Haven’t We Heard This Voice Before? Frank Rich

[groovedaddy]

SHE had me at “Well, that hurts my feelings.”

One cliché about Hillary Clinton is true. For whatever reason — and it’s no crime — the spontaneous, outgoing person who impresses those who meet her offstage often evaporates when she steps into the public spotlight. But in the crucial debate before the New Hampshire primary, the private Clinton popped out for the first time in the 2008 campaign. She parried a male inquisitor’s questioning of her likability by being, of all things, likable.

Not only did Mrs. Clinton betray some (but not too many) hurt feelings with genuine humor, she upped the ante by flattering Barack Obama as “very likable.” Which prompted the Illinois senator to match Mrs. Clinton’s most human moment to date with the most inhuman of his own. To use family-newspaper language, he behaved like a jerk — or, to be more precise, like Rick Lazio, the now-forgotten adversary who cleared Mrs. Clinton’s path to the Senate by boorishly waving a paper in her face during a 2000 debate.

Mr. Obama’s grudging “You’re likable enough, Hillary” made him look like “an ex-husband that was turning over the alimony check,” in the formulation of Paul Begala, a Clinton backer. The moment stood in stark contrast to Mr. Obama’s behavior in the corresponding debate just before the Iowa caucuses. There he raised his head high to defend Joe Biden’s honor when Mr. Biden was questioned about his tic of spouting racial malapropisms.

Whatever the precise impact of the incessant video replays of Mr. Obama’s condescension or of Mrs. Clinton’s later quasi tears, Tuesday’s vote speaks for itself. In her 2.6 percentage-point, 7,500-vote victory, Mrs. Clinton beat Mr. Obama among women voters by 12 percentage points only five days after he carried them by 5 points in Iowa. As we reopen the gender wars, let’s not forget that it’s 2008, not 1968. There are actually some men who are offended by sexist male behavior too. Or by the female misogyny exemplified by the South Carolina woman who asked John McCain in November, “How do we beat the bitch?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/opinion/13rich.html?th&emc=th