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Saturday, January 19, 2008
Will an “emotional moment”
be a weakness in the White House?
Shaunti Feldhahn, a right-leaning columnist, writes the commentary this week and Andrea Cornell Sarvady, a left-leaning columnist, responds.
Rebuttal
“Can a Mormon be president?” we are asked these days, with far more gravity than that question deserves. “Can an African-American? Can a woman?” While Barak Obama rose above the ridiculous debate about whether he is black enough, misty-eyed Hillary Clinton is under fire by some for being too much of a woman.
Clearly voters are smart enough to realize that Clinton’s “emotional moment” might happen again if she gets elected. Knowing this, the people of New Hampshire didn’t just give her a consoling hug. Many, in fact, marched down to the voting booth and pushed her further towards the White House.
Clinton may yet give us other reasons to challenge her candidacy. Yet how can anyone imagine that a moment of vulnerability is enough to hurt the standing of a president? Serious concerns are developed through a body of evidence, with years in which to judge the actions and character of the commander-in-chief.
“Perception can create a weakness where there really isn’t one” my colleague Shaunti writes. How true. During a campaign, glimpses of personality may annoy us—-say, a highly-educated person who can’t pronounce simple words—but it should take far more than that for us to collectively decide our leader has been proven unfit. In examining the Bush record, it’s easy to see that something has “impacted his ability to lead.” No kidding. Lost in all the straw man concerns about looking weak in front of tyrants like Kim Jong-il is the fact that Bush’s actions abroad have already earned us the enmity of our own allies.
Like most fresh starts, the prospect of this one brings equal parts exhilaration and confusion. How exactly do we wade through all the hype brought on during this endless sales pitch? How do we know exactly what we’re buying?
The answer is simple: we don’t. For all we know, our next president may suddenly go French on us and pull a Sarkozy: get the job, get divorced and take up with an Italian model. But you know what? We’ve had worse. As long as he or she makes wise decisions, in between romantic and other emotional moments, we should survive nicely.
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Commentary
By Shaunti Feldhahn
In the movie A League of Their Own, Tom Hanks plays a 1940’s manager reluctantly overseeing the first women’s professional baseball team. And his classic line, “There’s no crying in baseball!” perfectly captures how so many men view tears on the job: This is not the place for them!
I believe Hillary Clinton’s much-discussed “emotional moment” in New Hampshire was powerfully genuine. I also believe it would be a weakness in the White House. Not because genuine emotion is a sign of weakness - very much the opposite. But because of the widespread perception that crying is a weakness, especially in women. And perceptions, as we all know, can create a weakness where there really isn’t one.
For example, George W. Bush is widely perceived as a buffoon, which is crazy: The man got a Harvard MBA on his own merits and built a thriving business empire. But the perception alone has impacted his ability to lead: If he makes an inexplicable decision, people don’t assume that he has information we don’t, or that the decision was labored over and fine-tuned for months. No, it’s “there goes that idiot again,” or “Cheney’s pulling his strings again.”
So the moment Hillary misted up, the talk-show circuit immediately asked, “Is she going to cry in front of Kim Jong-il?” That’s just as crazy as the idea of Bush as a buffoon; after all, she’s also accused of being an ice queen. The woman can’t win!
In a 2007 study, research firm Catalyst found that “when women act in ways that are consistent with gender stereotypes, they are viewed as less competent leaders.” Tellingly, when Ellen Degeneres bawled on her talk show in October, comedian Bill Maher commented, “At this moment when the entire nation is saying ‘Hmm, can we have a woman president? Maybe they’re too emotional,’ I don’t think this is helping.”
Americans don’t mind a President’s tears of compassion for a dead solider. But I’m guessing most Americans don’t want their President crying because he or she is exhausted and the job is “not easy.”
Emotion isn’t a weakness. But in the White House, it would be all too easy for it to be perceived as such. Especially, unfortunately, in a female president.