Cool vs Cold
by digby
Who knew Lincoln Chafee was such a putz?
COLMES: Do you have any relationship with Hillary Clinton? Do you know her at all?
CHAFEE: We served together in the Senate and we served on the Environment and Public Works
Committee together. I worked on a couple of bills with her.COLMES: What’s your impression?
CHAFEE: She’s as everyone said a policy wonk, she can be cold.
COLMES: Cold personally? Not a warm fuzzy human being?
CHAFEE: Yeah, when we worked on some of these issues, she likes to be the center of attention.
Here’s a little game: substitute the word “serious” for cold and see how it sounds. And then ask yourself whether it’s laughable that a virtually unknown man who’s quixotically running for president is criticizing a rival for wanting to be the center of attention.
I won’t belabor the point but it’s worth noting that people rarely call a man “cold.” In fact, they call men “cool” a which has a whole other connotation. Saying a woman is “cold” is a put down that calls to mind some sort of sexual repression and I’m fairly sure that most smart, serious women have been called that in their professional lives, especially if they were not inclined to play the flirty game to sooth all the egos in the room.
More importantly, who gives a shit? It’s not as if Jeb Bush or Scott Walker — or Lincoln Chaffee, for that matter come across as cuddly comedians. Or, for that matter, Barack Obama who is so known for his cool demeanor that they call him “no drama Obama.” He’s so unemotional that if he was a woman he’d be called a frigid ice queen.
The truth is that we should want leaders who work hard and can keep their heads and stay focused. We don’t need them to come up with cute nicknames for everyone or seem like the kid of person you’d want to have a beer with. Being “cool” (or “cold” if you insist) is an asset not a liability in a leader.
There are plenty of legitimate things over which to criticize Clinton and it’s kind of sad (and idiotic) that the completely predictable sexist trope of “cold bitch” is still the go-to insult among so many people.
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