Clinton And Obama: Where's The Enthusiasm?

(The Nation)  This column was written by Barbara Ehrenreich.

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Just a year ago the hot question was, Is America ready for a black or female President? As the campaigns wear on, the question has shifted to, Can America survive the tedium of its black and female candidates?

Obama, for example, hasn't turned out to be any more challenging to white America than re-runs of the Cosby Show. He was slow to pick up on the Jena 6 case and never showed up at the rally -- although, to be fair, neither did Clinton or Edwards. Like the others, he has refrained from noting that Rudy Giuliani, in addition to being a cellphone exhibitionist and a 9/11-abuser, presided over a New York City police department famed for its torture and killing of young black males.

But it's Hillary who's causing the citzenry's heads to pitch forward and collapse on their chests. Every time she opens her mouth, her flat, monotonic voice lays out yards of opaque white gauze, muffling any possibility of "discourse." Where does she stand? Over here, and a little to the side, and maybe a few steps to the right. Hers is known as the "flawless" campaign, but no one in it seems to be able to turn off the endlessly triangulating tape in her head.

Lately she's taken to emitting to sudden, inexplicable, bursts of deep laughter -- known in the media as "the cackle." Whether this is a deliberate "humanizing" touch or a glitch in the computer program no one knows. According to The New York Times, the "weirdest moment" came in response to a question from Bob Schieffer about Republican charges that her health plan would lead to "socialized medicine." As the Times reports, "She giggled, giggled some more, could not seem to stop giggling -- 'Sorry, Bob,' she said -- and finally unleashed the full Cackle."

Maybe she has a better sense of humor than I'd imagined, because the thought that her plan to turn health care over to the private insurance companies might be "socialist" has me rolling on the floor too.

I just wish I could work up the same degree of enthusiasm for Hillary as my friend Katha Pollitt, who recently told the Times: "If people don't stop saying incredibly sexist things about Hillary Clinton, I may just have to vote for her." But what are these incredibly sexist things? True, there was the whole faux "cleavage" issue, and the occasional wack-job who writes to enlighten me about Clinton's bisexuality or Chelsea's true daddy.

Then, in of all places -- feminist Maureen Dowd's column on Sunday -- I found a genuinely sexist comment about Hillary. Dowd apparently approvingly quotes Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of The New Republic, saying that Clinton is "like some hellish housewife who has seen something that she really, really wants and won't stop nagging you until finally you say, fine, take it, be the damn President, just leave me alone."

Now I'm all for having literary editors, poetry editors and the like commenting on our political process, but the "nagging housewife" image is not only a sexist stereotype -- it's about fifty years out of date, stemming from an era when most married women were financially dependent on their mates. Besides, male politicians are never likened to stereotypical husbands, even though some of them can be equally hard to dislodge from the recliner in front of the TV or, as the case may be, the Oval Office.

But the "hellish housewife" comment does not make Hillary a feminist martyr, nor does it make me any more willing to listen to her, either now or for the next five years. Trying to say nothing to offend, she ends up saying nothing to inspire or even inform, and Obama, though still far more engaged and human-like, risks ending up with another Ambien candidacy.

Part of the problem is structural. We make our presidential candidates campaign for at least a year at a stretch. Take a normal person and subject him or her to month after month of trail mix and chicken Caesars, sleep deprivation and the need to be "on," smiling and handshaking, sixteen hours a day. No solitary moments of reflection, no walks in the park, no escape into thrillers. What do you get after a few months of this? A golem, the artificial, man-like creature of Kabalistic lore, a personoid incapable of normal responses.

So yes, America is ready for a black or a female President. Just be sure to wake us up when it happens.
By Barbara Ehrenreich
Reprinted with permission from the The Nation

[bill1fj]

Clinton or Obama?
NONE of the above.
Lets vote all these professional politicians out of office. They''ve done nothing but talk while in congress. If they were going to do anything they should have done it long ago.
Vote the rascals out.

[aldee41]

The next President will be a Democrat.
Chose wisely. Chose Richardson.

[pepperwood2]

The Politics of Humanitarianism

Why did the international community so quickly abandon Rwanda at a time when its presence might have stopped the genocide? Like Kofi Annan, many of the diplomats and government leaders in office at the time blame the failed Somalia mission, in which U.S. soldiers attempting to capture a Somali warlord were ambushed -- resulting in a fierce, 17-hour firefight that would leave 18 U.S. soldiers and more than 1,000 Somalis dead, 84 U.S. troops wounded, and images of dead American soldiers dragged through the streets of Mogadishu flashed around the world.

"The Clinton administration was brought to its knees by the problem in Somalia," says Michael Sheehan, former peacekeeping advisor to the U.S. Mission at the United Nations. "Our secretary of defense was fired, our presidency was dramatically weakened, they were enormously criticized for this adventure in Somalia and now you had another situation unfolding in Rwanda. There was no democratic political operative that could advise President Clinton to virtually turn around the ships steaming out of Somalia and send them back into a new African adventure of a raging civil war in the early parts of this genocide."

Annan is more succinct. "To some extent," he says, "Rwanda became a victim of the Somali experience."

President Clinton affirmed his Legacy: Civil War or Genocide?

[oleander8]

The campaigns start so *** early that it''s a big yawn just when things should start picking up.

[votepaul12]

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Obama''s Contributers: Bankers / Special interest!
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Hillary Clinton''s Contributers Lawyers / RealEstate:
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http://www.ronpaul2008.com/issues

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[xlib]

mistered9-this woman is no Golda Mier or Margaret Thatcher. She is a lying, cheating, two faced biotch. Now that I have sunk to the level of the left by attacking and resorting to name calling, I need to take a bath and wash my mouth out with soap.
Perhaps if you had asked a real question and not attack you would have gotten a civil response.

[mcvett]

If the Democrats are stupid enough to nominate
Hillary for their party ticket,

I will vote Republican for the first time in my life.

As a gay man, this will be difficult for me.
xoxoxoxo

[perception5]

"The Jewish Nation: America Is Ready For Them, But Campaigns Lack Energy"

Oh The Jewish Nation can''t help but support their pals the Democrats.

They really need to go back and look at their 1865 Mission Statement and either follow it or rewrite it.

Basically it says that they wouldn''t align themselves with any "political party".

They, The Jewish Nation, needs to implement "affirmative action programs" to include NOT EXCLUDE other religions and ideologies.

[brianbwb-2009]

The Nation: America Is Ready For Them, But Campaigns Lack Energy

The Brian: But Campaigns Lack Energy Because They Are Bought And Paid For By The Bush Gang''s War Profiteers, So It Is Hard To Preach Very Loudly Against Them.

[digger123451]

I have seen Obama twice and after reading your column it is clear that you have never seen him. He is like a cerebral Ronald Reagan. He is drawing huge crowds, raising enormous amounts of money and bringing in a new group of political activists in numbers that shock other campaigns.

He is running ads in one state so far: Iowa. There, it appears he is leading. When he starts spending his money on ads in other states (and he has the money to do it), you will see a change in the polls. So far, the polls are a reflection of how candidates are viewed through the media filter. Later, we will see how they are viewed without the filter.