The Hillary laugh debate

After Jon Stewart mocked Hillary Clinton's laughter during interviews, Patrick Healy wrote an entire New York Times article about "The Cackle" that has now launched a mini-frenzy of coverage, including a "body language expert" calling it "evil laughter" on Fox.

The implications of this debate for American democracy are so obvious and depressing that I won't dwell on them, but I do want to emphasize the journalistic problem with coverage like Healy's. He's not just making fun of Hillary's laugh. Like most personality-driven campaign journalism, Healy constructs a narrative based on unverifiable assumptions about her thought process and state of mind. Every tic is treated as calculated, strategic, and revealing of the politician's innermost character.

To illustrate the point, I've highlighted Healy's mind-reading in italics below:

It was January 2005, and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton had just finished a solemn speech about abortion rights — urging all sides to find "common ground" on the issue, and referring to abortion as "a sad, even tragic choice to many, many women."

Stepping offstage, she took questions from reporters, and found herself being grilled about whether she was moderating her own pro-choice position. And suddenly it happened: Mrs. Clinton let loose a hearty belly laugh that lasted a few seconds. Reporters glanced at one another as if we'd missed the joke.

This was my first close encounter with Senator Clinton, and with The Cackle. At that moment, the laugh seemed like the equivalent of an eye-roll — she felt she was being nit-picked, so she shamed her inquisitors by chuckling at them (or their queries).

Friends of hers told a different story: She has this fantastic sense of humor, you see, but it's too sarcastic to share with the general public because not everyone likes sarcasm. (An example from personal experience: Mrs. Clinton sometimes likes to tweak people for missing an obvious point by saying to them, "hello!") So, instead of alienating Iowans who might not vote for edginess, Mrs. Clinton goes for the lowest-common-denominator display of her funny bone: She shows that she can laugh, and that her laugh has a fullness and depth.

Perhaps. The reality is, Mrs. Clinton is the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination right now, and the commensurate political attacks and criticism are coming at her from all sides. She needs ways to respond without appearing defensive or brittle, her advisers say.

She often responds to attacks with a counterargument: At the televised debates, she has pushed back at criticism from her rivals by saying there is little difference between herself and them (over the Iraq war, say), and recalibrates the discussion by focusing on the differences with President Bush rather than those among the Democrats. Doing so makes her look like a spokeswoman for a unified Democratic position — even though there are real differences among the candidates, as she showed at Wednesday's debate by refusing to go into the same detail as some rivals about Social Security's future.

And then, less often but more notably, she copes with the pressure by using The Cackle. At Wednesday's Democratic debate, for instance, former Senator Mike Gravel complained about her vote on an Iran resolution and said he was "ashamed" of her. Asked to respond, Mrs. Clinton laughed before responding, as if to minimize the matter.

Last Sunday, meanwhile, she appeared on all five of the major morning talk shows. I don't know what she had for breakfast, but her laughter was heavily caffeinated at times. Chris Wallace, of Fox News, first pressed Mrs. Clinton about why she was so "hyper-partisan," and that drew a huge cackle. (Coming from Fox, that question is pretty funny, her aides said.) But at another point Mr. Wallace switched gears and said, "let me ask you about health care," and she responded, "Yeah, I'd love you to ask me about health care" — and then let it rip, again, a bit quizzically.

The weirdest moment was with Bob Schieffer on the CBS News program "Face the Nation" when he said to Mrs. Clinton, "you rolled out your new health care plan, something Republicans immediately said is going to lead to socialized medicine." She giggled, giggled some more, and then couldn't seem to stop giggling — "Sorry, Bob," she said — and finally unleashed the full Cackle.

The Schieffer moment seemed particularly calculated because Mrs. Clinton has most certainly not laughed, in other settings, when she has been accused of pursuing socialized medicine. She faced that accusation charge during a forum in Las Vegas this summer, for instance; she turned frosty and traded barbs with the audience member who made the accusation. It was clearly no laughing matter in that venue...

Update 10/4 9:18 AM: Andrew Sullivan flags an even more absurd example of over-interpretation from Ann Althouse:

I think it was [Hillary's] strategy to make us talk about that instead of substantive problems she has. It's a distraction. She's deliberately laughing in a way designed to derail us from going in a direction that would hurt her. (So was the cleavage.)

Comments

[Rob]

American voters often judge Presidential candidates on the qualities of their character, and they tend not to like phonies. Whether Senator Clinton's laugh is sincere or is "calculated, strategic, and revealing of [her] innermost character" is a decision that voters are entitled to make, and that people are entitled to talk about. Brendan's wish to stifle such discussion is subject to this highly-analytical criticism.

[ERF]

I hope all here appreciate the richness of Brendan's referring to a Media Matters piece for his post on stupid criticisms of politicians.

Brendan, what did you think about your buddy Jon Chait's writing in TNR that he hated the way Bush walked? How about Chait's saying he hated Bush because he reminded Chait of obnoxious rich kids Chait knew in high school?

This deal about Clinton's laugh is stupid too, but Brendan's bias is in plain view if he thinks Clinton is being treated unusually.

[Chris Andersen]

What's amazing is how many national journalists take their queues from comedy shows. Stewart's skewering of Clinton was funny, but it was meant to be funny. It wasn't meant to be a serious analysis of Clinton's character. Just an example of, "wasn't that a bit odd?" poking of fun.

I expect Stewart would be dismayed as anyone that people would take a joke about Clinton's laugh as being the foundation of a serious political analysis.

But of course, we must remember that this is the same media establishment that tooks it cues for criticizing Al Gore's 2000 debate performance from a sketch on Saturday Night Live!

[Hillary]

My laugh? Your yellow-tooth grin is lookin' pretty sinister too!

Well, really more creepy in a "hi little girl - want some candy?" kinda way.

keep up the mediocre work!!!!