While we wait to see the results of today’s primary that will surely force the end of Hillary Clinton’s campaign even if she wins, let’s tour the non-peer reviewed internets, shall we?
- Bob Somerby has a really interesting ethnographic analysis today at The Daily Howler, arguing that the press corps’ dominant Hillary hatred can be traced to middle-aged “East Coast Irish Catholics” prominent at NBC and the New York Times, and the particular stew of “psychosexual lunacies” that their mid-twentieth century upbringing has wrought. Check it out: he writes that “[Maureen] Dowd and [Chris] Matthews are the press corps’ leading psychosexual nut-cases.” Somerby (an East Coast Irish Catholic himself) also enlists the assitance of Gene Lyons, another East Coast Irish Catholic who affirms that it’s all part of the culture: “Having basically grown up in a Maureen Dowd column, albeit with less wit and more profanity, I’ve known this variety of Irish Catholic misogyny forever. My sainted mother warned me against the cunning and duplicity of women almost to her dying breath. It’s a sorrowful remnant of sexual Puritanism.” (We’ll just let that adjective “puritanism” used to describe Catholicism go this time, m’kay? No one likes a pedant…) Is the press corps–and possibly the nation–being driven by Irish Catholic psychosexual anxieties? (Or does that question creep you out too much to consider writing a comment?)
- In any case, you’d think the Irish Catholic luminaries listed above might have a few questions for John McCain and his endorsement by Pastor Hagee, who is just as insanely anti-Catholic as Cotton Mather, instead of pestering Barack Obama about his pastor, who might once have said something nice about Louis Farakkhan. (Do you really think a white congregant from that church would have to answer those questions? Think, people!)
- I posted this in a comments thread below, but it deserves a promotion: a clear-eyed analysis of the nefarious, dirty-trickster Hillary Clinton and her plan to win the White House by winning the Democratic Primary! Who does she think she is? It’s not like she’s also rebounding in the national polls! Oh noooooo! Quick! Everyone, STOP VOTING NOW! Your voting is disruptive of party unity and the democratic process! (H/t to Correntewire, which also has a good roundup of people hating’ on the Hillary.)
UPDATE, March 5: Dowd’s latest hairball is mind-alteringly stupid. She writes that in the Democratic primary, “All the victimizations go tripping over each other and colliding, a competition of historical guilts. People will have to choose which of America’s sins are greater, and which stain will have to be removed first. Is misogyny worse than racism, or is racism worse than misogyny?” That’s right–I guess if you’re a rich, white New York Times columnist, you can pick either/or on this question! (Intersectionality, much?) And the winner of the Democratic primary means that his or her single “oppression” will be erased for all Americans, as though with a StainStick! Does anyone else find it, um, interesting, that the fifty-six year old Dowd sniffs at the support HRC has from older women, and tries to align herself with the views of a “post-feminist” nineteen-year old college student? As patronizing as her comments are about African Americans (“vicim lock”, anyone? What does that even mean?), she outdoes herself by furnishing further evidence of what Somerby (above) called “psychosexual lunacies.” In her parting shot she ventriloquizes a putative college student, who shouts at President Clinton, “‘We love you, Bill!’ yelled one boy. ‘You did a good job, except for Monica.'” Historiann votes for Professorblackwoman to get the big bucks at the grey lady to brain the place up.
Historiann 
Of course, Hillary can keep her campaign going as long as she wants, but the delegate math for her is quite daunting at this point, which is the main issue. Is it impossible for her to win the nomination? Absolutely not. But I think her best chance at this point is to hold her own in the remaining states and hope that something bad comes out of the Rezko trial that tarnishes Obama and pushes the superdelegates in her direction. Otherwise, it’s hard to see how she gets to where she needs to be.
At the very least, she should be aiming to win more delegates tonight than Obama. If she falls further behind in delegates, I don’t think Pennsylvania will be enough to pull her back up.
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I have to say, what the democratic campaign for a nominee has revealed about both sexism and racism in this country shocks me, and makes me fear that the Republicans will, once again, win the general. The blatant sexism that HRC has experienced has been intolerable, but the fact that 1 in 5 voters in Ohio said race was a factor, and 8 of 10 of them voted for Clinton, is equally appalling! And now they’re doing McCain’s dirty work for him with all their negativity. I admit it-fear is motivating me. Fear of 4 more years of a Republican!
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ej–do you have a cite for the information about race in Ohio? That really stinks.
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Yeah, but I’m ashamed to reveal it-it was from exit polls cited by Nora O’Donnell on MSNBC. I confess, I turn to those Irish white guys for my election coverage.
But what’s a gal to do? I can’t stand that Wolf Blizter…
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I’m with you–but the Obama cheerleading gets to me. I’ll watch for news about race in Ohio in the reports tomorrow!
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Here’s the cite for the race issue that ej mention
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/
(You have to page down).
I’ve seen numbers about racism affect ~8-10% and ad about 6-8% on sexism for Democratic voters on Super Tuesday. Unfortunately, I don’t have a cite.
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Thanks, BEW. I looked at that MSNBC exit poll data, and it was hard to figure. There probably are people who say that the sex of their favored candidate–Clinton–was a factor, and there are African American people who may also have said that the race of their favored candidate–Obama–was a factor, so given the ambiguity of the question it’s hard to figure. However, the reptile brain is never far behind the prefrontal cortex of American voters, I’m afraid.
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I was listening to Diane Rehm the other day, and a woman called in, sounded a bit on the older side, and said she didn’t like Hillary because she sounded like an angry, (impotent), PTA mom. When the host (Rehm was off) said something like, “but others have said she seems like a very strong, powerful woman,” the caller said, “Yes, and that too! So harsh! I could never vote for her!”
Can’t even get her props from women. So many hills for her to climb (BTW, vote Obama!, or HC, whoever wins).
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Beautiful, Pal! I love it. She’s just Bill’s tool, but she’s a nut-busting bee-yatch. She’s a frigid lesbian who was having an affair with Vince Foster before she murdered him. She’s too cold and calculating, until she cries, when she’s just being a manipulative female.
However, I disagree that she’s not got women on her side–Latinas and white women turned out big-time for her yesterday, and she’s winning more of them back from the Obama camp. (But you’re right–the struggle against sexism isn’t women-against-men, it’s all of us against ourselves and our own reptile brains!)
She can’t win, clearly. She should drop out now–but wait! Ohmigod! She won last night! How can this be? Must be dirty tricks, satanic power, etc…
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