphobes”, you say: “Their mirror image on the left objected to my saying that President Bush fills the same role for liberals that Clinton fills for her detractors.”

That makes two successive columns in which you have drawn some equivalence between those who have no remaining respect for a failed presidency and those who deride Senator Clinton.

Particularly in view of the fact that numerous writers questioned your effort to find similarity, it seems that you owe your readers disclosure of how you arrived at the “mirror image” conclusion/characterization.

We have the right wing press, that has no hesitation about being politically partial. and who often are rabidly partial. Then we have most of the rest of the press who seem to think that cutting the baby down the middle is some kind of evidence of their impartiality. Your “mirror image” comment brings you into that category.

What are your reasons for so easily writing off the justifiable anger many feel toward George Bush and his administration?

HJBoitel

R. Vangala February 10, 2008 · 10:37 pm

Prof. Fish,

I’m a bit puzzled by all of this. You seem to think little of the argument that Obama is more “electable” than Clinton, but it is not clear why. Here is how I understand this particular line of thought:

(1) The difference (in terms of the desirability of the consequences) between a Republican administration and a Democratic administration dwarfs the difference between an Obama administration and a Clinton administration.
(2) In all likelihood, the race between the Democratic nominee and the Republican nominee will be a reasonably close one.
(3) One candidate (Obama), if nominated by the Democratic Party, would have a better chance than the other candidate (Clinton) of winning the general election.
(4) Therefore, the more “electable” candidate, Obama, should be the nominee of the Democratic Party.

This argument could be fleshed out a bit more, but this seems to be the core of it. The idea is that progressives should be more concerned with installing a Democrat in the White House in 2009 than with picking the ideal candidate from their own field. The urgency of defeating the Republicans is so great that such trivial differences must be overlooked. What is wrong with this argument? One might object that on substantive policy proposals, Obama is so much less progressive than Clinton that it would be better to have a Republican as president than Obama. I find this incredible, given the great deal of convergence of ideas that the two candidates have themselves acknowledged. Another objection one could raise is that the race will not be close at all – the Democrats will almost certainly prevail unless something catastrophic happens. This does not, however, sit well with the evidence. For the last several months (as long as I have been checking), Clinton has either tied or trailed McCain in polls offering head-to-head matchups, while Obama has more often than not triumphed over McCain by not an insignificant margin. Furthermore, studies of the media’s coverage of the election have shown that the media overwhelmingly covers Obama and McCain more favorably than Clinton. I am not happy about this, but it is the way things are at the moment. Continued unfavorable coverage of Clinton juxtaposed with the continued heroification of McCain could sound the death knell for Clinton’s presidential ambitions.

One might next raise concerns about these pieces of evidence. What do we know about electability, really? (This seems to be Paul Krugman’s position, for example). I agree that the evidence is hardly decisive, and it is entirely possible that in the general election Clinton would perform better for whatever reason than Obama, but this is just a chance I am not willing to take. I really do think that electing McCain would be a disaster, and that if there is even a slight hope for a less risky route to the White House for Democrats, it should be taken. There has been lots of talk during this election about the importance of electing a female candidate vs. electing an African-American candidate, and about the importance of experience vs. a change of approach, etc. These issues are not, I think, without significance, but I cannot help but think that the people whom our nation’s policies affect most negatively couldn’t care less about such concerns. The people of Iraq are worried about living into the next week. Starving children in Africa are hoping to have enough food to live into their teens. These people, whose interests (in my view) matter most, probably would not think much of the distinctions between Obama and Clinton that the pundits like to draw. They would, however, take note of the difference between the radical neoconservative agenda of a McCain and the more benign liberal internationalism of an Obama or Clinton. The importance of defeating the Republicans is so great in this election that what little we know about electability really does matter, even if our knowledge is not perfect. That is why I take the electability argument seriously, and that is why I support Barack Obama.

There are lots of things I don’t like about the way our world is. I don’t like the fact that so many people irrationally despise Hillary Clinton, probably in large part because she is a powerful woman. I don’t like the fact that the media makes things worse by turning this into a campaign issue. But we have to have priorities. Mine are to improve the lot of the worst-off, no matter who they are or where they’re from. I think that the Democrats, whatever their failings, would play a far more constructive role in this effort than the Republicans, and thus I think that the supreme imperative is to make sure a Democrat wins the national election; everything else is secondary.

ralph February 10, 2008 · 10:40 pm

I absolutely agree with your conclusion. I have spoken to several friends about why they hate her, nobody seem to have been able to provide logical explanation. Some hate her because she didn’t abandon her husband, some hate her because they can’t own up to a woman being president, some hate her because she is fighting for universal health care, some hate her because of some conspiracy theories, some hate her because her husband was president,e.t.c. and some hate her because they hate themselves. Some hate her because of her ambition. My question to one of them is, is Obama not overly ambitious?

All these to me are irational reasons. As a black man, I can not imagine myself taking all the heat she has been taking. I respect her because she has earned her right to contest with or without her husband. I respect and pray for her because I can not understand why people would hate her more than they hate the people that are destroying the economy. I wish people will stick to the issues and stop all petty and silly rationalisation of why they hate her. One thing that is clear to me, no matter she does, she will never make some people happy.

David Haley February 10, 2008 · 11:02 pm

Without actually hating Hillary, her detractors may well resent the intellectual dishonesty that seems to haunt the Clintons. Bill lied to the nation about his affair, then whined that his personal life had been violated. For the sake of her ambition, Hillary adopted the fiction that their marriage was the victim of malicious gossip and now urges supporters to persist in this delusion so they can resurrect the dot-com Bubba presidency we all supposedly enjoyed before 9/11.

Marlene I. Shapiro February 10, 2008 · 11:22 pm

Why, oh why, can’t we just have the media, esp. TV, present the ISSUES that Clinton and Obama espouse? The kind of journalism and media coverage you describe is the worse kind. It’s like watching a variety of reality show–where reality isn’t reality but rather a gross distortion of reality where no one arrives at a true understanding of anyone or anything. It becomes a gaudy, raucous circus performance. The victims, and there are victims, are the public who remain deluded about the candidates,never getting a clear picture of them to make a rational judgment.

-Marlene I. Shapiro

Max February 11, 2008 · 12:39 am

re: “Still, sexism doesn’t seem an adequate explanation of the Hillary-hating phenomenon if only because so much of the venom in the comments is directed at the Clintons as a team.”

Actually, when you consider that some of the irrational hatred of President Clinton is rooted in the fact that he chooses not to “control” his wife and much of the irrational hatred from women toward Senator Clinton is that she chose to “stand by her man” and save her marriage, then it becomes easy to see how irrational hatred of the couple is, indeed, rooted in sexism.

anniesmiles February 11, 2008 · 12:41 am

Thank you so much for this article. It is something I have watched and felt upset about for some time. I thank you for putting it into thoughtful words. I support Hillary Clinton..and am amazed at the continuing sexism and disgrading comments I hear about women in general by our media. I am older…and saw the women’s movement in the 60’s. I remember what the workplace was like before the harassment laws. I am amazed that so many people ….”don’t get it”. If the press and others made smililar comments about race….all hell would break out. I guess many people still see us as second class citizens. I find it interesting how they continue to blame the victim. That is the same behavior as blaming the rape victim…or the victim of domestic abuse. It continues. How sad.

jblee February 11, 2008 · 12:59 am

Thanks, Stanley Fish – that was a nice little bit of psych101 for us to digest. I enjoyed it , and I basically can agree with your conclusions on how we posters rant and contradict and subconciously maybe, look for a reason to allow the hatred to continue- but it doesn’t solve anything for me.

It is so frustrating to have the media, the pundits, the press, the op-eds, the white males, and the successful career women – all bash Hillary. She doesn’t deserve it – and yet these people act like she were really a bad, manipulative person. There is not end to their venom!

I maintain that I will support the Democratic nominee, and I will, who ever gets the nomination. But I have to confess that whereas I was calm about this at the start of the primaries, I am now annoyed and frustrated at what I consider the unfairness of it all – especially with the celebrity endorsements and campaigning going on for Obama, on top of the biases against Hillary. I haven’t lost sight of the objective this election year – I am still dedicated to helping elect a Democrat – and I will follow through come November. Despite all, Hillary will prevail.

DisenfranchisedVoter February 11, 2008 · 1:00 am

Bravo. You’ve used all of the comments I read regularly on political blogs each day and you’ve analyzed how horrible, cruel, and nonsensical many people have become in this election. Leave the woman alone. How can we continue to encourage girls that they can accomplish anything when we have collectively attempted to destroy the only woman who has come close enough to winning the presidency? Shame. Vote for her for crying out loud if you think she’s the best candidate for the job! Don’t allow anyone else tell you otherwise if that’s how you feel. If we EVER want a woman in the White House we’re going to have to eventually overcome this fear of electability and stand up for the candidate we believe in. For those of you who are Hillary haters I know I won’t be able to convince you in a few sentences why this woman is better than you think she is so I won’t even try.

Lidia February 11, 2008 · 1:11 am

Just to demonstrate how inexplicable it is:

I live in Italy, and a close female friend of ours HATES Hillary.. just hates her. At the mention of her name, this woman explodes. She is 60-ish and in the past quite active in local Socialist politics. Now, the Italian media treats US politics very superficially. There’s not a lot of Italian-language info on HRC out there, and the woman can’t read English fluently.. so I have NO idea where this vitriol is coming from. I ask her if she can explain it.. and she just says “Non lo so! I don’t know!”. She has absolutely no idea what any of Clinton’s policies are, or would be, but the hatred is real.

dkr February 11, 2008 · 1:19 am

I still don’t get it. When people talk about Hillary’s experience they highlight her 6 years as US senator from a “major state”. Why doesn’t Obama’s length of legislative experience (state legislator in a major state, and senator from a major state) trump that in your eyes Mr. Fish?

Chaya February 11, 2008 · 1:31 am

Mr.Fish,
I couldn’t have said better!After reading all the abusive,hateful anti Hillary opeds,I am moved by your analysis of this anti-Hillary phenomenon.Please keep shedding some light on the subject.Thanks again.

Eric Grimm February 11, 2008 · 1:34 am

I’ve always thought Hillary has been treated unfairly and have never really understood the reasons why, and I’ve particularly never understood why women seem to despise her so. I was reading a blog today on MSNBC, and it was the women who were trashing her worse. But I was thinking: what if Obama were president. Would people hold Michelle Obama in such enmity? I don’t think so, despite the fact that she also is a very sucessful, career oriented woman. There is something about Hillary that simply strikes people the wrong way, fair or not, but I have yet to see a truly inciteful analysis of what that is.

Mary February 11, 2008 · 1:36 am

You made my day! My hope is that all of us who happen to see inspiration and experience in Senator Clinton will fight back and support her campaign. Please donate money and time if you can. I have already donated a small amount and plan to do it again. Every dollar counts. We can also help making phone calls. Go to HillaryClinton.com to find ways to contribute to this campaign. Thanks Mr. Fish. FYI: I am hispanic, in my 40’s, with three graduate degrees, an American husband and two little kids for whom I want to help build a better country.

Billy February 11, 2008 · 1:38 am

Hillary can’t run a campaign, she sure can’t run a country.

But that was a lot of words to say “I drank the Clinton kool-aid”.

Good luck with that.

NKbrown February 11, 2008 · 1:42 am

Let’s remember that FDR also had a legion of haters of “that man in the White House.”

Rita February 11, 2008 · 1:42 am

Come on, do some people really believe that poor Hillary is being unfairly vilified? Aren’t they aware of her vile treatment of the Secret Service, her efforts to crush Bill’s bimbos (some of the same type of female voters she now attracts), her secrecy and brash mouth that killed her ’93 health care efforts, etc., etc. Transparent people like Hillary usually end up getting what they ask for. The fact that some of the public end up hating her phoniness says more about her than it does about them. If she didn’t want to face the scrutiny and possible negativity from the American public, then she should not have made a bid for the presidency.
No candidate should expect to be handled with kid gloves. Pathetic Hillary has evolved into one of those people that everyone “loves to hate,” a Tom Cruise of sorts. Whose fault it that?

malnicore February 11, 2008 · 1:48 am

April 22, 2007, 8:54 pm, “Think Again”

“Why Was Imus Fired? Just Do the Math

Early on in the Don Imus firing controversy I took an abstinence pledge, vowing never to write anything about it. I now go back on that pledge, not because I have anything to say, but because there isn’t anything to say, although almost everybody in the world has been saying a great deal. What I mean is that there are no serious issues that might be appropriately – as opposed to opportunistically – attached to this incident. The story should not be filed under “free speech” or “racist speech” or “the culture of indecency” or “double standards”; it should be filed under “blunders with unexpected consequences,” the subject of an earlier column about men and women who say or do something apparently small and even casual and find, sometimes within minutes, that their public lives are over.”

Have you also taken an abstinence pledge on writing about Hillary Clinton’s demand for severe punishment of MSNBC’s David Shuster’s “blunder with consequences,” Dr. Fish? If not, or if you again decide to break your pledge, I would be very interested to hear your comparative analysis of the the Imus and Shuster incidents. I am particularly intersted in the question of whether Ms. Clinton used appropriate force in exerting her influence in this situation.

“Nothing justifies the kind of debasing language that David Shuster used and no temporary suspension or half-hearted apology is sufficient,” she wrote.

Martha Shelley February 11, 2008 · 1:50 am

Thank you, Mr. Fish. That is the best column I’ve seen on this issue.

Realist February 11, 2008 · 1:53 am

One way of viewing the election process is that we, the voters have job opening and we are looking at applicants for the Presidency.

No one can seriously dispute that Hillary Clinton is much better qualified for the position than either Obama or McCain. Of the three, she is the most likely to be a top-rank President.

It is a pity that the election process instead of focussing on facts and probabilities focusses on such irrelevancies as thickness of ankles, cleavage and such vaporous concepts as hope and unspecified change.

Shame on voters for their irrational and immature behavior.

If we elect Obama, we will regret that decision even more than the re-election of George W. Bush.