Who Dissed Hillary and Why?

Some Democrats, most especially the feminists, are up in arms about the supposed bad treatment that Hillary Clinton got in the media during the primaries. True to their victimist mind-set, they are naturally claiming sexism. This is the standard lament by all ideologues in the “identity” politics industry - no matter what their identity group is – when their candidate is defeated or when their demands are not met in full. Wait for the hue and cry if Obama loses in the general election despite all the efforts and positive prognostications by his admirers (and there are many!) in the media - RACISM.

In this case, of course, there were many factors in play to explain Clinton’s defeat. Certainly “sexism” was a factor for Clinton, just as anti-Mormonism was probably a factor in play against Romney; anti-evangelical bias against Huckabee; anti-tough guy-ism against Giuliani - and most certainly anti-ageism now in full bloom against McCain. Well, them are the breaks in an open society, when you are mired in “identity”. For Clinton, of course, her misfortune was that her identity claims were much less compelling for the chattering classes than Obama’s claims. He is a triple threat: “intellectual” with appeal to all the self-selected “knowledge" class; “African-American” (to whatever extent he chooses to claim that label-of-convenience); multi-racial (wow a whole different ball-game from any other “African-American” who has ever run before). And added to that a multi-cultural (multi-religious?) icon, guaranteed to get us in the good graces of America’s haters all around the world. Poor Hillary, she never had a chance!

In order to ensure the triumph of this exotic Messiah, the Liberal-oriented media was even willing to overtly commit the sin of sexism, and to even point out, and openly discuss, some unpleasant truths about her and how she got to be where she did in politics: beneficiary of sympathy votes in reaction to her husband’s bimbo eruptions; beneficiary of her husband’s chicanery and accumulated political clout and wealth. All the things that the Liberal media was willing to overlook and excuse for her and her husband over the last 16 years (they wouldn’t have wanted to give aid and comfort to the right wing conspiracy, after all) were now in play in the service of the greater good - to boost the electoral prospects of the Anointed One.

In truth, this is delicious irony. It was the election of the Clintons that brought “identity” into the political mainstream. They elevated “diversity” to the level of a civic religion; diversity in anything - animal, vegetable, mineral – is now celebrated to nauseating extremes. No more that culturally biased concept – assimilation; that has now become a dirty word in our national conversations. It is almost hard to recall now, but George H. W. Bush was just about the last major party candidate to run against multiculturalism. His former opponent, Bill Clinton, was hailed as America’s first Black president, with no apparent irony or sense of insult to Blacks.

Those who live by identity politics die by identity politics - or so we hope.