Melissa McEwen & Maureen McCluskey: The Left's Campaign Against Hillary Clinton

by Damozel | The Guardian has an excellent two-part piece by Melissa McEwen and Maureen McCluskey, in which they track the ways in which Clinton's opponents recycled all the old anti-Hillary slurs formerly flung at her by the right.  Led by certain members of the Church of Lord Kos, supporters of Obama dug up out of the back garden the whole slop jar of gratuitous and frequently sexist insults. 

In a complete 180-degree turn, the same members of the left who had once defended Clinton against the attacks of the right wing - the trumped-up scandals and dug-up dirt that led to endless hours and millions upon millions of dollars wasted in fruitless investigations of the Clintons, their business dealings, their friends, not to mention the peculiar features of Bill's twig and berries - adopted the frames of those attacks as their own. Everything old was new again. Call it political retro chic..... By April, the blogfather Kos himself was agreeing that Clinton wasn't even to be considered a Democrat anymore. (The Guardian, part 1)

I'm assumed by some to be a secret Hillary bitter-ender because I won't stop talking about this. Not so -- I certainly, as a Democrat, intend to vote for  Obama.  But the attacks on Hillary from my fellow Democrats on the far left, and their blind advocacy of Obama --whom they now decry because he doesn't share all their views ---shocked and disgusted me.

Those who expect me to move on past my outrage will just have to go on expecting.  I will let it go as soon as the members of the far left who egged on, enabled, or led the attacks acknowledge that they were so caught up in their desire to 'help' Obama --- because I think all the evidence shows that it has had the opposite effect --- that they engaged in tactics that would make Karl Rove blush.  And --- as the article says --- without irony. 

Throughout the course of the Democratic primary, it was neatly repackaged as "wildly ambitious person who will do anything in her voracious quest to win including destroying the Democratic Party while cackling monstrously and whose womanness totally doesn't matter we swear." The classic misogynist charge once used against Clinton by the vast right-wing conspiracy became the rallying cry of large swaths of the erstwhile reality-based community.(The Guardian, part 1)

Did they know that's what they were doing?  Did they tell themselves that the end --- securing the nomination for the Progressive God Who Walks Among Us --- justified the means? 

The real irony to me was that the framing of Obama as a revolutionary thinker who would support and further their progressive goals was --- as anyone who bothered to check would have seen --- false advertising.  While there's no doubt that Obama 'flip-flopped', as they say, on FISA, most of the positions he's espoused that have so upset the more left-leaning side of the party are completely consistent with his past positions. 

He may or may not have deliberately tried to pass for a progressive during the campaign --- my colleague thinks yes; I think so only with respect to NAFTA ---but it was the people who leaped on the bandwagon because he had a good line in rhetoric who were foremost in contrasting his charisma, vision, etc. etc. with the counterfeit Hillary they manufactured out of the old right-wing rhetoric for the purpose of sticking their pins into it.

McEwen in particular kept a careful watch on the misogynist language being used to turn Hillary into every frightening female archetype in human history, including -- or perhaps especially -- that teacher back in 5th grade who made you draw a circle on the blackboard and stand for an hour with your nose in it.  I wonderingly tracked some of the overblown and exaggerated rhetoric being used to color her castrating in a series of blog posts called 'She Thicks Men's Blood with Cold' (after a line from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.)  At Shakesville, she prepared an extensive list of sexist slurs levelled at Hillary, the 'Hillary Sexism Watch.' 

But the misogyny, though distressing, wasn't the only thing that distressed me.  It was the frothy, furious, spittle-drenched denunciations of the Senator from New York that bore no relation --- none at all --- to the real Hillary, with her long and consistent history of service to women, the poor, and African Americans.  No allegation against her was too absurd to be believed or to produce that special category of faked-up 'outrage' that the far right has always done so well.

In Part 2 of the Piece, McEwen and McCluskey detail more of the shameful character assassination used by Democrats against both Hillary and Bill Clinton.

So yes, I remain outraged and no --- I don't intend to 'let it go.' It's not a question of whether these attacks did, or did not, have a bearing on the final outcome of the election, but on what it means that they were made at all.

Yes, I am aware that some Hillary supporters are now attempting to 'even the score' by being as vicious against Obama as his supporters were against Hillary.   I do not approve. 

But I also do not agree, and I will never concede, that the chronicle of so-called 'attacks' on Obama by the Clinton campaign or ---during most of the primaries --- by Clinton's supporters ever reached the level of fury, absurdity and flat-out falsification as the attacks on Clinton.

That  many of Hillary's former supporters have chosen to ignore her stated wishes and are insisting on carrying a grudge straight into the general election saddens me, but does not surprise me.  It took a lot of bullying, bluster, and bluff on the part of certain of of Obama's supporters to bring them to this pitch of bitterness.  I hope they will change their minds and recognize that punishing Obama for the actions of his supporters is a bad choice compared to punishing the GOP for foisting the Bush Administration on us and enabling him for so long, or rejecting John McCain as its self-proclaimed heir.

But as to why they are angry?  Please. At least before you bash and dismiss them, read the shameful chronicle of attacks on Hillary, as a Clinton, as a woman, and as a Democrat.

It consoles me to know that some of those most vitriolic against her, and who spent so much time digging up old scandals and 'discovering' that the GOP was right after all,  are now asking themselves whether perhaps they should have spent more time looking into the beliefs and policies of the candidate they chose.

The first section of the article is here; the second, here.

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Comments

[Marlon Millner]

What?

You can't get over it? Now a left-wing conspiracy killed Hillary's campaign?

(sigh)

Maybe we ought to remember one sober thing Bill Clinton (who I think is a genius politician, even if politician is the operative word) said from the primaries when Obama did complain about the attacks (wrongly) from the Clinton camp -- that politics is a full contact sport.

I think sexism is a bit too easy to throw around here. No doubt, calling Hillary names that would be degrading to any woman (whore, et. al.) is sexist, disgusting and deplorable.

But engaging in full contact politics with her is no more sexist than it is racist with Obama. The certainly is nothing morally sacrosanct about politics. All's fair in love and war, and we know damn well that racism and sexism is part of the legitimate fair play and the foul in this sport.

But that wasn't what concerned many about Hillary. Her voting for the Iraq war concerned many. Her saying she would obliterate Iran concerned many. Her sleepless faux paux about sniper fire in Bosnia concerned many. Her saying she would not be a member of Wright's church (she's not a many of any damn church, and don't give me that crap about some church in Arkansas. you act like church is a grade school you went to YEARS ago) but she and her husband had good, well-documented relations with Wright and other black preachers of his ilk. And no one questioned this supposed "commitment" to black folks, unless you want a friendship with Maya Angelou, who wrote "On the Pulse of the Morning," and welfare reform, mandatory minimums in sentencing, and empowerment zones (which were Jack Kemp's enterprise zones refried) and Lani Guinier's failed nomination for attorney general to count as progressive policy towards the African American electorate.

I mean where is this support supposedly based on? Pro bono work at the Rose Law Firm? Some stellar Senate record. Her record is no more stellar than John Kerry's -- just shorter.

Again -- it's politics, remember? Of the buttnaked variety.

Please note, no mention of scandals, conspiracy theories or the Drudge Report. To think that people can only use Fox News gutter commentary to make a decision on why NOT to vote for Hillary is ridiculous.

So, if you're so right and so NOT over it, I guess you and all those other hard working Americans, white Americans in her base can do the non-sexist, non-racist, morally progressive thing and vote for John McCain right!?

LOL.

[damozel]

You clearly didn't read my piece if that's what you concluded from it. I said that I support Obama. I do. I would CUT OFF MY ARM before I would vote for McCain.

I think you read the first paragraph, jumped to conclusions, and performed the usual 'favor' that Obama supporters perform: insulting people who you assume don't agree with you without bothering to try to understand why they feel the way they do. Good job 'supporting' the Senator. As you say, 'LOL.'

[slag]

I hate to say it, but Obama supporters have more than our share of miseries to wallow in as well. Most of them came straight from Hillary's mouth, however...not from some idiot no-name bloggers.

[Marlon Millner]

My friend, raised by "mammies" in South Carolina, I did read the post, and I read parts ONE and TWO of the Guardian (UK) blog you cited.

What I fundamentally disagree with -- ultimately -- is that Hillary got bashed by some conspiracy of progressives rehashing controversies and conspiracies from the 90s, whether it be Daily Kos remixed Drudge Report. No matter what is going on in the blogsphere (your blog included). Those "everyday" folks who Hillary said she had in her back pocket -- they do know how to make up their own minds without stumbling over your nude politics.

You do want it buttnaked style, right?

I'm not doing what Obama supporters do, unless you mean to refer to folks who are not blindly loyal, are not wedded to one party or the other and truly feel that Obama is a rare breed who inspires people to do unprecedented things.

I could vote Republican -- I mean I voted for Bill -- twice. He's no Al Gore.

I was excited about politics when Clinton ran, I was interested, but I was not inspired. It's funny, I was younger when he was president and it was clear he had many failures (much bigger than infidelity to his wife) in his first term, salvaged by a mediocre candidate, and a pivot towards the center. It's only going back and looking closely that you see how "political" Clinton's two terms were, as opposed to progressive, if progressives are these rabid flesheaters, attacking Billary now -- well they learned from the best.

There wasn't much progressive in Bill's eight years. Master politician -- ABSOLUTELY. Genius at political gamesmanship -- no doubt -- he's ALL STAR.

Change agent -- doubt it.

If that's a conspiracy theory -- so be it. But Clinton birthed the Bush "compassionate conservatism" with the religious initiatives at HUD and other departments under his tenure, and other debacles (don't ask don't tell, and things from my first post). Interesting, you would rather straw man me as one of those Obamaniacs rather than deal with the substance of my comments.

NONE of that is attributable to Hillary, of course, except the fact that we all know she cannot make the case for president merely on being a one-term senator who won a election and re-election where she was a shoo in -- (sounds too much like Obama, right?)

So, my point is to disagree with the core of your argument about sexism and conspiracy theories drowning Hillary like some woman in Salem in the 1600s.

This is not The Crucible.

It's like you think you ought to go back to South Carolina and just on the testimony that you learned more from you mammies than yo mama that Negroes ought to vote for you. That's Clintonian symbolic politics at its best!

Oh, I'm sorry, it's BUTTNAKED politics. And Hillary is assed out.

Sarcasm aside -- in brief -- Hillary was in the lead. She was ahead of all those white men, and it was not sexism and conspiracy theories that brought her down. It was not the Daily Kos that killed her. It was not black folks just voting for Obama because he's black (like women voting for vaginas, right?) ... She lost because Obama acquired more votes, more delegates and what everyone agreed to take off the table (Florida and Michigan) could not be put back on the table merely because she failed to kick Obama's butt -- naked.

Go McCain!

Peace.

[Marlon Millner]

And to your point in your email reply about my "mammies" comment about you and not knowing anything. I happen to be an African American and both my grandmothers worked for folks like YOU. I take no comfort in and see nothing progressive, necessarily with your self-description:

Damozel grew up in a South Carolina milltown during the first years of racially integrated schools. She remembers the days when there were separate waiting rooms for African-Americans and was brought up until the age of 14 by impoverished African-American women who had to pick up after her. She was secretly politicized and christianized and Democratized by these same great ladies, which explains almost everything about her politics.

Yeah, all we need is for some liberal white lady to go rescue all those poor black women in South Carolina ... Just like Hillary did in Arkansas, right? Her long legacy of work, which you have cited ... all the legislation she has passed, right?

Go Sabellius!

[Marlon Millner]

I'm not engaged in knee-jerk bigotry.

That's such a lame word. What many of the accidental folks you know in South Carolina do -- what they do is bigotry. What I do is commentary, niggerati style (ala Zora Neal Hurston), sarcasm and satire, but not antics. So don't self-righteously suggest you're the non-racist here. Anglo-neo-liberalism is as racist as Jesse Helms in its supposed self-righteousness that it is not.

What you FAIL to realize is you think, you presume, you purport to be saying something meaningful, something progressive, I guess, by couching your biography as you did -- as a bunch of accidents you have managed to overcome. You got black friends too, don't you!

And you put on the web, so obviously if you want people to know more about you, put more up there. In fact put SOMETHING up there, rather than nothing.

You have not said a damn thing about what exactly Hillary has done to be in on the right-side of issues for African Americans -- but you threw it out there.

And if all your accidents (where you were born, what socially-constructed race you are, what privilege your race gave you in a certain historical era) are just accidents -- why not talk about what you're doing ON PURPOSE.

I read two blogs in the Guardian (UK) about somebody angry about Obama's supposed rabid blogggers, like Daily Kos -- out to kill Billary, with B standing for something derogatory. Did Obama seek these bloggers' support? I'm not representing Obama. I'm representing myself. What, bloggers are now the propagandist machine of Obama that brought Hillary down?

Please.

And I'm not trying to one-up you in saying I'm from the oppressed (when did I ever claim to be oppressed?). When did I claim that my grandmothers were oppressed? I said they cleaned white folks houses and THEY DID. Those are facts, not damn accidents.

It's interesting, you have socially designated me as being from the "oppressed" group and you from the "oppressor" group. That's a telling way you with your progressive self have identified me. I'm oppressed and yet I'm a bigot. I guess bigotry is not institutional racism and white supremacy, it is just I don't like those white folks, right? It's just personal bias.

LOL ... clearly your accidental birth is showing in all its splendor now.

I'm not and they are not "oppressed." I am however is NOT IMPRESSED by you citing your accidents like they automatically give you some street cred.

THEY DON'T.

That's the same symbolic politics that had Bill playing the sax, and Hillary drinking shots and talking about taking some with her granddaddy's gun as a child. Anything to APPEAR to be down.

And whatever your progressive agenda is you can't possibly look at how Hillary pandered to just about every non-progessive voter, who hell yes, does cling to guns and religion, and then tell me something about how dissatisfied you are with Obama. What progressive ideas were at the forefront of her campaign -- universal healthcare? Really? What else?

Name the bold, progressive policies she was advocating while huckstering on the back of pick-up trucks, trying to pick up the "working-class, non-college educated white" vote in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Indiana.

Oh, I'm sorry, she was going to progressively obliterate Iran if they mess with Israel. That's progressive ... let's progressively conquer the Arab and Middle Eastern world, and turn it into the .

While she was engaging those "accidental" people, what progressive values was she espousing. I know I would not have heard about it in the Daily Kos, because they were out to flog her, Salem style right?

Go Michael Moore!

[Mister]

You're not appointed to do anything ... that would be right. You finally said something that was right.

You're pissed that sexism was supposedly engaged in by the liberal left on Obama's behalf, though Obama is not as liberal or progressive, or whatever as his supposed attack dogs on Hillary would have hoped.

You're going to vote for Obama, but you're not over this great, vast, left-wing conspiracy to oust her and call her all kinds of bad girl names.

And you OWE it to the black maids who made you what you are today to say they christianized, politicized and democraticized you, while cooking your meals and cleaning up your mess. So you pay this DEBT by writing a blog defending Hillary and claiming she's done so much for the black race, although you don't have time to cite what obviously are numerous examples of her fight to live beyond ya'lls shared legacy as progeny of the "OPPRESSOR."

Sorry I'm pissed, or is it pissing on your progressive line of thinking here. Oops, that might have been a sexist remark. Put me on trial like R. Kelly!

Look, if you don't like the sarcasm and lampooning I am doing of your lack of substantive argument, write something substantive. Cite some legislation, name some policies.

But as long you continued to be merely pissed ... how should one write a post about you being pissed off that Hillary got dissed in blogsphere?

It's a non-substantive issue, which doesn't deserve more than what I'm going it.

Dubya -- give me fo mo!