The Electronic Pillory
Judging by the number and alarmed tone of the e-mail messages, the threat is significant and ongoing. It has certain members of the military--both active and retired--on high alert, cautioning each other to remain attentive. A ubiquitous “pass it on” at the end of each message telegraphs an urgency about getting the word out to others.
What is this menace keeping so many of our nation’s self-declared patriots awake at night? Osama bin Laden? Saddam Hussein?
No, it’s our former first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton. As a feminist and longtime casual admirer of the New York senator, I am probably not a typical recipient of these oddball battlefield communiques. But through the dubious courtesy of my late husband’s estranged relative (a furious-at-the-world retired military man in his 70s), I’ve been placed on a “copy to” list, presumably in the hope that if I can’t be educated I can at least be provoked. In fact, I’m almost grateful for the fascinating glimpse into a bizarre world of overwrought, blitzkrieg-style “bulletins” passed along by a group of furtive character assasins that has focused all its paranoid zeal on one woman.
A while back, I was included in an “alert” that breathlessly (if belatedly) recounted the details of then-President Clinton’s appointment of a former Black Panther sympathizer to a government post. The narrative turned out to concern itself not so much with the president’s choice, but with how the so-called “smartest woman in the world,” Hillary Clinton, had defended this choice. A further charge: Hillary was a “radical” while at Yale Law School, where she organized pro-Black Panther Party demonstrations to support the group’s “murderous” policies. Ultimately, the demonstrations “shut down” the school. The narrative ended with the (now-familiar) “pass this on!” and exhortations to remember this transgression “if and when she runs for president!”
One primary source of information cited in many of the messages is a Web site called NewsMax.com, a buzzing online hub proffering “exposes” and the “news behind” many current events. The site, which acknowledges that it “has a big job ahead as we seek to expose the real Hillary Clinton,” is filled with “facts” about the senator--from the “fact” of her torrid love affair with the late White House Deputy Counsel Vince Foster to testimony (audiotape for sale) from former Arkansas state trooper Larry Patterson about crude remarks he said she made behind closed doors about “blacks, Jews, police officers, Republicans and others.” Her future compensation is explored, with the conclusion that even if she “is not reelected, she’ll get her full salary as a pension. If Clinton dies, his full presidential pension goes to Hillary.”
If that’s not sufficiently headline-worthy, how about this item from an e-mail bulletin I received attacking Sen. Clinton for snubbing the American Gold Star Mothers, an organization of women whose sons and daughters died in the line of duty with the U.S. armed forces or its allies. According to the e-mail, a delegation from the group’s New York chapter made a trip to Washington “to discuss various concerns with their elected representatives.” And, naturally, it was the one politician who “has never showed [sic] anything but contempt for our military” who refused to meet with the delegation. Who? Who else: “the Queen herself, the Hildebeast--Hillary Clinton.” She had, according to the e-mail, ignored “repeated requests” from the Gold Star Mothers to meet with her. The message ends with a non sequitur postscript about how the Clintons are charging the Secret Service $10,000 a month rent for housing the agents that guard them, thereby covering the family’s $10,000 monthly mortgage payment on the house they bought to establish a New York state residence for Hillary Clinton’s Senate run. “Please forward this to as many people as you can,” the missive concluded. “We don’t want this woman to even think of running for president.”
One problem with the torrent of anti-Hillary missiles is that the payload’s a dud--the stories are largely based on untruths. At a Web site that investigates the veracity of urban legends, truthorfiction.com, the Black Panther story is put into perspective. Hillary Clinton may have been involved in college demonstrations during the 1970 murder trial of Panther party co-founder Bobby Seale, but these were peaceful demonstrations and did not “shut down” the university.
The statements about her salary are just plain false: She would not leave office with a pension equaling her full salary, and she would get only part of Bill Clinton’s current $166,000 annual pension if she survived him. As for the Gold Star Mothers, an official notice has been posted on that group’s own Web site regarding “the misunderstanding about Senator Hillary Clinton.” The organization points to a NewsMax article as the initial source of false information, and “deeply regrets” any misunderstanding and “would appreciate it if the e-mails and negative comments about Senator Clinton would cease.” According to press officer Jim Kennedy in Clinton’s Washington office, the rumors began after two Gold Star moms visited Clinton’s office without advance notice. The senator was not present and so could not see them. Later, she met at length with both the Gold Star Mothers and the Gold Star Wives. She is currently “co-sponsoring legislation at the request of the Gold Star Mothers and is working with the Gold Star Wives on their legislative agenda,” Kennedy said.
The government-paid mortgage? Patently false. In fact, according to truthorfiction.com, the Clintons would be eligible for government reimbursement of more than $1,000 per month for housing the agents, but they have turned down the money.
The cyberspace warnings about Sen. Clinton, while ostensibly written out of outrage at her politics, are inevitably interspersed with personal and physical insults--she is “icy-cold and crocodilian,” her legs are heavy, she is “violent,” a “batterer.”
It all recalls the intensely personal attacks on Eleanor Roosevelt during and after her husband’s presidency. Not since then has a former first lady (and independent woman) been the object of such unrelenting scorn, invective and smear. Some of these attacks may seem like mere bottle rockets, but they also reveal a broad cultural streak of misogyny and terror of women. The cynical pitting of the selfless Gold Star Mothers against the independent and outspoken Clinton seems designed to invite a burn-the-witch electronic bonfire. In this peculiar morality play, the Gold Star Mothers are cast as perfect models of female acquiescence and propriety--women who have no ambition for themselves, who have ventured to Washington seeking only to be heard. Clinton then becomes the self-promoting, unscrupulous schemer, a driven, electioneering feminist who has no time for clueless altruists.
The unfairness of this false dichotomy (and its partisan nature, as Clinton staffer Kennedy points out) underscores a long-standing ambivalence about women and their right to power. I believe that the national antipathy shown Eleanor Roosevelt stemmed from a fear that she was “taking over” her husband’s role. It was assumed that she was trying to be president, unlike the more traditional first ladies who preceded and followed her. The violent reactions to Hillary Clinton seem to have generated this same quality of fear and outrage at a woman who “doesn’t know her place.”
In the end, though, it’s impossible to fully grasp the motivation behind these pillory-Hillary dot-coms. But one thing’s clear: Somebody out there is scared silly of her. Hillary for President? Pssst, pass it on!