But It Wouldn't Be Make Believe, If You Believed In Me.

As I've struggled with what to say about yesterday's speech (the You Tube, and a relatively interesting discussion out of it, are over at Ezra's), it seems clear that "Come Together... Now" is the order of the day, a kind of peaceful reunification... as long as we don't bring up any of those unpleasant, tense things. You know, like a family Thanksgiving where we all try to pretend that Uncle Bud isn't soused and disruptive. Or something.

(No, I don't have an Uncle Bud... but let's just say, it's not an unfamiliar scenario, either.)

I liked the speech, a lot. I like her, a lot. Still. And I think she gave the kind of strong, solid endorsement that only the most churlish could dismiss or dispute.

... so let's meet them, shall we?

An FOB (Friend o' the blog) pointed me to Peggy Noonan's especially unpleasant column from the Weekend Journal (and then she offered another winner in the Sunday NY Post; in Murdoch's new synergistic media world, Noonan is God, apparently). I wasn't entirely sure what to do with it (I mean, it's... Peggy Noonan. She's often useless like that), but then Maureen Dowd came up with much the same thing (and yes, she's like that too... only worse).

Of course, In Dowd and Noonan's world o' baby boomer anti-feminism, Hillary (let's do as they do, just for a moment) and all she represents is the enemy. You could do the cheap psychologizing here,and I won't (but I'm just saying... single, urban, over 50... you do the math). Their shared dislike of Clinton has been palpable - Dowd especially - for a long long time, and it's the best indicator of the thing I pointed out early on: that there's an antipathy, in the coastal elite, for the Clintons, especially Mrs. Clinton, that was always her biggest hurdle. They are the women for whom Clinton can do no right, who was too angry and strident as a young woman, too docile and meek as Bill Clinton's put-upon wife, too calculating and conniving as her own political figure as Senator and Prsidential hopeful. Mrs. Clinton, to them, always has an ulterior motive, an angle, a plan.. and it's all bad, and it's a setback for "feminism", a word neither Noonan nor Dowd have ever really subscribed to, anyway. And if it weren't so sad (and if these women didn't have such ability to move the zeitgeist, if not public opinion), really, their paranoia and hatred of her would, indeed, be funny.

Still, this race is over. Obama's the nominee, Mrs. Clinton has accepted the result, and she's gracefully stepped aside. Except to Dowd and Noonan. How do they know this?  Was it something she said?

Of course not.

Noonan goes on, at length, about voice timbre and pitch, body language and facial expression. Like a mind reader, she's certain, dead certain, that everything Mrs. Clinton said about Obama is insincere... and there fore, illegitimate:

But here, in praising the presumptive Democratic nominee, she used the same voice she had used on the trail to attack him. When she got to the parts of the speech in which she endorsed Obama, she seemed to be making a point of reading.

She lowered her eyes to the text and read with a comparatively flattened voice, and with little expression.

When she spoke of her own campaign, her own "challenges", her own supporters – there her voice warmed. It glowed. There was also an overall flatness to her argument in favor of Obama: she is endorsing him because he supports her issues. They're hers, not his.

When she spoke of him as a person, as a man, she merely recited the facts everyone knows: he comes from a particular place and has a particular history with regard to public service.

It was all so fully amped and so very tepid. It was more kabuki: "I'll support him and I'll say all the words I have to so you can't accuse me of being grudging, but watch my face and voice and tone: I'm the one I've been waiting for.

Dowd, on the other hand, thinks she's simply a lying, scheming fake, no intense study required:

How much Hillary Clinton can help Barack Obama will depend on how good an actress she is.

And I bet she is a very good actress indeed.

Not only because, as first lady, she played the diverse roles of someone interested in China and someone interested in china. Not only because, as a presidential candidate, she morphed from Queen Elizabeth I to Norma Rae, as Newsweek put it.

But because, through humiliation and pain, she has shown herself to be a skilled survivor. She said she embraces the old saying, “Fake it till you make it.”

After the roiling rollout of the Clinton administration, a sad and unnerved Hillary sought answers from self-help gurus like Jean Houston.

“Houston felt at one point that being Hillary was like being Mozart with his hands cut off, unable to play,” Bob Woodward wrote. “She felt that the first lady was going through a female crucifixion.”

At critical junctures of her life, Hillary makes the same mistake. She comes on strong, showing an arrogant, abrasive side, gets brushed back, and then repackages herself in a more appealing way.

Here's a radical proposition... perhaps it's just not that layered. Perhaps she just decided to do what made sense personally, professionally, and politically, and endorse her opponent, because she understands that he will be a better President than the Republican.

I know... it's tiring. There's been way too much of this. It's instructive, I think, that in covering the speech yesterday, we got nothing from the likes of Josh Marshall and Markos Moulitsas, both of whom farmed out real-time coverage to surrogates on their sites; and that the one unrepentant "can't stand her" viewer of the event, Andrew Sullivan, couldn't begin to be generous or restrained in his evaluation of it.  We're supposed to unify... but too many people, I think, plan to approach "unity" with swords still drawn (and yes, I do mean "swords" in every sense).

And that's not unity. There's a point here, too, about how Clinton supporters move on from this, I know; I think everyone who thinks we can just come together and move on, really, is dreaming. This will take time. And it won't be helped, as it's never been helped, by people who can't simply take Mrs. Clinton at her word. Let's see if she does the work... or not. Let's see if it's genuine support for Obama... or not. But assuming the worst, insisting it's all make believe (just as phony as it can be)... that's not helping. It's unity... or it's make believe. It's not both. And it wouldn't be make believe... if you believed in me.

Comments

[Brendan Moody]

We're supposed to unify... but too many people, I think, plan to approach "unity" with swords still drawn

I've been seeing this phenomenon all over the blogs myself. It's particularly obvious in the discussions of Clinton as VP (a topic on which, for the record, this former Clinton supporter has no particular opinion): Obama supporters think she shouldn't be the VP candidate for the same reasons she shouldn't have been the P candidate, and Clinton supporters think she shouldn't accept any offer for the same reasons they didn't like Senator Obama in the first place. It's unfortunate, but probably inevitable, that this debate has cropped up immediately after the nomination campaign ended. There's been no time to cool down, evaluate the new situation, and think about how "unity" might actually work.

[Phylise]

I honestly, don't think I I can bear this any longer. These prissy, simpering, cowardly little people who live to decimate the objects of their irrational hatred, They did it to Bill Clinton, Al Gore and they pimped for Bush and they call themselves journalists and even in victory cannot summon up one iota of graciousness. They pick their candidate and they are ALWAYS wrong! Without exception, they are always wrong - and they still have jobs! In no other "profession" would this be tolerated. I knew Andrew Sullivan in Reigate, he was a nasty little boy and he is a nasty little man. I do not know of another human being who could have withstood the barrage of personal attacks that Hillary Clinton has had to endure since first she showed her face in Arkansas, If I had given the speech, it would have been much shorter "Thank you all for coming and fuck you Obama" whilst wearing something stunning, but that's probably why I work alone in a room without windows. It won't stop here though, when Obama loses in November and lose he will, it will still be her fault, whatever she does, that's the novel these cynical scum have already written.

[greg]

I think any genuine Obama supporter who saw Clinton's speech thought it was genuine, moving and impressive. She has indeed done a lot to improve her speeches, and this is among her best.

Dowd and Noonan are not Obama-supporters or Democrats, do not care about Democrats winning or any progressive causes, and have every incentive to continue to bash Hillary Clinton (Andrew Sullivan also fits the bill except for the very first part). Don't worry though, they'll soon ratchet up the production of columns discerning Obama's radical anti-American ideology, based on the way he moves his eyebrows while visiting soldiers, or something.

Anyways I agree that unity isn't automatic, but I think by the time the convention comes around we'll be in much better shape. My point is that it isn't (in 95% of cases) Obama-Democrats who "can't simply take Mrs. Clinton at her word" at this point, it's conservatives like Noonan, nihilistic trash-mongers like Dowd, and very confused fair-weather Democrats like Sullivan.

I think a lot of the antipathy Clinton supporters have towards Obama is due to rancid treatment she's gotten from people like those above, who couldn't care less about progressive politics (I'm not saying "all", I'm saying "a lot"). It would really be a shame if we let these sorts of people impede unity.