Robot with a soul?
posted by saurabh in Dumbo-crats, Galloping idiocy, Schmadvertising, Travesty, We're Doomed! |Three of the most-viewed videos on YouTub today are of Hillary Clinton allegedly crying, or “tearing up”. I, for one, don’t buy it. If you haven’t seen it, here it is:
Clinton is giving a relatively boiler-plate speech about how much she “cares about our country”, and how she “passionately believes” in what she is doing. That, I DO buy: her passion is lust, and we all know what she’s lusting for. But what is she “tearing up” over? Who can tell?
This morning I woke up to some lady on NPR marveling at Hillary’s display of genuine emotion. She interviewed the lady who asked the question, and several others who testified that Hillary’s tears* had convinced them to vote Clinton! at the very last minute. After vomiting on my pillow, I thought to myself “How the hell am I going to clean this up?” “My God, are we really so starved for political theater that we’re willing to swallow whatever horseshit act some politician can throw at us?” The lady who asked the question, incidentally, did NOT vote Clinton - she voted Obama, because the previous night, Obama’s stirring speech had “moved her to tears”.
I’m truly astonished that people can maintain this level of vacuousness. And not, apparently, a small handful of people - the majority of American adults. Shouldn’t there be an epidemic of head-implosion going on?
* Which, frankly, are not in evidence in the video to mine eyes. Can you see ‘em?
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there’s a certain shine around 1:15-1:20. it could be from fatigue. combine that with the “choked up” sound that could be from voice strain, the woman-to-woman intonation of “you know” at :55, and calling it all “personal” — i dunno — if we can’t believe hillary, then jimmy swaggart is a big fat liar.
I was totally amazed that ANYONE called that crying. It was ever so slightly choked up and exhausted, but not remotely crying at all.
On the other hand I can see why someone who did not resolutely want Clinton to lose this particular race might be swayed by this little speech—and I don’t think it was the genuine emotion exactly, that’s simplifying it too much. It was the notion that she doesn’t actually like campaigning and isn’t in it for the thrill of winning per se. A few weeks ago I heard a press conference with GWB wherein he “wished the candidates good luck” and seemed rather wistful that he wasn’t campaigning himself, since he “really likes it.” It was one of the most sincere and genuine sounding set of words I’ve ever heard him say–he practically sounded human, and his voice was only minimally repulsive to me. This didnt’ really win my sympathy so much (speculating on what would have to happen to him in order for that to happen might get the SS called on me) as remind me that he has that locker room jock’s air of a guy who likes to win for its own sake–regardless of the nature of the trophy he’s winning. For better or worse a lot of the people (men, really) in both races seem to have that gamesmanship streak in them, and for some people (probably a lot of women) it’s slightly repulsive. A lot of women can easily imagine a man engaging in self destructive behavior in order to win a game merely for the sake of winning it, and completely not acknowledging the damage of the self-destructive behavior. Her little speech might have indicated to them exactly that she *is* lusting after the trophy, not the game, and that she is going through the pain of a campaign with a suffering self-awareness that they can relate to.
Of course, as you allude, it’s almost worse to have a leader who actually wants this awful trophy; a commander in chief whose hawkishness is cloaked in den-mother-real-politik is so very barely preferable to one whose hawkishness is wrapped in dick-waving machismo that it essentially doesn’t matter. All voters–not just women–are so much more educated at processing relationships, emotions, and most of all analogies than actual inputs and outputs, it’s a wonder anything got done at all ever. I blame innumeracy.