Hillary. Not one of my favorite subjects. I just really dislike the woman, but one of the few things more annoying than her is the bitchiness and viciousness and pettiness her detractors are constantly stooping to. The oddest thing: she really seems to bring out the worst in her enemies. There is so much there to dislike, so why do I always find myself rolling my eyes at the inanity of the attacks?
Hillary-hating (really Hillary-disliking, but it's so much less poetic) is one of those rare situations where I feel highly uncomfortable with my own position. Not because I have a problem hating leftists--I lived in Boulder three years, and those knee-jerk libs can really get on my nerves. It's just the company I'm keeping, the guilt by association. I know that as soon I start to hear someone go off on Hillary, my eyes start to glaze over. I rarely enter those discussions with an open mind, or even an open ear. I just don't care, I don't want to hear anymore grousing, just talk about something else please.
But then Joan Walsh had to go and write a piece about her, Monday's cover story in Salon.
{Her opening line}:
I had the worst nightmare last week: The Clinton impeachment circus wasn't over!
{I don't know about you, but the one thing I'm grateful for about the impeachment thing is that it's over.}
I suggested here just recently that you should always read anything that comes up with her byline, no matter how uninteresting the subject matter to you. Occasionally she'll the lamest topics, or what seem lame to me at the outset, but perhaps they're lame just because no one has come up with anything original to say about them in awhile. She just about always does. (She's News VP now, so she doesn't get to write that often, so I guess she has the luxury of waiting until there's a top she really wants to address.)
Hillary, though, that was asking a lot. I doubt there's anyone else in the world that would get me to read the piece. I actually approached it with trepidation, because I respect her (Joan) so much, and I was terrified she was going to make a fool out of herself talking about Hillary as a viable presidential candidate.
But she approached it from and interesting and unexpected angle: A former Hillary hater. She seemed to share just about the same assessment of Hillary as I did when she left the white house, but Joan really felt she came around the past three years.
Hmmmmm. Possible? Maybe. The thing that took me aback was that I realized I have no basis to judge that assessment. I stopped listening long before that. It's kind of an unhealthy thing, tuning people out that way, at least it can be. Dangerous to the mind, but oh so healthy for the soul. The thing is, I have to force myself to do it, usually, because I'm the type of person who keeps engaging way, way too long. I have trouble letting go. I need friends to stop me and say, "Dave! Turn the TV off. Don't read the speech. Walk away."
It takes a lot of willpower and a lot of time, but after maybe a year of consumering her campaigning and then maybe 5-6 in the white house, I finally let both of them stop making my blood boil. Him I always disliked more, though I couldn't tune him out completely as he was the pres, and I started partially coming around on him just about the time he made such an ass of himself with Monica. (And for the record, I really thought he should resign, and at first I wanted him impeached--not for the sex, but the lying to us--but then I started paying closer attention to what the constitution actually said, and realized it was completely absurd and scandalous to do it.) Anyway, that's history. I don't give a damn now. Except that he clawed his way up to about a C+ human being in my book, but she was still well below C-.
But I haven't paid attention. I really have no idea what she does in the Senate, and I really didn't want to care. I've heard her on TV a few times and she sounded shrill and opportunistic, but that was just the ten-second impression I got before I tuned her out. The dilemma now is: Do I really have to start listening to her again, and form an updated opinion? I just hoped she'd stay the senator from NY for the next few decades (maybe embarrass herself with an aborted presidential run) and I could just ignore her, as I do a good chunk of the Senate.
It never occurred to me that she might have actually changed, and I'd have to give her a second look. I'm certainly not going to invest 576 pages of reading time. That's way too valuable. But maybe I'll stop and listen next time she speaks. I don't really want to.
(And I'm afraid I had less to say here than I thought. I think what is really unnerving to me though, is this idea of how easy it is to solidify a certain perception of someone in your mind. Once that happens, no matter what they do, no matter how much they change, they're no way for them to redeem themselves, because you have no idea they're doing it. The somewhat scarier proposition is when the impression was formed on uncommon or insufficient data in the first place. With Hillary, it was built on a lot of data, but this really isn't about Hillary to me. She's just the catalyst. I'm much more nervous about the multitudes rushing by that I write much sooner, sometimes with very little information at all. (For instance, I read though screen after screen of blogs last week, and most of them I dismissed after a few posts. I had to: I had dozens to cull through trying to find a few really standouts, but what if the person was just having a bad day?)
Hmmmm. I'm mixing things up here, aren't I. Rushed first impressions are one problem, but this is really a different problem. This is when the person really does suck, really does annoy the crap out of you, and you tune them out and then they change. Crap. Do I have to go back to everyone in my life I gave up on now and give them a second chance?
Well, read Joan's Hillary piece, especially if you don't like her (Hillary). It may not turn you around on Hillary--I've got a long way to go--but it may give you pause.
Dutton (Penguin) in early 2009. 
