I didn't see the Barbara Walters interview of Hillary Clinton because I assumed it would be like every other Barbara Walters interview, and darn near every TV interview by anyone: The host exploits the subject to get ratings, and the subject exploits the opportunity to sell their book and/or version of history. Those who complained Ms. Walters wasn't tougher (a) don't seem familiar with Barbara's style and (b) will have to show me where some TV interviewer of the last decade or so has actually been tough on their subject. None of them are…and of course, if they were, the interviewee probably would not even appear with them. Occasionally, some interviewers try to look tough by asking a rude question. But rude is not the same thing as tough, and I suspect that that's what some of the complainers really wanted: Rudeness.
There is an anger towards Senator Clinton that strikes me as having little to do with her actions in the White House or Senate — and that's not to say there isn't cause there for legitimate criticism. But what seems to drive discussions of Hillary on talk radio and Internet forums is something different, including a hostility that some people — both male and female — seem to feel towards any powerful woman. Some of it is from people who have been flogging the notion that she was going to prison for Whitewater, Filegate and Travelgate; that she had secretly divorced Bill; that she personally had murdered Vince Foster, moved the body, then murdered him again. As accusations of that sort have failed to stick, the folks making them never pause to wonder if maybe they're wrong in some way. They just get madder at Hillary for not admitting some wrongdoing for something.
In an odd way, it parallels the Martha Stewart situation, except that prosecutors actually found something for which they could indict Martha. People who couldn't care less about far more egregious stock swindles are suddenly celebrating that Martha Stewart's getting nailed on a relatively minor offense. It's like they're getting some remote revenge on that stuck-up girl in high school who was smarter than them and she knew it. True, there's always a certain joy in some quarters when a rich celebrity gets taken down…but there's something about successful, not-unattractive females that brings out the worst in some people.
With Hillary, there seems to be some compulsion to trash everything she says or does. This morning, some news outlets are reporting people lining up to buy her book. Given the Barbara Walters interview and how excerpts have been all over the news, that seems utterly unremarkable. Still, over on conservative websites like The Corner, we have the suggestion being offered that either those lines of people were paid by the publisher to be there, or that they're just there to buy something they can instantly resell on eBay. Whatever else one might think of Hillary Clinton, she did win the Senate race in New York in a landslide, and even G.O.P. polling shows that there are millions who support the lady. But somehow, if a few hundred folks turn out to purchase her overly-publicized book, her detractors have to find some way to deny that those people might genuinely like her.
Republicans complain — rightly so, I think — that Democrats are too quick to dismiss George W. Bush as an ignorant frat boy and to view everything he does through that prism. Maybe some of them need to come to grips with the fact that Hillary Clinton may not be quite what they've always insisted she is.