Hillary's slick willies
Camille Paglia
April 9, 2008 | I would like to get your feedback on the subject of those who end up in Hillary's orbit. Can you conceive of a strong, leader-type male ever working under her? An alpha, if you will. And if the answer is no, then why do you think that is?
The men you always see under her are to a person passive-aggressive, sadistic, mean, little, petty beta-male pieces of work who would not naturally succeed in a common male-type hierarchy. By that I mean an environment that values straightforward achievement rather than the darker political arts.
That statement is in no way meant to exclude women. In fact, I work with many women who succeed just as well in this environment. It is just a shorthand for an environment that values achievement and straight talk. Hillary's persona is simply not compatible with another strong will, male or female -- but definitely male, and that itself is a big red flag.
What kind of person would go to work for a Clinton in the first place? A naive true-believer? Everyone knows what they would be getting into: constant war rooms, personal attacks, spin, daily damage control, a boss prone to temper tantrums, placing your own integrity out on the ledge as a shill for a fundamentally dishonest person. I would argue that nobody who hasn't already sold their soul years ago would ever want to be a part of that mess.
Your thoughts?
Chris Richard
Agoura Hills, Calif.
You have succinctly expressed one of the most unsettling aspects of Hillary Clinton's character and modus operandi. There is a strangely static and claustrophobic quality to the fiercely loyal cult she has gathered around her since her first lady years. Postmortem analysts of this presidential campaign will have a field day ferreting out all the cringe-making blunders made by her clique of tired, aging courtiers who couldn't adjust to changing political realities. Hillary's forces have acted like the heavy, pompous galleons of the imperial Spanish Armada, outmaneuvered by the quick, bold, entrepreneurial ships of the English fleet.
I agree that the male staff who Hillary attracts are slick, geeky weasels or rancid, asexual cream puffs. (One of the latter, the insufferable Mark Penn, just got the heave-ho after he played Hillary for a patsy with the Colombian government.) If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say Hillary is reconstituting the toxic hierarchy of her childhood household, with her on top instead of her drill-sergeant father. All those seething beta males (as you so aptly describe them) are versions of her sad-sack brothers, who got the short end of the Rodham DNA stick.
The compulsive war-room mentality of both Clintons is neurosis writ large. The White House should not be a banging, rocking washer perpetually stuck on spin cycle. Many Democrats, including myself, have come to doubt whether Hillary has any core values or even a stable sense of identity. With her outlandish fibbing and naive self-puffery, her erratic day-to-day changes of tone and message, her glassy, fixed smiles, and her leaden and embarrassingly unpresidential jokes about pop culture, she has started to seem like one of those manic, seductively vampiric patients in trashy old Hollywood hospital flicks like "The Snake Pit." How anyone could confuse Hillary's sourly cynical, male-bashing megalomania with authentic feminism is beyond me.
