This is shaping up to be a long and interesting presidential campaign year what with history being made right off the bat. The first black candidate, the first woman candidate, and everyone bending over backward to say ‘not that there’s anything wrong with that’ like on the Seinfeld episode about gays and how perfect would it be for someone to come out of the closet while we’re all looking the other way.
The current celebrity clime has it that famous couples get incorporated names like Brangelina for Pitt and Jolie and Bennifer for Affleck and JLo and then again for Affleck and Garner which you can’t tell me wasn’t anticlimactic. When Clinton was President, he and the First Lady were known as Billary and Husband wants to know why they haven’t been rechristened Hillbilly this time around. It’s a good question and I privately think the answer is that our society still has a subconscious need to put the man first when it really counts.
This morning on the Today show, Dee Dee Myers, the former White House Press Secretary for the Clinton Administration in the early 90s, made some cogent points about media reaction to Hillary. If you don’t recall Dee Dee Myers, then at least have in your mind that the character of C.J. on The West Wing was modeled after the Myers persona, the first-ever female Press Secretary.
Myers noted that as a nation we can’t seem to evolve past our not-so-subtle divergent standards regarding gender. The press has made much mention of Hillary looking tired, stressed, cranky, shrill, everything short of menopausal. It’s been pondered whether or not she’s had work done on her face, why she wears the colors she does, did she order Bill to stay out of her limelight, is that a smirk, etc. Obama’s detractors have made it a point to remind us that his middle name is Hussein while over in the parallel universe known as Doonesbury he’s being referred to as ‘the black Kennedy’. If I recall correctly, back in the Dee Dee Myers days the Clintons hovered on the cusp of what America dreamed might be the next Camelot. Then came an intern and a windowless hallway. Now comes perhaps the Great (Non) White Hope.
It’s ironic that the media harps on the candidates’ flaws since our leaders have a long and notable history of physically deteriorating before our eyes once the pressures of the presidency have ravaged them. Still, we maintain a warm appreciation of the toll caring for us takes on them. We forgive their indiscretions. We admire their supportive spouses. We find their children’s awkwardness endearing. If they’re former movie stars, even better. As a united people, we need to find a way to make that appreciation unilateral, unigender and uniracial. We must bear in mind that anyone whose most passionate desire is to lead us has the same right to age like a barrel of grapes out in the hot sun just like all the good old boys who came before.
Daughter’s Featured Fotos today Say It Loud
we the people
door of opportunity
the other american gothic
red state warning