Page
1 / 2 -
Home
Let’s
get real. If Hillary has lesbian friends, what’s
the big deal? Klein has lived many years; he was an editor
at The New York Times and at one time he lived
in New York (perhaps he still does). He must know at least
one gay person. Does that make him gay? No. Bad? Of course
not.
I’m
pretty sure we live in a time and in a country where there’s
no one left who isn’t related to, or who knows, one
lesbian besides Ellen DeGeneres. Not only are lesbians everywhere,
but also most of us are very nice people of good character.
If
Klein wants to intelligently examine character, he needn’t
look beyond a mirror. With his book, he exposes all that
is ugly within his own character. He hopes to smear Hillary’s
name, but in doing that, I suspect he’ll smear his
own.
He
has no proof that Hillary Clinton is a lesbian, after all.
If he did, he would have put it up. What he does have is
distaste for women who don’t fit his Victorian ideal.
And that should piss off not only lesbians, but all women--everywhere.
Why won’t it?
I
don’t know. But, then again, I’m not married
to a caveman and I’m not afraid of powerful women.
I also know that just because a person knows a lesbian,
it doesn’t make that person a lesbian. I often wish
it did, but it doesn’t.
We
can talk all we want about the “culture of fear”
that many conservatives feed and breed, and it will continue
to be a fascinating conversation, despite all the attempts
to quell it. But what about the “culture of common
sense”? It seems to me that common sense can beat
the crap out of fear any day. Where are all of the smart
people hiding?
If
in relation to Klein’s own claims about Clinton’s
lesbian connections, “everything was ambiguous,”
why will some people actually believe the assertions he
makes in The Truth About Hillary? Because the word
“Truth” is in the title?
Well,
yeah, that’s one reason. Another is that many of Klein’s
readers are ill-informed and, more importantly, it appears
they want to stay that way. If the past few years have taught
us anything, we know some people are more interested in
innuendo and gossip than they are in valid and substantiated
information, because it serves them well, not because it
benefits society as a whole.
I
want to believe that the majority of Americans are painfully
aware of the hypocrisy, lies and gossip that oil the ultra-conservative
machine, but I can’t find the proof. In fact, all
I find is proof of the opposite.
For
the record, I’m not someone who is “polarized”
by Hilary Clinton. I don’t love her; I don’t
hate her. I, like many others, am still forming my opinion
of her. The only affect Klein’s assertions have had
on me is that they strengthen my resolve to form opinions
based on facts, not on “reporting” that’s
on par with the Romper Room Gazette.
Klein
should be ashamed of himself not only on a journalistic
level, but on a human level, as well. The Truth About
Hillary is vile social commentary that will prove to
be politicking at its worst. The stakes are now raised in
Washington as they were in Salem, and we all know who has
the matches.
End
Note:
About Margaret Atwood’s The
Handmaid’s Tale: In the Republic of Gilead, formerly
the United States, far-right Schlafly/Falwell-type ideals
have been carried to extremes in the monotheocratic government.
The resulting society is a feminist's nightmare: women are
strictly controlled, unable to have jobs or money and assigned
to various classes: the chaste, childless Wives; the housekeeping
Marthas; and the reproductive Handmaids, who turn their
offspring over to the "morally fit" Wives. The
tale is told by Offred (read: "of Fred"), a Handmaid
who recalls the past and tells how the chilling society
came to be.
Kim
Ficera is the author of Sex, Lies and Stereotypes: An
Unconventional Life Uncensored. Email her at kim@kimficera.com
