print” -she has ankles like a rogue elephant. Can she keep them concealed until the primaries? Those ankles may be the touchiest political secret since FDR’s frail health in 1944. Her voice reminds you of an elephant too. A really angry one. If Obama is smart, he will challenge her to debate before a live audience in Bermuda shorts—”
Update: The discussion began with a witty quip about Hillary qua ugly woman (Alex’s explanation, hereunder, best encapsulates why the comment is fun and apt), and has descended into dreary, leftist, politically correct anti-lookism. There are plenty ugly women who speak in sonorous tones, comport themselves with femininity and grace, and have a grasp of their intellectual limitations. Sobran’s quip is great (not so much his assorted historical denials). The entire package that is Hillary should be stamped “return-to-sender.”
As to cultural differences in the obsession with ditzy youths and their looks: I did not find it in other places I lived —not in Europe, not in South Africa (where Africans look up to elders), and not in Israel. Fancy worshipping a demographic at the height of its stupidity! The American workplace —high-tech especially —is also obsessed with the idea that young people are so creative. Bull; older techies have a better intellectual grounding than the current crop.
Hillary certainly has her warts. For once I can’t claim that a candidate is just another pretty face. What we have to remember is the Democratic nomination generally goes to the most left-radical phoney who can get the various lunatic fringe groups, who make up the lion’s share of the card carrying democrats, excited. Whoever gets the the most radical support fires up the democrat’s “Lickspittle lackeys in the press” (Quote from Mercer) and said leftist fruit loop carries the party. The only way these obvious phoneys ever win is when the Republicans fumble and stumble and show their incompetence. Which is the case all too often.
You’re right. Barack is prettier than Hillary.
[“Lickspittle lackeys in the press”: have you a citation? Can’t recall that one. I should use it again.]
I don’t have too much sympathy for Hillary in any case… but it really bothers me that more people have the knives out for her because of how she looks rather than because of what she will do to us if elected. As far as I am concerned, if she were the kind of leader I’d vote for, I wouldn’t care if her gawddamned thighs and ankles were three times their size.
“Lickspittle etc..” I don’t recall the exact column but I got it from you a year or two ago. If I had known that you forgotten it I would have claimed it for my own.
[It sounds like me, and a Google search shows I’ve used it more than once http://www.google.com/custom?q=Lickspittle++ilana+mercer&hl=en&cof=&domains=ilanamercer.com&start=0&sa=N]
I agree with Pam. I don’t like jokes about how people look. Plus, I believe that I read that she has some kind of medical condition that causes her ankles to swell. [Elephantiasis is indeed a disease.]
Thanks, Jerri.
Both Clintons are well known to be overtly power-hungry, perhaps especially Hillary.
Since I am a libertarian, I don’t agree with *anything* that she stands for. In fact, the very idea of what she will do to us if elected makes me want to puke.
Apparently, by the comments I’ve seen on places like FreeRepublic.com, a lot of people find her to be scary looking in one way or another. So be it.
I’m not defending Hillary in any way, shape, or form.
It’s just that the size of her ankles–or her thighs, for that matter–has not one damned thing to do with her beliefs or her plans once she has been elected.
I for one am a hell of a lot more worried about her beliefs and actions than I am about the size of her thighs and ankles.
I guess this is the flip side of what a really good-looking person can get away with… almost no one will call them on their bad behavior.
And speaking–not as a victim of nasty people–but rather as a sometime target of similar crap… I know from experience how crappy it is to be judged totally and only by one’s looks.
Go ahead and say that it should not bother me–as in the adage “consider the source and ignore it”–and maybe it “should not” bother me–but a lot of people out there, if they don’t like your looks, don’t give you a chance to show that you’re a decent person, because to them you are very nearly subhuman simply because they don’t like your looks.
Bill and Hillary have already shown–by their actions–that they’re not decent people. I’d rather judge them on that.
And oh, yeah, I wouldn’t write home about the way Joe Sobran looks, either–but I’d rather judge him on his writings and his actions, because I think that he deserves to have his measure taken that way.
[He looks much better than some of his ideas, as the following posts indicate: “Undercover With Holocaust Deniers, a link you can follow by reading “Twin Deceits: Shakespeare And Holocaust Denial.” Sobran’s assorted denials aside, his picture doesn’t do him justice; he’s not unattractive. But Pam’s right: American society sickens in its stress on looks and youth.]
I think everyone is missing the point here. Sobran is commenting on her looks because he can’t stand her ideas. Ever heard of making fun of how ugly a bully looks?
Was reading that first link, and uhh.. wow. That stuff is unbelievable. I guess that when one has a strong enough distorted view of reality in one area, it spreads to others, like a disease or something. I’m not exactly sure what to say – other than I feel very strange, and I would not want to be in the company of these people for any amount of time, although they shouldn’t be persecuted for saying what they say.
I’m not even a Jew, but I feel really odd and strange right about now. I can’t believe people like this still exist…
I’m confused. If, “American society sickens in its stress on looks and youth” what precisely was the point of repeating Sobran’s slur about her ankles?
Ilana comments: But Pam’s right: American society sickens in its stress on looks and youth
I would argue that this is because we are civilization in decline and a civilzation in decline elevates form over substance. Our preoccupation with looks and youth, as well as our worship of political correctness and our obsession with diversity are all symptoms. Parallels of this can be easily observed in the declining days of both the Greek and Roman civilizations.
Hey Pam:
I grew up in suburban L. A., and I remember that looks were the only criterion on which I was judged by my “peers.” In those days, there was only one standard of “beauty”: thin, tan, and blonde (the ideal being Marcia Brady) and I’m none of the above, so I beat myself up emotionally for my “failures” despite consistently maintaining a high academic record and personal qualities of intrinsic value.
I agree that our culture’s obsession with looks is sickening. But here’s what’s helped me: studying, performing, and teaching Middle Eastern dance. Works like a charm, for some reason. I’ve seen students with negative body images and no confidence at all in themselves emerge proud, strong, and self-confident after less than a year of study. I’ve also noted that many men I’ve considered attractive would not be judged attractive at all by prevailing physical standards. Self-confidence is sexy in a man; and applied alongside feminine sensitivity, it’s sexy, too, in a woman.
Listen, some conditions are better than others. Who would choose to be confined to a wheelchair over being able to walk? No honest person would. Yeah, I know, I know, it isn’t quite the same as physical appearance, though I suspect that standards of beauty are actually pretty constant. Renoir may have had a thing for tubbies, but for the most part, symmetry, health, and radiance have probably always been considered beautiful, and are preferable to their counterparts. And I say this as an ugly person: get over it, my fellow uglies, and be glad to be alive!
I’m so out of touch that I don’t even keep up with what the youngsters think. As we’ve discussed here before, Paris and Britney are both repulsive in their own special ways. Kristin Scott Thomas…now there’s a woman for me! Eyes so blue it hurts real good to look at ’em.
Hillary’s ideology and actions are a hell of a lot scarier than her looks.
Same for Janet Reno. The fact that she was a major player behind the Waco Baby Barbecue is a lot scarier, and more important, than the fact that she is judged to be big-and-ugly by a lot of people.
[Remember “IT’S RENO TIME” on SNL?]
The post made me smile. The comments make me want to spew. Jorge’s speech is fair game, why not Hillary’s ankles? One would think this blog would immune from such nonsense.
TO BARBARA GRANT: Yes, I understand what you are saying about growing up in L.A. That’s one of the many reasons I’m glad I didn’t grow up here in the L.A. area, but rather moved here when I left home (also because the public schools here are even worse than the places where I grew up in Michigan and Florida).
TO ALEX: Yes, I *do* understand that Sobran is ridiculing her looks (at least partially) because he can’t stand her ideas. And in the end, Hillary probably deserves about as much ridicule as she gets, if not more.
I also find it ironic that some men (like Joe Sobran) who aren’t all that gorgeous themselves still feel entitled to ridicule the looks of any and every woman they meet.
Personally, I think that some of Sobran’s pockmarked pictures make his face look like the surface of Mars… but his anti-Semitic ideas are far worse.
Oh, yes, and WRT Janet Reno: Don’t forget what she did to another child, Elian Gonzales!! She seems to have a thing for destroying the children she is allegedly trying to “help.”