A reader writes:
Here you go again:
With the human sparkle of a female East German shot-putter.
We loyal readers know you hate HRC, and accept that. OK. But give her a break, will you?
When she’s open and charming, the pundits rage about the fact that ‘she laughs too much.’ If she warms up to her audience, they spend literally hours wondering ‘why she claps so much.’
If she deploys a tone that allows her personality to show, perhaps especially the tones that are real (the bubbling laughter, etc.), are pretty viciously attacked. So, her response is to not show ANYTHING at all. She imitates an automaton because, finally, that’s less trouble that fighting the ‘authenticity’ battle. Same with her positions. Doesn’t make any difference how she chooses them, how she occupies them. She gets slammed.
This is not an easy task for her, nor for the pundits. It begins to look like she’s pandering, and she might be; but she’s also trying to find ground on which to stand that won’t be the subject of debate, ridicule, jeering.
Politics, these days, ain’t for sissies. She’s no sissy, and my hat is off to her, and to all the other people willing for the sake of ambition and service who are willing to undergo the grueling, unkind, vicious furor and attack that a campaign these days entails.
The Dish 