Then there's the sense of her espousing feminist ideals on the one
hand, but also tolerating gross exploitation and insult from her
womanizing husband. For me, the worst was her campaign of defamation
against the working-class and lower-middle-class women her husband
solicited. She has tremendous powers of denial to block out what is
going around her in her own family life. But she's also able to
perceive herself as an ethical, God-fearing, Bible-reading Methodist
who is quasi-saintly for her commitment to ethical causes. She will
not admit a mistake. She has no power of self-analysis. She thinks
all her problems are due to her enemies.
-Camille Paglia
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.
20070915.wcamille15/BNStory/specialComment/home
The cloud of feminist cant about Hillary's struggling candidacy has
been noxious. "Media misogyny has reached an all-time high,"
screeched the National Organization for Women in a press release
titled "Ignorance and Venom: The Media's Deeply Ingrained Sexism."
Groan. If women are going to play in the geopolitical big league,
they'd better toughen up and learn how to deal with all the
curveballs. Never has the soppy emotionalism of old-guard feminist
reasoning been on such open and embarrassing display. How has
Hillary, who rode her husband's coattails to the top and who trashed
every woman he seduced or assaulted, become such a feminist heroine?
What has she ever achieved on her own -- aside from the fiasco of
healthcare reform?
And if the media is treating Hillary in a gendered way, hasn't she
herself constantly and cynically dramatized her embattled womanhood?
It began with her snappish defense of her hangdog husband during the
Gennifer Flowers imbroglio of 1992. Blame tail-chasing Bill, from
Little Rock on, for sexualizing the popular perception of the
Clintons. Nubile, exploited Monica Lewinsky will always hover around
Hillary like ghostly baggage. Bill's serial abuses betray a profound
ambivalence about and deep-seated hostility to women -- something the
Clintons' giddy feminist flacks just don't see. Why was Hillary
flying around the world to those 80 countries anyhow -- building her
résumé while leaving her randy hubby unleashed? Anyone who thinks
Bill's exploits are going to stop after Hillary is president has,
well, a screw loose. New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's entrapment in a
sex scandal is coming at a particularly inopportune moment for the
Clintons, since it simply reminds everyone again of tawdry, furtive,
high-placed adultery.
-Camill Paglia
http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/03/12/red_phone/index1.html
