NEW YORK, Dec. 7, 2007
Why Liberal Women Dislike Hillary Clinton
The Skinny: Educated, Left-Leaning Females Are One Of New York Senator's Toughest Crowds
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Photo Essay Hillary Clinton A look at a life and career full of firsts.
They are like her, but they don't like her.
Such is the curious phenomenon of many educated, professional, liberal women of a certain age when it comes to Hillary Clinton, the Los Angeles Times reports. In fact, upper-middle-class women on the left are "historically her toughest crowd," the paper reports.
Why is this? The Times offers a handful of possibilities:
1) They're not as worried about job security as their more blue-collar peers (who are more pro-Clinton), so they feel free to judge the New York Senator as a peer.
2) They're disgusted by the fact that, while they struggled to break through barriers in the workplace, Clinton hitched her star to her man and followed him to the top.
3) They're disappointed by her support of the Iraq war and the fact that she has recreated herself as a centrist.
4) Women hold each other to an unrealistic standard.
5) She's trying to act too much like a man.
"What you may be hearing is the commitment to pacifism that some women associate with feminism," said Wendy Kaminer, a 57-year-old author and lawyer. "It's what I think of as the 'feminine' strain of feminism that sees women as bringing something to the table because they are not militaristic, work by consensus and don't play the boys' game. And Hillary is someone who has played the boys' game exceedingly well."
Jane Fonda perhaps summed up this view best in an interview with the LA Weekly last May, in which she called Clinton "a ventriloquist for the patriarchy with a skirt and a vagina." (It would be such a great quote, except when was the last time Hillary wore a skirt?)
The Times says Clinton has been working to overcome this skepticism from her sisters by appearing on "The View" and telling a Chicago audience that "I'm your girl."
Why this should endear her to feminist peers, I'm not quite sure, but something seems to be working. Support for Clinton among college-educated women jumped from 29 percent in June to 50 percent in October, according to the latest LA Times/Bloomberg poll.
The Most Expensive Weapons Program Ever
Believe it or not, the biggest financial concern for the U.S. military isn't how to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Washington Post reports. Those are being taken care of by supplemental appropriations.
Rather it's figuring out how to pay the $200 billion estimated price of upgrading the largest war machine in history into the robotic, wireless, Buck Rodgers-esque force of military leaders' dreams.
The project involves creating a family of 14 weapons, drones, robots, sensors and hybrid-electric combat vehicles connected by a wireless network. Experts say it's the most ambitious modernization of the Army since World War II and the most expensive weapons program ever.
This vision has a name: Future Combat Systems, or FCS. It also has a growing number of grumbling critics - most notably in the Government Accountability Office - who say the billions that have been burned on the upgrade since it was envisioned in 1995 have not yielded anything all that great so far. Its long-term program is scheduled to kick into major production mode in the next decade.
The original story of the program is a little scary, given this week's developments in the U.S. relationship with Iran. Back in 1995, Maj. Gen. Robert Scales Jr. assembled a team of 700 who warred over two years in a huge simulation center in Pennsylvania. The blue team represented the Americans. The red team represented - remember, this is 1995 - the Iranians.
In one scenario, the Iranians captured Riyadh and began executing the royal Saudi family on live television. That drew the blue team into the streets of Riyadh, which, choked with heavy armor, became a bloody mess. Scales called the exercise the "aha moment" in which he learned that the United States needed to develop a lighter, quicker kind of warmaking.
An Era Ends In New York
For most of the last year and change, New Yorkers couldn't hear the words Daniel Doctoroff without it being accompanied by the epithet "the next Robert Moses."
The city's old master builder was experiencing a posthumous renaissance of sorts, thanks to several exhibitions dedicated to questioning the negative way he was portrayed in Robert Caro's Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Power Broker."
And it seemed like Doctoroff, the city's longest-serving deputy mayor for economic development with some power-brokerly tendencies of his own, was shining brighter for the reflected glow.
But in the New York Times' story about his resignation, the paper reports that Doctoroff leaves his post with a decidedly mixed legacy.
Despite his many achievements, much of his agenda remains unrealized. His defeats - the failed West Side Stadium and congestion pricing plans - are perhaps more famous than his victories. Nevertheless, in saying goodbye to the man who would soon go to work for a different wing of his empire - as president of Bloomberg L.P. - Mayor Mike Bloomberg couldn't resist the cliché comparison one last time.
"As chief architect of our five-borough economic development plan, Dan Doctoroff has done more to change the face of the city than anyone since Robert Moses."
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See all 83 CommentsSeems to me HIllary was treated as an equal partner in the marriage and was a great help to Bill when he ran the White House. They were married!
I realize that men have always thought they were king of the castle. But without a woman most of them didn''t have clean pants to put on. There''s a lot to be said to being in control of clean pants. Without ''em you stink! lol
George Bush, Jr. inherited that spoon and to this day has not removed it from his mouth. If you don''''t believe me just listen to one of his Press Conferences.
Posted by realpatriot1 at 11:13 PM : Dec 07, 2007
And where was the spoon coming from ? Auschwitz ...
- Posted by userverify at 09:59 PM : Dec 07, 2007
Not at all. Bill and Hillary were legally married.
That expression refers to woman in the business or entertainment industries who have s*ex with powerful strangers in return for advancement in their careers.
It is never used to describe a wife who has shared in her husbands trials and successes. That"s the whole point of a marriage, even one that has had its sad chapters.
Go Jonnie go!
The woman has more guts than any male in the US of A, and it scares the hell out of ''em. She knows that every last one of them will be waiting to pounce on the slightest word or gesture, and will propagandize to the nth degree. They''ll be circling like vultures, and she''s still not afraid of it!
Bill was *** lucky to have her! She obviously went through the marriage from hell and survived it and lifted herself up from it. Even in the face of every Hillary basher calling her a lesbian and accusing her of every pervision that only they themselves can dream up.
She is the ONLY one on the slate that might be tough enough, and smart enough to do the job. And from her record as first lady, she has already tried to do good things for the people of this country. She was just totally outnumbered by the republicans and their cries of ''socialism''! They do that every time a program is proposed that benefits the people. Ever notice that? They come up with all these neat words like socialism, entitlements, etc. When the real deal is a country getting together and helping each other.
You go Hillary!
George Bush, Sr. was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
George Bush, Jr. inherited that spoon and to this day has not removed it from his mouth. If you don''t believe me just listen to one of his Press Conferences.
I mean really, before Dubya ran for President in 2000, who had even heard the name "Bush" ?
A true self-made man.
Why didn"t she just lift herself up from poverty by her own efforts, like young George W. Bush, who rose from humble beginnings as the son of poor sharecroppers to become President of the United States ?
The liberal Democratic women I know don''t dislike her because she isn''t liberal enough. They think she holds a finger up to see which way the wind is blowing before she decides what her principle are and takes both sides when she thinks she can get away with it.
Her husband was successful by taking on issues that conservatives complained about(deficit spending, crime,welfare,low educational achievement among the poor)and proposed and articulated sensible and principled solutions to those problems. Although they''ll never admit it, that''s why conservatives really hate Bubba so much, he beat them at their own game.
Conservatives look at the Clinton years and see only bad because the good is too painful for them to own up to.
Liberals look at the Clinton years and see a mix. There were the above successes but there were major failures rooted in arrogance and a lack of ethics. Bubba was the right President for his time but this is a different time.
Democrats can do better than a repeat of travelgate,
FBI filegate, pardongate,etc.
America needs a fresh start without any of the baggage of the last 15 years and America needs someone who respects the intelligence of the voters.
Hahaha! How do you even walk like that?
Posted by runningralph
Yes, of course, thanks for saying it out loud. I''m sure all the girls will love it. We should hook her up to a lie detector and ask her some questions about McDougal et al.
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