In the other universe Hillary Clinton is 32

Another advertisement for myself as genius blogger.

Chris Matthews has been obsessing over the possibility that Bill Clinton's been running around on Hillary again.  Matthews doesn't seem to have any evidence that the Big Dawg's snapped his leash.  He just assumes the Clinton must be getting some because that's what Bill does.

If Matthews was all alone dropping quaters in the slot in this mental booth in the back of the sex shop of his mind, his fantasizing about an ex-President's sex life would be dismissable as evidence of the public unravelling of a not exactly well-knit mind.

But Matthews isn't a lonely guy in a trench coat back in the booth.  He's the barker out on the sidewalk in front of the club handing out flyers to passersby and crying, "Naked naked naked naked!"

Inside, the paying customers include half the Washington Press Corps.  They're there to watch the live naked girls re-enact Monica flashing her thong and dancing with her cigar and impersonate all the other women who threw themselves at Bill or at whom Bill threw himself.

We all know by now that many of the celebrity journalists and the celebrity journalist-wannabes in DC who are paid to write about the most important political issues of our times are bored to tears by the most important political issues of our time.  They would much rather write about movies, sports, racy novels, or reality TV, anything that features lots of real celebrities misbehaving in sexy ways.  Since they can't write about those things, because, one: it wouldn't pay them as much, and two: they aren't good enough writers or diligent enough journalists to do it right---sportswriters actually have to work hard at what they do, they aren't allowed to just cover the conversations at their own lunch tables---they write about politics as if they are writing about movies, sports, racy novels, etc.

They write gossip and call it biography.

Bill Clinton is a gossip columnist's dream.

It's been asked over and over throughout the liberal blog world why the Media doesn't obsess over the tawdry sex lives of the likes of John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and Newt Gingrich the way they obsess over Bill Clinton's.

Simple answer to simple question:  Because they like those guys and they hate Bill.

Journalists have always thought of sex as synonymous with scandal and scandal ends political careers.  You aren't going to go out of your way to start scandals about politicians whose careers you want to carry them into the White House.

That's the simple answer, and it's true, but it's only part of the story.

Scandal---sex---sells newspapers and advertising time.  But only if the sex is actually sexy.

Nobody writes about Rudy's, Newt's, and St John's tawdry sex lives because nobody wants to read about Rudy's, Newt's, or St John's sex life.  These are not guys you want to picture naked in the sack with a babe.  They are creepy.  They are ugly and creepy.  They are ugly and creepy and dull.

Bill is big, tall, strong and handsome.  He was movie star handsome.  He is President handsome now.  But the Beltway Insiders aren't covering now.

They are still covering then.

As I wrote a few weeks back, the Washington Press Corps has always had a problem seeing Bill and Hillary Clinton as they are.  When Clinton was first running for President, when he and Hillary were in their mid-forties, you'd have thought from they way they were covered that they were in their late 20s.  You could hardly tell the difference between the way they were portrayed from the way Dennis and Meg or Madonna and Sean were portrayed.

I think that this is because most of the Beltway Insiders are Baby Boomers, a generation that, since, oh, about 1972, has had a particularly difficult time admitting its age.

When the generation's advance guard began to enter middle-age, it looked as though the Boomers were not going to age gracefully.  They were going to jog, cross-train, weight-lift, vitamin-pop, diet, dye, Rograine, and surgically make-over their way to perpetual youth and beauty.

When Time,  gravity, and cellular degeneration turned out to be too expensive and too physically exhausting to resist, an advertisers and marketers' dream's worth of Boomers decided to face up to the fact that they were getting old by not facing up to it.

They decided that if they couldn't have the body of a 20 year old when they were 50, they could have the mental states of one.  They could pretend to themselves that they were as young as they felt.  The result has turned out not to be a generation of lined but still lean and handsome rock and rollers but crowds of fat, gray haired lawyers and stockbrokers and college professors holding up their cigarette lighters at Rolling Stone concerts.

Writing and yakking on the tube about the Clintons' sex life is a way of pretending that it's still 1992, and, as I've said, back in 1992 the Media were pretending it was still 1972.

Ironically, the Clintons themselves have aged, and let themselves age, beautifully.  One of the secrets of their success is that neither one has tried to pretend that they aren't getting old.  They go about being, and are apparently content to be, exactly what they are.  Hillary Clinton is a sixty year old United States Senator, and conducts herself accordingly.  Bill Clinton is a sixty-year old statesman and world leader and conducts himself accordingly.  He is on his way to succeeding Jimmy Carter in the job Carter invented, Great Ex-President.

Rather than speculate on whether or not there's another Monica in his life and how that might be a liability for his wife's Presidential ambitions, the Media Insiders might tell us about the actual work he does and how that work is part of the reason Hillary is as popular as she is.

But that's not sexy.

Cross-posted at the American Street.  Hat tips to Atrios and Think Progress.

Comments

[joanr16]

...why the Media doesn't obsess over the tawdry sex lives of the likes of John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and Newt Gingrich the way they obsess over Bill Clinton's.

Because the idea of those first three guys having sex at all is gross?

[burritoboy]

"I think that this is because most of the Beltway Insiders are Baby Boomers, a generation that, since, oh, about 1972, has had a particularly difficult time admitting its age."

Effectively: what happens when the Revolution (the attempted revolution of '68 in this case) fails?

This particular problem stems from precisely the same problem that led to the Boomers' political failure in '68: there was no thought given to any concrete issues beyond those that immediately confronted the Boomers themselves. The French version of '68 was at least more honest and open about what the Boomers might do with the middle-aged and beyond if the revolution succeeded (answer: kill them, in general).

Without a plausible philosophy that includes a realistic version of the life-cycle, the Boomers are of course utterly lost about how to be adults. They don't know what that word actually might mean.

Two, Boomers never had an actual vocabulary for the concrete actions of ruling. Hint: that's the reason so many plays, poems and histories before 1800 are focused on political ruling - so that viewers/readers could develop their thinking about what it means to rule. The Boomers' archetypal field of study, Sociology, is precisely intentionally devoid of tools to understand how a single politician can act.

Thus, Boomers simply don't have any way to understand individual politicians but to analyze the personal lives of politicians- "the personal is the political" in their obnoxious phrase. But they have no yardsticks there either within the personal realm but the authenticity / inauthenticity line - i.e. "phonies are bad". Boomers already know these conservative politicians are scum - but since conservatives' "true selves" are scum, conservatives are thus at least being authentic by just being scum. Bill Clinton, however, is a phoney, because he promised / pretended to be good, but since he was scummy to women....he's a phoney.

[sfmike]

That's a great slapdown analysis of our press corps and I think you get to the heart of it, though I wouldn't blame the "baby boomers" in particular, if only because it makes burritoboy apoplectic.

I particularly like your wrapup: "Rather than speculate on whether or not there's another Monica in his life ... the Media Insiders might tell us about the actual work he does and how that work is part of the reason Hillary is as popular as she is. But that's not sexy."

[mark]

No, no NO! Its because those 3 guys are Republicans. You don't think there is anything to it other than that, do you? It has nothing to do with any real affections or logic.

Its OK if you're a Republican. Media rule #1.

[KC45s]

Putting aside the reports of Chrispundit's simple obsession with sex (as hinted at by Bob Somersby and others), I wonder if two things in particular do not drive the guy's rabid attitude toward the Clintons. First, it seems to me Matthews and many, many other big-name media figures (on TV and op-ed pages) made their bones amidst the Clinton "scandals." The 24/7 Monica coverage helped fuel the ascendence of Russert, Mo Dowd, Matthews himself, Fox News entirely--the list goes on and on. Some of these people no doubt look back on the 1990s as a great time. Lots of attention. Book deals. Ratings. Promotions. And Lord knows what other perks. All this--the world is yours!

It would be human nature for them to forget the "little people" they were before the Clinton Years; perhaps Matthews (and others) prefer to define themselves through the successful men and women they became, thanks to that decade. They probably can't help but whip up The Sequel and see where that takes them.

Second point. I've long considered it too pat to think Matthews hates the Clintons because of their long-rumored refusal to give him the White House press flak job. But watching him, I think this could be valid. I mean, he's incredibly agitated when the discussion gets warmed up. Even beyond his usual "I-drink-soft-drinks-mixed-with-Pixie-Dust-and-Sudafed" presentation. Not knowing the guy, and being unlikely to vacation on the Vineyard with him anytime soon, I can't say for sure it's personal. But man, at this point, it wouldn't surprise me.

Anyway, good post.

[jonst]

B-boy...What fuckin "revolution in 68" failed? What the fuck are you talking about. Define "revolution", failed or otherwise?

Lance, one of the rare times you disappointed me. Not that you owe me anything....but man, the sweeping generalizations you fling out. "Generalizations", ironically enough,whipped up, pushed, refined, peddled, endlessly, by the same superficial media you so rightly, and in many cases, brilliantly, criticize. The"greatest generation ever" (how the civil war generation would resent that title going to someone else)boomers, Punk, X, whatever. Large swaths of divergent people, diced up and handed the same handle. What a crock of shit.

[JD]

My question: why does anyone care whether Bill Clinton has "snapped the leash"? Do they think that Sen. Clinton can't run the country if she can't run Bill? To paraphrase the old saw about comedy and drama, being the Chief Executive of a country is easy; marriage is hard.

This would all be kind of amusing if I didn't know for a fact that any number of women will never vote for Sen. Clinton because she didn't kick her husband to the curb over his past indiscretions.

[burritoboy]

"B-boy...What fuckin "revolution in 68" failed? What the fuck are you talking about. Define "revolution", failed or otherwise?"

The American branch of '68 was particularly theoretically muddy, disorganized and vague. But there was an attempt at worldwide revolution - in France, they call it May 68. As they said in Paris then: "La révolution est incroyable parce que vraie."

[jonst]

bboy,

There was no revolution. I know because Gil Scott swore it would be televised if it went down.

The powers that be knew it was in their interest to portray what was happening in 1968 as a revolution. It got Nixon elected. And it finally secured the South for the GOP.

[Victoria]

I have been thinking about this one. So far, I haven't been able to buy the boomer anti-aging reason for the Bill treatment. I suspect it's a kind of primal jealousy. I have heard so many people who have seen Bill Clinton in person comment that they were knocked out by how physically attractive he is. Apparently, it stuns a lot of people. Charisma alone is daunting. Charisma plus sex appeal is overwhelming...and perhaps downright annoying to the narcissistic bunch that passes for reporters these days.

[strawhat]

Victoria: Not only that, but he's the smartest guy in town -- and he's not "one of us." He's a working-class kid from (where?!?) Arkansas, and that alone is enough to drive the beltway snobs completely insane. Because if a smart kid from Arkansas can make it to the top on nothing else but his own smarts & charisma, that means their connections and pedigrees (on which they've based their careers, if not their lives) don't mean a damn thing.

And that drives them out of their minds.

Snobbery is a terrible thing.

[Juno]

My father - born in 1937 - had a gut level revulsion for Bill Clinton that I finally came to understand had to do with the fact that for men of his generation and background - prep school, Ivy league, etc - morality is largely equivalent to sexual morality, rather than any larger standard of behavior or ethics. I'm generalizing about the men of his generation thing - but it really did seem connected to his education and social upbringing.

Bill Clinton was so obvious, so sexual, so unapologetic...so self-made....so everything that my dad had been raised to be the opposite of that he just couldn't see straight when those qualities manifested in the President. It just offended him on a visceral level.
It was not as simple as snobbery, there was a kind of mesmerized resentment in it. too.