For the Haters

So, I don't know who I'm going to vote for. But I do find the Hilary hate mongering both interesting and ultimately offensive/depressing. So does Stanley Fish, apparently. He wrote an editorial recently considering why people hate Hilary ("All You Need Is Hate" Feb. 3). Of course all the rabid people who do hate her freaked on him, so he wrote another piece: "A Calumny a Day to Keep Hilary Away" (Feb. 10). ("Hate Springs Eternal" (Feb. 11), by Paul Krugman, is also interesting on this topic -- Hilary's created a genre! Or at least, her haters have.)

In "Calumny" Fish cites many of the comments he received on the original piece; here's one of my particular favorites:

“What I find most disturbing is the amount of hatred spewed at Hillary by those who are so much like her … It is very odd. Is it really self-hate?”

Good point, caller. I like the critique of women and/or baby boomers and/or liberals and/or name-your-categorization-here, mixed with the pop-psychoanalysis. Really, I do like it. Is this self-hate? Certainly the vitriolic force of it seems out of the boundary of your everyday contempt or disregard for politicians. Hatred of self, however, or of those who remind us of ourselves, knows few bounds.

While I find Fish's observation that yes, women too can be sexist (no kidding) condescendingly stated, the point is quite prescient. This does not mean that men are not equally or more sexist regarding H. but certainly all of the discussion I've heard about her, from men and women alike, has focused on her personality rather than her policies. Or on her husband's politics and/or personality, which apparently she is responsible for, like any good wife.

Another nice observation from Fish, responding to many of his respondents' "concerns" about the Democrats' chances (add "Democrat" to that list above):

[T]he Clintons have had the bad taste to undergo the assassination of their characters in public and have thereby made us its unwilling spectators. This is of course the old ploy of blaming the victim, and Ava Mae Lewis (16) is at least explicit about it. After deploring the “wild accusations” and “rabid hate”, she declares herself “disappointed that the Clintons force us to make this final and public rejection.”

In other words, by being the targets of unwarranted attacks — that is their crime, being innocent–the Clintons are putting us in the uncomfortable position of voting against them for reasons we would rather not own up to. How dare they? Given the fierceness of the opposition to her candidacy, why doesn’t Hillary do the decent thing and withdraw? “What bothers me about Hillary is that she must know this, yet she apparently thinks so much of herself, or wants to be president so badly, that she’s willing to risk compromising the Democrats’ chances of winning in November to stay in the race” (Matthew, 440). How inconsiderate of her both to want to be president and to persist in her quest in the face of calumny.

Indeed, Stanley, indeed. The campaign against Hilary is really beyond the point of rhetorical strategy: it's obscene, it's depressing, and it implicates everyone who actively or passively perpetuates it, by composition, by repetition and regurgitation, or by uncritical acceptance.

By the way, I swear I will talk about plumbing tomorrow.