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Bill Moyers: What’s Behind the Hillary Hatred Syndrome? (update)
While making a case that harsh mainstream media have slimed Hillary Clinton and damaged her reputation — a case with which I largely agree — my colleague Neal Gabler attributes to me the belief that “Clinton’s popularity is a casualty of misogyny.” I’m grateful to him for affording me the opportunity to expand upon the kind of misogyny I mean. And I’m grateful to FBI director James Comey and several Republican members of Congress for bolstering my case with several pointed illustrations of that misogyny.
In the piece I wrote on this subject three weeks ago, I did argue that misogyny “has to be a big hunk” of the explanation for the venomous hatred directed at her — the “Hang the Bitch” mentality.
It cannot be denied, as Gabler points out, that Hillary Rodham Clinton has always been a woman — even as her popularity has fluctuated and, much of the time, gone high. He is right to point out that Hillary Clinton’s ratings “were very high when she was secretary of state,” rising to 60 percent. Of course, that’s not so unusual for secretaries of state. Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza Rice did just as well. Clinton did rank higher than John Kerry after he replaced her, but for that matter, Colin Powell’s ratings were considerably higher — 83 percent and above.
.......................................................................................
On the face of it, then, the media obsession damaged her reputation, but the obsessives were not original. They were cringing before the Republicans’ tar-and-feather job. They bent over backward to show they were not prisoners of coastal cosmopolitanism. Media organizations followed the lead of Republicans whose bitter partisanship was, and remains, unparalleled. “Such a nasty woman” — this has been the premise of the Republican inquisitors and the email-obsessed media for months before Donald Trump uttered those words aloud.
Because Hillary Clinton is no longer a former secretary of state. She is a former secretary of state running for president. Americans have gotten used to female secretaries of state. To use the metaphor du jour, the glass ceiling that used to hang over the State Department was smashed to smithereens. But a secretary of state is not a president.
A Democrat running for president is going to be smeared by the Republicans. This goes without saying. But a Democratic woman running for president gets extra layers of smear, though the smear required new material to work with. Clinton could still be viewed favorably when she ran for the presidential nomination in 2007-08 — consistent, overall, with how she was viewed during the more than two decades between 1992 and 2014. Benghazi and emails were not yet in the picture. Now, should Clinton get to the White House, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) will be ready: He’s sharpening his pencils and knives, planning “years” of hearings on Clinton depredations.
In the piece I wrote on this subject three weeks ago, I did argue that misogyny “has to be a big hunk” of the explanation for the venomous hatred directed at her — the “Hang the Bitch” mentality.
It cannot be denied, as Gabler points out, that Hillary Rodham Clinton has always been a woman — even as her popularity has fluctuated and, much of the time, gone high. He is right to point out that Hillary Clinton’s ratings “were very high when she was secretary of state,” rising to 60 percent. Of course, that’s not so unusual for secretaries of state. Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza Rice did just as well. Clinton did rank higher than John Kerry after he replaced her, but for that matter, Colin Powell’s ratings were considerably higher — 83 percent and above.
.......................................................................................
On the face of it, then, the media obsession damaged her reputation, but the obsessives were not original. They were cringing before the Republicans’ tar-and-feather job. They bent over backward to show they were not prisoners of coastal cosmopolitanism. Media organizations followed the lead of Republicans whose bitter partisanship was, and remains, unparalleled. “Such a nasty woman” — this has been the premise of the Republican inquisitors and the email-obsessed media for months before Donald Trump uttered those words aloud.
Because Hillary Clinton is no longer a former secretary of state. She is a former secretary of state running for president. Americans have gotten used to female secretaries of state. To use the metaphor du jour, the glass ceiling that used to hang over the State Department was smashed to smithereens. But a secretary of state is not a president.
A Democrat running for president is going to be smeared by the Republicans. This goes without saying. But a Democratic woman running for president gets extra layers of smear, though the smear required new material to work with. Clinton could still be viewed favorably when she ran for the presidential nomination in 2007-08 — consistent, overall, with how she was viewed during the more than two decades between 1992 and 2014. Benghazi and emails were not yet in the picture. Now, should Clinton get to the White House, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) will be ready: He’s sharpening his pencils and knives, planning “years” of hearings on Clinton depredations.
http://billmoyers.com/story/hillary-hatred-revisited/
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