"Until I saw her on The View, I doubted that Hillary had any WTF in her. Maybe she doesn't. If she does, she better start showing it because seeming calculating and consultant-driven is the sure way not to become President."

The very idea that Hillary is having a 10 year old book re-released so that she can campaign 'unannounced' analogous to Obama with his book, means her appearance on The View was anything BUT..WTF. She is shooting herself in the foot, talking about a 'momma' in the WH.

 "Is it only his persona that is WTF and not his policies"

Obama is just himself. He is effortlessly congenial and capable of in-depth analysis while being totally relaxed. That is how he is. It is called self-assurance or being comfortable in one's own skin.

Hillary is always angling...she constantly is evaluating 'the effect' of what she is saying will have rather than speaking from her heart. On the View she was addressing her personal issues as a female, wife and mother...so she exuded the same self-assurance you see in Obama, because she knows she has done an exemplary job raising Chelsea, under the most trying circumstances and public eye she can confidently address the issue without being nuanced. 

She's afraid to appear on Jon Stewart.

Yes. Because she would have to be extemporaneous and witty or could wind up looking totally an 'ass'.  More importantly, she has seen Jon Stewart make others look completely stupid.  It is said that Hillary has an acerbic wit.  Which means she would 9 times out of 10 come across as the supreme bitch engaging in repartee. Unlike Obama...who fired  a back-handed compliment to Stewart's witty 'hype' probe, by responding that only Stewart's show had more hype than him

You bet. I've never forgiven her for making a mess of the health care issue but what I have total contempt for is how she abandoned the issue after she got kicked in the teeth.

One of our party's weaknesses is its unwillingness to keep fighting the battles until we win. That's a mistake the right does not make.

I do give Edwards credit for hanging in there with his two Americas, poverty theme. That's not a particularly popular theme in our cynical era but it's a theme that a progressive party can't abandon without losing its soul.

Would it be too much to ask that this be considered as important as who can come off as more insouciant?

Considering the fact that the news media cares more about horse race than the issues, I would argue these factors are more important. At least if you're interested in considering media and political strategy for 08.

Who would actually make a better President is so old school. 

Dissent Protects Democracy.

Ah, a Buellerian sense of the word. I stand corrected, and thereby rescind my comments.  :-)

Dissent Protects Democracy.

I was at a shopping center where Hillary was appearing during her first book tour and fell into conversation with a man, from South America, who was waiting for his wife who was getting her copy of Hillary's book signed.

I was really struck by the comments this man -- from a culture I've always thought of as much more "macho" than our own -- made about Hillary. He was, like his wife, a fan, and he talked, approvingly, not only about how "powerful" a woman Hillary is but about how important "feminine" power is -- equally important as "masculine" power.

This recognition of, and respect for, uniquely feminine power -- which includes the powerful mother -- may be the reason why some other cultures -- including some that we don't think of being as "advanced" as we are in matters of gender equality -- have had female leaders, while we have not. These cultures recognize, respect, even in some ways stand in awe of, female (maternal) power -- even if they don't see it as the "same" as masculine power.

We, on the other hand, far from respecting and seeing the maternal principle as powerful, confuse the maternal with the infantile. We talk dismissively about "mommies" or sentimentally about "moms" but almost never respectfully about "mothers." And politically we use terms like "mommie wars" and "the mommie party" in ways that are dismissive and derogatory -- even though what is being discussed are essential social issues affecting people's lives on the most basic level.

This misinterpretation of WTF aside I think you make some great points cscs.  HRC comes off as an old school beltway politician with very limited capacity to look at issues other than with a traditional Washington perspective, which invariably comes off cold and calculating.  Obama has not been, for a lack of a better word, "programmed" to take the traditonal Washington endorsed positions.  He comes off as far more genuine, enthusiastic and someone who might attract new (and young) voters to the polls.

And if she shares Lieberman's views of video games I've lost some respect for her, even though I am not young by any stretch...lol. 

I don't know which "View" you were watching, but I thought she did very well. She answered each question good humouredly and was very engaging.

I know the script calls for a relaxed and amusing Obama and an uptight and rehearsed Clinton, but that is simply not the case.

The more comments I read by people who should know better, I might add, about Senator Clinton's appearance on "The View" the more disgusted I become at the silliness of the criticism. This kind of criticism sticks like glue and is all the more appalling because it isn't what she said or did. A case in point is this "mother in chief" comment that she didn't make, but I can guarantee that by tommorow it will be a cultural meme that Senator Clinton "thinks we need a 'Mom' in the White House" and S. Clinton says "she's ready to be the national mom". It's great to see stereotyping reinforced.

I think it's great she said that stuff about being a mom.
I think that resonates.
Also, it's a clever way of reminding people that Obama may be black, but he's still a man, just like the other 43!

As long as we're talking about subjective impressions: something about Edwards rubs me the wrong way, it's like he's trying too hard, too much raw ambition. It may be just that he needs to tone down his act - talking to courtrooms requires more projection than talking to cameras. But often he comes across as a TV drama character instead of a real person.

That said, I am impressed by his continuing focus on poverty. As issues-based presidential campaign is an amazing thing in itself, for a candidate who might actually win the nomination.

"In other words, he does not seem to be measuring every word and gesture,"

 Could it be because his every word/gesture has not been parsed, criticized, attacked by the 24/7 Right Wing Noise Machine? People who knew Hillary from her Arkansas days says she was a lot more spontaneous and open as First Lady of Arkansas. A decade of demonization by the Right Wing Noise Machine as well as their handmaidens in the corporate media and partisan prosecutors has thought her to be extra cautious. Obama has not been subjected to that kind of relentless scrutiny, at least not yet.

 I agree with you though when you say;

"Now I'm not saying that either Barack or Hillary is authentic. I don't know either one."

Too often Washington gasbags (Dowd, Fineman et al) confuse performance with authenticity. Thus politicians like Reagan and Clinton are said to be authentic whereas Gore and Kerry are portrayed as phonies.  Reagan and Clinton were great performers. They were able to"act" natural. Authenticity is a whole other thing. A person can be authentic but appear uncomfortable in public settings.

If she didn't want to reinforce stereotypes, why did she appear on a show that celebrates bitchy women? Was she on before or after Rosie had her orchestrated hissy fit about The Donald's exploitation of or by Miss USA?

The election is a long way away. Let's let Obama, Hillary, Edwards and everyone else do their thing and see what happens. BTW, I saw the clips of Hillary on "The View" and thought she did very well.

I also agree wholeheartedly with Miri11 about the RW noise machine. Anyone who actually knows Hillary says she's funny, charming and warm. But she's been very reluctant to show that side of her publicly because of what she's been subject to, and because I think she's a very private person - more so than the average politician. I'm sure she realizes that if she runs, she'll need to make more voters see her as three-dimensional and not a caricature.

Deleted comment on BEV. Better to ignore the truly inflamed.

MJ you just made me smile :D

Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated.

Have a little more kool-aid. Jeez. You sound like Rush Limbaugh.

With friends like this, the Democrats hardly need enemies.

CSPAN junkies visit http://spannerbackup.ipbhost.com

I'm passionate about two issues: health care and the war. She abandoned the first issue and is wrong on the second. Both the abandonment of the health care issue and the support of the war I believe were expedient decisions.

I have a different outlook on the health care issue. I think it was a big big learnig experience for Hillary. She got completely wiped out, and her response was clearly to study what went wrong and make sure it didn't happen again.

She is politician to know that it would have been suicide to keep fighting that same battle. If she becomes a serious candidate fro Pres.,she will have to re-engage and I'm curious to see how she will re-address this important issue.

I'm "inflamed"? I'm not the one making shit up, YOU are. This is exactly the same thing the media did to Al Gore and not only did the liberal media allow it to happen, they joined in. When readers let the media know they won't stand for reporters making it up as they go along, maybe reporters will stop doing it.

I prefer Edwards as the candidate. I object to Rosenberg's false claims about her. I despise Bush, but that doesn't mean I countenance lies about him either. Distortions are harmful to society and the political system, and we have suffered for it.

I didn't see "The View" but I do remember when Bush went on Oprah in 2000 and how much that supposedly helped him and, of course, Bill Clinton started it all - presidential candidates going on entertainment shows - going on Arsenio Hall and Johnny Carson. I'm not surprised that Hillary Clinton talked about being a mother; thats a predictable script, for sure.

As always, I must be missing some basic tech advice or software, because I see no point in watching videos on the web when EVERY SINGLE ONE I TRY takes twice as long as the stated time to replay, with no continuity and every word stuttered out in an agonizing fit of stops and starts. Any help or suggest6ions on these two probs most appreciated.

This is what happens with me as well. What you have to do is let the video completely load with all the fits and starts. Then the screen will come up and say start again. Click on that. Now the video will play through normally.  I suspect this has something to do with the speed of the modem and the connection not being a steady stream. Not really sure. However, completely loading then clicking 'start again' works.  If there is no 'start again' like on Utube simply push play again.

Women her age and younger seem especially turned off by her and the "choices she's made."

Hmmm, so you are saying she only appeals to women 'over 60' like Elizabeth Dole? Basically, her parents generation?

Yes

I know a lot of liberal professional women who are split on Hillary. Some, like my mother thinks she is a great Senator and can't win, some don't like her and a large group are ready to work for her election for president.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Eliabeth Dole and age.

Baby boom women (born between 1946 and 1964) were the first age cohort to have the opportunities to make it on their own professionally.
After all, "women's lib" -- the era of Friedan, Abzug, Greer, Millet and others -- basically happened in the late 1960's.
Young women suddenly saw that they could make it on their own. (See, for instance, the Mary Tyleer Moore show, 1970-1977).
For women who did, or wish they had, Hillary is a throwback to the age when women could only make it by piggy-backing on their husband's accomplishments like all the 19th and 20th century senators who were appointed to their jobs after their husbands' deaths.
By contrast, today's women senators, governors, etc, are self-made.
Take Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. I don't know who she is married to but, unless her husband was Abe, he was irrelevant to her climb.
Feinstein, Boxer,Mikulski, Snowe, Lowey....the list goes on and on.
Self-made. Not an extension of anyone.
That is why Hillary is a turn-off for boomer women and younger.
For them, she is alot closer to Elizabeth Dole than to Speaker-Elect Nancy Pelosi.
Older women, pre-boomers, are not likely to be as bothered by this.
They never caught a break, and are more sympathetic to Hillary's predicament.
But there are a hell of alot more boomers out there.
Understand my bias here. As I have written before, I prefer candidates who created themselves from nothing. That means Obama or Edwards or Vilsack or Clark. (I may have left out a few).
Self-made matters to me.

All true about Hillary, but we never would have heard about here were it not due to her husband's position.
Women who make it because they married well are often more talented than their husbands.
But marrying well is no way demonstrates the character it took for Obama to go from 0 to 60.

I'm personally not turned off by any of the possible Democratic Party candidates. I have worked in my GOP-voting precinct as an election judge for several years. I have been a Democratic Party member for some time and was an unpaid volunteer in this year's midterm for our Democratic senatorial race. For the first time, the Democratic Party actually made an organized effort to walk the precincts and talk to voters--thank you, Howard Dean!

I know Hillary made repeated visits to her GOP-leaning areas in New York and was able to win in those areas in the last election. But she won't be able to visit my precinct. Instead paid and unpaid activists will be filling in.

I strongly believe that in the few moments I will have with a possible voter, I'll be spending it rehashing Bill's moral failures instead of Hillary's issues and policies as president. That is simply not a good thing. And that won't be overcome by TV ads or internet blogs or direct mail or phone calls. The election will go Democratic in my precinct because volunteers walk the precinct and talk to voters.

Hillary has taken a lot of undeserved hits and has handled them gracefully. She is seasoned in this way. Unfortunately, she will continue to be associated with Bill's failings--and a lot of folks have made decisions about Bill that won't be changed. That matters.

Yeah: there's a kind of Tzu Art of War dynamic.

Same think that always helps 'underdogs' in any conflict: low expectations so anything that goes their way is a 'triumph' - sounds like the Iraq insurgency maybe?

Then the 'overdog' is expected to mop the floor and hand out asskickings. When there's even a chink in the armor, everyone points and goes "ah HAH!"

All true about Hillary, but we never would have heard about here were it not due to her husband's position.

Totally false and sheer speculation without one iota of evidence to support it.

 Point of fact, Hillary was part of the Senate hearings during Nixon's impeachment. Hillary made partner in that law firm in AK.  She has outstanding legal credentials and is known to have an astute legal mind. For you to try and attempt to diminish her individual accomplishments as being solely due to who her spouse is, is wrong. You probably would not ever say that Bill would not have ever made it to the WH without Hillary, let alone have survived the impeachment. Even though, Hillary was probably his friggin adviser on how to handle the impeachment.

Women who make it because they married well are often more talented than their husbands.

Please, women who make it and marry well are virtually always more talented than their husbands. Moreover, it is men who make it because they marry women more talented them them. That is because she does his job, her job and their job. While he only does his. She, however,  has to not only be more talented to do all those jobs but have the strength of character to know those jobs are not the substance of who and what she is, while willingly performing them. There is a reason God made woman second. She is the improved model, just like all prototypes, the first human model  cannot perform as well and is inferior in numerous ways to the second model.

But marrying well is no way demonstrates the character it took for Obama to go from 0 to 60.

Make no mistake, Obama has married well, and will tell you that Michelle is more talented than him. She has a JD from Harvard and was a corporate lawyer when she met him and would not give his skinny behind the time of day. He married 'up'.

The bigger point here is that you are making very sexist remarks with regard to women and marriage. For some odd reason you believe that a woman needs to marry well to achieve personal success  or worse, that any individual achievements or accomplishments she has, after marrying, are somehow due to the marriage itself and that is flat out wrong.

The same character that Obama demonstrates, independent of his marriage,which attribute to his personal success  is  also found in many women who happen to be married as well. Hillary is no exception to that.

I like Obama, in terms of leadership, much moreso than Hillary. That however, takes nothing away from Hillary in terms of her own personal accomplishments, achievements and experience none of which I attribute to being possible simply because she is  married to Bill.

Men who think that are chauvinistic, egotistical wimps and women who think it are nothing but wannabes, who lacked the character and talent to achieve it all. They  hate that there is some woman standing there 'with it all 'who gives lie to her personal rationalization that it was not possible as a woman to 'have it all'. Even though they wanted to be, they couldn't or didn't for due to their personal choices, not their gender.

Those women can no longer rely on their gender as an excuse for whatever they missed out on whether it was spouse, career or family they chose it.  So they lash out at Hillary to make themselves feel better in a futile attempt to appear to have made the wiser choice. All of which nicely and conveniently dovetails with the chauvinistic male psyche, they are happily manipulating  to compensate for all they were unable to to achieve and  are bolstering  to maintain their 'chosen' life style.

Hillary didn't marry well, she married for love, else why move to Arkansas with a man with decent educational credentials, (but only her equal), and no societal connections or money?

Tells us something about Bill, too, but the point is that they were a team that worked really hard. It was a long slog. True that Hillary did not have a deprived childhood, but irrelevant given her life choice.

Bev, you might want to meet some of the African-American and poor white kids who are first year students at Harvard Law School. You might then have some respect for those who climbed farther than you or I ever will without the benefits of a middle class upbringing.

Your infatuation with a politician is sad, really sad. Unless you are a personal friend of HRC, your adulation is no different than a teenager's infatuation with Leonardo DiCaprio, all based on illusion and fantasy.

This is politics. They are all politicians. And falling in love with any of them is just sad.

Rovian machine is impressed by Edwards' focus on poverty? Who knew?

Has anyone compiled a comparison of Edwards and Obama in the Senate? I'd really like to see that.

BTW, hilzoy at Obsidian Wings (whose judgment I trust) looked at Obama's record and was somewhat impressed by what she found, especially for a junior senator in the minority party.

Obama apparently is a work horse with some show horse trimmings, not the other way around.

Whiterose, Hillary was a middle-class Goldwater Girl in the Chicago suburbs.
And I won't even respond to your implication that young black males do not have it harder than any other group in this country.
And there is a ton of empirical evidence to prove it.

Whiterose, Hillary was a middle-class Goldwater Girl in the Chicago suburbs

Ok, but her father still could not afford Yale Law, could he. Didn't she take out student loans?

And I won't even respond to your implication that young black males do not have it harder than any other group in this country.
And there is a ton of empirical evidence to prove it.

Well I am glad you are not responding to an implication I did not make. I clearly was referring to her being white and poor, and not attempting to change her race, even though I did not edit that part of your statement out.

I agree that Obama had it harder based on race. I just do not agree that Hillary's accomplishments can be wrapped up by tieing all of them to Bill.

Roughly translates to, "I tire of considering this decision and will go ahead and do what I was thinking of doing originally." Synonymous with fuck it.

Interesting translation. Based on how WTF is used in context, it is not synonymous with fuck it. Generally, it is more analogous to 'how dare you' for some outrageous statement, circumstance or action. It expresses shock/confusion and outrage more commonly than frustration.

Whereas, fuck it..is generally/frequently used to express more 'frustration or a willingnes to proceed without  normal caution and just take the risk head on. Such that it would have been more apt for your title to ponder  just how much of a 'fuck it' attitude lurked in Hillary when engaging in public dialogue. 

I surmise that whomever wrote the'Urban" dictionary does not engage in conversations in urban areas or with those who frequent urban areas.

One thing this does is explain how your use of the phrase was out of sync with the commentary beneath the caption.

"And Hillary Clinton would be neither a senator nor a Presidential candidate if Bill had not received the Democratic nomination in 1992 i.e. the man she married.

One could make a convincing argument that without her he would not have won the 1992 Democratic nomination and gone on to become president.

Clinton is a natural. He connects with voters. He is also undisciplined and unfocused. In many ways they compliment each other. He is strong where she is weak and vice versa.

ITA...with Somerby...the best response to the MSM on subjectivity such as 'authenticity' should be STFU!!