January 12, 2008
WHAT IS LIBERALISM BUT FEMININE EMOTION?:
Emotion Without Thought in New Hampshire (Judith Warner, 1/12/08, NY Times: Domestic Disturbances)
On the morning after the New Hampshire primary, CNN’s John Roberts interviewed Marianne Pernold Young, the woman whose coffee shop question — “How do you do it? How do you keep upbeat and so wonderful?” — is largely credited with setting into motion Hillary Clinton’s surprise victory on Tuesday.“When you asked her the question, what were you looking for?” Roberts asked the middle-aged freelance photographer from Portsmouth, N.H. “Because when [Hillary] talked to me . . . right after you had asked her the question,” he continued, “she said she was so genuinely taken aback and touched by the fact that someone cared about her. Is that the angle that you were coming at the question from?”
“No,” Young said.
There was an awkward millisecond of silence as the genial host let this sink in. “I was asking her as a friend,” Young went on. “As a woman to woman I wanted to know how she does it.”
In other words, the question about how Hillary “does it” had nothing to do with Hillary at all.
It was all about Marianne.
Like libertarianism, liberalism is an ideology of the self.
Posted by Orrin Judd at January 12, 2008 10:09 AM
Ugh. How can anybody read about this without throwing up, much less having it affect one's vote?
That this sort of thing influences elections is a bad, bad sign.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at January 12, 2008 7:39 PMIf you read the rest of the article, you would find out that Young didn't actually vote for Clinton.
But of course, the truth isn't so interesting until stripped of differential aspects and filtered through an essentialist ideology, for the sake of conveniently self-righteous pronunciations.
Gee, you mean she changed her mind when a different feeling chimed in?
Posted by: oj at January 13, 2008 9:19 AM