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How not to smear a presidential candidate
By Ned | February 8, 2008
What really blows my mind about these constant personal attacks on Hillary Clinton and her family isn’t how totally over the line they are - I think we’ve all pretty much gotten desensitized to that. After all, douchebag commentators explaining that they don’t like Hillary Clinton because she’s an obnoxious bitch with massive testicles who fakes crying all the time because she’s a Machiavellian shrew and needs to get back in the kitchen and start baking the entire campaign press corps apology cookies are about as ubiquitous on the TV as those cracked-out Esurance commercials with the pink-haired secret agents playing football against giant robots while discussing car insurance. Or something.
No, what’s really amazing about these attacks is that they keep happening despite the fact that they’re completely unproductive. These guys who try to smear the Clintons usually just end up embarrassing themselves. Chris Matthews and David Shuster both had to apologize on-air. Andrew Sullivan’s pretty much become a parody of himself. And when the entire press corps whipped themselves into spasms of frothy hatred over Hillary Clinton’s crocodile tears, or whatever, it clearly didn’t have the intended effect - she freakin’ owned the New Hampshire primary and came back as the political juggernaut so many prognosticators assumed was dead after Iowa.
So when people trash Hillary Clinton because their genitals feel threatened by the thought of a strong female contender for the presidency, what the hell are they hoping to accomplish? The Clinton campaign’s mastered the art of using that shit against the media. It’s like painting a giant target on your chest.