Hillary.

Hitchens lays bare the specious connection between the climber and the climber.

On a first-lady goodwill tour of Asia in April 1995—the kind of banal trip that she now claims as part of her foreign-policy "experience"—Mrs. Clinton had been in Nepal and been briefly introduced to the late Sir Edmund Hillary, conqueror of Mount Everest. Ever ready to milk the moment, she announced that her mother had actually named her for this famous and intrepid explorer. The claim "worked" well enough to be repeated at other stops and even showed up in Bill Clinton's memoirs almost a decade later, as one more instance of the gutsy tradition that undergirds the junior senator from New York.

Sen. Clinton was born in 1947, and Sir Edmund Hillary and his partner Tenzing Norgay did not ascend Mount Everest until 1953, so the story was self-evidently untrue and eventually yielded to fact-checking. Indeed, a spokeswoman for Sen. Clinton named Jennifer Hanley phrased it like this in a statement in October 2006, conceding that the tale was untrue but nonetheless charming: "It was a sweet family story her mother shared to inspire greatness in her daughter, to great results I might add."

Perfect. It worked, in other words, having been coined long after Sir Edmund became a bankable celebrity, but now its usefulness is exhausted and its untruth can safely be blamed on Mummy. Yet isn't it all—all of it, every single episode and detail of the Clinton saga—exactly like that? And isn't some of it a little bit more serious? For Sen. Clinton, something is true if it validates the myth of her striving and her "greatness" (her overweening ambition in other words) and only ceases to be true when it no longer serves that limitless purpose. And we are all supposed to applaud the skill and the bare-faced bravado with which this is done.

I think Hitch started life as the little boy who pointed out that the emperor had no clothes on.  It's such a relief just to hear things called what they are.

His question at the head of this piece is,

"Why on earth would we choose to put the Clinton family drama at the center of our politics again?"

Those have been my sentiments exactly.  Been there, done that.  Please, let's go anywhere but BACK.  (And that goes for you, too, genial ghost of Ronald Reagan.)  Going BACK bespeaks a lack of imagination and of courage.

I had a double reaction to Hillary's "crying moment" and her drop into authenticity, a change that was palpable right over television.  On the one hand, it did make her more appealing.  On the other hand, it's the oldest boomer quest and con -- the pursuit of moments of subjectively felt personal authenticity.  It is totally familiar to me.  It's an end in itself.  It's the generation's holy grail -- feeling "real."  It's all about me.  Well, by your fruits ye shall know them, baby.  What are you going to do with it?  Use it to sell yourself?       

Comments

[Funky Dung]

I'm certainly no fan of Mrs. Clinton, but I must point out that statements of the "Going BACK bespeaks a lack of imagination and of courage" sort are sophistry (at best). Sometimes real progress requires the maturity to realize mistakes have been made and that we must return to ideas we had before the last big mistake we made. When we find ourselves in those situations, we must turn our backs on the path our mistakes sent us down, we must heal the damage done, and we must prepare to make decisions that will hopefully send us down the right (or at least a better) path. If some previous president, be he Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan, had the country headed in a good direction, we ought to undo his successors mistakes (if possible) before we can continue in the direction he pointed us.

[amba]

The universe as constellated when Ronald Reagan was president no longer exists, in part because of his actions. So there IS no going BACK. Those who would turn back the clock to the 1980s or the 1990s (or you name your decade and century) are out of luck, and out of ideas. Of course older ideas are going to be part of the mix with which we attempt to deal with the mix of unprecedented and timeless dilemmas we face. But we're going to be looking at them from a new angle.

We went to a choral concert in Duke Chapel on Sunday. The older music was infinitely better. It bore you up on clouds of gold. It made you feel you had died and gone to heaven and a good thing, too. How would we like to have the Black Plague and the Wars of the Roses back so we could make music like that? Well, even if we wanted to we'd be out of luck. We're going to have to find our own voice. But I'm not going to melt my CDs, either.

[amba]

In fewer words: I think nostalgia can keep people from dealing. I think some people are engaging in magical thinking, like with a Clinton in the White House we'd have the Internet stock bubble back.

[Christopher]

"Why on earth would we choose to put the Clinton family drama at the center of our politics again?"

Indeed. I'm sick of the Bush and Clinton show. No more. The show is over.

Amba,

It's good to hear a Boomer's take on the Boomer's because this quest for authenticity rather than character is really annoying.

[amba]

Right. It's all about "how I feel." Which is funny, you'd think we'd learned from all our Buddhist dabbling how fleeting feelings are. Is it counterproductive to deny them? Sure. But it's equally futile to wallow in them. The puddle evaporates while you're wallowing.

[Funky Dung]

"In fewer words: I think nostalgia can keep people from dealing. I think some people are engaging in magical thinking, like with a Clinton in the White House we'd have the Internet stock bubble back."

I agree that this kind of nostalgia is about as useful as complaining about the weather (global warming discussions aside). However, there's a difference between nostalgia and returning to first principles. To some, certain previous leaders represent those principles. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with that belief. I'm merely pointing out that not all who remember past ideas fondly are "out of ideas".

"My attitude toward progress has passed from antagonism to boredom. I have long ceased to argue with people who prefer Thursday to Wednesday because it is Thursday." - G.K. Chesterton

[Ron]

Principles? Did you read the Hitchens piece? A distinct lack of principles are at the center of the Clinton's problems.

[PatHMV]

That's certainly true, Funky Dung, but it's not really of much help in evaluating anything today. One can always go back and find some period of prosperity when the Democrats were in power, and some period of prosperity when the Republicans were in power.

In some cases, it might be useful just as short-hand, a label. A "Reagan Republican" is going to be for as strong national defense, tax cuts, and holding firm in domestic and international negotiations. We all know what being a "Scoop Jackson" Democrat means.

But on the whole, I'm not sure that looking back, absent some sort of really controlled, rigorous survey, is really that helpful.

[amba]

Ron, Funky was definitely not talking about the Clintons.

[Funky Dung]

"We all know what being a 'Scoop Jackson' Democrat means."

Umm...who? (seriously)

[amba]

Henry, or Scoop, from Washington State IIRC, was the Congressional equivalent of Reagan's anticommunism, coauthor of the Jackson-Vanik amendment to major trade agreement withholding most-favored-nation status from countries that did not permit emigration, among other human-rights violation. A Dem very tough on national security, military strength, and human rights.

[PatHMV]

The only one left in the party is Joe Lieberman.

[Randy (Internet Ronin)]

Hitchens makes a fair point, as do you. Can't go backwards. Unlike almost everyone else here, I think Clinton would probably prove to be an effective President, and I don't believe that she is nearly as manipulative and robotic as everyone thinks (if she was, no one would notice - think about that for a while). However, the odds are that, if elected, she will be serving what is widely viewed as Bill's third term and things like that just don't seem to work out well (see: Bush, George Herbert Walker). The CDS is approaching warp effect already and she hasn't even bagged the nomination. When I imagine what it will be like for four long years if she's elected, it just isn't worth the price to pay for competence (which she has, whether anyone wants to admit it or not). We've endured 16 years of unrelenting vitriol from the right or the left for whoever is in office. I don't know about you, but I've had enough of that crap from all of them and I earnestly wish they'd all go play in the freeway for the next decade. Or at least prove permanently incapable of reproducing themselves.

So, with that in mind, in a GOP primary, my vote is for Thompson. He's just lazy enough to do nothing at all while President and that is just fine with me. In a Democratic primary, my vote is for Obama, because almost everyone will leave him alone for at least two years, which is about the amount of time he will need to figure out what it is he is doing in the White House. And that's ok, too. If those two are the nominees, then Obama has the edge with me, because his election will stamp PAID to the race-baiting professional victim(izers), and probably the current inequitable affirmative action pograms (no misspelling) currenly in place throughout our country. Who knows, he might grow in office and discover the greatness that lies within him. He could but I doubt he will. Still, all in all, he won't be any worse than Fred, and a lot better than the martinet, the old soldier who should have faded away long ago, the trombone salesman from Massachusetts (next stop River City), the Baptist preacher, or (God forbid!) the ambulance chaser.

Note to Republicans: The only candidate who sounds remotely like Ronald Reagan in this election is not a Republican.

[amba]

YOU are on a roll! And I'm rolling. He's just lazy enough to do nothing at all while President and that is just fine with me. ... the trombone salesman from Massachusetts (next stop River City) That last is eagle-eyed! Priceless.

[Randy (Internet Ronin)]

Thank you! Thank you.

(It needed an editor, I think, but...)

Anyway, yes, I have been on something of a tear recently here and at Michael's (not so much at Ann's, although I have dropped a pearl or two there as well), save over the weekend when I was visiting my Chinese Prof. Remembering that James Thurber once called Alexander Woolcott "Ol' Vitriol & Violets," I thought I'd better toss a violet in the pot every once in a while, so here goes:

Ru-guo (If). Highly recommended. The song starts at 1:06 and lasts about 2 minutes.

It is a hauntingly beautiful folk song I heard in Taiwan in the '70's, when it was first performed. I've sought the original version, which was performed with guitar accompaniment IIRC for years but come up completely empty-handed until I found this version today. I'll post the words later. I thought a lot about this recently bcause it's a love song, the verses of which I am reminded of from time to time by your posts here.

Aside: Mentioning Michael reminds me: why no link to Sideways Mencken on your sidebar? Hmmm? Inquiring minds and all that....

[amba]

You're kidding, no link . . . oy, I've so neglected my sidebar.

[Randy (Internet Ronin)]

If.

If you're the morning dew, I want to be those blades of grass.

If you are that cloud, I'm that drop of rain.

After we lean together all day long, then I know:

The time when I'm near to you, next to you:

How beautiful it can be.

If you're that sea, I want to be that sandy beach.

If you're that puff of smoke, I'm that light wind.

Once I finally embrace you, then I know:

The time when I'm near to you, when I'm actually next you:

How sweet it can be.

(A poor translation but mine own)

[Randy (Internet Ronin)]

In the song, the word used is "desire" not "want" or "willing." Desire is so much more intense, and apt a word, but just completely out of place when translated into English, while it fits perfectly in Chinese.

[amba]

How about "I long to be that sandy beach"?

Waitaminnit, Ronin . . . you know Chinese?? WTF?

[amba]

P.S. Have you noticed that The Mighty Middle is still in my sidebar? That tell you anything?

[Randy (Internet Ronin)]

That's it - long !!!!

If you're that morning dew, I long to be that blade of grass.

If you're that cloud, I long to be that drop of rain.

etc.

Perfect! Told you I needed an editor.

RE: Chinese: I guess it is one of those "everyone know that" things that no one really does. Yes, I speak Mandarin & Cantonese (at one time I could manage a good bit of Taiwanese but I think that's long gone). I studied Mandarin all 4 years in college, learned Cantonese on the streets of Hong Kong. I learned more there than at the Chinese University of Hong Kong where I supposed to be studying. After graduation, I somehow got accepted to graduate school in Taiwan(in international law and diplomacy, of all things). According to our grad school dean, I was the first foreigner ever admitted as a normal student to any graduate department there and he called me in almost weekly to ask just how I managed that feat. At first I didn't know, but once I figured it out, I didn't tell him because he was a pompous ass.

[amba]

I like being able to brag about my friends!

[Randy (Internet Ronin)]

I had to stop saying too much about you (or Michael). Almost every time I did, the immediate response would ba along the lines of, "I've been working on (just finished) a novel. Could you just ..." While I have been accused of being cruel, I'm not that cruel, so I've taken to ientifying you as a karate specialist and Michael as a Katrina expert. Almost everyone is afraid of the former and doesn't want to talk about the latter.

[Randy (Internet Ronin)]

RE: Clinton & Obama at the debate tonight:

The featured exchange in the news thus far tonight is another Obama one-liner addressed to Clinton:

Later, Clinton asked Obama to back her legislation to prevent President Bush from unilaterally extending the United States' presence in Iraq beyond the end of his term next January.

"I think we can work on this, Hillary," he replied

Is everyone addressing each other by first name in the debates or is only Obama doing it? Is everyone's first name being used in the debates or only Hillary's?

If they are all doing it and all of the names are being used about equally, then this is no big deal. But if hers is the only first name generally used, this is a big deal - sn intfantilization/subordination issue I thought we as a society had pretty much recognized and tackled, if not defeated.

If Obama is the only one regularly referring to her as Hillary, this could prove to be bad news for him once attention begins to get paid to it.

I wasn't paying all that much attention to forms of address but two consecutive debates with two pull-quotes using "Hillary" did.

[Randy (Internet Ronin)]

... catch my attention.

(Accidentally cut off the end)

[amba]

I agree. That bothered me too. I didn't hear other first names used and it seemed very patronizing to me. It makes her into a little girl. That would be very deliberate, I would think. Not as blatant as but kinda like if she called him "Boy."

[Randy (Internet Ronin)]

I went back to the transcript of the January NH debate: 5 or 6 Hillary's, 1 Barack, 1 John, 1 Bill. I think 4 Hillary's are Obama's, the rest are from Edwards after Obama repeated Hillary the 3rd time.

It must be deliberate strategy to cut her down/bring her off her pedestal. That's playing with fire IMO. I'm not so sure it rises to the level of "boy," but it definitely falls into the category of showing "disrespect," something Obama's supporters went on and on about this week. It also plays into stereotypes about black men's treatment of women. That's not something I' want explored on the eve of an important primary where black women were until recently pretty solidly behind Clinton and then began fading away.

You realize the Demo. primary is fraught with far more of these kinds of problems than the general election, where the GOP candidate will know that anything remotely off-key will automatically be presumed to be racist or sexist (as the case may turn out to be).

It seems to me that it is also an amateur's mistake committed by someone not used to the intensity of a national campaign. My bro, the professional pol, says this lack of exposure really is his biggest hurdle to overcome. One Gerald Ford moment ("Poland is free" or whatever he said) and there goes the election. As my bro. points out, 30 years in the House and easily won elections did not prepare Ford for the '76 campaign. He almost blew the nomination. He did blow the election.

[Randy (Internet Ronin)]

As long as it is just you and me, ;-), FWIW, I like to tie up the loose ends of my stories about the good ol' days with bright red ribbons:

How I got accepted at grad school in Taiwan when I shouldn't have been:

The sister of the ex-girlfriend of the Chinese fiddle player in a California friend's bluegrass band in Taipei was the key. I'd shown her around Hong Kong when she visited there. We occasionally wrote to each other when I returned to the US. As it turns out, she graduated from the university where I was applying to grad school. When I wrote that I'd applied but had no response, she replied she would mention it to her ex-boyfriend, whose father happened to be the retired Dean of the University. She asked him, he asked his dad, and his dad called up his friend at the school (probably the new Dean of the University) and asked what was the status of my application.

While he really was just being polite on behalf of his son and that pretty young girl who used to come around, someone at the school apparently thought he was genuinely interested and took his inquiry as a veiled hint from their long-time boss. (Such inquiries usually are but this one, for once, wasn't.) So, they threw out the rule book ("locals only - no exceptions, even embassy-sponsored"), threw up their hands, and sent me a very nice note of apology for the long delay along with a formal letter of acceptance.

*LOL!*

[Funky Dung]

I'm not certain calling her Hillary is demeaning. When I've seen or read about her supporters, they seem to chant "Hilllary" quite a bit and, IIRC, her campaign signs say "Hillary", not "Clinton". I could be wrong, though, and I'm too lazy to look it up. ;)

[amba]

IR,

I was gonna go *yawn* *stretch* and back to the politics, but then your Taiwan story blew me out of the water. Did you say bluegrass band in Taiwan? What a world.

I was gonna ask whether learning Chinese was something you sought out or something that befell you; you know, like missionaries' kids and army brats can get a head start, or whether it was something that, out of the blue of your own heart, you just wanted to do.

Our friend who studied karate intensively in Japan, turns out his great-grandfather was a very major missionary and cultural emissary/go-between there, and his grandfather who grew up there became a big-time codebreaker in WWII and a founder of the NSA. It wasn't that he didn't know about the major Japan connection in his near ancestry, but he didn't realize the depth or extent of it (his great-grandfather introduced tennis to Japan, founded English-speaking schools there, wrote major books about Japan for Americans) because a series of divorces had carried him far from his birth mother, with whom he's now reconnected.

Back to politics, you might've noticed that over at Ann's my one-word characterization of Obama was "green." Almost going back to the literal sense of it, like a young tree.

[amba]

Funky: No, you're right. She does call herself Hillary, and everybody calls her Hillary, so what's the problem? It's a reflection of the confusion of modern manners and morals that calculated disrespect can conceal itself in the high grass of informality. Nobody knows what the rules are. A debate, however, is a form that has a bit of formality still clinging to it, and just as in the Senate or House you'll hear people addressing each other a bit more formally than they might in more casual contexts. It's something women have to be alert to, just as there may be subtle (or not so subtle, think Biden) forms of condescension Obama may have to be alert to.

[Funky Dung]

"Back to politics, you might've noticed that over at Ann's my one-word characterization of Obama was "green." Almost going back to the literal sense of it, like a young tree."

My fear is that he'd be a bonsai tree, molded by the DNC elites. He campaigns on change, but would he change Washington or would Washington change him?

[Funky Dung]

My guess is that the use of "Hillary" is a calculated decision on Mrs. Clinton's part. I think it's meant to portray her as an individual and free-thinker, rather than President Clinton's wife. I don't think she wants to give the impression that a vote for her is a vote for his third term.

[amba]

Good insight. If she calls herself "Clinton" it reminds us of something she doesn't want front and center.

[Tom Strong]

I just glanced through several transcripts on CNN (i.e., here), and pretty much every other candidate has called her "Hillary" at least a few times. I also caught multiple "Baracks", "Bills", "Joes", etc. So if this is a ploy by Obama, it must be one of those overly-subtle attacks the netroots keep criticizing him for.

Randy, I'm impressed. I once spoke Mandarin fluently, and tried to learn Cantonese for a while as well. But I gave up on that pretty quickly; nine tones was just too much.

[Meade]

Here's a headline over at NYTimes Online right now:

Clinton Addresses Race on BET

I have to say, without reading the body of the article, I'd have no idea which Clinton "Clinton" refers to.

It adds (ad nauseam) one more meaning to "identity politics".

[Randy (Internet Ronin)]

Thanks for checking it out, Tom! I was wondering mainly because almost all of the few Joes, Bills, and Baracks I found in the 2 transcripts I looked at were spoken by Edwards, while almost all of the Hillarys were Obama's. (Quite possibly "luck of the draw" WRT questions.) And, as I said, twice now the quote used by the press has him calling her Hillary. On the whole, it seems to me to be smarter to refer to her as "Senator," as in this most recent example. It irked Amba when she heard it, and she's not a partisan of HRC. It also really bugs 2 of the normally GOP women in my family, one of whom will NEVER vote for HRC and the other probably won't.

[Randy (Internet Ronin)]

My turn to be impressed WRT to Mandarin, Tom, if your pronunciation was spot-on. Mine never has been, but then I noticed early on most Chinese had various regional accents, so I just worked on being understood, not perfect, and had a lot more fun than my classmates. Then again, many of them teach Mandarin now, so they were well-served. Cantonese wasn't really so hard because, as you know, the grammar is basically the same (and simple), there is a high degree of consistency in differences in pronunctiation: "ji" in Mandarin is almost always "Gei" in Cantonese, "hui" is "wooi" so the only questions are which tones, and after one or two opportunities (ji-hui/gei-wooi) it was easy to remember. ;-)

Taiwanese, with the nasal n, gutteral g, and indistinct m/b was harder.

[Randy (Internet Ronin)]

Yes, Meade, it is hard to know who is talking in that headline. As it would be in these:

Bush Addresses Race on BET

Kennedy Addresses Race on BET

Thompson Addresses Race on BET