Photo Credits: Segar/ReutersIn an earlier post, I mentioned a comment made by Benazir Bhutto in an interview published in New York Magazine last October. Commiserating with Hillary Clinton, Bhutto said: “I had a lot of support among ordinary women. But women in leadership positions could sometimes be competitive. Those who’d achieved a lot could be my sharpest critics.”
I’ve personally noticed that prolonged attacks on Hillary by influential women - especially one or two in the media - have gone beyond mere competiveness. It’s become obvious that Clinton is doubly resented by her female critics for having achieved a lot in her own right and for having kept her marriage and family together through it all.
David Fiderer’s well-written essay in today’s Huffington Post focuses on New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd’s projections of her stuff onto Hillary.
Fiderer nails Dowd in her opening gambit 12/23/07: “Just when I thought I was out, the Clintons pull me back into their conjugal psychodrama."
Fiderer replies: “They pull you back in? Sorry, dear, you're projecting again. Since Labor Day, about half of your columns have been devoted to trashing Hillary. And it's the old crap over and over. No kidding, it's really obsessional.”
To Dowd’s charge that “Without nepotism, Hillary would be running for the president of Vassar." 9/30/07, Fiderer says:
“Right. And what would Christopher Dodd be doing? Or Elizabeth Dole? Or Teddy Kennedy? Or Cokie Roberts? But for nepotism, who would have ever heard of Indira Ghandi? But for nepotism, Katherine Graham had no material to write a book that won the Pulitzer Prize, Margaret Chase Smith would have been an obscure housewife and Donald Trump would have been a real estate agent in Queens.
“Get over it and get a life, Maureen.”
For balance, Fiderer responds to a few attacks on Hillary by the likes of Andrew Sullivan and Carl Bernstein.
Andrew Sullivan: “[Senator Clinton] harkens back to the '90s. I think she's been a very sensible senator. I think, in fact, it's hard to disagree with her on the war. But when I see her again, all my--all the cootie vibes sort of resurrect themselves...I'm sorry. I must represent a lot of people... I actually find her positions appealing in many ways. I just can't stand her." Andrew Sullivan on The Chris Matthews Show, January 28, 2007”
Fiderer: “Hillary resurrects cootie vibes? Seven years ago, Sullivan gained notoriety as a menace to public health, when, as an HIV-positive man, he placed an ad soliciting unprotected anal intercourse with strangers. Yet when he harkens back to that time, he associates Senator Clinton with the slang word for body lice.
“He {Sullivan} finds her positions appealing in many ways but he just can't stand her. Hmm. Doesn't sound very rational. Maybe he can't stand to admit that his writings in support of the Bush administration have all been discredited. Maybe he can't deal with the fact that he shares positions with people he attacked with vitriolic fervor a few years earlier. And maybe he projects on to Senator Clinton his own personal hypocrisy.”
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