Last week during the New Hampshire rush before the primaries, Hilary Clinton did something politicians don't normally do on camera, or ever in public for that matter...she showed genuine emotion. "Empassioned tones of voice" towards campaign issues are often considered the furthest extent to which politicians are allowed to express their emotions. So i'ts no wonder that the media didn't hesistate to harp on Hilary's display of something more than that. At a sitdown question and answer session, Hilary got a choked up responding to the question of how she's handling stress of everything concering running for President. The press jumped on the chance to report on this (as one reporter called it) "rare show of emotion". Then the public ran away with the story, calling it an "emotional breakdown" and saying she was "crying" during an interview. Watch the video in the link at the top of this post and you see for yourself if she was really "crying" and "breaking down".
A) You'll she that she wasn't. She didn't fall to pieces, but merely responded emotionally to a personal question. God forbid!
B) If this is considered a "rare show of emotion" then I am truly depressed. Getting choked up is a full scale emotional blowout now? And it's rare for candidates to show even this minute amount of feeling. It saddens me to think that I'm among the minority in thinking that this might just in fact be a good thing...a sign that a President can also be a human with feelings rather than a dried up apathic robot.
C) If Obama had had this kind of "emotional breakdown" you can bet it would be interpreted as a plus, a sign that he can be sensitive, too. People would be on their hands and knees, praising his empathy and compassion, unlike the way they're twisting it around for Hilary, presenting it as a sign of weakness. Instead of taking this incident as a reflection of humanity in an otherwise too stone-like political world, it's being used as "yet another testament" to the notion that a woman's emotions would only get in the way of being a good politician, instead of opening us to new avenues of approaching politics.
And furthermore, a last note before I reach the point of no return with my own "empassioned tone", take a look at the image posted with this blog.
Acceptance - n. [ak-sept-ants]
(see attached photo...then ignore it)
If Hilary shows the stern and solid qualities of strength that male candidates are praised for, she's considered a bitch. If she breaks from this strength, unaccepted as it is anyway, she's considered weak. America, which one do you want? Maybe someday you'll see we can have both...and we don't just have praise men for it.
1 comment:
Case in point, a woeful Romney goes totally unnoticed. Hendrik Hertzberg wrote in this week's New Yorker, "Mitt Romney, a leading Republican contender this year, cried three times last month alone." Where is a media frenzy when you need one?
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