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Paglia Clinton
"There is a strangely static and claustrophobic quality to the fiercely loyal cult Hillary Clinton has gathered around her since her first lady years," writes Salon's Camille Paglia in a deliciously phrased diss piece [dated 4.9.08].
Camille Paglia; Hillary Clinton
"Postmortem analysts of this presidential campaign will have a field day ferreting out all the cringe-making blunders made by her clique of tired, aging courtiers who couldn't adjust to changing political realities. Hillary's forces have acted like the heavy, pompous galleons of the imperial Spanish Armada, outmaneuvered by the quick, bold, entrepreneurial ships of the English fleet.
"The male staff who Hillary attracts are slick, geeky weasels or rancid, asexual cream puffs. (One of the latter, the insufferable Mark Penn, just got the heave-ho after he played Hillary for a patsy with the Colombian government.) If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say Hillary is reconstituting the toxic hierarchy of her childhood household, with her on top instead of her drill-sergeant father. All those seething beta males are versions of her sad-sack brothers, who got the short end of the Rodham DNA stick.
"The compulsive war-room mentality of both Clintons is neurosis writ large. The White House should not be a banging, rocking washer perpetually stuck on spin cycle. Many Democrats, including myself, have come to doubt whether Hillary has any core values or even a stable sense of identity. With her outlandish fibbing and naive self-puffery, her erratic day-to-day changes of tone and message, her glassy, fixed smiles, and her leaden and embarrassingly unpresidential jokes about pop culture, she has started to seem like one of those manic, seductively vampiric patients in trashy old Hollywood hospital flicks like The Snake Pit. How anyone could confuse Hillary's sourly cynical, male-bashing megalomania with authentic feminism is beyond me.
"Obama's Rezko embroglio is certainly troublesome. But the splotches on Obama's record are few and relatively minor compared to the staggeringly copious chronicle of Clinton scandals, a mud mountain that the media have shown amazingly little interest in exploring during this campaign cycle. For all their grousing about media bias, the Clintons have gotten off scot-free over the past year from any kind of serious, systematic examination of their sleaze-a-thon history from Little Rock to Foggy Bottom.
"Obama has actually served longer in public office than Hillary has. It's very true that he lacks executive experience, but so does she. Her bungling of healthcare reform, along with her inability to control the financial expenditures and internal wrangling of her campaign, does not bode well for a prospective chief executive.
"Beyond that, I'm not sure that your analogy to professionals like doctors, accountants and teachers entirely applies to presidents. There is no fixed system of credentialing for our highest office. On the contrary, the Founders envisioned the president as a person of unpretentious common sense and good character. Hillary may spout a populist line, but with her arrogant sense of dynastic entitlement, she's a royalist who, like Napoleon, wants to crown herself.
"I too wish that Obama had more practical experience in government. But Washington is at a stalemate and needs fresh eyes and a new start. Furthermore, at this point in American history, with an ill-conceived, wasteful war dragging on in Iraq and with the nation's world reputation in tatters, I believe that, because of his international heritage and upbringing, Obama is the right person at the right time. We need a thoughtful leader who can combine realism with conciliation in domestic as well as foreign affairs."
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on April 9, 2008 at 4:34 PM
comment #1
lazarus
says ...
Wow, she's still got it. I got a copy of Sexual Personae at the beginning of the decade and I've been a fan ever since.
That's about as brutal a piece as one could possibly imagine, not that it's gonna be read by any of the voters who will decide the rest of this race. The superdelagates...maybe.
Posted by lazarus
at April 9, 2008 6:00 PM
comment #2
Titus Pullo
says ...
You do realize that Camille PAGLIA is insane don't you? Quite, quite insane. I have however enjoyed her writing int he past, particularly 'Sexual Personae', though her obsession w/ Madonna is idiotic.
My problem w/ Paglia, as well as MoDo, is the tendency to see absolutely everything through the prism of gender, in particular Paglia and MoDo 's fetishistic view of manly characteristics. I think w/ MoDo it's all about her increasingly bitter spinsterism, w/ Paglia I think its a desire to present a 'butch' image. Whatever the case, this piece does a good job of summing up my feelings toward Hillary.
Posted by Titus Pullo
at April 9, 2008 6:10 PM
comment #3
Edward
says ...
"Hillary's forces have acted like the heavy, pompous galleons of the imperial Spanish Armada, outmaneuvered by the quick, bold, entrepreneurial ships of the English fleet."
I love it, great writing Jeffrey.
Posted by Edward
at April 9, 2008 6:33 PM
comment #4
Edward
says ...
I guess I should lay off the Burbon and read before I type.
Posted by Edward
at April 9, 2008 6:37 PM
comment #5
hiviper
says ...
Paglia champions the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Drudge, and the rest of the right-wing talking heads, and in the same breath says she's a Democrat and a liberal. So as entertaining as she is, she's also full of shit.
Posted by hiviper
at April 9, 2008 8:43 PM
comment #6
Josh Massey
says ...
How dare somebody not tow the party line! Individual thought be damned! Tar and feathers, at the ready!
Posted by Josh Massey
at April 9, 2008 8:45 PM
comment #7
Mr. Muckle
says ...
Hey Titus, I've bee enjoying you in the Rome DVDs. You must be, what, 2000 years old by now? Tonight you offed a half-dozen gladiators. Nice work
I once called Paglia insane in the letters to Salon after one of her columns, and got banned for my troubles. Thankfully, Jeff is much more tolerant, that reprobate.
Posted by Mr. Muckle
at April 9, 2008 8:57 PM
comment #8
hiviper
says ...
I'm not saying she has to toe the party line - the fact that she doesn't makes her interesting. However, she fawns over the "vibrant" right-wing radio gods like Limbaugh and Hannity, yet comdemns Bush's war, which those pricks were the prime cheerleaders for...well, it doesn't add up.
Posted by hiviper
at April 9, 2008 9:16 PM
comment #9
Major Calloway
says ...
But you also think it makes her full of shit.
Posted by Major Calloway
at April 9, 2008 10:32 PM
comment #10
hiviper
says ...
yes, any other questions?
Posted by hiviper
at April 9, 2008 10:39 PM
comment #11
christian
says ...
And I'll second hiviper's motion. Paglia's got a girly-man fetish and to watch it play out against her bizarro praise for the manliness of baby dough boys like Limbaugh and Hannity and Bush is reason enough to ignore her. She also loves THE BIRDS way too much.
Posted by christian
at April 9, 2008 11:04 PM
comment #12
Major Calloway
says ...
Wasn't a question.
I could reclaim so much shelf space if I adopted this sort of scorched earth policy against those who I not only disagree with, but who ever praised the skills of (while vocally disagreeing with) those I disagree with. Who they also disagree with. Or had bizarro fetishes beyond my understanding (most are).
For any non-admirers of Michael Moore: How many of you would dismiss someone as full of shit because they've expressed an appreciation of his talents even though they disagreed with his politics? Oh, and that's not just full of shit on the subject of Moore, but on any subject. (This posting was not about talk radio.)
Point taken on THE BIRDS, though.
Posted by Major Calloway
at April 10, 2008 12:46 AM
comment #13
BurmaShave
says ...
Would we Obama supporters accept this level of pop-psychology nonsense from a Hillary supporter? Good vocabulary or not, it's mostly nonsense. Camille Paglia has become late period Mailer without a dick.
Posted by BurmaShave
at April 10, 2008 3:46 AM
comment #14
Santa Monica Mirror
says ...
Agree with you BurmaShave, only would add: maybe she always has been.
Posted by Santa Monica Mirror
at April 10, 2008 6:54 AM
comment #15
christian
says ...
It's Paglia's job to reduce everything to simplistic and reductive gender narratives. That's why she's rooted in Academia.
Posted by christian
at April 10, 2008 10:53 AM
comment #16
Major Calloway
says ...
christian: It's Paglia's job to reduce everything to simplistic and reductive gender narratives. That's why she's rooted in Academia.
I will trade any word ever spoken in defense of Paglia (or, rather, any word spoken in non-defense defense of her) in trade for aligning myself with this sentiment of christian's....as long as we make "gender" a wildcard. I've had it up to here [indicates somewhere between the pelvis and the sternum] with this "Hegemony! Gramsci! Flapdoodle!" bullshit.
Posted by Major Calloway
at April 10, 2008 3:19 PM
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