Earlier today, I noted in passing that there is a reason why Hillary Clinton does not get portrayed in the media as â€Âstraight-talker†or someone you’d “want to have a beer with†or an apolitical “maverick†with “folksy charm.â€Â
Now it appears that Hillary really wants to have a beer with you:
New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, trying to warm up an image some voters perceive as cold, starts a drive Monday to showcase her personal side with testimonials from friends, associates and constituents she has helped.
The online and in-person campaign, complete with a website called TheHillaryIKnow.com, comes a day after Clinton won a key endorsement from The Des Moines Register and her chief rival in the Democratic nomination race, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, was endorsed by The Boston Globe.
The reax have been… skeptical. Granted, you might expect Michelle Malkin to provide a timely reminder of the Hillary whom Peter Paul and Billy Dale know. But check Kyle E. Moore at Comments From Left Field:
The idea, of course, is that the negativity that Clinton faces is a massive holdover to when she was in the White House as first lady, and is nothing more than the residual leftovers of the barrage leveled upon her by that Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. But as Matt Stoller points out, this isn’t the case.
Instead, he notes that Clinton’s negatives have only risen since this campaign despite its best efforts to counteract this. The short of it is simply that there doesn’t seem to be shiny enough wrapping paper to make Mrs. Clinton look like the kind of gift under the tree that would make anyone particularly thrilled with what they got. Severe character flaws, Bush-like foreign policy, and an uncannily cozy approach to corporate lobbyists do not an inspiring Democratic candidate make.
In the distance, the ringing of laughter.
You’d better like her or else!
Cornucopic, she ain’t.
=============
No more Teflon Presidents, just rosily tinted, lightly frosted Lucite Presidents and social fireside chats. Undefined Presidents. Oh, and Presidents that aren’t Bush.
It’s good to see Clinton’s shameless dishonesty shown the light of day, but Moore still plays to the usual crowd, and to that intentional abstract of liberal politics, the absence of meaning and principle. Note the internal tension between not wanting a friend as a President, just a friendly President. And Democrat “issues” bending to a Democrat’s feelings on feathery translucency and this National Dialog. Like one selects a church or a marriage therapist.
Stands to reason that not wanting a clue about the role of the Executive breeds not having one. Just what the heck does the Left intend of its elected public servants? I’ve asked that question for years. Crickets.
She exudes all the personal warmth of a salamander, and her actual views on issues are about as elusive. She doesn’t seem to triangulate so much as to try to occupy all available positions on any issue. At the same time.
Couple that with a Nixonian (and worse) approach to politics and I think the you’ll have the situation where the better you know her, the less likely you’ll be to vote for her, let alone hang out with her.
Uh huh. Like there’s never been a Dem candidate with a “cozy approach” to corporate lobbyists before. No matter, though, her “Bush-like foreign policy” is enough to curl the lip of any pure-hearted Dem. And remember: they’re ALL pure-hearted. To be otherwise would make them [gasp!]…a Republican!
Kind of hard to take some one serious who thinks there is anything remotely uncanny about any politician cozying up to a lobbyist.
Ah 6 minutes of Hillary!bot random platitude generator..
well save for a brief moment when she got close to losing her temper with the guy for going off script.
I can’t find the quote over at imdb.com, but in the 1997 movie, “Starship Troopers”, they refer to a ship named after Hiliary Clinton, saying it was named for “the most unyielding President in United States history“.
After that, nothing is going to her “likeable”.
I dunno, I’ve seen some salamanders that looked downright cuddly next to Her Inevitableness.
The political partisan in me hopes for a Clinton nomination so that [insert Republican here] can beat her like a rented goalie in the general election.
The artiste in me wished for Obama so that the electorate can be presented with a very clearly seperated set of principles from left to right. I’d really like to see a national referendum on nanny state, diplomacy at all costs, UN pandering, multiculturalism, apologizing for American Imperial ambitions, illegal alien coddling, open borders proposing, tax increase passing platform that Obama will shamelessly propose. This instead of the duck and cover, durty tricks, media bullying campaign that saint Hilster will foist on us all.
I know, go have a drink and shut up.
Like a “rented goalie” ? What, are you a soccer fan too?!
BJ – I want Obama for similar reasons. However, history shows that the media will allow the Dem to run away from their Leftist positions in the general election in order to appear “moderate” to the American public.
Darleen – I don’t think HRC and her people were too happy with Stretch after that interview. They may demand Meredith or Ann in the future. Wait for the complaints out of Media Matters.
Despite how low my opinion is of him as a President (and as a man) Mr. Clinton is near the very top of my Want to Have a Beer With list. Mrs. Clinton is near the top of the opposite list.
eLarson mentions Nixon. In America the Last Best Hope Bill Bennett said of Nixon that people didn’t like him and he knew it. The one politician that HRC most reminds me of is RMN. Although I don’t believe she has quite come to grips with her likability.
That woman has all the “personal warmth” of a Erlenmeyer flask fulla liquid Helium.
[…] the comments to a post at Protein Wisdom in which I was quoted, a commentor takes the opportunity to assail me and by proxy all other democrats for being […]
I have long considered MR. Clinton to be near the top of my list of people that I would like to have a drink with, and one of the best politicians, in the purely political sense, that we will see in our lifetime. Hillary, not so much.
After 15-16 years on the national stage, we KNOW who Hillary is. It says everything that she thinks she can scam us now.
Oh, JD? About that drink…Bill would get you drunk, stick you with the tab, and then screw your girlfriend. Not a good idea.
Hillary makes John F’n Kerry seem likeable by comparison. And he was, hands down, one of the biggest assholes ever to get a prez nomination.
Hillary Milhouse Clinton
Speaking of Hillary Milhouse Clinton, I’m reminded of hearing, much earlier this year, an audio soundbite of NBC’s Brian Williams gushing about how Hill represents the “finely calibrated political center of the nation” and her “exquisite political sensibilties” rendered her a “natural leader” and some other effusive bullshit.
Think of cunnilingus performed over the radio and you get the general drift.
Good thing the press is so darn objective.
Bill Clinton is not good enough to get me drunk again. I would not jeopardize my sobriety for the likes of him. He would be entertaining though, and I bet if he tried, he could do a hell of a lot better than Monica. It would be fun to hang out with him at Davos.
I imagine that Bill would be a helluva a guy to hang out with. And that’s even limiting the activities to those of which my wife would approve.
Neo,
The USS Hillary Clinton (“the most uncompromising wartime president in the history of the United States”) is featured in the book Weapons of Choice, by John Birmingham. The phrase was a favorite of Instapundit’s, and can be found in several spots in his archives.
I, too, think Bill would be a fun guy to have a drink with, as long as I put on a chastity belt first and left the key at home.
Hillary…reminds me of that smiling ice-cold bitch who was treasurer of the Junior League and almost destroyed the whole club with her petty, crazy machinations.
“The one politician that HRC most reminds me of is RMN.”
Without his warmth.
“Despite how low my opinion is of him as a President (and as a man) Mr. Clinton is near the very top of my Want to Have a Beer With list. Mrs. Clinton is near the top of the opposite list.”
So Mike, are you saying you want to give Hillary a golden shower?
I’m trying to imagine Hillary! on Laugh-In saying “Sock it to me?”
Not.working.
I think a better Roy Orbison song for Hillary would be a version of “Pretty Woman” re-written as “Gritty Woman”….
“Gritty Woman, always cackling.
Gritty Woman, made up with spackling.
Gritty Woman, I don’t believe you,
You speak no truth,
No one can lie as much as you…Mercy!”
Mike C,
You are wrong my brother. Clinton would be no fun. He’d be saying crude uncomfortable things to all the women folk, he’d talk over anything you had to say, and would probably only want to pay his share (Or drop it on you), and would stiff the help. God forbid you should hit a high class joint like the Cheetah…(In Atlanta).
Donald, sounds like you’ve already had that experience.
LOL, al, that’s not exactly what I meant, but…
I actually think it might be fun yo go out bar-hopping with Bill Clinton. Back in the days when I was allowed such things, that would have been the kind of guy whose company made me more likely to pick up women and get somewhere with them. Or something from them, and you may interpret however you like.
But I was never the kind of voter to choose presidents the way I might choose bar-hopping buddies.
#21
Bill Clinton is the Eddie Haskell of politics. Definitely a “What was done in Vegas, stays in Vegas” sort of guy. A heck of a lot of fun to be with, but nothing you want to bring back home with you – too much fun for mere mortals, and a lot that would need covering up. But a fun guy to be with.
But Donald and McGehee are right. You pay your own tab, keep from getting loaded, and above all keep an eye out. But he will know the places to go and will know everyone worth knowing, and most of those not worth knowing.
Do not do a convention with him if you are married and wish to stay that way – steppin’ out high, wide, and plentiful would be his thing.
All the charm and warmth of a middle class Park Ridge social climber.
[…] Pundit does not have high hopes for Hillary’s Likeability project. More here. Rudy’s got a new speech, and it’s not bad, but he’s clearly lost momentum. I […]
Mike, I’ve had that experience with a lot of car salesmen in my time. They all wear a lot of cologne also. Class…like a cheetah girl.
All these repackaging efforts remind me of that line in the movie version of “Christine…”
“Son… ya can’t polish a turd.”
Here’s some tips from Senator Clinton’s handbook on how to deal with everything:
“There can be no such thing as a successful traitor, for if one succeeds, he becomes a founding father.â€Â
“All effective action requires the passport of morality.” “do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral arguments … Moral rationalization is indispensable at all times of action whether to justify the selection or the use of ends or means.â€Â
“The first rule of power tactics is: power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.â€Â
“Wherever possible go outside the experience of the enemy. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat.â€Â
“Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this. They can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.â€Â
“The threat is generally more terrifying than the thing itself.â€Â
“In a fight almost anything goes. It almost reaches the point where you stop to apologize if a chance blow lands above the belt.â€Â
“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.â€Â
“The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength.â€Â
Those are all lines from Senator Clinton’s mentor Saul Alinsky’s book Rules for Radicals