We’ve all seen the pattern – the woman who gets rid of a drunken husband,
only to marry a gambler, or the abused woman who finally extricates herself from
years of torture, only to find another rat. There are a million theories about
why a woman is fatally attracted to bad guys – over and over and over again.
· Low self-esteem makes her feel unworthy of being treated with respect and
she subconsciously seeks out punishment for her inadequacies, be it physical or
emotional.
· Insecurity makes her feel she can only actualize her goals of feeling
worthy or accomplished by hooking her star to a powerful man.
· The X factor’s magnetic force pulls her inexorably toward exactly the wrong
man.
· Mad at her father.
· Emulating her mother.
· The Betty Friedan syndrome where a girl who was a homely nerdish type in
her teens finds the man of her dreams later on – a guy who wouldn’t give her the
time of day in high school – and when that guy seems to reciprocate affection,
she is hooked for life, no matter how many slaps he doles out.
In the end, all psychological theory boils down to speculation and doesn’t
matter. What matters is behavior, how someone acts when pushed around,
embarrassed, undermined, sabotaged – well, slapped! Which is what Hillary has
endured for years on end as the governor’s wife in Arkansas, in her eight years
as First Lady in the White House, and during the current and very public
presidential campaign
When Hillary’s husband, Bill – who writer Toby Harnden calls the "fatal flaw"
in her quest for the highest office in the land – campaigns for her in Iowa, he
speaks incessantly about… himself! In one stop, he mentioned her seven times in
the first seven minutes of his stump speech, but talked about himself 94 times.
Each time he does this, he is figuratively slapping her. Slap, slap, slap, slap,
and slap again.
Her response? She smiles, holds his hand, and generally tells the public that
(1) she is used to being slapped, and (2) that’s okay with her.
When her national campaign co-chairman, Bill Shaheen, in none-too-subtle
racist terms, suggests that Hillary’s chief opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, may
have dealt drugs as a young man…Slap!
What does Hillary do? She covers the welt and pretends to break up with the
guy. But we know that she never really breaks up with abusive men. Exhibit No.
1: Bill Clinton. Exhibit No. 2: Sandy Berger, convicted thief and now her
foreign policy "adviser."
When her main adviser and chief pollster, Mark Penn, goes on national TV with
Chris Matthews, Penn reinforces Shaheen’s slur by associating Obama’s name not
once but twice with cocaine. Slap.
Hillary’s reaction: a remarkable non-reaction that speaks volumes about her
capacity to tolerate abuse.
Hillary also employs another classic tool in the abused woman’s limited
repertoire – apology.
How many times in recent weeks have we heard Hillary say, "I’m sorry"? About
those mysterious people who do all those dirty campaign tricks behind her back
to dig up potentially damaging information about Obama’s kindergarten essay… I’m
sorry. In alluding to his "slush fund" in Chicago… I’m sorry. In reiterating his
early drug use… I’m sorry.
What do we have here? Bill Clinton and Bill Shareen and Mark Penn slapping
her relentlessly, but she apologizes!
Whatever "image" Hillary has been striving for – the voice of experience
(which is bogus) and as a political moderate (which is
delusional, given her consistent far-left stances) – she has only succeeded in
portraying herself as a hapless victim of all those big bad men, both Democrat
and Republican, who surround her.
No wonder she is so often described as "shrill," "brittle," "strident,"
"angry." My suspicion is that this is the authentic Hillary – burning with
impotent rage, consumed by frustration, and just a little too-too eager to seize
the reins of power in order – finally – to be in the position to strike
back.
Who can forget Farrah Faucet’s powerful portrayal of Francine Hughes in "The
Burning Bed," wreaking vengeance on her husband after years of abuse by setting
him on fire? Or the many legal cases in which similarly aggrieved women struck
back in other murderous ways and won acquittals?
Whether or not you are sympathetic with these women or think they’ve used
"the abuse excuse" is moot because none of them has the potential to deal with
the most powerful, manipulative, tyrannical men in the world – Korea’s Kim
Jong-il, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Cuba’s Raul Castro, Venezuela’s Cesar
Chavez, and Syria’s Bashir Assad, to name but a few.
Hillary has this potential power. But all the public ever sees from her is
either taking abuse or doling it out vis-ŕ-vis her legendary, vituperative
outbursts.
Candidates of both Democrat and Republican sides routinely wallpaper over
verbal gaffes, or spin errant policy decisions. But none of them can deny the
cold, hard evidence of personal behavior.
Hillary has a decades-long history of tolerating (or perhaps, inviting)
abuse, offering her abusers fawning apologies, and/or lashing out at them in
foul language or intemperate rage.
This is the last thing our country needs in the person entrusted to determine
the very fate of Western civilization.
