Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Crybaby


I had purple bellbottom jeans in 1972. I got married in them. Looked pretty spiffy I thought, back then.

We've come to a point in our political analysis that anything the Clinton's do is subject to enormous scrutiny and parsing of Hillary's moves as somehow being calculating and done with an eye to garnering sympathy for her and making her seem more human.

Sorry, I think its probably true, too, particularly when you realize she only worked 3 months or so for the Children's defense folks and not all during the 70's as some allege and praise her for on the campaign trail.

FOR CRYIN' OUT LOUD!
HILLARY TURNS ON THE TEARS AGAIN

By GEOFF EARLE: New York Post

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - There she goes again.
It was another two-hanky day on the campaign trail yesterday, as Hillary Rodham Clinton teared up at an event targeting female voters on the eve of the Super Tuesday elections.
After she got a warm introduction from an old friend, Clinton's eyes welled up and glistened under TV camera lights. She paused and gathered her composure.
She didn't choke up - as she did at a similar event on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, a moment that Clinton now says may have helped her snag a critical victory last month by making her appear human and vulnerable.
But there were enough similarities between the two teary instances that skeptics wondered whether the whole thing was contrived.
"Whenever [Barack] Obama picks up steam, she seems to open up the waterworks," said one Democratic operative.
It all started yesterday, when Clinton got a moving introduction from one of her mentors, Penn Rhodeen, who supervised her at a Legal Aid Society while Clinton was a student at Yale Law School.
Rhodeen called Clinton "our incomparable Hillary," after describing the day when, "You appeared at my door, dressed mostly in purple" in a sheepskin coat with bellbottoms.
"You looked wonderful - and so 1972," he said.
Rhodeen himself choked up during his remarks, and Clinton came to the brink of losing her composure. Tears welled up in her eyes as she gathered herself to address 12 preselected women sitting around a table at the Yale Child Study Center, where she once worked.
"Well, I said I would not tear up. Already, we're not exactly on that path," Clinton said, evoking laughs from the crowd.
"She controlled it, but at the table you could see [the tears in her eyes]," said Erin Phillips, a second-year law student, who said Clinton "did great."
Later on, Clinton conducted a town-hall meeting on the Hallmark Channel with audiences from 22 Super Tuesday states. Her campaign paid Hallmark $500,000 for the hour of airtime.
She also appeared on CBS's "Late Show with David Letterman," where the talk-show host asked her if she had ordered hubby Bill to "ease up" on attacking Obama.
She acknowledged talking to her husband, but said, "It was more like, 'We have to get on the positive here.' "
Meanwhile, Obama campaigned with Sen. Ted Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy at the Izod Center arena in New Jersey, next to the home of the champion Giants.
"Sometimes the underdog pulls it out," Obama said. "You can't always believe the pundits and prognosticators."