You may or may not understand: Hillary Clinton has to be FLAWLESS.

[Writer]

She is not permitted a mistake - even a single answer at a debate. When everyone expects you to fuck up, eventually you will fuck up. All the while, we've had this male jackass in the White House who has been given pass after pass after pass.

I am one of those who believes that we do have innate double standards for our male and female candidates. Hillary's pursuit of the White House is seen as her strive for power - like that's something unique in comparison to her male counterparts. And although a few of the candidates votes for the IWR in 2002, for some reason Hillary's vote stands out as being especially egregious.

I believe that some liberal men are still very prone to sexism. I dealt with very direct sexism from a supposedly liberal male who I was partnered with in my graduate classes last year. He didn't like that I colored my hair (too bourgeoisie, I suppose) made fun of my nails, rolled his eyes at my suggestions for our project, etc. But the problem is that strong woman are threats, so men set the bar so incredibly high in order to keep that threat at bay.

Hillary is a threat. She's frightening. And she can't mess up - even once, or else the media will start pounding her in lock step with our immeasurably high standards for her.

[maddiejoan]

1. K&R

very good post.

[fenriswolf]

2. i hold the same standards to her

as i do to any other candidate.....thats why im voting kucinich

[stuartrida]

7. Same here

though Kucinich is at the bottom of my list with Hillary.

[Bitwit1234]

14. Your choice. But what I find so upsetting is

one of the other candidates supporters is so wild with bashing and flaming Hillary. If you notice, NONE NOT ONE, of the others are so classless and characterless to swift boat a democratic candidate. I support you choice but I support the fact that you support you candidate and do not flame other candidates.

[Qutzupalotl]

43. There is egregious swifting on all sides.

I can name three posters (but won't) who regularly bash Obama, and another guy who distorts and trashes Edwards' record--going out of his way to do so. Another one jumped on a Kucinich thread to lambaste him.

There's plenty of swifting all around. I don't know which poster you're referring to, but the most venemous distorters I have seen were all supporting Hillary.

I'm not trying to say she condoned it, or had anything to do with it. It's just something I've noticed.

[lumberjack_jeff]

3. Take it from a liberal guy whose governor and senators are all women.

Bullshit.

She's not getting flak because she's a woman, she's getting flak because she's a corporate shill, adept at appearing sincere while saying nothing substantive.

Cantwell, Murray and Gregoire are all superior public officials, precisely because they're willing to make mistakes.

[ClassWarrior]

4. Sen. Clinton's a threat to whom?

Certainly not to the RW, the way their Corporate Media has all but annointed her while ignoring Edwards. I believe that some Progressives are still very prone to falling for the Corporate Media's self-serving narratives.

NGU.

[creeksneakers2]

33. The corporate media anointed Hillary?

Half of the last debate was Russert and Williams zinging gotcha' questions at Hillary. Most of the other half was Russert and Williams induced attacks against Hillary by the other candidates, especially Edwards. It was the most unfair spectacle I've ever seen.

Edwards is lucky when the media ignores him. If they paid attention they'd have to report about what a phony Edwards is.

[ClassWarrior]

37. You answered your own question. They're propping her up to shoot her down.

It'd be the same if Edwards was their chosen straw dog. You said it yourself, and parroted their sleaze-mongering in the process.

NGU.

[mmonk]

5. You can't be flawless with neoliberal connections.

It requires parsing and talking in generalities in debates.

[Honeycombe8]

6. Agreed. I've seen this many times in the workplace. But same is true for ANY minority...so Obama..

has the same issue. ANY mistake he makes will be attributed to his being part Af. American.

The thing about that applying to women, however, is that there are a lot more people who apply the high standard to women. It basically is most men, as well as some women. All races. This is because we live in a patriarchal society where all, including women, see the men as the natural leaders.

When the high standard is applied to a black or other non-white race, it is usu. only the whites, and maybe some other race, that applies it. So it's fewer people, actually, who are critical of the person because of his race (although the criticism may be stronger).

In any case, it is the way it is. And I have seen these things change for the better over the last 30 years. No doubt it will continue to get better. Some of the young men in this forum would be appalled at how men their age thought and acted 30 years ago. They weren't "bad," so to speak....just a product of their times. (The women often thought the same way. Can you say Phyllis Shlafly? I was a youngster, but was appalled and shocked at what I heard that woman say on TV against other women. She now spews her venom at other causes, having lost the one against women.)

[earth mom]

8. Well, the public doesn't expect Hillary to be flawless. They expect her to be a liberal & shes not.

[Carrieyazel]

53. But Repukes and Indeps DO regard her as a liberal. Many Dems do not, though.

This shows the huge difference in perceptions.

[rodeodance]

9. The media has set high standards for her (as have others)!

[maximusveritas]

10. That's because she's the frontrunner, not because she's a woman

Dean went through the same thing in 2003 as have all the major frontrunners. When you're in front, you become the object of attacks and the media tries to bring you down in order to make it a tight race. Trying to pretend this is about Hillary's gender is likely to backfire on her.

[creeksneakers2]

34. Hillary's getting it far far worse than Dean did n/t

[JohnnyLib2]

11. How dare you! Some of my best friends are ......... (women).

Does that ring any bells for anyone?

I think Writer makes a valid point about double standards. They are held to different degrees by different people, of course. But to believe that the issue is not present seems very naive to this male.

[IndianaGreen]

12. Was her vote on Kyl-Lieberman and her opposition to the Alito filibuster part of that flawless...

strategy of her?

our immeasurably high standards for her.

What part of defunding the war and bringing the troops home is too high a standard for Hillary?

Forty years of Israel's oppression of Palestinians have made cynical about people that play the victimhood card as an excuse for their own inexcusable behaviour.

[cmkramer]

38. You're partly wrong I think

I'm pretty sure Hillary supported the filibuster against Alito.

[IndianaGreen]

47. Hillary opposed Kerry's filibuster, just as she opposed Kerry's troop withdrawal resolution

Hillary is an agent of DLC.

[burythehatchet]

13. Nonsense. Political royalty doesn't have to be perfect. Not even

just correct. In fact, she and her ilk are wrong on most of the importanty issues of the day. Perfect. HAH!

[zalinda]

15. Sorry, but you can also take the other side of this

She can mess up because she's a girl. Just look at what she said at Wellesley college, that wasn't perfect, but she played the girl card. And she has played that girl card a lot. Like "I'm your girl". Sorry, you can't have it both ways, which is what Clinton wants. Actually, the more I hear from her the more I don't like her.

I tend to think that Obama and Clinton are more forgiven for gaffs then their white male counterparts. After all, if a white male "attacks" a black or a woman, he's called a racist or sexist.

No one on DU is "attacking" Clinton for being a women, and no one on DU is "attacking" Obama for being black, that is demeaning to DU members. We've looked at policies and either like them or don't like them. Or we find that they possess "something" that we like or don't like, but none of it is racist or sexist.

zalinda

[IndianaGreen]

16. Wellesley College is unrepresentative of American working class women

Hillary Clinton and Barbara Bush are part of Wellesley's elites.

[Clintonista2]

17. Wellesley college is a women's college

She was speaking to them regarding an issue that is relevent to women, which is discrimination. If you don't believe that discrimination against women still exists today, then you need to get outside more.

[applegrove]

18. She has been flawless till now so she has set the bar really high for herself.

[sir_captain]

19. This is such nonsense

Hillary is facing the same thing that every frontrunner always does. I'm not saying that sexism doesn't exist, cause obviously it does, but this argument just screams of sour grapes, sorry. Frankly, I'd argue that Obama has a lot more prejudice to deal with as a black man than Hilary does as the former first lady. And I'm not a huge fan of either of them.

The reason Hilary's vote stands out as egregious compared to say, Edwards, is cause she won't say that she was wrong! It's not cause she's a woman. Jeez.

[Writer]

26. But it's okay for you to label others as being racist, right? n/t

[sir_captain]

28. um, where did i label anyone as racist?

[Writer]

31. You accused me once of being racially insensitive...

and I mention this because it seems okay for you to have pointed out my racial insensitivity, but now it's not okay that I point out an example of sexism - taken from my own point of view.

[sir_captain]

55. Of course it's ok to point out sexism

(As i mentioned in my post) -- I just don't see any here. In my opinion, this is pure front-runner syndrome, and is not a whole lot different from the attacks Howard Dean was receiving 4 years ago.

As for accusing you of being racially insensitive, I don't recall having any former conversations with you, and certainly have no bone to pick with you but my memory can certainly be faulty. I can't afford to be a donor at the moment, so I can't search for it either. Can you provide me with a link to this? That's not the sort of thing I would say without really meaning it.

[sir_captain]

29. seriously, if you're going to accuse me of something like that

don't be a coward and not back it up.

[denem]

41. Hillary won't say her IWR vote was wrong

Because she doesn't believe it was. It's clear case of her refusing to lie. Regime change was the policy of the Clinton Administration. They were not interested if there were WMDs there or not. Hillary, for what it's worth voted in what she believed in. Her criticism of the war has essentially been about strategy and execution.

AS for John Edwards : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g238i7O529o

[hedgehog]

20. My husband noted this morning that the main thing Senator Clinton

is offering as a reason to make her the candidate is her ability to run a flawless campaign, raise the money, to play the game, to win. Every proposal , every statement is smoothed down to be so inoffensive to so many people as to be meaningless. Statements attacking other candidates come from surrogates or anonymous campaign staffers. Prime example: first it was everyone attacked her at the debate becae she is a woman breaking into the boys' club. That wasn't well accepted, so now she was attacked because she is the front runner. Note that neither excuse answers any of the questions left by the debate.

So, why should we vote for her if she makes a mistake?

[BootinUp]

21. Maybe I am misunderstanding your post.

Are you saying that any flaws in Hillary's campaign are magnified because she would be the first female President and the standard is artificially set higher by the media for her to be credible? I think the idea has merit if that is what you mean.

[Writer]

23. Yes, that is somewhat what I'm saying. n/t

[KaptBunnyPants]

22. She's a member of the DLC. She's endorsed by Lieberman.

She voted for the Kyl-Lieberman Iran invasion pretext bill. She was a corporate lawyer for Walmart, and her top adviser is a known opponent of worker rights. Her husband was well known for advancing himself politically at the expense of liberal causes, to the detriment of causes I believe in, such as economic equality and opportunity, environmental issues, and workers rights. When he pushed for NAFTA without safeguards, he betrayed those ideals. When he pushed for Welfare reform, he hurt people who were to poor and weak to push back, but they were people none the less, and their suffering counts. When Al Gore was begging him to take environmental issues more seriously, he had nothing but lip service in response, as he didn't want to spoil his "fastest growing economy in the history of mankind". While he was President, he had millions of people arrested on petty marijuana possession offenses. After he was President, he said pot should be decriminalized. She is judged as a continuation of her husband's Presidency, which is also the way she has campaigned. There is good and bad that comes with that. He was the best President of my life, but I believe that this country needs so much more if it is to recover.

[IndianaGreen]

24. And as Governor, Bill Clinton executed a mentally impaired prisoner for political expediency

America deserves better than Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton.

[creeksneakers2]

35. The prisoner was faking mental impairment

His test scores from high school, long before the murder charges, showed he was competent. The mental impairment defense was faked. I saw that same guy skillfully handle a hostile interview from network news for 20 full minutes.

[IndianaGreen]

46. Sure! He left the ice cream behind because he wanted to eat after the execution

Mentally impaired with the mind of a child, African-American, and poor! Executed while Big Dog was having his thingy with Gennifer Flowers. What a great guy!

[LostinVA]

40. Her first name is not "Bill"

You list quite a few things BILL Clinton did.

I LOATHE Wal-Mart. I haven't ste foot in one for a decade. My father works in textiles, so I understand what harm they've caused this country. I disagree with HRC's agreeing to be on their board while her husband was governor of Arkansas. However, she was NOT a corporate lawyer for Wal-Mart. She was a member of a firm that handled some of Wal-Mart's out-of-house legal business. There is a difference.

There are reasons to dislike HRC without blaming her for the negative things President Clinton did, and without exaggerating her role concerning Wal-Mart.

[LWolf]

25. Then I don't have to worry about her nomination,

because she is riddled with flaws.

I feel better now. :D

[Zenlitened]

27. I think thee's a lot of truth to what you've said, as well as...

... to the point some other posters have raised about Sen. Obama. There's this extra layer of pressure involved, and no use pretending it isn't so.

I mean, first off: The candidate is a Democrat. Right there, you start off with the media/right-wing noise machine knives pointed at you... ready to slice you up over the slightest little thing.

Next layer: You're a solid contender for the nomination, maybe even the front-runner. Well,nobody likes a winner! :D Sure, everyone says they do. But the worst of human/animal nature seems to take over pretty easily, and anyone who's running strong... well, you can be sure the wolves will be snapping at their ankles, trying to bring them down. And a big segment of the viewing public will enjoy the show, hoping to see some carnage.

Then you add gender or race/ethnicity to the mix and you've got the whole weight of history bearing down. It's just a fact that in general, historically, women and people of color have been on the outside looking in when it comes to political power. Sure, that's changed a lot -- and pretty fast, too, all things considered. But there it is.

I'm pretty confident that both Clinton and Obama can handle the pressure. Heck, they'll have to -- that's part of the test in being elected. And it will sure as hell be a part of the job for the next President who has to put out the fires, clear out the rubble and start to rebuild after the catastrophic Bush-Cheney years.

[gulliver]

30. Dems suffer most from their own standards.

The secret of Bush's survival in the face of his clear incompetence is not the press giving him a pass. The very first person to give Bush a pass is Bush himself. He smirks self-approval, then smiles, then puts the spotlight on the weaker members of the media and gets them to giggle. His partisans just follow his lead. Bush's self-satisfaction and (transparently feigned) self-deprecation make him, as engineers might say, "fault tolerant." The Dems absolutely must learn this key skill.

Dems who make mistakes lose face in their own eyes and in the eyes of many of their impatient and hot-headed partisans. Dems take themselves and their mission so seriously that they subvert the mission. Dems have to learn to dismiss their mistakes (errors, shortcomings, goofs, boo-boos) with a laugh and a wave of the hand. That is not arrogance but maturity. Accept yourself, and others will accept you. Undermine yourself or your team, and you have done the adversaries' work for them.

Getting to progressive goals requires the risk of many failures along the way. That is life. Failures and mistakes are inescapable. Dems absolutely must steel ourselves against the fear of failure, both before and after the fact of the failure. The failures will happen, and they will happen repeatedly. The success of a great task doesn't happen without countless large and small mistakes along the way. The mistakes must be worked through with all means at our disposal: fix some things, live with and smile about others. But through every single mistake we have to keep our "eyes on the prize," tolerate and fix our mistakes, adjust course, keep our face up and shoulders square...but never turn back and never give up on ourselves.

From Bush's skilled, dynamic, fault tolerant pose, he is able to recover from several disgraceful missteps and stupidities per appearance. He never puts himself into a shame spiral, no matter how shameful his actions are. He simply doesn't do it. He would back himself without question even if he didn't have a team of people willing to help him. Bush is not perfect, nor average, nor below average. He is an evil imbecile, far beneath the office he holds. But his basic political architecture is fault tolerant and effective, not unlike the AIDS virus or a great white shark.

The Dems need to get out of this post-traumatic stress syndrome they seem to be in and get healthy with respect to their own foibles and weaknesses.

[Zenlitened]

32. Great post!

Should be its own thread.

Dems have to learn to dismiss their mistakes (errors, shortcomings, goofs, boo-boos) with a laugh and a wave of the hand. That is not arrogance but maturity. Accept yourself, and others will accept you.

:toast:

[Think82]

36. The high standard of answering a "yes" or "no" question?

That's setting the bar pretty low.

[ddeclue]

39. Oh give it a rest will you...

Hillary's supporters have been the ones who are running around shouting as to how she's ready for the big leagues and now they want us to cut her slack that NOBODY gets when running for President because she's a woman and we're picking on her.


Make up your mind.

If you really believe in a gender neutral society she has to stand up take it just like Al Gore, the "inventor" of the internet, Gary Hart and his extramarital affair, John Kerry getting swift boated, John McCain getting swift boated before there even was such a term, George H.W. Bush and his wrist watch, Dennis Kucinich and his UFO's, Michael Dukakis and his tank ride, Howard Dean and the "Haw" factor and any number of other MALE candidates who have all found ways to fall flat on their faces or get pushed on them by their opponents.

Politics ain't beanbag - Finley Peter Dunne

Doug D.
Orlando, FL

[Carrieyazel]

42. Yes, but Hillary's made many gaffes that have been essentially ignored by the MSM.

1. Insulting the Iowa voter who dared challenge her. That was about a one-day story, then it was gone.

2. Slamming Obama hypocritically in a debate on foreign policy, when she said the SAME EXACT THING LAST YEAR. MSM made us think she masterfully took down Obama, when she did nothing of the kind.

3. Making dumb off the wall comments (when she deviates from the rigid script), like "lobbyists represent real Americans". Only a few in the MSM got it right and called her out on it, but most gave her a pass.

3. Baby bonds. A stupid, moronic idea that she had to backtrack from. While Repuke media nailed her on it, the MSM was mostly silent, letting it pass.

4. The surge is working/surge isn't working. Keep troops in/take them out. This atrocious waffling as been generally ignored by the MSM.

These are the biggest ones. I'm sure there are others.

[illinoisprogressive]

44. I have to disagree Writer. Hillary is the only one who thinks she must be perfect.

People know, including her rivals, that she is a person and people make mistakes. Everyone of them have screwed up a few times. No. it's herself who feels she must be perfect and from what I hear, she has thought this since at least college.

[Hekate]

45. The MEDIA magnifies the sexism & misogyny that still exist, tho I think the PEOPLE are ready

I think most of the people in the US are ready for a woman or an African-American as a presidential nominee. Probably not both at the same time (as in Pres and V-P slots) -- but in an odd way I think the country is ready, as it was when the first Roman Catholic was elected president.

The double standard still exists. Racism and sexism still exist. But I think it can be done. We'll see.

The MSM is greatly at fault, imo, for shallow behavior and for their desire to goad candidates into making a spectacle of themselves at debates. "Let's you and him fight" seems to be their motto, along with "Gotcha!"

This works to the disadvantage of all the Democratic candidates, but most especially for the frontrunning white woman and black man. And the MSM's rabid responses really do have a negative effect on the public.

Hekate

[rhett o rick]

48. If you are right then maybe she shouldn't be our choice for President.

I would think that there probably is a double standard. But I oppose her because she has taken money from the same corporations (war profiteers) that supported BushCorp. I do not like that. Looks to me like the rich corporations are hedging their bets. Republicans are their first choice but HRC seems to be their second.

[rhett o rick]

49. No way. To get my vote she just has to commit to repealing the Patriot Act,

reestablishing habeas corpus, repeal the MCA, denounce torture, commit to upholding the FISA laws, repeal NAFA, CAFTA, etc.

[nealmhughes]

50. Does automatically disliking someone's politics make them a sexist if the person whom they dislike

is female? I love Boxer! I actually rather admire Snowe and her sidekick, love me some Virginia Foxx, and loathe Mukowski, and now Feinstein.
I always wanted Barbara Jordan to be a senator or on the USSC. Am I a sexist?
I guess that that paragon of virtue (Marsha Blackburn) is a big pal, eh? She is a woman, after all, with the vicious male conspiracy after her. . . Now I have to get back to the new Hustler issue, have my wife bring me a beer and then beat her after she is late.
So if America's afraid of strong powerful women, then why do so many men melt at mother's day? Hell, I'm afraid of my mother, and her's and was terrified of my father's mother! Afraid of not meeting their standards, that is! All my mother has to do is take one look at two glasses in my sink and I run to wash them.

[BeyondGeography]

51. She stopped being flawless when she stayed married to someone who repeatedly abused her trust

just so she could keep her front-row seat in the power game.

And then we have her frequent refusal to take a stand that isn't poll-tested to the nth degree. This isn't your garden variety female politician. Her public and private behavior are almost freakishly informed by politics. What you mistakenly see as "high standards" are nothing more than an extreme response to an extreme person.

[BootinUp]

52. Are marital problems your specialty? nt

[BeyondGeography]

56. Now there's a useful response

:eyes:

[Tom Rinaldo]

54. Most relevent is an abiltiy to stand up to pounding

By the time we hit the General Election any Democrat will be pounded relentlessly. It happened to Gore, it happened to Kerry, and before that the media cheer leaded Bill Clinton's impeachment. When the enemies of Democrats get to a Presidential Election they unload with everything they have on the Democrat running. If they don't have enough they simply manufacture something.

Even if Hillary has a higher bar to clear than others, if she is also a better hurdler she still could have the overall advantage. She has taken a lot of pounding in her day - more than Obama and Edwards combined (and I'm not saying that Obama and Edwards haven't gotten pounded. some also). A tough woman isn't always liked in the same way that George W. Bush's tough guy act worked in the past, but she can be respected regardless - even if grudgingly, for that toughness.