Girl Humor
by digby
Chris Matthews has come up with his working thesis to explain the Hillary campaign. Apparently, this stupid “joke” about “evil men” reveals her entire strategy: she’s going to win by appealing to “the girls.”
From yesterday’s Hardball:
Is there a strategy, Lynn Sweet, for her to simply say, OK, let‘s do it, play it my way, that she knows what she‘s doing, OK, because she can play it the other way, that she doesn‘t know what she‘s doing. And I don‘t want to do that because that‘s unfair. Suppose she says, I‘m going to be in a crowded field with seven or eight men. I‘m going into a Democratic caucus. Half the people, at least, are women. Why not play the gender card right up front and say, I‘m taking my 50 percent away from this table. Let the other guys divvy up their 50 percent.
Cuz them bitches all stick together.
Today he was banging on it again because he is sure that her joke was aimed straight at her evil husband and the people who laughed were a bunch of nasty “girls” who all enjoyed her hitting him below the belt.
Matthews: …it’s an in joke among some women. Now look at that with all that teeth and all those giggles among the girls…you don’t compare a guy who killed three thousand people to somebody who had a little trouble with an intern…
Buchanan: Why is the press all over her?
Matthews: Because she won’t honestly admit what she does
Buchanan: Why don’t they let it go?
Matthews: Because, Mr defender-of-all-women, the problem is she won’t admit a candid joke. Ok, the only reason this is an issue is, after she went back into her football formation, to her huddle backstage with the people around her, Howard Wolfson etc., says “Oh that wasn’t about Bill, that was about Osama bin laden.”
Buchanan: That’s because guys were asking her “what’s that about, who’s that about” and got their pens out.
Matthews: Who’s the butt of the joke?
Buchanan: She should have said, “It was a joke and moved out”
Matthews: But she didn’t. You can defend her all you want but if she doesn’t come clean…
Here’s the problem reverend Sharpton. Everybody knows that Hillary Clinton is a calculating politician, she doesn’t have the street instincts of Bill, she can’t move spontaneously, she has to come with a caravan of onsultants but that’s one thing. If she has to now talk to a caravan of consultants after she cracks a joke, there have been three different interpretations she came out with the other day — is that a problem on the stumpt?
Sharpton: … It’s not like you’re going to have a battle of spontanaity
Matthews: Hah! Yeah that is a problem. But I’ll tell you one thing. I thought the joke was wrong because as much as I have been tough on Bill Clinton over the years I don’t think it’s fair to compare him to Osama bin Laden. it falls flat. It’s a clinker. It’s like never compare anyone to Hitler, don’t compare somebody to osama bin Laden.
Buchanan: A clinker! When everybody in the room was laughting their head off?
Matthews: Because it was girl humor.About girls abnd the trouble they have with men.
And that could be her strategy. “We girls have had a lot of trouble with men. Let’s face it, I’ve had to deal with Bill. Let’s face it. Let’s all giggle together.”
But then if you’re asked, “What did you mean by that?” It’s like “Oh, I didn’t mean that!”
I have never seen any man so afraid of a woman as Chris Matthews is of Hillary Clinton. I don’t know if he thinks she’s going to sign an executive order to castrate all the men in DC or what, but he does seem to be convinced that she’s going to win by garnering the man-hating harpy vote.
After spending the last year telling everyone who would listen that red blooded men all over America might say they would vote for her, but they wouldn’t “pull the lever” once they were inside the voting booth, the codpiece ogling Matthews clearly believes that “mommy party” Dems are fools to elect a person without one, especially when those bulging dreamboats Giuliani and McCain are on the other side.
I don’t know who this guy hangs around with or why he’s got such a problem with women, but his “giggling–girl humor” crap is insulting to decent human beings everywhere.
(And by the way, I would bet some serious money that the butt of the joke was actually evil sexist fucks like Chris Matthews. Perhaps somewhere in his lizard brain Matthews knows that which is why he’s suddenly bravely defending the Clenis against his own wife.)
You won’t believe how he ended the segment. He asked Sharpton whether Bill would go along with this and Sharpton said he would “play whatever position he needs to play.”
Matthews replied:
In other words, if she has to paddle him at every stop of this campaign with a big wooden paddle, he’ll lean over and take it.
Issues?
* Not that it has anything to do with anything, but on yesterday’s show Matthews literally drooled down his chin until a big drop of saliva clung to the bottom threatening to drop off. Perhaps he had some dental work or is on drugs or something, but it was a damned disgusting thing to see. Too much spit for me this week.
Update: Bob Sommerby covers the same ground today and makes another observation that I think is spot on:
What did Clinton have in mind? Empty pundits—people like Matthews—were instantly sure that they knew. The war in Iraq continues to rage—but this was Matthews’ first topic last night. Who was Clinton joking about? He asked Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times—and Sweet embarrassed herself:
SWEET (1/29/07): Well, what I think they were laughing at is the thought that cropped into my mind, Chris, and that is Bill Clinton`s name did come into my mind. There are some people who I interviewed, and that`s what they said. It’s a Rorschach. And what is interesting here—I don’t think it matters so much what she was thinking. I think what was instructive for all of us is what people who were out there were thinking. That’s what’s the key here.
What a perfect press corps moment! Bill Clinton’s name “came into Sweet’s mind!” And not only that—she also interviewed “some people” who had the same reaction. (Were these “people” other journalists? Sweet didn’t specifically say.) To Sweet, this pretty much settled the matter. Good God! It doesn’t matter what Clinton was thinking, Sweet told her host; what really matters is what occurred to Lynn Sweet! Let us translate: Sweet wants to talk about Bill Clinton’s d*ck, and because that d*ck came into her head, she assumed that it came into everyone else’s—and she says, therefore, that this is what“matters.” Obviously, Sweet doesn’t know what the other thousand people in that crowd were actually thinking. But it’s perfect! Because Bill Clinton popped into her head, she says that is “what is interesting.”
I just heard Howard Fineman say “The joke was about her husband, OBVIOUSLY.”
Was it?
Truly, I assumed she was talking about the famous “vast rightwing conspiracy” and only realized that it could be taken to mean her husband as she said it. And I also thought she wisely didn’t elaborate later because she had sort of compared them to Osama bin Laden and knew that would really set off a firestorm. But then so has wingnut extraordinaire Dinesh D’Souza, so I actually don’t see why that should be controversial.