Monday, January 07, 2008

The Hillary Teardrop: A Historical Note

I'm as underwhelmed as can be about the Hillary teardrop moment (link), aka the Muskie moment (link): I suppose it may have been manufactured by Hillary, and it is certainly being hyped by the media. But I haven't seen anybody highlight one bit of context.

That is: the way I remember it, the press had already decided that Muskie was a dangerously hot-tempered guy--they didn't like the way he lost at poker--and they didn't want his hand on the nuclear button. I don't know what the press agenda might be with Hillary, but I doubt that she blows her top when she loses at poker.

For details, listen to David Broder (link), who puts the incident in context (with full credit to Lou Cannon).

Afterthought: Putting this item together, I ran across this. So somebody else is thinking along the same lines.

1 comment:

The New York Crank said...

I, too, am thoroughly unexcited about the Hillary Teardrop.

I don't care whether she manufactured it. I don't happen to think she did but even if she did, so what? My beef with Hillary is that she's so triangulated she'd get stuck trying to drive through a round tunnel.

I'm not a huge Obama fan, either. I know he makes beautiful music. I just can't understand what the libretto is saying about how we get out of Iraq, how we "fix" Social Security (does it need fixing?) and how we get any universal or semi-universal healthcare plan through lobbyist-dominated Congress.

Personally, I'm for Edwards, whose success, currently, seems to stand the chance of a snowball in hell. But I'm still for him. He seems to be perfectly clear about who's naughty and who's nice, and he wants to whup the naughty ones upside the head with an anvil. To which I say, Godspeed.

On the other hand, to my mind any Democrat in the White House is better than any Republican. I don't passionately care which democrat we get, so long as we throw the Republicans out in the street with all the homeless people they've been ignoring.

Yours Very Crankily,
The New York Crank