Bserious, I LOVED your "it's NEVER GOOD ENOUGH!" peroration. Very important reminder that, for Hillary, this has been a months-long process of losing most of the time while denying the losses. Important reason to dismiss whatever outrageous comments she makes in her final desperate attempt to avoid political death.

But this is your money quote:

"You want to talk about double standards? Obama has run his campaign under the interrogation of white approval ever since he made that speech at the DNC in 2004. He knows he can’t do or say certain things because he can’t afford to make white people uncomfortable, especially when running against a white woman."

Nobody has written down that insight until you did it today. At least not that I have seen. Thank you.

Good points in there.

Thank YOU for taking the time to read and comment.

You've put down in words what's been on my mind for a long time. Thank you.

The first post is very well said. Very.

Let's face it, Hillary came up in the world encountering very little actual discrimination. Her lack of real empathy is telling, as she cries victim out of proportion to what she's experienced.

She was a wealthy or at least upper middle class suburban Goldwater Girl. By the way, this was after she saw MLK Jr. speak in Chicago; an event much touted by her campaign. Apparently that didn't make enough of an impression to dissuade her from backing the race-baiting, poor-people blaming, meaner than Reagan Barry Goldwater.

Hillary Rodham went to the all-girls/women Wellesley (I went to Smith around the same time, and have some idea of the mileu), and went to Yale Law after the doors opened to women. She didn't exactly have a glass ceiling to break at the Rose Law Firm.

It is true she faces sexism in her political career, but she started from a position much higher than other women who have achieved much more.

The citation in the first post to Melissa Harris-Lacewell is extremely important. She is a Black professor at Princeton, who has actually experienced sexism and racism, and speaks from education, thoughfulness and heart.

Remember the Gloria Steimen op-ed saying, among other things, that Black men got the vote 50 years before women. This was supposed to prove that Black men (Obama) have it easier than white women (Clinton). That factoid has been cited in letters to the editors, etc. Well, Prof. Harris-Lacewell faced off with Steinem on NPR. The video is available online, and is well worth watching. I can't repeat enough of it, or do it justice. But I do remember he pointing out that when Black men tried to actually exercise the "right" to vote, they were lynched, beaten, etc. (She didn't say, but let's remember too that both white women and white men have been photographed watching the dangling bodies.)

Chris Matthews' blithering aside, even with the DNC machine behind her, Hillary won the New York Senate race in 2000 only because Guliani got cancer. Then she cemented her power position and won re-election.

But to me the most important issue is this: If Hillary is President, the entire first term will be devoted to triangulation and running for a second term. She will be a decided poll-driven centrist, not any kind of agent for change.

Obama, on the other hand, will have to make some kind of mark in his first term. Regardless of how sincere you think he is, political realities require that he establish himself, and he can only do that if he delivers some change. No, the world won't turn into Woodstock Nation, but he will, to some important degree, speak truth to power, and speak truth from power.

Google "Obama attacks Clinton" it turns up 1,500,000 hits. I don't think he's so shy about it, nor are his surrogates. Stanley Crouch called her a "political hermaphrodite", one of the filthiest slurs in this campaign. Those kinds of nasty insults are par for the course.

I was reading this article before I read your comment BevD. I'm going to take the liberty to post it in here as a response.

--

President Clinton's career was an imposture, concealed by partisanship. Even now liberals seem unable to grasp what serious historians on the left have written: Nixon's administration was markedly more progressive in domestic politics than Clinton's, whose main legacy was its assault on the welfare system.

Critics of Hillary have been accused of misogyny, yet the feminist boot is truly on the other foot. Clinton is an affront to feminism. Hers would not be a victory for sexual equality but a throwback to the dynastic politics of the ancien régime, or to Third World nepotism. Hillary resembles not Golda Meir and Angela Merkel but the queen who expects to succeed her husband the king, or those female leaders in the Philippines, Pakistan and Argentina who have followed husbands or fathers to power.

Every American knows that Hillary is where she is because she is her husband's wife. Eight years ago, she turned up in New York, a state with which she had almost no connection, expecting to be made senator by acclamation.At that time she had never run for, let alone won, a seat. The only political job ever entrusted to her was her husband's healthcare reform, and she made a complete hash of that.

Her claim to be more "experienced" than Obama is ludicrous. In the words of Dick Morris, Bill's sometime campaign manager, it only highlights the fact "that Hillary's experience is derivative of Bill's and her claims to his achievements are largely invented and spurious".

I like this bit from today's Times:

Jonathan Alter, the veteran Newsweek columnist who traveled with the Obama campaign to Dallas on Wednesday, said that the attempt by the Clinton camp to weigh various stories represented a kind of “silly, even-Steven-itis.” “People got it into their head that if you say something good about a candidate, you have to say something bad about him, and if you don’t, that’s not fair,” Mr. Alter said. “What the Clinton partisans wanted was for us to create a phony balance that was at odds with what our eyes were telling us. That’s not the job of a journalist.”

In other words, the press is more favorable towards Obama because the facts are more favorable towards Obama.

Sorry BevD, but you really didn't respond to most of my points, and those of the post(s) by Bserious.

I'm not trying to belittle Hillary, only to puncture the false picture she paints for herself. In my view, her arrogation to herself of the mantle of feminist who struggled and learned and will help you is belittling of those women who did strugge.

You entirely ignored the references to the lynchings/beatings of Black men, and instead talk about how the slaves and ex-slaves betrayed the feminist suffragettes 150+ years ago? As noted by the Princeton professor who (if you see the NPR interview/debate with Steinem) said, women have been in the White House for over 200 years. Steinem, who went to Smith like I did, sadly had no rebuttal.

Sure, women should be able to be office holders, not just wives, but the comparison to Blacks just doesn't hold.

Hillary's dad drove her around in the family Cadillac. That's not what my middle class friends drove. Maybe the Rodhams weren't rich, but she wasn't a scholarship student at Wellesley, or Yale Law. That's a lot more money than most "middle" class people can afford.

The Rose Law Firm. She may have been the first female partner, but her ascension was rather assured, don't you think, by her husband being Governor? I know many women lawyers whose rise was not assured, and some didn't make it even though qualified. Is Hillary's life story like theirs? Did she face down male partners harrassing her or even being being over-demanding of her, like some of the women I know? I doubt it. In fact, she's never even claimed that she had a rough go at Rose.

In 2000, Guiliani was much more popular (still married with photo-ops with his son) and much less insane than he became. Could Hillary have beaten him? Maybe I spoke too definitively, but the fact is she ended up running against a non-entity. Sure she worked for it every day. So do lots of deserving political candidates, who don't make their very first run for elective office as a Senator of major state, and who don't start with name recognition, money, favors owed, etc., all of which was because she was the outgoing First Lady Clinton.

As for Obama, I still think his political situation matches his earnest desires. Even as President, he won't hold all the power. And if, as I said, he speaks truth from power, now won't that help every single woman and man?

You people are delusional and at least abetting misogyny and sexism through willful ignorance if nothing else.

Imagine such a show about Obama, during the time when she was frontrunner and the media supposedly loved her:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200712220005

"Is the [Sen.] Hillary Clinton [D-NY] campaign trying to obliterate [Sen. Barack] Obama's [D-IL] candidacy? Not just beat it, but strangle it in the crib before there's any chance he catches on?" Matthews then asserted there were "[m]ore efforts today by the Clinton people to smother the Barack Obama campaign in its crib" and went on to say, "The picture is not pretty, but it could very well be deadly. The goal is to smother the young senator in his crib." In fact, during the one-hour show, Matthews invoked imagery of Clinton murdering an infant Obama on four occasions, noting in a later discussion, "My conjecture here, which I opened the show with, was the Clintons believe they have to stop Obama early. They want sudden infant crib death, is what they want. They want this guy to die before Iowa," and asking Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC's Morning Joe, "Everybody's got a job in mind [in a Hillary Clinton administration], and they're willing to put the knife in this guy in the crib to get that job. Is that too strong a language?" Scarborough responded, "No, it's not."

Matthews later suggested that Clinton's surrogates were "attacking Obama, so that she gets the knife into Obama without her fingerprints on it," and he asked, "Is this an attempt to basically get a preliminary shot against this guy? Kill him early. Before Christmas." NBC chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell responded, "Kneecap him, I mean, if you have to." He then asked Mitchell "[W]ill she continue to have surrogates drop these little poison pills in the public reservoir of public opinion?" Mitchell replied by asserting: "Absolutely." Matthews then described the "poisons" he associated with Clinton's surrogates: "Hussein, Muslim, blah, blah, blah, coke, all kinds of stuff. Will they continue to drop these poisons in the water?" He concluded by saying, "She needs Luca Brasi to do this stuff for her," referring to a Mafia enforcer in the Mario Puzo novel The Godfather.

As Media Matters for America has documented, media figures frequently portray the Clintons and their staff as ruthless and even violent.

For more on Hillary and violence, see:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200706210011

Dowd one of many to run with portrayal of Clinton as violent

In her June 20 column (subscription required), New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote about an online video produced by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-NY) presidential campaign that features Sen. Clinton and former President Bill Clinton spoofing a scene from the series finale of HBO's The Sopranos. Dowd wrote that Sen. Clinton, like Tony Soprano, "is so power-hungry that she can justify any thuggish means to get the prize." While Dowd used the occasion of the Sopranos spoof to make an explicit comparison between Sen. Clinton and a fictional character who has engaged in acts of murder and torture, her column is hardly the first to portray the Clintons and their staff as ruthless and even violent. Dowd herself, as well as numerous other media figures, have characterized them in that way before.

Dowd

The June 20 column marked the second consecutive piece by Dowd that has mentioned Clinton in connection with a mob boss. In her June 17 column (subscription required), she wrote that "[t]he Clintons act high-minded and do-gooding, while employing a staff of hit men" and went on to pose the "big question" raised by Sen. Clinton's recent financial disclosures: "As long as a guy was willing to give them millions, would it matter if his name were Al Capone?" Dowd has made similar comparisons between the Clintons and the Sopranos in columns on June 6, 2004, May 16, 2001, and April 16, 2000 (subscription required).

Additionally, Dowd has warned Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) about Clinton, writing in her December 13, 2006, column (subscription required) -- titled "Will Hillzilla Crush Obambi?" -- that Clinton's "campaign will be ruthless in stomping on Obambi." And in a March 3 column (subscription required), Dowd wrote that "[a]s a woman, she [Clinton] clearly feels she must be aggressive in showing she can 'deck' opponents," and referred to Clinton aide Howard Wolfson as "her pinstriped thug."

Rush Limbaugh

Dowd's latest comparison -- that "like Tony," Sen. Clinton "can justify any thuggish means" -- recalled right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh's scurrilous suggestion that Sen. Clinton had then-deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster murdered while she was first lady. Media Matters for America has documented numerous instances (here, here, and here) of Limbaugh insinuating that the Clintons were involved in the death of Foster, who committed suicide in Northern Virginia's Fort Marcy Park on July 20, 1993. Limbaugh has also advised a caller to "go to Fort Marcy Park" on the caller's upcoming visit to Washington, D.C., and "[s]ee if you get out alive."

Dana Milbank

On the January 24 broadcast of National Public Radio's Morning Edition, discussing the potential 2008 presidential candidates who attended President Bush's State of the Union address, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank asserted: "Hillary Clinton was situated immediately behind Barack Obama, making it easier for her to actually place the knife into his back, if that's what she was trying to do." Later, on the January 24 edition of MSNBC News Live, Milbank repeated his line to host Chris Jansing. Jansing opined: "I don't think [director] Martin Scorsese could have staged this one better, Senator Clinton sitting right behind Senator Obama during the State of the Union." Milbank called Clinton's seat "a perfect spot" and stated: "She could have inserted the knife right there without even being detected."

Chris Matthews

On the April 24, 2005, edition of the NBC-syndicated Chris Matthews Show, host Chris Matthews referred to Sen. Clinton as "sort of a Madame Defarge of the left" -- a slur previously advanced by conservative syndicated columnist and former CNN host Robert Novak and MSNBC host Monica Crowley.

Madame Defarge is a villainous character in Charles Dickens' novel A Tale of Two Cities. According to BookRags.com, a website that provides study guides for classic novels, Madame Defarge is "a cruel, vengeance-seeking agent of the [French] revolution ... [who] spends her days knitting a 'register' of names of people she has marked for death."

Glenn Beck

On January 19, CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck discussed a baseless allegation by InsightMag.com that the Clinton campaign had falsely alleged that Obama was educated at a madrassa. In reference to that accusation, Beck stated that if "you hear a strange grinding noise coming from the Clinton estate, it could be Hillary Clinton sharpening her knives in the basement."

Dennis Miller

On the December 22, 2006, edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Fox News contributor Dennis Miller advised Obama that "if Michael Corleone's admonition about where to keep your enemies is true, well, Obama should have one Clinton skin grafted on." Miller added: "The Clintons will put the long knives in on Obama when they need to, and one hopes that he doesn't have that startled 'Et tu, Bubba?' look on his face when they do it."

John Fund

In his December 18, 2006, column commenting on a potential race between Sen. Clinton and Obama, Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund predicted that Clinton and "her side will haul out the brass knuckles to stop him."

Howard Fineman

On the October 27, 2002, edition of the Chris Matthews Show, Newsweek chief political correspondent Howard Fineman said that "the people who are running the Democratic campaign behind the scenes are Bill and Hillary Clinton and all of their friends from the Clinton years," a group he described as "basically the Corleones and the Barzinis."

I find the idea that me not supporting Clinton in her bid for the nomination is sexist to be rather insulting. I respect women, but I feel that in order to truly show a women respect you must judge them based on the same principals as you would judge a man. I have seen many things from her campaign that I would not respect coming from a mans campaign either. I think she would make a very good commander in Chief, but I believe Obama would be better.

Don't get me wrong, she has faced plenty of sexism in this campaign. Some I have seen myself that made my stomach turn. However, any time I see anyone say ANYTHING negative about Hillary, there seems to always be another post about how that person is a misogynist.

Clinton, just like Obama, is just a politician. Male, female, I don't care. I have judged each candidate on the merits I find important and made my decision for Obama. I do not think, at this time in history, that Clinton is the right PERSON for the job.

I think MANY of the problems with this country stem from the entanglement of corporate interests and government interests. To me, Clinton has not done enough to separate herself from these politics in her history or this campaign (and no, I am not suggesting Obama is a perfect messiah on this front so you can skip the links, I have seen them already). I can't bring myself to believe she will get into office and stab her contributors right in the back even if it is for the good of the American people.

And for the record, I will say it, turn on the TV. Find a sitcom (anything modern will do) and count the amount of times men are belittled. I personally do not find it OK that men can be portrayed as patently idiotic, sex crazed, useless individuals in our entertainment industry. I don't see any difference between that and old TV shows where women were portrayed as simplistic keepers of the home. This is not to say women don't still face very real sexism in the real world where men don't, however I think that there is a double standard in the TV we watch every day that is not fair to young men who grow up watching this stuff, which tells them that the world does not expect any better from them.

Look at the record. What does this tell you?

Who's the best? Obama's the best. Take a look you sad Clintonites and you'll see that Obama did more in 8 months then most senators do in a lifetime of service. That's the kind of president I want working for me.

The following information gathered from the Library of Congress on the Legislative experience Junior Senator Hillary Clinton and Junior Senator Barack Obama. Please Feel free to check these records for yourself and draw your own conclusion.

Senator Clinton, who has served only one full term, which is 6 years and another year campaigning, has authored and passed 20 twenty pieces of legislation in her term of six years into law. These bills can be found at (wwwhomas.loc.gov). Senator Clinton has passed.

(1) Establish the Kate Mullany National Historic Site.
(2) Support the goals and ideals of Better Hearing and Speech Month.
(3) Recognize the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
(4) Name courthouse after Thurgood Marshall.
(5) Name courthouse after James L. Watson.
(6) Name post office after Jonn A. O'Shea.
(7) Designate Aug. 7, 2003, as National Purple Heart Recognition Day.
(8) Support the goals and ideals of National Purple Heart Recognition Day.
(9) Honor the life and legacy of Alexander Hamilton on the bicentennial of his death.
(10) Congratulate the Syracuse Univ. Orange Men's Lacrosse Team on winning the championship.
(11) Congratulate the Le Moyne College Dolphins Men's Lacrosse Team on winning the championship.
(12) Establish the 225th Anniversary of the American Revolution Commemorative Program.
(13) Name post office after Sergeant Riayan A. Tejeda.
(14) Honor Shirley Chisholm for her service to the nation and express condolences on her death.
(15) Honor John J. Downing, Brian Fahey, and Harry Ford, firefighters who lost their lives on duty.

Only five of Clinton's bills are, more substantive.
(16) Extend period of unemployment assistance to victims of 9/11.
(17) Pay for city projects in response to 9/11
(18) Assist landmine victims in other countries.
(19) Assist family caregivers in accessing affordable respite care.
(20) Designate part of the National Forest System in Puerto Rico as protected in the wilderness preservation system.

She has a nice list, but note that these are The Fact's straight from the Senate Record; Therefore, it is not made up.

Now, It is time to post Senator Obama's record from the Library of Congress.I have to mention that Senator Obama's list is too substantive, one is coalesced to categorize. Since its alot, remember you can go to the Library of Congress website, and check it out yourself, but I am just summarizing his first 8 months.

During Senator Obama's first 8 eight months of elected service he sponsored over 820 bills.

He introduced 233 bills regarding healthcare reform,
125 bills on poverty and public assistance,
112 bills on crime fighting,
97 economic bills,
60 human rights and anti-discrimination bills,
21 ethics reform bills,
15 gun control,
6 veterans affairs and many others.
In his first year in the U.S. Senate, he authored 152 bills and co-sponsored another 427. These included:
(1)the Coburn-Obama Government Transparency Act of 2006 that became LAW,
(2)The Lugar-Obama Nuclear Non-proliferation and Conventional Weapons Threat Reduction Act that became LAW, (3)The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act that passed the Senate,
(4)The 2007 Government Ethics Bill that became LAW,
(5)The Protection Against Excessive Executive Compensation Bill that is in committee just to name a few.

In all since he entered the U.S. Senate, Senator Obama has written 890 bills and co-sponsored another 1096. An impressive record, for someone who supposedly has no legislative record. Read the facts and not emotion.

Wish I could take credit for this research, but cannot. This is from a post at http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/02/29/718538.aspx?p=1

I applaud the researcher. This is about real accomplishments. Obama wins.

Desidero, I can see what you are saying. However I do still believe that there are women out there who would be a far stronger example for women as a presidential candidate, and I would be far more up in arms if there weren't many things in her campaign that reek of the reasons I have avoided politics for so long. (I am not saying Obama hasn't thrown any elbows, but any that I have seen are policy driven, or in defense)

Also I think that many people attack Clinton because she has consistently portrayed our candidate as all words and no action, which as Actions post shows, and Obamas life has shown, is patently false. I personally don't like to see uninformed voters swayed this way.

(separate point, so no one thinks these are connected)

The television comment was less a segue in making my point and more of a statement on something that has frustrated me for a long time. I grew up with this stuff, and to me a lot of it didn't seem very playful. Not to mention how much of it I have seen off the TV that reflects what I saw on it when growing up. Now I am not saying I faced any hurtles in my life because of it, but I have been called a dog by women who don't even know me, without me saying anything to inspire such a comment.

I just want to point out again as to not belittle what women have gone through what I am talking about here is nothing, NOTHING, compared to what women have faced, but it is a double standard that I have never been ok with.

I wonder what all these people talking of biased media think of the Obama cartoon that aired last night on SNL? Seemed to skirt the racial politics line... but maybe I'm overly sensitive.

I, of course, had my own thoughts:

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/03/cant-you-take-a-joke.php

"It's hopeless, because you're determined to deny her the simplest of achievements"

Compare the senate records. This is what she has had, the simplest of achievements.

BEVD,

"It's hopeless, because you're determined to deny her the simplest of achievements"

That is not true. This is what I've said: "Hillary faces a lot of obstacles through sexism, no doubt. But there are moments where she benefits as well. There are moments where she has the luxury to portray herself as the victim to garner sympathy from voters and the media. There are moments where she can, as Melissa Harris-Lacewell (a black woman, professor) notes, slip in and out of her “Scarlett O’Hara” routine. It’s a prime example of how mainstream media discusses gender bias without recognizing the white privilege that often comes with it."

And the truth is, that Hillary Clinton would not be running for the president if she wasn't married to Bill Clinton. Another truth is Bill Clinton himself was a charismatic president, yes indeed, but he was not a great one. Years ago Hillary Clinton turned up in New York, a state with which she had almost no connection, expecting to be made senator. At that time she had never run for, let alone won, a seat. All of this, because of who she is. Let's not pretend that Hillary Clinton has had to overcome the same obstacles other women out there.