Hillary Clinton plays the tear card (UPDATED)

Drudge links to Ben Smith @ The Politico who carries the cold and calculated story:

Exhausted and facing the prospect of losing the second test of her primary campaign, Hillary Rodham Clinton fought back tears as her voice broke at the close of a sedate event in a Portsmouth coffee shop.

She expressed the sheer difficulty of heading out to the trail each day — "It's not easy," she said — and suggested she faced "pretty difficult odds."

And with audible frustration and disbelief, she drew the contrast between her experience and Sen. Barack Obama's that suggests that her campaign's current message -- the question of who is ready -- matches her profound sense that she alone is ready for the job.

"Some of us know what are going to do on day one, and some of us haven’t thought that through enough," she said.

The question was innocuous:

"As a woman I know it’s hard to get out of the house and get ready," asked Marianne Pernold, a local freelance photographer. "Who does your hair?"

Clinton began by talking about her hair — she has some help — but moved to talk more generally about the campaign.

"It’s not easy, it’s not easy, and I couldn’t do it if I just didn’t passionately believe it was the right thing to do," she said.

"I have so many opportunities for this country. I don’t want to see us all fall back," she said, her voice breaking in the last phrase.

"This is very personal for me," she said to supportive applause from the small gathering, at which she'd been discussing policy around a table for an hour. "It’s not just political, it's not just public — I see what's happening. We have to reverse it."

"Some people think elections are a game — it’s about who’s up and who's down," she said. "It's about our country's future, it's about our kids' future — it's really about all of us together."

"And some of us put ourselves out there and do this against some pretty difficult odds, and we do it each one of us because we care about our country," she said.

"Some of us are right and some of us are wrong. Some of us are ready and some of us are not. Some of us know what are going to do on day one, and some of us haven’t thought that through enough," she said.

ABC has video here and when I find the inevitable You Tubed version, I'll post it.

This is, beyond doubt, an academy award winning performance and I guarantee you it'll play.  It'll play because far too many people will see this as real rather than contrived, as emotion unleashed rather than an act portrayed.  I know this because I have relatives (on Mrs. BH's side of that family tree) who will take one look and say simply "She cares about us".

And that's all it takes.

Watch the poll numbers rise folks... and with that rise, more of this kind of... crap.

All I can say is we get the leaders we deserve.  If we fall for this hook, line and sinker, we're deserving.

UPDATE: As promised, the YouTube video, via FloppingAces, who has also redesigned his site.... pretty awesome:

Also important to note that The Anchoress, incredibly, predicted this last week:

What I dread most in this political season is the “genuine” moment - and it is coming, soon, sometime between today and tomorrow, or tomorrow and New Hampshire - when Mrs. Clinton, in her ongoing effort to turn herself into whatever the polls says she must be, cries in public. It’s going to be genuinely ghastly.

And finally, Michelle puts it succinctly:

All together now: Boo-freaking-hoo.

Anyone who believes Hillary spontaneously teared up and got emotional on the campaign trail today has been in a coma the last three decades.

Forget a box of Kleenex. I need an airsickness bag.

Comments

[Morgan K Freeberg]

Now, I remember when you had a post dedicated to President Bush tearing up at a soldier's funeral, I think the point of which was to dispel the notions that he's just a cruel, rich oil guy declaring war on defenseless nations and getting our finest killed by the thousands for his own amusement.

Can you imagine a world where that is done each and every single time the President's poll numbers sag a little bit. Not by the blogs who happen to be sympathetic to that President, but by our alphabet-soup and cable television "news" networks, by the New York Times, the LA Times, Sacramento Bee, etc. etc. etc.

In that world, the President could do far worse things than President Bush's "warrantless wiretapping" -- hell, such a President could be another FDR, locking up American citizens behind barbed wire for having the wrong blood in their veins -- and never be inspected for any of it.

So in answer to the question "Is America ready for a female President" I'm afraid the answer is decidedly NO. But it's not the chauvinist pigs that make it that way, it's the people like the relatives you described. People who watch Lifetime TV way too much.

A girl cries, and they melt. Like snowballs in August.

[Mommynator]

I keep asking myself about each and every candidate, "Is this the person we want as Commander in Chief of our armed forces?"

You cannot go around being all emotional and thinking that insane fanatical murderers the world round are going to be impressed by your emotional breakdown and tears.

It's one thing to mourn for a fallen soldier. I often tear up reading about these brave and selfless young men and women.

It's another thing to be tearing up because of self pity.

[tim]

This is right out of the Clinton book. Ole Bill the lip biter taught her well.

BTW, "Who does your hair?" WTF!?! COME ON! Maybe one of the reasons America isn't ready for a woman Pres. is because of a dumba$$ question like that from a woman.

[Morgan K Freeberg]

Thus it has been YouTube'd, thus it shall be done.

[tim]

Morgan,

That was great, thanks for the link.

BTW, reminds me of Sally Fields at an awards show a few months ago when she said something to the effect that “If a woman was president there would be no wars…” Well, some woman blogger ripped into Sally with some of the same satire. Though I think she was only half joking.

[YJ Draiman]

Hillary Clinton's Investment Debate
Did Hillary take investment help in exchange for favors from Bill Clinton?
On October 11, 1978, while Bill Clinton was attorney general of Arkansas, Hillary Clinton opened a futures account with a broker named Robert L. "Red" Bone. She traded the account under the guidance of James Blair. Blair was then an attorney working as outside counsel to Tyson Foods Inc., a large Arkansas food chicken-processing firm. Bone had formerly worked for Tyson Foods. She put $1,000 into the account and apparently gave Blair authority to manage it. Over the next year, profits from the account were just under $100,000.