In light of the tenacity of HRC soldiering on against Obama, I recalled this bio about Hillary, that I thought might add some insight into the "Big Why?" question.
I heard this story first on an MSNBC late night special profile of Hillary Rodham Clinton. It led me to ponder on the "root causes" of Hillary's personality.
from Her Way by Jeff Gerth Don Van Natta Jr. Copyright -¬ 2007 by Back Nine Books LLC.
.. Hillary still had to deal with the usual childhood battles. At the age of four, shortly after the family moved to Park Ridge, Hillary struggled to find a niche among the neighborhood's chaotic group of preschool children. She was given an especially hard time by a young girl named Suzy O'Callaghan, who was stronger and tougher than all the girls and most of the boys. Suzy often beat up the neighborhood kids, including Hillary, who ran home crying one day to tell her mother.If she expected sympathy, her mother delivered none. "There's no room in this house for cowards," Dorothy told her daughter. "Go back out there, and if Suzy hits you, you have my permission to hit her back. You have to stand up for yourself."
Sure enough, Hillary stomped outside and, with a circle of boys and girls watching (and Dorothy spying from behind the dining room curtain), she returned one of Suzy's punches, knocking the bully to the ground. Hillary returned triumphantly to her house, telling her mother, "I can play with the boys now! And Suzy will be my friend!" "Boys responded well to Hillary," Dorothy later said with pride. "She took charge, and they let her."
Long before she entered public life, Hillary struggled to reconcile often diametrically opposed values and viewpoints offered by her father and her mother. "I grew up between the push and tug of my parents' values, and my own political beliefs reflect both," Hillary wrote in her autobiography. "My mother was basically a Democrat, although she kept it quiet in Republican Park Ridge. My Dad was a rock-ribbed, up-by-your-bootstraps, conservative Republican and proud of it. He was also tightfisted with money."
In Living History, Hillary connected her father's staunch Republican politics with a disciplined fiscal conservatism, and the link was hardly an accident. As he had shown with his Cadillac purchase, Hugh Rodham believed firmly in the axiom "Cash is king," and he ran his business on a "strict pay-as-you-go policy." Like many who grew up during the Depression, he was driven to work hard by the fear of falling back into the quagmire of poverty. A by-product of his frugal ways was an intense dislike of wastefulness, even if the wasted amounted to no more than a few pennies. "If one of my brothers or I forgot to screw the cap back on the toothpaste tube, my father threw it out the bathroom window," Hillary recalled. "We would have to go outside, even in the snow, to search for it in the evergreen bushes in front of the house. That was his way of reminding us not to waste anything. To this day, I put uneaten olives back in the jar, wrap up the tiniest pieces of cheese and feel guilty when I throw anything away."
Hugh Rodham was "highly opinionated, to put it mildly," Hillary said. "We all accommodated his pronouncements, mostly about Communists, shady businessmen or crooked politicians, the three lowest forms of life in his eyes." Every night at the dinner table, he moderated raucous debates about politics or sports, and by the age of twelve, Hillary had learned to defend her positions on a wide array of issues, though she had also realized that it rarely made sense to directly confront her father. "I also learned," she wrote, "that a person was not necessarily bad just because you did not agree with him, and that if you believed in something, you had better be prepared to defend it."
It is predictable, that as an adult, Hillary still deals with conflict the same way she learned as a child, when confronted -- come out swinging. We are all prisoners of our childhood.
Right or Wrong, this is the Hillary Rodham Clinton of 2008. Unfortunately, she "must" win at all costs, she will throw everything including the kitchen sink, and the damage to the Democratic Party is secondary to her personal compass. She must sub-consciously assume that all will be forgiven after the primary battles over, just like the "dining room table debates" of youth. If you don't like it, lump it! She learned to give no quarter, and stand her ground. She is driven to win at all costs. One senses that Bill Clinton has just been a side-show in her life. It has always been about Hillary's ambitions, and Hugh Rodham.
And now we hear... she will "obliterate Iran" , if challenged. Reliving her childhood... still punching it out with Suzy O'Callaghan after all these years.
If he were still living, one wonders what Hugh Rodham would say about his role in defining Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2008. If she wins the nomination and maybe the general election, will she finally measure up to her father's expectations?
Observations from David Brooks, NYT - Combat and Composure , 5/6/08
UPDATE, 5/8/08
In light of the NC and IN primary results, and the hue and cry for HRC to throw in the towel, the above seems even more poignant, perhaps giving us some insight into what makes Hillary fight on. As I watched Chelsea between her two iconic parents, after the election results were sinking in on May 7th, I wondered how her life will be affected by this epic journey.
Another story, for another day.
cross-posted:
Star City Harbinger
Cobalt6
Blue Ridge Data
I mean, does anyone care "why" Michael Jordan has so much tenacity? No, we simply revere and respect it.
That aside, the idea that this experience when she was four has any bearing on her now seems a little far-fetched to me. I don't know too much about psychology, but I suppose anyone can read into childhood incidents whatever they want.
Also, remember this is from Jeff Gerth, not exactly a reliable source.
And finally, your statement that Hillary Clinton said she would obliterate Iran if challenged is false. I believe she was responding to a question about how she would respond were Iran to use nuclear weapons against Israel when she said that, not that she would obliterate the country if challenged.
And if that seems extreme to you, remember that the policy of threatening nuclear retaliation for nuclear attack against our closest allies has been a feature of U.S. policy embraced by every administration, Democratic and Republican, since Truman.
That Suzy must have been a real bruiser!
On a similar note, public figures are so weird like that. We can know intimate things about them, yet be distant from them. It's as if you know them, but you don't. It is surreal. And why some people get confused and obsessed with public figures because they forget or can't recognize the barrier that exists between them. And you know we also have grown to talk about them on such an informal and personal level, which also blurs that line.
The bulk of the diary is about what makes her a fighter, not her tenacity. And the story itself is not a "personal trauma". It is an event in Clinton's life she selected herself to include in her autobiography. It obviously represented something about her background she felt meaningful enough to include. I don't think childhood development and the adult behavior that results should be discounted for anyone. It happens to be interesting in this case because she is a public figure. Really, experience is experience whether it happens when you're 10 or when you're 40.
The source material for the portion of the Gerth biography referenced here is Clinton's autobiography so the source is reliable. I can't speak to Gerth's other writings or reputation.
I took the "if challenged" to mean if challenged through an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel. And I think the concern here, as it relates to this diary, is about an instinctual response to obliterate and whether it is an indicator of probable behavior by Clinton as President. And if that is provocative, I think think provoking thought and discussion is a good thing.
Nuclear retaliation may have been a long-standing feature of US policy, but that doesn't mean it's right or that it should be unquestioned. We've had enough of the current administration's crying "Traitor!" when they are questioned and asked to justify their actions.
1. TippingPoint08 clearly speaks about Clinton's tenacity in a negatve light. Look at the title of his/her diary: Fists of Fury.Why not "Fists of Determination," or "Fists of Committment"? But even if we dismiss that as hyperbole to attract readers, the whole tenor of the piece is that there must be some psychological reason that Clinton is continuing on, because there is no rational explanation.
2. I didn't even get into this statement, which really gets to the heart of all this:
Unfortunately, she "must" win at all costs, she will throw everything including the kitchen sink, and the damage to the Democratic Party is secondary to her personal compass. She must sub-consciously assume that all will be forgiven after the primary battles over, just like the "dining room table debates" of youth. If you don't like it, lump it! She learned to give no quarter, and stand her ground. She is driven to win at all costs. One senses that Bill Clinton has just been a side-show in her life. It has always been about Hillary's ambitions, and Hugh Rodham.
This is empty analysis. Clinton has not thrown the kitchen sink in this election. Even more to the point, damage to the Democratic party is NOT secondary to Clinton's "personal compass" (I think this means ambition), but the Democratic Party is intrinsically related to Clinton's ambitions. Even if you believe she would destroy foe the party for her own purposes, you would have to think she is a total moron to actually think destroying the party will serve her interests in any way. In fact, her only reason for irrevocably splitting the party would be some sort of revenge on her part because she didn't win.
3. As for Iran, you read more into this diary than is there. Whether nuclear deterrence is an effective policy or not is a fair debate, nowhere does this diary indicate Clinton said she would "obliterate Iran" only in response to Iran's own use of nukes. In fact, the diary creates the clearly opposite impression -- that Clinton would embark upon a policy obliteration merely if Iran challenged her in any way.
4. I hope you don't think I was saying it was wrong to question US policy just because it has been a longstanding policy. My point simply was that the diarist was suggesting some pathology on the part of Clinton because she advocated nuclear deterrence. I was only saying that if she is pathological because of that, so too has every president since Truman.
Your comments in item 2 point out the differences between pro Clinton and anti Clinton. Each side of the argument is viewing behaviors through different lenses. One side sees it from a "kitchen sink" perspective and one does not. And one side believes that it would be for revenge and one does not accept that as a valid interpretation. And whether or not one believes the Democratic Party is intrinsically related to her ambition, I only have two words--Sen. Lieberman. People find alternatives. Also, in the section you quoted from the diary, you omitted the first sentence which begins "Right or wrong". To me that indicates the writer allows for the possibility her behavior is appropriate.
On item 3, I just don't read it the same way you do.
On item 4, glad to know you don't think it's wrong to question US policy. And again I interpret the diary comments you are connecting to observations of pathology a bit differently.
Your response to item 3 is a case in point. You say you "took 'if challenged' to mean if challenged by a nuclear attack on Israel."
Why would you take it this way? There is absolutely nothing to indicate that the diarist meant this. You might as well have taken it to mean he/she was really saying they thought Clinton would obliterate Iran if she was challenged on who should win American Idol.
It's a pretty clear declarative sentence. In the absence of anything to the contrary, I took it at face value.
So sure, if you want to interpret the writer's intent to mean the exact opposite of what they express, then I agree with it also.
Similarly, you choose to take the use of the expression "right or wrong" at the beginning of the fourth paragraph to "indicate the writer allows for the possibility her behavior is appropriate." (BTW, I didn't "omit" anything. I quoted a different portion of the paragraph to make a point.") Well, I'll concede the point for the sake of argument, because anything is possible. But the remainder of that very same paragraph indicates that, in reality, the writer does not allow for that possibility. Consider, "One senses that Bill Clinton has been just a sideshow in her life." I suppose it is possible -- anyone can sense anything , but it requires ignoring their last 40 years or so to reach this perception.
These are the arguments of someone creating facts to support their conclusion, not someone allowing for different possibilities and arguing their POV.
Let's leave aside the overtness of Senator Clinton's political pandering. Let's also leave aside the sheer lunacy of her statement: if, say, an extremist Iranian military faction launched one nuclear missile at Israel, then Senator Clinton would obliterate 70 million innocent Iranians in return? Really? That's very Christian/progressive/feminine/spiritual of her.
Who is threatening whom?
Israel purportedly has between 300 and 500 nuclear warheads. Are they targeted at Lebanon? Jordan? Turkey? Egypt? Saudi Arabia? Cyprus? Greece? Romania? Albania? All easily within range of Israel. Syria maybe -- except radioactive fall-out would reach Galilee within minutes. By deduction, the answer is Iran.
So let's get real.
Has Iran sent two carrier groups -- armed to the brim with nuclear weapons -- 10,000 miles to cruise just past our territorial waters off Norfolk or San Diego?
What about our ballistic missiles subs in the Indian Ocean within mere minutes of targets in Iran?
Answer this: of Iran, Israel and the United States, which two countries have launched preemptive strikes and/or invasions of other countries?
I think you are pushing against a much larger tide. But I won't discourage you from trying. I think most Americans see Iran as a demon, plain and simple. If you want to educate the populace on the complexities of the Iranian state and recast Israel's actions as belligerence in the minds of the populace, good luck. That is a mighty big hill to climb.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So you would extend our deterrent to Israel?OBAMA: As I said before, I think it is very important that Iran understands that an attack on Israel, is an attack on our strongest ally in the region, one that we -- one whose security, we consider paramount. And that would be an act of aggression that we would -- that I would consider an attack that is unacceptable. And the United States would take appropriate action.
I believe "appropriate action" is self explanatory in this context.
b) Oh no! She is reinforcing an image of herself as tough. Again politician, they do these things. Selling an image is what they do. And calculations to win elections is what they do. You are pooh-poohing her for having a strategy and executing that? Also on calculations, that is what intelligent people do all the time: think about what they do, before they do.
If we're in essential agreement with what she said, why harp over small points of how she conveyed that message and what you think was driving her to say that?
Hillary Clinton, in her sociopathic focus on crowning herself Queen, has abrogated her own progressive origins, the ethical and ideological underpinnings of the Democratic Party and the rules of the 2008 Democratic primary process -- not to speak of the common sense, empathy and intuitive humanitarianism that a woman and mother should be bringing to the leadership table after eight years of testosterone fueled bs by the loser-in-chief and Dick.
My point is that she is where the people are on this. Her statement is not radical or shocking. It is within the norm of our society. If you have got a problem with that, then you have a problem with the people and not Hillary Clinton.
But it's a thought that should be percolating
I think the Navy usually says that they can neither confirm nor deny whether such weapons are on board, but that they do not routinely deploy nuclear weapons on carriers or attack subs.
Have I missed some public announcement that we are deploying nuclear weapons to threaten Iran?
So, sure, if an extremist Iranian military faction launched a nuke at Israel, I imagine our response would not be a full scale launch, any more that our policy of deterrence against the Soviet Union would have called for one. In fact, fiction from the 1960s, from Fail Safe to Dr. Strangelove, are filled with these very scenarios, so it is not like a policy would simply be followed without any thought to the consequences.
Still, the point of deterrence is to put the onus on Iran for preventing the emergence of such a group, or, should they acquire such weapons, to devise systems that such a group cannot launch the nuke. In the US for example, when the Bush Admin even floated the idea of using tactical nukes in an offensive manner, the military leaked it to the papers and the idea was shot down faster than a deer in Jack Lander's garden. But should the Supreme Leader of Iran make such an irrational decision, what would be the mechanism for stopping him?
The answer is that his followers would have to have greater fear of the outside the world than they would of him.
On your other points, yes, the Bush Admin has been aching fro a war against Iran, and has been stopped, IMHO, only by a military command structure that is pained to see its professional military being used as a political tool to save the GOP's bacon in the wake of the Iraq debacle. Still, if I were them, I'd be mighty paranoid of us.
As for Israel though, no, I would not be paranoid. You ask:
of Iran, Israel and the United States, which two countries have launched preemptive strikes and/or invasions of other countries?
The answer is, obviously, Israel and the US, although I would argue that every pre-emptive strike and invasion by Israel can be directly tied to its territorial security and self-defense. In that sense, I wuld ask back, of the three, which countries have their very existence (as distinct form its government) threatened?
I read the diary, read your initial comments and challenged your assumptions. Then you challenged mine. Etc. Ah, life is good.
So in answer, on item 3, I took it that way because it referenced, perhaps too vaguely, the comments Clinton made. I knew what those comments were and because of the use of ellipses, I filled in the gap. The diary didn't say if challenged in any way. If it had, then at an extreme, your American Idol example would in fact fit.
I said omit in reference to the "right or wrong" because you quoted the entire paragraph except for that sentence. So you are correct that it wasn't an omission in reference to the specific point you were making about that section. I understood the point you were making, I was just raising the "right or wrong" as a separate issue (not clearly enough obviously) to provide an example of why I was reading this as less of a criticism of Clinton and more of an interesting observation of behavior.
And the Bill Clinton sideshow comment--I don't quite understand the point you are making there, so I can't respond.
And finally, it seemed it all started in response to personal thoughts about an aspect of Clinton's style is and that got connected to information from an MSNBC profile. Not a serious psychological profile I don't think.
Hillary knows that she has lost, kept playing hoping a miracle, and that miracle didn't happen.
She is behaving like the kid who is about to lose in a running race and start pulling the close of the person in front to try to trip them down.
Or like the kid of when about to lose at chess throws the board up in the air in an anger fit to prevent them to accept that they lost.
This is not tenacity. This is just having poor character and being a poor loser.
Leaving aside that this is about Hillary, that statement is simply untrue. Unlike Aznew, I know quite a bit about modern psychology.
We've moved on from Sigmund Freud, C.G. Jung, Alfred Adler and all their second-generation disciples. Before you start doing endless psychobabble, you ought to pick up books by Aaron Beck, David Burns, and Martin Seligman. Or you should read some books about the field of psychoneurobiology.
Certainly, our pasts, and our childhoods affect who we are today, but we are hardly prisoners to our past.
In fact, the most successful non drug therapy today - one based on clinical research - teaches people how to change their behaviors and thought patterns. Behavioral cognitive therapy spends very little time delving into clients' pasts or their childhood traumas. It spends most of the patient's and therapist's time working in the present and views past history as mostly irrelevant to being cured.
This is important because books filled with pseudo scientific psychobabble do not accurately explain people's motivations.
BTW, if it were anybody but Hillary, I don't think people would be subjecting the candidate to such intense scrutiny for staying in the race. The simple truth is that successful people, whether politicians, sports figures, business people or entertainers, are not quitters.
It's what we are all taught from the moment we are small children, "quitters don't win and winners don't quit" is as American as apple pie. That probably has more to do with Hillary's tenacity than little Suzy O'Callaghan.