Carol Platt Liebau: Thinking Americans Are Stupid

Monday, March 12, 2007

Thinking Americans Are Stupid

So Hillary Clinton has been caught in yet another whopper, claiming that she was an adherent of Dr. Martin Luther King the year before she was an avowed Goldwater Girl in the 1964 election.

The reasons she would make such a claim are obvious. Threatened by Barack Obama's burgeoning popularity in the African American community, she is trying to find new grounds on which to claim a connection with black voters.

It's just the method that she used -- a pandering, easily refuted falsehood -- that raises the questions. She had to have known that the information about her Republican roots was out there. Why, then, would she go ahead and make a statement that's not only untrue, but easily verifiable as such?

First, it's worth noting she has a history of doing this. She's told people that she was named for Sir Edmund Hillary, and the like -- even though, that, too, could be easily checked.

At the very least, Hillary's willingness to make these claims speaks to a deep contempt for her audience. Doesn't she know that people have the intelligence and the capacity to check her statements -- and that her every statement is going to be scrutinized?

More profoundly, it indicates a profound emptiness at the core of Hillary Clinton. She lacks the confidence that she will be liked and supported if she reveals her "true" self, and thus resorts to trying to make "connections" with her audience based not on who she is, but who she thinks they would like her to be.

If this weren't so annoying, it would be sad. But this lack of mature and stable self-knowledge and self-acceptance may explain her ceaseless quest for power, public acclaim and public office. She's trying to find the love and regard from the outside that she's obviously unable to manifest for herself from within.

2 Comments:

Blogger stackja1945 said...

Carol, again, Hillary Clinton's problem is, she is Hillary Clinton.

5:44 PM  
Blogger Marshal Art said...

And that is a difficult problem to overcome.

But I've often wondered why anyone would "pander" to an audience for votes. I mean, of course a candidate wishes to appeal to as many voters as possible, but what's the point of one pretending what one is not? As stated in the post, folks will check. But shouldn't it be enough to simply state what one believes and how those beliefs would be a benefit to the audience? If one can't convince or persuade, how can one possibly be right for the job? If the beliefs can't be articulated properly to be understood by the masses, who would vote for that candidate? The strength of one's convictions and beliefs might sustain the candidate, but the inability to light a fire with them is the same as not having any convictions. And then, perhaps, the trouble might be in the convictions and beliefs. Perhaps the trouble is that the beliefs aren't worth a damn and that's why other means must be employed to present one's self as the right candidate. "Well, I got nothing these folks would like, so I'll just talk like them and that'll make them think I care about them."

They'd have to be really stupid.

10:50 PM  

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