Hillary, Sexism, OJ, and an Apology to the Right Wing

I'm the sort of person who tries to find sense in other viewpoints. But this Associated Press article has me at a complete loss.

I can understand why people might deem Hillary Clinton the superior candidate, though I, myself, happen not to. I can understand that many women had hoped to see a co-genderist in office, though I, myself, would flee to Denmark if Joseph Leiberman, my co-chosen-people-ist, ever took the nation's helm. I even think I understand - insofar as I'm willing to go to that scary place - how Hillary managed to inflate to heights of entitlement not seen since pre-Revolutionary France. And I'm feminist enough to bristle when Senator Clinton is condescendingly referred to by her first name. And sexist enough to have inadvertently done so myself, just above. Yet honest enough to leave the gaffe for all to see.

But the article linked above, wherein the reporter writes that "Her loss was painful for women who have encountered sex discrimination themselves," as if it were a foregone conclusion that gender was her undoing, left me completely sputtering.

Hillary Clinton - who entered each campaign event with her face screaming "Well HELLO, everybody, it's ME! Yes, it's really ME! It's ME and I'm HERE!!", who from day one in the campaign used "when I'm president...." phraseology in a way that clearly went above and beyond cliched candidate-speak, who openly scorned as a smooth-talking airhead an opponent who many found impressive and who declined to volley back the disrespect, and who has generally seemed so delusional in her demonic refusal to acknowledge defeat that I'd hate to imagine the distractions she'd create with our military should her reelection seem in question in 2012 - is someone who can easily be expected to cry "sexists!" That makes sense to me. What other explanation is there? She was obviously supposed to be the next frigging president! It was her's, dammit! No candidate could have fairly beaten her; not even a superior one!

But is it truly possible that women who are not Senator Clinton actually share this view?? I haven't felt so woozy since African Americans backed OJ Simpson - and I'll hasten to note that I was one of the few white people at the time who knew how police treated black people in Los Angeles (I toured there in 1989 with an all-black band, and was surprised to see my normally nonchalant bandmates waiting anxiously for lights to change before entering crosswalks. It was explained to me. I gulped. Hard.).

Racism exists. Sexism exists. But this was obviously neither. A candidate who many people, right or wrong, saw as a divisive, reflexively pandering and triangulating old-school politician lost to someone fresher and more composed, who offered a message that galvanized millions (including scads of women). Her prohibitive lead vanished as she was out-campaigned by an opponent who may indeed turn out to be all talk, but who's the first politician in a very long time to say the sorts of things many listeners had been waiting desperately to hear, and who repeatedly demonstrated a coolly disciplined ability to rise above the take-no-prisoners sort of politics which went nova during the first Clinton administration and supernova in the Cheney administration. She was, in other words, beaten fair and square.

I don't expect Senator Clinton to ever accept this. Since it's unthinkable that she could possibly be deprived of her birthright by anything as ludicrous as a candidate whose fresh approach feels like tonic for an irritated electorate, it must be something else. Something insidious; something sinister! And I'm seized with a recognition that this delusional, paranoid disconnection and hyper-inflated, mega-annoying sense of entitlement are precisely what the right wing has lambasted all along. And I'd thought the anti-Hillary rhetoric was just empty vitriol from partisan haters!

So I'd like to take this moment to apologize to the red states. You guys were right. You warned us, and we failed to take you seriously. Sorry. Now, if you'll just apologize for assuming the rest of us were unpatriotic for opposing the Iraq war, we can hopefully all shake hands and blend ourselves back into a nice shade of violet.

UPDATE: Read Dahlia Lithwick's analysis of the split between bitter female Clinton supporters and perplexed female Obama supporters. She ascribes it to a generational difference. Not sure that's entirely right, but it's an interesting read, in any case.