about a decade ago…
From Katha Pollit’s editorial in the Nation chiding reviews of Hillary Clinton’s — or maybe it’s the irksome “ugh” quality — new book as sexist… and see too the “word” on Hillary… and thus the sarcastic pointers against Hillary Clinton.
She’s got a shrill voice and thinks she’s oh-so-special …
It’s interesting, because I’ve always pondered the political problem of Hillary Clinton as her being another boring and sing-songy voice that Americans can’t quiet imagine hearing in the news constantly for four years — in the tradition of Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry — thus meaning she’s a Democratic type that’s borne terribly — and can’t quite place if this is specific in women as we don’t have enough female presidential candidates to compare. Granted, I thought she’d get away with it in this last presidential election, and join the ranks of — oh, Nixon and Bush I as the trope of never loved and… plodding? … but elected anyways.
But leaving this one to the more interesting one…
She voted for the war in Iraq — true, so did John Kerry and Joe Biden and that momentary darling of the left, John Edwards, but her vote was just… different.
The problem. And I can never escape this with this magazine. About a decade ago, the magazine ran a stark cover with a pledge. Not to endorse any candidate who supported the Iraq War and won’t make ending it a central point in their campaign. And maybe they’re right to jettison it for the sake of furthering political goals — but they’d be righter to have not made such a pledge in the first place. Then they wouldn’t have been compromised in momentarily helping make John Edwards a darling of the left, so that self respect would still be with them.
So the magazine sits somewhere to the right of Z magazine and Counterpunch and others who can’t dally in the political muck of compromised compromisers in the Democratic Party. Even if it sometimes tries not to… and then… lets an institutional memory fade into oblivion.