Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Let's Pretend

Washington Post's Eugene Robinson has a a hilarious-if-it-weren't-so-true take on Hillary's ridiculous all out push to capitalize on Obama's "bitter" comments. (poll numbers are showing the media - surprise- are blowing the significance of this whole thing out of proportion, see what Robert Reich said about that yesterday.)

The Daily Show covered the entire "controversy" last night (bits about Hillary start at 3:20 or so):



And here's a taste of Robinson's column:

Hillary "Shot-and-a-Beer" Clinton has given us the perfect illustration of what's so insane about American politics: the philosophical dictum that could be summed up (with apologies to Descartes) as "I seem, therefore I am."

Clinton spent the weekend bashing Barack Obama for not seeming to be enough of a regular guy -- not for any actual deficit of regular-guyness, mind you, but for giving the impression that such a deficit might exist.

The former first lady, whose family has made $109 million since her husband left the White House, then made a show of demonstrating that she's actually just a regular gal. The point wasn't really to convince anyone that she, Bill and Chelsea commute between their two lavish mansions in a five-year-old Ford F-150 pickup with a gun rack and a "Jesus Rocks!" bumper sticker. Her aim was to prove to the nation -- or at least to Democratic primary voters in Pennsylvania and Indiana -- that she's better at feigning regularness than Obama.

This is how we pick a president?
(His kicker after the link!)

Clinton's argument assumes that "regular" is a synonym for "unsophisticated" -- that to communicate with voters who have not attained a certain income or education level, a candidate has to put on an elaborate disguise and speak in words of one syllable.

So tell me: Who's being patronizing?

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