Fitness 101
Hillary's 'Tears' - Real or Calculated?

The Conventional Wisdom says that Hillary's tears - real or calculated - won her a primary victory in New Hampshire. Her sympathizers were overjoyed, saying it demonstrated her "human side." Her critics claimed it was calculated to win her sympathy. Fact is, Hillary did not cry at all - that's a strong exaggeration. Her voice did crack and she came close ... but close only counts in horseshoes.

One of her harshest critics was Dick Morris, once one of top Clinton insiders, who claims it was "an emotional breakdown" that raised a red flag about her fitness to be president. In this video, Morris also predicts, in the video below - posted Jan. 8, 2008, that Hillary will raise the "race card", disguised in softer language. Morris fell from grace after a prostitute-related sex/adultery scandal.

"The most famous example of somebody crying on the campaign trail was [Edmund] Muskie. Everybody felt that after he cried, that he was not fit to be president.

I believe that there could well come a time when there is such a serious threat to the United States that she breaks down like that. Hillary is a control freak. She really believes in controlling everything.

Probably everybody knows somebody like this in their lives.... They're firm and they're rigid and they do what they're supposed to do. They're disciplined and then when it doesn't work, as opposed to bend, they break.

I saw her break right after she lost Congress in '94, when she was sobbing over the phone to me, saying:

'I'm bewildered. Nothing's working. My judgment's wrong. I just don't know what's happening. Dick, what should I do?'

And that's what you're seeing here with her. It's an out-of-control feeling by someone who HAS to be in control all the time....

Presidents don't cry. I think people will--and they should--perceive this as weak. It's one thing to cry when you're with victims, when you're recalling an emotional experience of happiness, but it is quite another to cry out of self-pity and loss of control.

I can imagine a situation where the Congress doesn't pass her programs, or where Iran rejects her initiative, or the war isn't going well, and that same sense of 'I tried to do it all right and now all of a sudden, it's screwing up and I don't know what to do about it' could INCAPACITATE HER AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF."

Ed Muskie cried - and it cost him the election. Only later, did it come out that he had been slipped LSD by Richard Nixon's CIA dirty tricks squad. Many male candidates (and Presidents) have cried since then - without any negative consequences.

Morris does have a point, though, about Hillary being a "control freak" - which in itself has some dangerous implications for someone with their hand on the button. Hillary was/is known to staffers as "the Supreme Court" because of her insistence while in the White House and now, even on the campaign trail, of having to personally approve every move made by her husband and by staffers. The joke is, "Well, I don't know about this - have you run it by the Supreme Court?"

Hillary herself has confirmed that her tears won her the primary, according to a CBS interview reported by the London Times Jan. 9, 2008:

Hillary Clinton conceded today that a rare moment of public emotion in a New Hampshire coffee shop had helped bring her back from the political dead.

The usually stoic former first lady said that the incident, in which she became teary as she discussed what drove her to keep fighting for the presidency, had afforded her a "connection" with New Hampshire voters that had propelled her to a 3 point victory in the state's primary over favourite Barack Obama.

“I had this incredible moment of connection with the voters of New Hampshire and they saw it and they heard it. And they gave me this incredible victory last night,” she said during an interview with CBS. Analysis of exit polls from New Hampshire showed that women voters, traditionally her most loyal supporters, flooded back after deserting her for Barack Obama in last week's Iowa caucuses. Mr Obama narrowly edged Mrs Clinton for the female vote in Iowa primary last week but yesterday she enjoyed a clear 13-point lead.

After her loss to Obama in Iowa, she was discouraged, depressed and exhausted - physically, mentally and emotionally, so the tears could have been very real indeed. Remember - in Iowa she had "lost control" as Morris notes.

Still, her cold persona had been a point of contention among staffers for some time, and the concern was growing, though few had the courage to bring up the matter. So, again, the tears could have been calculated, to soften her harsh image. Later, though, she would return to the scolding, nasty persona when she shouted "Shame on you, Barack Obama! You should know better!"

Hillary, along with her husband, also seem to have a short fuse, as this video of Bill in 1992 shows.

"The time was 1992, prior to the presidential election in the US. Domestic issues were of the highest concern. Terrorism had not yet happened domesticly in the United States on any significant level that people would remember. George Herbert Hoover Walker Bush (George Bush senior) was president seeking relection following a successful war in Iraq, but facing a very weak showing in fixing mounting domestic issues. Bill Clinton was running for the first time and was focusing on domestic issues as a "New Democrat" moderate. Clinton gave a series of public speakings all across the US to showcase his stance on domestic issues.

"In this video: Bill Clinton was speaking in favor of condoms in public schools when he got heckled by a guy (I think it might have been the activitist who called himself "Luke Sissyfag" (aka Luke Montgomery). Clinton, agitated, responds swiftly to the heckling and gives him a pointed lecture about being courteous.

"YouTube user DarkNowInDachau has sent in further information that "The man that interrupted President Clinton was in fact Bob Rafsky, not 'Luke Sissyfag.' Rafsky was a member of Act Up, an AIDS activist awareness group."

If Dick Morris is right (and remember, he was there when some of the nastiest Clinton tricks came down the pike during their co-Presidency (as Hillary calls it), then this could be a somewhat psychotic manic-depressive trait (who can forget her overwhelming "cackles" when she laughs?) that could spell disaster as Commander in Chief.

Still, one couldn't call this a "dirty trick" against Hillary by another candidate. It was Hillary who nearly broke down (she clearly does not actually "cry" as she's been accused) and it was the media that took her to task over it. It could, however, be a red flag concerning her "fitness" to be a calm, logical President in time of crisis - but no more so than, say, George W. Bush.

Still, it won her New Hampshire.