The NY Times editors endorsed Hillarity! in 2008, eventually prompting a mini-revolt in the newsroom, which backed Obama. But there won't be any equivocation this time around - the NY Times delivers a comically uncritical "assessment" of one of the themes of Hillarity! 2016:
Clinton ’16 Would Give Gender More of a Role Than Clinton ’08 Did
I know what you're thinking - short of a videotape of her giving birth to Chelsea, how could Hillary possibly give gender an even greater role next time around? Well, that thought simply proves that, like me, you aren't smart enough to work for the NY Times.
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The last time Hillary Rodham Clinton ran for president, she seemed torn over whether to emphasize her chance to make history, or to play down her gender and reassure voters that she was tough enough for the job.
This time there is no question: Mrs. Clinton’s potential to break what she has called “the highest and hardest glass ceiling” is already central to her fledgling 2016 presidential campaign.
...
And some of her longest-serving advisers are open about their intention not to repeat what they see as one of their most crucial mistakes from the 2008 primaries.
Ann Lewis, a senior adviser in that race, called the decision not to accentuate Mrs. Clinton’s gender — which ceded the mantle of barrier-breaker entirely to Barack Obama — the “biggest missed opportunity” of that primary contest. “It was not a major theme of the campaign,” Ms. Lewis said.
Not a major theme? What campaign are they remembering? Surely not the one reported on by Katharine Q. Seelye, who wrote this in May 2008 (yes, that was in the late innings for Hillary):
Live Blogging the Kentucky, Oregon Races
11:25 p.m. | Wrap Up: One big message from the night: Senator Clinton is increasingly playing the gender card to make her case. Her speech showed that her message is partly aspirational, that she is fighting to break the highest and hardest glass ceiling. It is also based in sexism, she says, that misogyny is alive and well in 21st Century America.
And here is David Brooks, writing in January 2008 before it all slipped away for Hillarity!:
But Clinton’s real problem is that she is caught in a trap, which you might call The Identity Trap.
Both Clinton and Obama have eagerly donned the mantle of identity politics. A Clinton victory wouldn’t just be a victory for one woman, it would be a victory for little girls everywhere. An Obama victory would be about completing the dream, keeping the dream alive, and so on.
Yes, and Hillary lost that duel of Affirmative Action hires. But Our Man Brooks presciently explained precisely why the gender card will be played hard again:
Fair enough. The problem is that both the feminist movement Clinton rides and the civil rights rhetoric Obama uses were constructed at a time when the enemy was the reactionary white male establishment. Today, they are not facing the white male establishment. They are facing each other.
All the rhetorical devices that have been a staple of identity politics are now being exploited by the Clinton and Obama campaigns against each other. They are competing to play the victim. They are both accusing each other of insensitivity. They are both deliberately misinterpreting each other’s comments in order to somehow imply that the other is morally retrograde.
All the habits of verbal thuggery that have long been used against critics of affirmative action, like Ward Connerly and Thomas Sowell, and critics of the radical feminism, like Christina Hoff Sommers, are now being turned inward by the Democratic front-runners.
But in 2016 Hillary (barring a rebellion in the Democratic ranks) will be facing a tedious white Republican male, so we can plan about hearing about all sexism all the time. The odds are slim that the poor guy will also be richer than Hillary and Bill, so the good news is we won't have to listen to talk about the rich white Republican candidate.
The NY Times really drills down on a few other points:
But rather than the assertive feminism associated with her years as first lady, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign message will be subtler. It will involve frequent references to being a mother and grandmother and to how her family has inspired her to embrace policies that she believes would help middle-class families.
As one Democrat close to her put it, voters have learned that she is tough; now she can also present herself as a sensitive candidate capable of nurturing the nation at a difficult time.
When did she prove she was tough? As to the nation needing nurturing, is there anything at all I can do - and I am begging now - to avoid having to spend two years listening to how I should sit in Granma Hillary's lap and tell her my troubles?
More hard-hitting journalism:
Mrs. Clinton’s advisers believe that her four years as secretary of state have only burnished her image as a leader and erased whatever doubts may have lingered about her experience and gravitas.
I'm sure the report that her advisers believe that (or at least, want the Times to print it and play along) is accurate, but does anyone at the Times want to lend a voice to alternative viewpoints? Evidently not.
I am not sure how a survey of the current world scene lends support to the notion that Hillary was an effective Secretary of State. But let's take a specific example.
Back in March 2011 Hillary got credit as being instrumental in persuading her boss to ignore Congress and undertake a more kinetic action against Qadaffi. Now, sort of like in Iraq, we have a situation where the US helped knock out an unsavory dictator with no serious plan for the post-liberation administration. And, again sort of like in Iraq, Libya has become a breeding ground and safe haven for ISIS and other terrorists groups. So even setting aside the Benghazi debacle, in which part of that process did Hillary show the sort of judgment and restraint we might hope to see in a President?
And do let me add - unlike Iraq, where Bush doubled down with the 2007 surge and created an opportunity (subsequently squandered by US and Iraqi leaders) for stability, neither Hillary nor Obama seem to be accepting any responsibility at all for events in Libya.
Oops, sexist! And racist. My apologies.
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