As The Kewl Kidz Turn

by digby

I can understand the press being interested in the idea of what Bill Clinton’s role would be in a Hillary Clinton white house. It makes sense. There’s never before been a case where an ex-president might be married to a current one. But someone becoming president eight years after a close family member left the white house isn’t exactly unprecedented now is it, so it’s not so freakish that we can’t imagine it. In fact, one could even say that it was once considered a benefit — all that wise counsel from “grown-ups” and all.

Never the less, I would expect that the political world would be particularly interested in how Bill and Hillary might conduct themselves in this situation because they have always been partners and because Hillary would be the first woman president. One could imagine a line of inquiry that wonders if Bill would really be in charge or if Hillary would be considered more “viable” among men because she has an experienced man backing her up right in the white house.

What one shouldn’t have to imagine is stuff like this:

But there will be questions aplenty. How could there not be? The Clinton marriage fell into political soap opera with the troubles of Bill’s White House years, with nothing but question marks hovering overhead, for a time. Was he contrite? Had she forgiven him? Would she stay? The woman whose earlier assertiveness as first lady rankled some now was tagged with a new set of labels: Hillary the martyr. Hillary the steadfast, for sticking with her man. Hillary as Machiavelli, accepting marital humiliation as the price of power.

The whole article is so sickening I can’t even bear to deconstruct it.

This is not serious political journalism. The only people who really care about this garbage are the superficial morons who inhabit the DC media claque and the gossipy, pitchfork wielding denizens of “the town” who are, apparently, as substantial as cotton candy.

But what is truly insidious about this is something else. This is the press announcing that they have decided what the narrative should be and it is clearly designed to make people shudder with revulsion at the prospect of having to put up with more of this nonsense for another presidency. One of my good friends said to me at dinner last night that she was already exhausted at the prospect of this whole thing — not because she cares about what Bill and Hill do in their personal lives, but because the DC tabloid political media are going to force it on her.

I am not carrying a brief for Hillary and I don’t have an opinion on whether she should run. What I strenuously object to is the idea that the press is going to decide this for us by shoving their sick obsession with the Clinton’s marriage and sex life down our throats whether we care about it or not. The whole damned world seems to be on the verge of exploding — nobody’s interested in explosions in any politician’s pants at the moment.

These gossipy harpies are apparently determined that the nation will not have Hillary Clinton as president. Some of you may be glad about that and are cheering them on. But be advised — they don’t really want ANY Democrat to be president and they will create some demeaning narrative for each of them. They just have a particular score to settle with the Clintons — and the narratives already been written so it’s first out of the box.

Hey, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they’ll fall in love with a Dem this time and treat him with the kid gloves with which they treated Bush in 2000 — he was just a good ole MBA cowpoke from Midland and Kennebunkport who was gonna be decent and honorable and wear a big white hat just like in the movies. Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll decide that John Edwards is their guy this time. Or Obama. Or Chris Dodd. And maybe they’ll skew the coverage our way and find some repellant narrative about the Republican that will ensure us a victory. That would be great. We’ll probably win.

But you know, I think it would be a really neat change of pace if the American people got to pick their own president this time. I’m afraid I’m not all that satisfied with who the media and “the townfolk” have chosen for us these last few years. (Their record of Democratic candidate destruction, however, is truly impressive.)

The pundit and kewl kidz primary in which they put us on notice as to which candidates they plan to destroy so we won’t go near them isn’t anticipated in the constitution. If you hate Hillary, that’s your privilege and it’s also your privilege to decide if she should be president. I don’t think it’s good for our politics to let the kewl kidz take that privilege away from us.

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