posted by Damozel |
"Why do you even read her?" a colleague recently asked. "You can't agree with her. I don't get it."
I doubt I could explain my Althouse love so that Atlhouse-haters would be satisfied. I also love Christopher Hitchens, Andrew Sullivan, P.J. O'Rourke, Joe Klein, and many, many others with whom I don't necessarily agree on everything, or much, or anything. Perhaps, like Hitchens, I'm a contrarian, or maybe I just get easily bored reading people I already agree with. While I get terribly annoyed with Althouse, I still go on reading her blog on a regular basis.
I sometimes think Althouse isn't always completely serious, and then sometimes I think she is. Now that she's posting a "vlog," I suppose I will eventually find out, but I am strangely reluctant to switch to Althouse live. I suppose I must be afraid that I'll be disillusioned in some unspecified way---that she'll have a voice like Minnie Mouse or one of those Wisconsin accents that pronounces "law" "lah."
At any rate, those people who enjoyed the recent ruckus over Hillary's V-neck may similarly relish the following:
Just in case anyone thinks I am being ironic in focusing on these pieces, let me say at the outset that I actually agree with Althouse that this topic matters, if only because it's one that (like it or not) gets people strangely worked up.
IN WHICH Althouse responds to some angry letters written by WaPo readers in response to Robin Givhan's infamous column about Hillary's low-cut top. Excerpt:
[LETTER] Robin Givhan's attempts to turn Hillary Clinton's choice of a scoop-necked shirt on a hot day in the District into social commentary failed miserably. Givhan crossed the line by suggesting that the shirt revealed Clinton's changing comfort level with her sexuality....
[RESPONSE] The "hot day" explanation is quite silly. The Capitol building clearly must be air-conditioned to the point where all the men are comfortable in suits and in no danger of sweating, so there is no way the low-cut top was serving an important summertime physical need. In any case, Clinton was wearing a jacket too. How desperately hot could she have been? Is cleavage some special heat vent?
Heee hee hee heeee....okay, sorry. There were more of them. You'll want to check them all out.
IN WHICH Althouse responds to the Ruth Marcus response to Givhan's article. Excerpt:
Marcus is clear that cleavage distracts viewers into sexual thinking and that a politician giving a serious speech should not reveal it. On that firm foundation, she builds the argument that Clinton bumbled. It was mistake. A miscalculation from a woman who is continually called calculating? A very wealthy woman who must have people helping her dress? I think women -- unless they are inept or don't care what people think -- know how much of their breasts are showing! The suggestion that Hillary Clinton of all people did not know is beyond absurd.
So let's go back to Marcus's firm foundation -- that cleavage distracts viewers into sexual thinking and that a politician giving a serious speech should not reveal it -- and build something else. Hillary Clinton deliberately crossed a well-understood line, because she'd calculated that it was in her interest to do so. As Marcus notes, Clinton had just received criticism from Elizabeth Edwards for being insufficiently womanly. Hillary wanted to prod us -- subtly, with a small and deniable amount of cleavage -- to think of her as more feminine.
Possibly---or possibly one of these "people helping her dress" wanted to accomplish this. I don't have quite Althouse's stringent views on the inappropriateness of cleavage. Furthermore, I know from experience that a blouse that looks all right when you try it on in front of a mirror can experience "slippage." But I, unlike Ann Althouse, am not capable of guessing what was in Hillary's mind. If such was her intention, I don't actually have a problem with it.
Women have much more freedom than men do. Along with this benefit of more freedom comes more room for personal expression. We can adjust what we wear to express as little as possible. A female politician can wear a dark "Dress For Success" suit if she wants, and then, like the men, she's not saying much. But if she does more, we shouldn't say oh, that's nothing, as Marcus would like. We should talk about it!
Yes, let's! Breast talk = legitimate feminist discourse as Althouse pointed out somewhere in the comments to one of her posts. In addition, breast talk = girl talk. I'm all for both.
IN WHICH Althouse offers some clearly necessary advice to female law students; i.e., if people can tell you're braless, don't. But she says it more colorfully, of course.
IN WHICH Althouse discusses an article about Fred Thompson's attractive spouse, Jeri, which talked a lot about breasts, proving that they matter. Her comments are choice, suggesting that she---Althouse, not Jeri Thompson, who is quite famous for her displays of breastitude--- is deeply ambivalent about the place of breasts in political discourse.
If you go read the whole article, you'll see an amazing proportion of it is about Jeri Thompson's breasts! There are even a few paragraphs on the subject of Hillary Clinton's recently exposed cleavage. This is a great demonstration of the power of breasts. Here's this woman who is apparently behind the entire candidacy and campaign for one of the frontrunners and people can barely start talking about her without getting derailed onto the subject of her breasts. Talk about caught in the headlights! The dazzling glare is disabling. Focus people. Who is this woman? What is she doing? And does she have a plan to become President too?
She doesn't rip on J. Thompson for this display, which disappointed me, since she roughed up Hillary a bit.
But of course she dislikes Hillary while rather liking Thompson so I suppose she couldn't find it in her heart to add her voice to his wife's detractors. After all, she found Thompson's "sonorous" voice mesmerizing and his appearance "presidential" here and here. She even defended him from criticism that he was "leering" at his wife. That is to say, she thinks "leering" is probably unmannerly, even between spouses if done in public, but concludes that Thompson's accusers were projecting.
For the record, I didn't think he was leering either. I thought he looked---justifiably, most men would probably say---irritatingly smug, which is why people imagined him leering.
IN WHICH Althouse asks her readers to consider an article on "on the way the mind is affected on a subliminal level by things that have nothing to do with what you think you're thinking about."
"Read the whole thing," she commands her readers, "And wake up to the manipulation that's all around you."
And finally, my favorite, all about Nancy Pelosi's so-called "cleavage reveal."
Come on, ladies! We can do it! We can defend Hillary from cruel prying eyes and incisive analysis of the Washington Post fashion columnist!
The 57 horrifyingl/hilarious comments which follow this post are alone worth the out-click.
BONUS ALTHOUSE: If for no other reason, I'd love her a little for her comments on Dennis Miller: O'Reilly versus Chris Dodd.
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