'Self-loathing' or non-stereotypical?

Stephen Minarik, the new chairman of the New York State Republican Party, inherits an organization in poor shape. Republicans hold none of the major statewide offices, except for Gov. George Pataki. And the governor is not particuarly popular, if not loathed, and is generally expected not to seek a fourth term in 2006. The GOP has a tiny minority in the state Assembly. Its narrow majority in the state Senate shrunk even more with several rare losses (3 of 62, which is high by NY legislative standards) by incumbents in last year's elections.

So to get attention (and much needed money) for his party, Minarik launched a high profile Stop Hillary campaign against Mrs. Clinton, the state's junior senator. Invoking Hillary is one of the best ways to raise huge sums of cash... for Democrats and Republicans alike. Piles of non-New York state cash will likely flow in to NY GOP coffers as a result of this campaign. Sen. Clinton has already blasted "the right-wing attack machine" to raise her own non-NYS money in response.

I've never been a big fan of Mrs. Clinton and I didn't vote for her. Essentially, she became a well-known figure and popular among her supporters primarily because of who her husband happens to be. She's certainly smart and talented, but if her husband hadn't become president, do you really think her first elected office would be US Senator from a state she'd never lived in? It all seems sort of the antithesis of feminism.

Yet, the vitriol of criticism against her is breathtaking. I understand that some people don't like the fact that she's a bit a liberal, but other more liberal politicians don't get savaged nearly as much as she does. (Though as a senator, he hasn't been as ultraliberal as her reputation would suggest as demonstrated by her surprising popularity in the very conservative upstate New York)

Some claim that her critics hate the fact that she's a strong woman. Yet, there are other strong women politicians that don't get savaged nearly as much as she does. She's not only ambitious, but poor at disguising her ambition. But there are other unashamedly ambitious politicians who don't get savaged as much as she does. As First Lady, she was an unelected official who tried to devise a major policy in secret, but none of the other unelected officials on the same commission got savaged as much as she did. Appointed presidential commissions were hardly invented by Bill Clinton.

Sen. Clinton is not even the only major politician who owes her job to the fame of relatives. Such as Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski (daughter of Alaska Gov. Frank), GOP Rep. Mary Bono (wife of Sonny) and the many Democratic Kennedys who've been elected to Congress.

It's not that she's the target of criticism that baffles me. It's the amount and the vitriol that baffles me. No single reason explains it.

In a sense, I think Sen. Clinton is a bit like the state of Israel. Both certainly deserve some of the criticism they receive but the sheer quantity of the vitriol is wholly disproportionate to any sense of fairness. They both have large numbers of people who will defend them blindly and rabidly even against the most legitimate criticisms.

One of those defenders is Sen. Clinton's husband, the former president. I suppose it's not surprising since on a personal level, he owes her big time for not ditching him in the late 90s. But that's personal and this essay is not about the personal.

Except that it is.

In defending his wife, former Pres. Clinton criticized a Republican political consultant at heart of the Stop Hillary campaign. The consultant, Arthur Finkelstein, happens to be gay and actually married his partner in Massachussetts last year.

Mr. Clinton said, "I thought, one of two things. Either this guy believes his party is not serious and is totally Machiavellian in its position, or you know, as David Brock said in his great book 'Blinded by the Right,' there's some sort of self-loathing or something. I was more sad for him."

Arthur Finkelstein is a shameless promoter of smear politics. But it's outrageous that Mr. Clinton lowered himself to Finkelstein's level with a wholly inappropriate attack. Perhaps this particular case can be chalked up to the excessive zeal of a husband defending his wife (though I'm a bit skeptical). Nevertheless, Mr. Clinton's attack perpetuates a myth I detest.

'Self-loathing' is despicable smear. I see it no different than when extreme elements of the pro-Iraq war crowd defame anti-war people as 'anti-American' or 'terrorist lovers.' It's an offensive leap of anti-logic.

Just as many people assume that religious people must necessarily be conservative, others assume that gays must necessarily be liberal. I've found it extremely arrogant and presumptuous that some people act like gays and blacks OUGHT to be liberal by the mere fact of their gayness and blackness. Conservative gays are called 'self-loathing.' Conservative blacks are called 'Uncle Toms.' This is a widespread assumption as reprehensible as anything Bill Frist said.

The fundamental flaw is that this presumes that homosexuality is the only characteristic of gays, that dark skin is the only characteristic of blacks. Gays and blacks can't care about crime. They can't care about jobs. They can't want lower taxes. Gays have to be pigeonholed as gays only. Blacks have to be pigeonholed as blacks only. They are not allowed to be simple citizens who care about other issues that affect them and their country, state and town. They need to stay inside their little box and conform to their stereotype.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to ask Finkelstein how he can feel at home in a party where exploiting anti-gay sentiment is at the heart of their current national agenda; rather than derision and assumption and presumption, you can give him a chance to explain himself. It's reasonable to challenge him to lead an uprising in his party against this bigotry,to show a little courage, to fight the correct and Right enemy. But deriding him as self-loathing merely because no gay could possibly have anything in common with a single Republican value, that's not only tremendously arrogant, but over the line of decency.

The Democratic Party does not have the right to the vote of every gay person or every black person, just as the Republican Party does not have the right to the vote of every Christian or every soldier. They need to earn votes on merit, not identity.