Hillary Clinton: Classic or Dud?

If you want to go there: Shakespeare chose a hell of a lot more interesting *personalities* though. People who actually had everything riding on something and then - and mostly way more due to their own doing, which is kind of essential to be tragic - lost it all. What happened might qualify as tragic, career-wise. But she's nowhere near a tragic being in every fiber though, who now dwells in the underworld.

Hillary didn't lose it all. She's fine. Shame she lost to a dumbass, but hey... No-one (including said dumbass) thought that was going to happen. I get the sentiment but: seek better, truer tragic figures. Loads of them out there, trust me.

xp -the ancient world considered that real tragedy required the protagonist be highly placed, successful, powerful, or heroic, so that when their tragic flaw emerged to cause their downfall it evoked more awe and pity than the onlookers would feel if a tailor or fruit seller were felled in their prime. HRC is only semi-tragic, in that she publically suffered a humiliating loss, but she only fell partway from grace and still retains much wealth, position and influence.

He said it more eloquently than I would have, though.

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Friday, January 26, 2018 7:49 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

me... too

I feel Hillary as tragic figure to an extent, but I don’t know about “the wrong compromises.” She was always a moderate conservative at heart imo. I think she was genuinely passionate about advancing women in a second wave feminist sort of way, and I think she has some compassion (CHIP etc) but she is not a compromised leftist. I think there’s probably not a ton of space between her and Mitt Romney at heart.

I think there’s probably not a ton of space between her and Mitt Romney at heart.

A majority of the United States population lives in that space.

A majority of the United States population lives in that space.

Not sure. Sadly, I think Trump would have won a Trump v Romney showdown too.

Ha, yeah, that statement does seem to invite the question of why the election wasn't an easy win for her.

why the election wasn't an easy win for her

mainly because her chosen policies were a distant second for many millions of voters compared to her public image & her gender.

Mitt Romney and Hillary both ran presidential campaigns. They each had very very different policy positions. Historically presidents generally act on their campaign promises. If “heart” means “percereived as lacking authenticity” that’s probably a good comparison. A big takeaway from the election is that perception of authenticity matters way more than policy.

I would have liked to see HRC run w something like fight for 15 in the foreground of the campaign messaging but at the end of the day I suspect the narrative would have been “she doesn’t mean it”

Can we lock this thread? She stopped posting here a while ago.

She should at least come to the next nyc fap

No way we're keeping this going into the fourth Trump term

This thread was started in 2001. Its usefulness may be fading, but not extinguished.

A story appeared today about something that happened in 2008. I was dismayed when it occurred, but was heartened the young woman came forward, was heard, and had her concerns taken seriously and addressed.

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) January 27, 2018

Mitt Romney and Hillary both ran presidential campaigns. They each had very very different policy positions. Historically presidents generally act on their campaign promises. If “heart” means “percereived as lacking authenticity” that’s probably a good comparison. A big takeaway from the election is that perception of authenticity matters way more than policy.

― Nerdstrom Poindexter,

stop quoting David Brooks

A tragic figure would be the 12 year old whose rapists Hillary Clinton defended not some rich power monger who gets mistreated by the press for Christ’s sake

I agree that she's not exactly Othello but wasn't she just doing her job as a lawyer in that case? Or is there something more to it?

the 12 year old didn't bring about their own demise through an error in judgment and their catastrophe wasn't a public fall from grace and prestige so they would not be a tragic figure, going by the definition of a tragic figure as i understand it.

xp mr. bruneau

itt a leftist argues against a vigorous defense for all criminal defendants

She's clearly a tragic figure, smart and ambitious but doomed to fail by a fatal flaw (which I guess in her case was hooking up with Bill). People tend to use different meanings interchangeable, but the classic Greek "doomed to fail" definition is not the same as the more colloquial "something sad and bad has happened to someone" definition.

I think her fatal flaw, oddly enough, was cautiousness. She was always triangulating, trying to take the “safe” position, girtting her teeth and telling herself that everything is “twice as hard” for a woman (a true observation, but she drew weird conclusions from it, seemingly, such as that her ambition alone was virtuous, classic straight A student mindset). So she was acting in a lot of craven, unprincipled ways — even, i think, leaking that pic of obama in africa in 2008 — but it seemed like in her mind it was for a higher purpose. But it wasn’t. Presidential candidate is not who she was meant to be—she was unsuited for it and lost catastrophically.

I mean she won the popular vote but the ultimate result was still a catastrophe. Imo and i think everyone else on this board.

wait a minute you don't think it's tragic that a child was raped and the person whose job it was to convince the jury to discard her testimony would be the very face of the #Resistance and symbolic leader of the MeeToo movement 40 years later? this is beyond tragedy, this is cruel and horrific

this thread needs a dose of reality. too many cultists with their precious narratives

In 1975, Hillary Clinton — then known as Hillary Rodham — taught at the University of Arkansas School of Law, where she founded the University of Arkansas School Legal Aid Clinic. It was during this time that she defended Thomas Alfred Taylor, a 41-year-old man accused of raping a 12-year-old girl.

In her book “Living History,” Clinton recalls that Mahlon Gibson, a Washington County prosecutor, told her that the accused rapist “wanted a woman lawyer” to defend him, and that Gibson had recommended Clinton to Judge Maupin Cummings. “I told Mahlon I really didn’t feel comfortable taking on such a client, but Mahlon gently reminded me that I couldn’t very well refuse the judge’s request.”

In a separate 2014 interview, Clinton said she had an “obligation” to represent Taylor. “I had a professional duty to represent my client to the best of my ability, which I did,” she said.

In her book, Clinton writes that she visited Taylor in the county jail and he “denied the charges against him and insisted that the girl, a distant relative, had made up her story.” Clinton filed a motion to order the 12-year-old girl to get a psychiatric examination. “I have been informed that the complainant is emotionally unstable with a tendency to seek out older men and engage in fantasizing … and that she has in the past made false accusations about persons, claiming they had attacked her body,” according to an affidavit filed by Clinton in support of her motion.

Clinton also cited an expert in child psychology who said that “children in early adolescence tend to exaggerate or romanticize sexual experiences and that adolescents with disorganized families, such as the complainant’s, are even more prone to such behavior,” Clinton wrote in her affidavit.

https://www.factcheck.org/2016/06/clintons-1975-rape-case/

she directly profited from preserving rape culture and setting free a child rapist, i don't see how you can let that slide

she was laughing while recounting it, she is an evil person

but the classic Greek "doomed to fail" definition is not the same as the more colloquial "something sad and bad has happened to someone" definition.

Sorry I don't know the bbcode to make text much much larger

On what planet is Clinton the face or leader of the resistance or metoo movement.

"she was laughing while recounting it, she is an evil person" this has been widely covered and your take on it is wrong, dude

god, this shit again, did you even read the rest of the article you quoted from, which explains exactly what she was laughing about? Do you understand what lawyers do, and the rights of every defendant, no matter how loathsome, to have a lawyer? Totally awesome that you're repeating the same disingenuous talking points beloved by every MAGA CHUD.

lol you people are all full of shit

but like... did you and do you

jesus christ adam

once again my lyft driver who started off bitching about clinton and maddow and eventually asked me if i had heard of pizzagate comes to mind. male psychosis is a real thing

I hope Adam has earned a shitload of FPs for whatever the fuck he thought he was accomplishing here

dumbass

I think at this point, given her history and people's personal feelings toward her, a good faith conversation is just not possible

no I think rational people in a good mental state could still have one but there's not many rational people and most of them have been stressed the fuck out for over a year now

i strongly dislike hillary clinton but adam's opinion of her criminal defense work is such a bad one

WHAT'S TRUE
In 1975, young lawyer Hillary Rodham was appointed to represent a defendant charged with raping a 12-year-old girl. Clinton reluctantly took on the case, which ended with a plea bargain for the defendant, and later chuckled about some aspects of the case when discussing it years later.

https://www.snopes.com/hillary-clinton-freed-child-rapist-laughed-about-it/

i know im being so mean calling out this person for doing something they actually did

and once again adam shits his pants live on ilx and we all get to watch and slam our own foreheads in sympathy

she actually did represent a person competently? and he pleaded guilty? ok

That, and she cackled about the fact that he went free, as the snopes article Adam definitely read all the way thru and understood clearly says

Finally, Hillary didn’t “free” the defendant in the case. Instead, the prosecuting attorney agreed to a plea deal involving a lesser charge that carried a five-year sentence, of which the judge suspended four years and allowed two months credit of time already served towards the remaining year:

pretty lenient sentencing! i imagine her being friends w the judge who initially requested her had an impact on this sentence. as for the plea bargin:

The victim says it was her mother, who had recently been abandoned by her husband, who pushed for a quick plea deal to avoid the humiliation of having her daughter testify in open court. The mother, who died several years ago, was so eager to end the ordeal she coached her daughter’s statements and interrupted interviews with police, Sgt. Dale Gibson (the department’s lead investigator) recalls.

“We both wanted it to be over with,” the victim told Newsday. “They kept asking me the same questions over and over. I was crying all the time.”

this is appalling.

stop

Eight years later, in 2016, the UK’s Daily Mail identified the victim (who had previously spoken anonymously to the Daily Beast) as Kathy Shelton and quoted her as saying that she “cannot forgive Hillary Clinton for defending her rapist” and that she was unaware for many years that Hillary Clinton was the person who had represented the defendant in her case:

‘It’s put a lot of anger back in me,’ said Shelton, now 54, in an exclusive interview at her Springdale, Arkansas, home. ‘Every time I see (Clinton) on TV I just want to reach in there and grab her, but I can’t do that.’

For decades, Shelton said she had no idea that Clinton was the same woman as the lawyer who defended her rapist in 1975.

It's appalling to use a real person's trauma as a prop to grind your stupid axe on