As an Obama supporter and a person who is truly baffled that anyone can muster genuine enthusiasm for Clinton on her own terms (though if she's the nominee I'll be plenty enthused to see her beat whatever paleolithic hairball the Republicans cough up), I wish Matthews would shut the hell up already.
Good gravy, the man's a train wreck! The only rational explanation for his continued mouth-diarrhea about Clinton is that he actually wants her to win the primary and is doing his best to make her opponents seem like misogynist knuckle-draggers. A move like Romney's anti-Mormon push polling.
The only problem with that analysis is that such jiu-jitsu requires a metric ton more intelligence than Matthews ordinarily manifests. So I'm left to the conclusion that there simply is no rational explanation for his continued dipshittery, just some deep-seated loathing for Hillary Clinton that probably comes from his own unrecognized humiliation at having been a part of the two year journalistic search party down Bill Clinton's pants that put us directly in the hell we've enjoyed for the last seven.
My advice below still stands, though-he should simply be ignored. Changing your vote because a pundit pisses you off is totally irrational.
(Note: This post appeared in an early form as a comment to this post over at the group news blog-I was so taken with my prose I reposted it here)
Update: Kos put all of this into a tidy package that pretty well sums up my thoughts.
3 comments:
Not so irrational. I liked all the Dems., well all but Gravel, and would happily vote for any of them.
But, after a full year, I couldn't decide among Clinton, Edwards & Obama. Then Obama started attacking Hillary using right-wing memes like Andrew Sullivan's generation-hating stuff (if it weren't for baby boomers who fought in the 60's Obama wouldn't be in a position to run for Presidentt) and ended with that smirky "your're nice enough". Edwards also put his foot in it.
So, I needed an overpowering reason to choose A vs. B. vs. C. The media's misogyny is as good as any.
But you aren't describing the media's misogyny. You are describing Obama's or Edwards's treatment of Clinton. If you can't find enough difference between the candidates to make a decision, you should look harder-there are differences. The media's attitudes should be irrelevant-they aren't running.
Also, in (partial) defense of Sullivan: I don't think there's any reason to hate baby boomers, but I do think there is reason to fear and reason to seek to avoid a repeat of the nonsense of the 1990's. The attacks on Clinton were ridiculous and awful, but they were a reality and I don't think any of us want to see a return to that. It's not entirely fair to Hillary Clinton, but being fair to her is far less important to me than what's in the best interest of the country-and going back to those battles is decidedly for the worse.
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