The cleavage registered after only a quick glance. No scrunch-faced scrutiny was necessary. There wasn't an unseemly amount of cleavage showing, but there it was. Undeniable.With Givhan going first on the cleavage story (just mail her Pulitzer to her now), all the other news outlets felt empowered to report on the "controversy" about Givhan's original story. In my opinion, this is an important moment for the mainstream media. The media finally has a gender hook about Hillary that can be interpreted as making her look bad. Actually, the implicit title for the Givhan article is "Hillary Dresses in Bad Taste."
Feminists tend to see this as "focusing on women's bodies" rather than their ideas, character, or experience. But I think what Givhan and her fellow reporters are doing is more insidious. Reporters personally dislike Hillary Clinton just as much as they disliked John Kerry or Al Gore. Or Bill Clinton for that matter. If reporters think of the religious right as too weird to take seriously, they tend to think of Democratic leaders as pretentious stuffed shirts. Or blouses in the case of Hillary Clinton. For the media, the Democrats are not the kind of guys or women you'd want to have a beer or sip a latte with, and they've gone out of their way to pose Republican candidates as fun guys to be with.
John Harward of the Wall Street Journal gets out some of this hostility to the Democrats in his defense of Givhan's story on Meet the Press. Not the comparison with the widely despised Barry Bonds.
When you look ... at the calculation that goes into everything that Hillary Clinton does, for her to argue that she was not aware of what she was communicating by her dress is like Barry Bonds saying he though he was rubbing down with flaxseed oil . . .Getting to the nitty-gritty, what the mainstream media is trying to do is strip Hillary Clinton down to a symbolic nakedness and "expose" her to the world as an unappealing human being--not the kind of person you'd want to look up to as your president. The underlying idea here is to pose the presidential election of 2008 as a contest between a manly, Reaganesque Republican and a "shrew" or "a bitch" if the Democrat is Hillary Clinton. Of course, the media has been murmuring about Hillary as a "polarizing" figure all along, but they haven't found any kind of hook for illustrating the supposedly unattractive characteristics that make her polarizing. Hillary is "just too damn calculating" for them.
In this context, the cleavage story is the media's first real shot at bringing Hillary Clinton to life as the "Madame Defarge" figure referred to by Chris Matthews.
But it doesn't work.
If anything, the little bit of cleavage tends to confound the memes of Hillary as too smart for her own good, overly calculating, unseemly in her ambition, and too masculine in general. When the media wolves started feeding on the minor exposure of her "female parts," Hillary looked like she was sharing a problem with large numbers of other American women. In other words, she looked like a sympathetic figure.
Not that this failure will stop the media from searching for new illustrations of their stereotypes.
But for this time: Hillary-1, Media stereotypers-0
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9 comments:
The media's strange disdain and hatred of Dems is always baffling to me. Like Bob Somersby points out at the Daily Howler, this is the media's fault. They were the ones who mis-reported Gore's statements and positions and put this clown in the White House. They were the tools of the Swift Boat campaign.
Personal disdain shouldn't outweigh the incompetent boobery which they see everyday! For instance, in Peter Galbraith's book on Iraq, he tells of the CBO inquiring of the administration in 2003 about the procurement processes of the CPA. The Bushies told them to go bite air, since the CPA was an international organization and, thus, not under the control of Congress! Why did I read this story in 2007, instead of 2004. the Executive Branch set up the CPA, hired and fired its staff, announced its goals, and disbanded at its whim in 2004. But, the people writing checks so their political appointees could waste them, are told to piss up a rope??
What irritates me is that the morons in the press are the ones who worship Rudy Guiliani and Fred Thompson, but go out of their way to take shots at Edwards, Obama, or Senator Clinton! Did you know Romney spent $300 of campaign money on make-up? I read tha tin one place, but don't recall Russert asking about it. it's vitally important when it's Edwards getting a hair cut, but Mitt's rouge is too trivial to mention.
Morons. Democrats will win without them.
Did you know Romney spent $300 of campaign money on make-up? I read tha tin one place, but don't recall Russert asking about it. it's vitally important when it's Edwards getting a hair cut, but Mitt's rouge is too trivial to mention.
Isn't it the Dems that are always saying they aren't upset about the actions of republicans, but the moral hypocrisy? Romney isn't claiming to be the champion of the poor. Edwards is and that makes his perceived lavish spending on his silky mane very entertaining.
The media's strange disdain and hatred of Dems is always baffling to me.
The ability for you to type that sentence and your computer not blow up is truly remarkable. Mr. Gates or Jobs must be making extra resilient CPU's nowadays.
Where you guys not paying attention when Elizabeth Edwards "attacked" Hillary for campaigning too much like a man? You think it was just a coincidence Hillary then flashes some tit on the Senate floor, pushing the limits of the unwritten dress code? You think Hillary didn't plan on getting the press to advertise for free that she has titties, which are usually a pretty fair indicator of womanhood?
It is amazing, the press plays right into your hands and you still howl like bewildered ninnies.
And Bill and Hillary would never smear those that they disagree with, ever. They are as pure as the Virgin Mary.
Since the PW folks have returned with their usual substantive banter (hint: B Moe, any time you refer to a woman's breast as "tits", you're not exactly sounding like the "erudite engineer about Athens" which you so long to be), I thought I'd address the only important comment:
Ef said that the media focused on the Edwards haircut, because he is a poverty champion. Pure tripe. The conservative media and its sycophantic blogging partners highlighted that, but the MSM could give a crap less about that. The MSM is aware one does not have to be poor to champion the poor. The mainstream media in this country is aware that to help the poor, you have to be rich, because no one listens to the poor.
No, the MSM loved the haircut story for the same reason you did: "Edwards is secretly a girl and cares way too much about his looks." He's the "Breck Girl." Hmmm, where did that phrase originate? On the talk show of far right wing loon Laura Ingraham. It's a narrative which has launched a 1000 Chris Matthews shows and been featured on the "Politco.com" a million times, BECAUSE right-wingers sold a bill of goods to the MSM. Just like they did about Gore (he wore earth tones, he said he invented the internet, he claims he found love canal." All are lies or distortions and the first two were initiated by right wingers... Dick Morris for the earth tones and the RNC for the internet, Love Canal was just typical sloppy reporting from Ceci Connolly), and to a lesser extent Kerry.
The MSM is lazy. It likes the story and everything is supposed to fit with that story. Romey is not derided for being a girl, so his make-up is no big deal. Now, if he changed make-up, they'd jump on him, because his story is that he's a flip-flopper (whatever the hell that means).
Oh, that last comment brings out one other main difference: conservatives love that immature name-calling. They loved calling John Kerry a "flip-flopper" and passed out shoes at their convention! Were the Dems passing out empty whiskey bottles in 2000 or faux-coffins for dead American soldiers?
Personally, I think that "he's a fip-flopper" charge was stupid re: Kerry, just like I do about Romney. Kevin Drum, a liberal blogger (and a damn good one), yawned at Romney's make-up story. Greenwald never mentioned it. No lefty I could find even cared about it. Cons love these sorts of wussie boy stories and libs don't care.
I've waiting a long time to say this: but welcome back trolls. It's good to see come strong with typical drivel.
For the wonderful PW collective, I found this great article in Rolling Stonehttp://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/14096420/the_low_post_the_return_of_evil_campaign_journalism
Corrected link
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/14096420/the_low_post_the_return_of_evil_campaign_journalism
"Were the Dems passing out empty whiskey bottles in 2000..."
Of course not, they were full. Who the fuck wants an empty whiskey bottle? No wonder you retards keep losing elections.
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