"Hillary Haters" out in Force

The only thing that scares Clinton's opponents

and the coroprate media more than her running for president

is her closeness to actually winning it.

Prowling the Internet, spilling venom on blogs and dominating the airwaves on conservative talk radio, "Hillary haters" are back and out in force as the 2008 presidential nominating contests loom.

Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton is sparking the same waves of vitriol in the conservative echo chamber that burst forth during her husband Bill Clinton's eight years in the White House.

Just three weeks before the lead-off Iowa caucuses, Clinton remains a lightning rod, targeted again by enemies who hounded her as first lady but adored by supporters backing her potentially historic campaign.

Clinton is the target of a daily ouburst of vitriol on blogs, branded a "communist," "Satan," "Jezabel," "Lady Macbeth" and a "female Stalin."

One group, dubbed "Stop Hillary Now" is trying to recruit hundreds of millions of anti-Clinton activists through the online networking site Facebook.

With Christmas approaching, what do you get the "Hillary hater" who has everything -- how about a tree ornament of her as a devil, or tee shirts with a similar design from web based vendor Cafepress.

Clinton has been an object of anger since her husband's 1992 White House campaign, provoking the ire of anti-feminists and conservatives which is being whipped up again as she strives to be America's first woman president.

"It is a carry over from the Clinton administration -- a group of people, who for a variety of reasons find her very polarizing, don't like her personality," said Dean Spiliotes, a New Hampshire political expert.

"She and her husband encapsulate a whole approach, an ideology regarding government they do not like, a larger broader cultural war that goes back to the 1960s," he said.

Clinton's corps of high profile enemies on the airwaves include populist conservative radio hosts like Glenn Beck, who has branded her "Satan."

Another popular conservative radio host Sean Hannity, has dubbed his show the "Stop Hillary Express."

Clinton, a veteran of the fiercely partisan war raging through US politics, has in the past lambasted the "vast right-wing conspiracy" targeting her and her husband.

But the fierce attacks against her may amount to a back-handed compliment -- testimony to a hardnosed, highly competent campaign, and a formidable politician.

Clinton has also tried to turn the ire of what she calls the "Republican attack machine" to her advantage, saying she knows how to beat the hardball tactics.

She has equated rising attacks from her Democratic rivals, including Senator Barack Obama and former vice presidential nominee John Edwards, to negative Republican tactics.

"I have absorbed a lot of attacks, my opponents have basically had a free reign," she told CBS News in an interview on Monday.

Kim Gandy, president of the feminist National Organization for Women, believes that Clinton is a victim of her success.

"Clinton's road to the top has been paved with published gender stereotypes and broadcast sexist overtones," Gandy said.

"Some of it may be caused by gender but a lot of it the ramping up that we are sensing now is perhaps driven by the fact that there is a real possibility she might the actual nominee.

"The only thing that scares Clinton's opponents and the media more than her running for president -- is her closeness to actually winning it."

The loathing of Hillary Clinton unites everyone from

the ultraright to the ultraleft -- but why? [Original]

The occasion was a symposium on the presidential candidates held by the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable, which sponsors a weekly public policy discussion series in Los Angeles.

Midway through a heated discussion over the relative merits of Democratic presidential contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton a member of the audience let loose with an impassioned "I can't stand Hillary" blast.

He punctuated it with the quip, I'd vote for anybody but her. I asked him a simple question: Why do you hate Hillary?

He sat with his mouth wide open and a perplexed glaze on his face, no sound issued from him. His mute response was no surprise.

My question to him is the same question to the legions that slam Hillary; tell me specifically what terrible thing she's done that stirs such froth around your mouth.

Skip the personal attacks, vitriol, innuendos, slurs, and don't repeat hearsay, gossip, or what you heard someone say about Clinton, and that includes Bill.

Give me one tangible thing that she has done to piss you off so much that you are proud to be a charter member of the anybody but Hillary club. Name one tangible thing?

I asked the man in audience to tell me one thing that she's done politically or even personally that ticked him off so that without batting an eye he'd say that the thought of her winning sends him into a paroxysm of rage.

The question continued to dangle for a long and pregnant moment with no response.

He, of course, is no different than the swarm of other Hillary bashers.

The visceral dislike, even loathing of her, is so deep and broad that it welds together a strange mesh of the usual suspect Hillary haters from the Christian fundamentalists, ultraright Republicans and conservative talking heads.

Also include a bevy of her former Hollywood pals and Bill Clinton campaign bank rollers, all the way to self-styled progressives and ultraradicals.

They have absolutely nothing in common other than the ecstasy they get from pounding Hillary for her alleged political and personal sins.

But what are they? And what did she do that has earned her the label of everything from the devil incarnate (the late Jerry Falwell) on the right to branding her a shill for fat cat lobbyists and corporations on the left.

That's just cheap shot name calling, trashing, and vilification from the rank and file. But the press has also gleefully jumped in on the Clinton beat down.

It spins, twists, massages in reverse and blows to smithereens any and every piece of nasty Clinton gossip or dig.

I asked the Hillary hater a third time to name one specific thing that she's done to earn his obsessive enmity.

The silent Hillary denouncer after some fishing, fumbling and stalling, said that she cheer-led Bush on the Iraq war when she voted to authorize it, OK.

But so did her Democratic presidential rival John Edwards, and though Obama says that he wouldn't have voted for it if he had been in the Senate then. However, in two subsequent votes he backed spending measures that continued war funding.

If the other top gun Democratic presidential contender Bill Richardson had been in the Senate he almost certainly would have backed war authorization.

In fact, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus was sharply divided over support of the original Iraq war resolution in 2002 that gave Bush authority to wage war.

Edwards later apologized for backing the resolution. Obama joined with thirteen other Democratic Senators to oppose the crucial big money Iraq war appropriations bill in May. One of the other thirteen senators was Clinton.

She is no different than other Democrats that have cut and run from Bush's war. They all recanted when public opinion turned sour on the war and Bush and it suddenly became politically fashionable and popular to do so.

The Iraq war support certainly doesn't explain the vehemence of the Hillary targeting.

Her centrist, cautious, and sometimes fuzzy stance on health care, education, taxes, and immigration are legitimate issues to dissect, debate, and criticize.

But these are issues that all of the contenders can and should be held to the fire on. They are fair game for that.

But intense political debate and disagreement on the crucial public policy issues in and of themselves is simply not enough to stoke visceral dislike of a candidate, let alone explain the intense hate for Hillary.

My challenge then to all Hillary bashers is the same as it was to the guy at the Urban Policy Roundtable in Los Angeles; tell me exactly why you hate her so much?

tags: hillary clinton  president  2008  hate  misogyny  

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