Note To Dowd And Other Media Figures: Could Hillary's Public Guardedness Be Because Of ... You?
December 19, 2007 -- 8:35 AM EST // //
Normally Maureen Dowd is not worth the bother, but today's column is worth a look, because it neatly showcases one of the stranger facets of anti-Clinton irrationality: The refusal or inability of many pundits to draw a link between their profession's deep-seated hostility to Hillary and her consequent aloofness and guardedness in public.
Dowd's effort concerns the fact that Matt Drudge and Rush Limbaugh have been ridiculing Hillary for looking wrinkled and old in that photo of her that I blogged about below. Dowd quite reasonably is critical of this attack for much of the column. But then she suddenly feels compelled to veer into this:
Hillary doesn’t have to worry about her face. She has to worry about her mask. Back in the ’92 race, Clinton pollsters devised strategies to humanize her and make her seem more warm and maternal. Fifteen years later, her campaign is devising strategies to humanize her and make her seem more warm and maternal.Right, right -- Hillary is cold and calculating and doesn't reveal her true self in public. But surely this is partly because of the very thing the rest of Dowd's column reflects -- the fact that the media, which is to say, people like Rush and Maureen, have been unremittingly hostile to her for years, and years and years, heaping contempt and derision on her every public utterance, on her laugh, and now, on her wrinkles.The public still has no idea of what part of her is stage-managed and focus-grouped, and what part is legit. It’s pretty pathetic, at this stage of her career, that she has to wage a major offensive, by helicopter and Web testimonials, to make herself appear warm-blooded.
Now, I don't know what came first, Hillary's public guardedness -- her decision to wear a "mask" -- or the media and punditry's entrenched hostility towards her. But quite clearly these two chicken-and-egg phenomena are linked to one another. As this column reflects, however, Dowd and her cohorts won't acknowledge this link -- because to do so would be to take an honest look at their own conduct. Which they'll never, ever do.
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