Hillary's self pity moments

Peggy Noonan:

...

While everyone beats the hell out of the media, which is never wholly a bad idea, one should point out what everyone in politics and journalism knows: Hillary Clinton's own people knew she was going to lose. Major supporters and fund-raisers thought so and said so, for weeks, off the record.

And they were not heartbroken about it. I saw no tears. They were shocked, not saddened; shaken, not stirred. One told me the problem was the campaign had been so obsessed from day one with showing she was a commander in chief that they never thought to urge her to be a woman among women. She used her sex--the boys are picking on me!--but she never assumed her sex. Then, tired and with nothing to lose, she allowed her eyes to well. It was an arresting sight because it suggested the presence of a soul in the machine.

Let's look at the tears before they harden like resin into cliché. Quickly. She was taking questions in a diner, a woman asked how she does it each day, she started talking about how hard it is, and she got misty-eyed, her voice soft for once--conversational, not hectoring.

Exactly 100% of the people who saw it on the news and on YouTube had one reaction. It was to ask a question: Is that real or artifice? With the Clintons you always have to ask, which is the great Clinton problem.

In the end, Democratic women seem to have felt sympathy. I suspect the sympathy was connected to one great universal moment between men and women, the one in which in the middle of the fight she gets teary eyed and he, in terror and resentment, says, "Don't go crying now!" as if her tears were a strategy and not . . . honest tears.

In any case, Democratic women showed no interest in parsing the exact level of narcissism betrayed by Mrs. Clinton's choked tale of woe. They understood the moment, thought no less of her, and maybe more.

...

Was what is called sexism part of the story? I suppose, and in a number of ways. When George Bush senior cries in public, it's considered moving. Ditto his moist-eyed son. But in fairness, they have tended to appear moved about things apart from themselves, apart from their own predicaments. Mrs. Clinton was weeping about Mrs. Clinton. If a man had uttered Mrs. Clinton's aria--if Mr. Obama had said, "And you know, this is very personal for me . . . as tired as I am . . . against the odds," and gotten choked--they would have laughed him out of town.

...

Noonan is one of the few to notice the tears were part of a self pity moment. They may have even been honest, but they were steeped in narcissism. Others have written about her "hurt feelings" on a question about likability. Presidents have to make decisions that effect their likability everyday and someone who is concerned about likability is not going to be a good "decider."

While I like President Bush, one of his strengths is that he makes decisions on what he believes is best for the country and certainly not on whether it will make people like him. Instead of expressing her hurt feelings, she would have shown more leadership if she had said that sometimes you have to do what you think is right and live with the consequences.

I think Obama has gotten a bum rap on his "Hillary, you're likable enough," comment. He was really giving her a "one of the guys" moment and the media has blown it into something sinister in his character. He has many more substantive and important issues on which he should be challenged