Hillary Talks
What concerns me most about Senator Clinton’s complaints about her Democratic rivals criticisms is not simply the immaturity of her difficulty in handling criticism, but what the bodes for next year should her “inevitability” prove true. Her Democratic rivals were not being out-of-line, they were making serious points about her stances on public and foreign policy - for which all candidates and elected officials should be held accountable. What is she going to do when confronted by the slavvering rabidry of a Giuliani, the cheap shots of a McCain or whatever the Romnobot can dish out?
Update: This cartoon turned out to be more controversial (in my little teapot world) than I expected. Here’s how I responded to criticism of my depiction of Senator Clinton as weeping into her husband’s arms:
My good friend Barry Deutsch has taken me to task on a cartoon I did a couple months ago portraying Clinton as weeping into her husband’s arms following criticism she received during the October 30th debate. Remember, “politics of pile-on“? Kate Phillips provided further context for the controversy, and indeed it is that context, as well as Clinton’s cynical attempts at foreign policy “toughness,” that inspired the cartoon. In my view, Clinton’s defensive use of gender identity in response to legitimate criticisms from her political rivals was not an instance of her being a “weepy, weak female” but of being a (more gender-neutral) “cry baby.” Instead of handling the criticism directly, she tried to make it seem that she was the target of a “boy’s club.” Put together, such defensiveness, cynical use of gender politics, and bringing in her husband to defend her against “those boys” created the impression that she was not the feminist ground-breaker she claims to be.
That’s where I was coming from. But what an artist intends and what the art does on its own can be two different things. Barry is probably right that the final panel of my cartoon plays into sexist stereotyping, no matter what I intended. That experience has made me a bit more cautious (and I think I’m pretty cautious as it is) in how my artistic responses to political events and politicians’ behavior reinforce stereotypes, cant and other moronic assumptions. Had Bill Clinton been the candidate responding in a similar fashion (minus gender politics), my portrayal of him as “cry baby” would have been more clear, at least by not being clouded by cultural attitudes toward gender. Yet had I portrayed him weeping into his wife’s arms, would it have implied that he was “emasculated” or “less than a man”? Possibly yes.
In conversation (in person, not online) Barry had asked me if I thought Elizabeth Edwards’ defense of her husband against Ann Coulter’s “faggot” remarks were any different from Bill Clinton’s defense of his wife. I would say, yes, given the context: Coulter’s criticisms were indefensible, whereas the criticisms from Hillary Clinton’s rivals were reasonable responses to contradictions she had made in a debate; and, again, Bill’s “those boys” comment followed on the heels of Hillary’s “boy’s club” comment and her campaign’s “pile-on” YouTube video. That said, my cartoon should have been more explicit in criticizing these tactics and clarifying that context. To some extent I was trying to do too much at once. The image itself - Clinton sobbing in the arms of her husband - resonates far beyond my own intentions and serves to subvert my criticism.
The above was part of a post criticizing Pat Oliphant’s depiction of the moment in New Hampshire when Senator Clinton got a little emotional in response to a question from a voter, inadvertently prompting pundits to claim she was “weeping” and “sobbing.” I addressed the pundit’s sexist distortion of that moment in a different blog post. But I should note that the cartoon above precedes that whole controversy by a couple months.)I point this out merely to make clear that this cartoon in no way addresses that issue - to do so would have required a time machine.
