| OH HILLARY CLINTON NOOOO! |
[May. 8th, 2008|05:16 pm] |
The ability of Stopping Your Mouth On The Win is a skill which seems to vanish under stress. People start with a somewhat reasonable point and keep adding connotations until they reveal something very wrong.
Hillary Clinton's campaign has been nosing around the racial divide for some time, largely through proxies. Alas, Clinton herself strode over into the ugly, in a USA today article with the ironic headline "Clinton makes case for wide appeal" (indicating the reporter may not have picked up on it until the update):"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."
"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.
Clinton rejected any idea that her emphasis on white voters could be interpreted as racially divisive. "These are the people you have to win if you're a Democrat in sufficient numbers to actually win the election. Everybody knows that." OH HRC NO!
Yeah, it's a pattern all right. One which began when Geraldine "What? What'd I say?" Ferraro open her mouth many weeks back.
But this leap from righteous to stupid has deep roots in America. Consider early feminist hero Elizabeth Cady Stanton. These days she's better known for being tarnished by her speech decrying the exclusion of women from the 15th Amendment which revealed a nasty side of her politics.
The speech starts out well enough, presenting a stridently populist idea a notion of universal sufferage as inclusive as one can get (this section is not as often quoted):A government, based on the principle of caste and class, can not stand. The aristocratic idea, in any form, is opposed to the genius of our free institutions, to our own declaration of rights, and to. the civilization of the age. All artificial distinctions, whether of family, blood, wealth, color, or sex, are equally oppressive to the subject classes, and equally destructive to national life and prosperity. It's too bad Stanton doesn't stop there, as she would have a legendary quote instead of notorious one. Alas, as she continues her rhetoric moves beyond of general equality to focus on the offended superiority of white ladies.We see this in every department of legislation, and it is a common remark, that unless some new virtue is infused into our public life the nation is doomed to destruction. Will the foreign element, the dregs of China, Germany, England, Ireland, and Africa supply this needed force, or the nobler types of American womanhood who have taught our presidents, senators, and congressmen the rudiments of all they know ? ( Please. Stop. Talking. ) OH ELIZABETH CADY NOOO!
This can't be excused as the ignorance of the times. Cady, an informed contemporary of Fredrick Douglas, declares "All artificial distinctions, whether of family, blood, wealth, color, or sex, are equally oppressive" then abandons this to rant about "the political inferiors of unlettered and unwashed". Apparently some artificial distinctions aren't so bad after all, this mid-speech hypocrisy might be explained by her outrage at injustice over being denied the vote, but not justified.
The same thing applies now. Clinton has been subjected to pressures unlike any male candidate, but this cannot excuse equating "white" with "hard-working Americans". BONUS POINTS: Her claim may not be true. |
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