Rachael Larimore at Slate's XX Factor reports on the apparent controversy surrounding this photo:
My reaction is similar to Larimore's: I think this makes Clinton look more appealing, not less. But my reason is a little different from Larimore. She thinks it may lead people to feel a little sorry for Clinton:
I feel for her. No one likes to see pictures of themselves having a bad hair day, or after missing a few trips to the gym. And that's without the fate of a presidential campaign — her life's ambition — hanging precariously in the balance.
I think it just makes her look more down-to-earth: Less carefully put together and more lived-in, an older professional woman on whom time has taken its toll — as it does on us all — but who has acquired the advantages of experience in exchange. I still won't vote for her, for reasons entirely unrelated to her appearance; but I like the photo. Ann Althouse has more.
I think it just emphasizes how incredibly phony she is. Granted, the same goes for all the pre-makeup shots of movie stores in grocery-store tabloids, but I expect celebrities to be phony, not presidents.
Photoshopped? I'm not claiming that it is, but I'd be skeptical until we know it wasn't the same people who gave us bat boy and the alien shaking hands will Bill Clinton.
Yeah yeah, whatever. If she wears makeup, you'll complain about her being a phony. If she doesn't, you'll complain that she's ugly.
While empathy for Hillary as an individual is fine and all, she's pursuing a high office.
The individual is consumed by the office, and quaint sentimentality is a distraction at best.
It's also possible she was very tired at the time or a bit sleep-deprived in general, which tends to make a person's skin look worse.
Nah, I completely disagreed with a friend of mine years ago who said he thought Hillary was the ugliest woman she could possibly imagine.
It's all relative, and I'll thank you not to be so incredibly smug about what you think you might know about me.
I don't plan to vote for her in the primary, but the general election will be another matter if she winds up as the nominee.
As for this photo, you do all realize that (most) women wear makeup, right? Is that phony? Does it disqualify (most) women from holding the office of President?
OK.
The picture does not strike ME as terrible. I accept that she would not WANT this to be the image out there on her campaign adds. But we've seen bad looking photos of other candidates in other primary seasons. (Though none of Mitt or Barak. Hmm . . .)
No one looks physically well with eyes at half-mast: Older people look sick, while younger people look drunk. That said, she looks so much fitter and younger than does Bill; the heart attack seems to have taken a real toll on the poor guy. He has rarely displayed his bouncy, high-energy persona since the hospitalization. And he seems to have aged 20 years since 2000.
I agree with Althouse's suggestion that we may be talking about this only because she is female. The obverse side of that also holds, namely, if you have a bad looking picture of a male candidate, you may use it at will.
Then I'd want to know that too. (and I'd want to know who authorized it so he/she can be fired)
As it is now, a photo shows up out of the blue on Drudge and I'm skeptical that it may be photoshopped. Where'd it come from? Who's the photographer?
It's all relative, and I'll thank you not to be so incredibly smug about what you think you might know about me.
Ok, that clears that up. Who could've ever assumed anything about you after these two comments???
What in your life experience has given you any basis for such expectations?
So true.
Now you have my attention. What other photos that showed up on Drudge have been photoshopped?
Are there any male politicians who regularly have their makeup artists scrub as many years off of their faces before a TV appearance?
I think it's a horrible photo of her, and I can't see a very good reason for it to be prominently featured, other than to focus on her aging appearance. I think it's just one of Drudge's quirks- every now and then he does something kind of off the wall, appealing to his tabloid taste. But going with his own personal tastes is what made him a multimillionaire. Obviously he does not want her to be president; but I really wouldn't read much into his featuring the photo.
At the risk of high-jacking this thread, your comment reminded me of this great article in the Times earlier this year. No one of any age benefits from close-up, high-def images of themselves.
Photo is attributed as (AP Photo/Jim Cole). The photo is up on Yahoo News at this location
Photo 1
Photo 2
Did she lose her makeup in the minutes between these three photos, or are we just not used to seeing close-ups of Senator Clinton?
To be somewhat less tangential: even Queen Elizabeth (the first one) had officials in charge of making sure all portraits portrayed her in a flattering way. There's a surviving rejected portrait that made her look rather like this shot makes Hillary look. It was reproduced in a semi-recent book - I think The Confident Hope of a Miracle, but I may be wrong.
My vote's for you Hilary, just try to use Kuchinik's health policy as it is more favorable to the medicare people and all poor people in general. A tax rebate doesn't help us pay for doctor appointments and medicines when we need them.
Viva Hilary ............
I think some people are trying to make it a big deal, either because they hate Clinton or because she's the frontrunner and they want a closer horserace. Whatever the case, it will be forgotten by tomorrow.
Given that all the (deserved) flak that Edwards has caught for his $400 coifs, and that Romney and Obama both suffer a bit from looking too slick, this photo might even help her. My three favourite candidates (Thompson, Rudy and McCain, in that order) all show some of the ravages of time, I don't hold it against them because I know that they are smart and hard working. Were I inlined towards Hillary's policies, I'd likely feel the same looking at her in this photo. Anyway, I don't think that Hillary was ever very good looking. In her 20s she looked like a total granola, and not a hot hippie-chick, but the too-serious kind. Once she because First Lady she developed some personal style, but she's never been hot.
I don't think that site has some of the older ones that caused a stir (particularly the John Edwards hair clip) but you could probably find them easily enough by Googling Harry Shearer Raw Feed.
I seriously doubt it's shooped, but it does look like the original size is as depicted here, in contrast to drudge who blew it up a small amount. The resulting artifacts make her wrinkles look worse. (For easily-detectable examples of the artifacts, look at the edge between her hair and the background; also see the folds of her scarf on the right side.)
“A quick look through the links only goes back to Druge (sic), which is hardly a respectable news outlet.”
What makes Drudge “hardly” respectable? Has he falsified any documents?
OK. But will she reciprocate?
I don’t believe in conspiracies as a general rule but I agree with you that it would be wise for candidates and their supporters not to draw attention My IP prof has a story on her office door about how the “misogynists are out to get Hillary!” because some woman referred to here as a “b***h” at a McCain event.
My advice (which I know everyone is dying to here) would be to not make any sort of juvenile comments about any of the candidates as they (a) don’t help your favored candidate gain support but (b) might cause some likely voters to not support your favored candidate because of the association with such distasteful tactics and comments.
Senator Clinton is entirely beatable unless someone is stupid enough to let her claim her favored mantle of “victim.” She’s not a likeable person, is wrong on most of the issues, and if she fails to get enough women to vote for her out of some misplaced sense of sisterly solidarity, she’s done.
With looks being so important in people's subconscious, I'm really surprised how many unattractive or extremely obese people are elected to prominent offices; although presidents do seems to be quite tall, on average.
I am not a Hillary fan, but this photo will help her more than hurt her, IMHO. Rarango may have smoked this one out.
Mitt looks good, and he knows it, and he's joked about it.
Otherwise it doesn't matter.
I wouldn't vote for a Clinton either, but the photo doesn't change much. She looks her age. She reminds me of other women of that age that I've had dealings with.
People get old. Some people look better (my wife and her cheekbones seemed to look more and more like Katherine Hepburn every year), some grow into their looks, most look worse.
Candidates get worn out during campaigns, sometimes so do their shoes.
So for a picture to surface like this from the AP no less is amazing in that the AP didn't self censor this picture and that is one of a few pictures that weren't somehow orchestrated by Hillary and her campaign staff and secret service protection.
Says the "Dog"
BTW, how old was Golda or Thatcher ?
People assumed that the difference was that the television viewers saw Nixon rather than just hearing him. But in fact the two segments of the audience were very different demographically, with television viewers being much younger and more likely to support Kennedy.
I think Obama's like another famous politician from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln: Charismatically Ugly. Unlike Nixon, who was just ugly, or, as mentioned, Henry Waxman, who's pug-ugly (did he run into a door as a small child?).
Meier was 70 when she took office in 1969 and 76 when she stepped down in 1974.
Golda was 27 years older (b. 5/1898) than Maggie (b. 5/1925).
I was 20 when the Kennedy/Nixon debates were broadcast. I was going to school at AU on a US government seminar with senior political science students from all over the country. It was the first election that I was really interested in, and I was excited to be working evenings in the Kennedy campaign as an envelope stuffer.
I heard the debate on radio and was distressed because I thought Nixon had won hands down. Later that evening, I saw some of my fellow students half of whom were for Nixon and the other half for Kennedy. They had watched the debate on TV and it was unanimous: Kennedy destroyed Nixon.
We spent the next few hours discussing the whole thing.
From this, I have always believed that the difference in presentation and style as it played on TV and radio indeed made a real difference in the perception of the audience.
Not a scientific study, of course, but one man's opinion from a bit of experience.
George Wallace had a dog?
I'm not a huge Hillary fan and I don't plan on voting for her, but I feel for her as a woman because she's incredibly intelligent, accomplished and interesting and yet has always had to deal with the media scrutinizing her appearance as if she were running for America's Next Top Model and not the President of the United States. Will she bring back her signature headband? What was with the salmon suit jacket? And now, why does she look tired after running a national campaign for months?
Hillary Clinton is an average looking woman. Much like George W. Bush is an average looking man, as are the male presidential contenders. And in any case, it just doesn't matter.
By the way, there was a story that her campaign has an in with Drudge and has been feeding him a lot of material. Either they scrwewed up this time, or he's trying to balance that out.
"[S]omewhere in back of their mind they think of her as a hag and her opponent as stronger and more capable."
evidence?
When I pull the 'D' come election day, I hope it isn't for her.
I had forgotten about that cover. Thanks for a laugh on a cold Tuesday morning.
Thanks. That's the answer I was looking for.
I withdraw my photoshop hypothesis.
That said, I think the picture offers a glimpse of humanity. I certainly have days when I feel like that. The picture doesn't put me off. Hillary puts me off.
I confess to loathing Hillary to the point I would crawl over broken glass to vote against her, but I was shocked by the photo. The woman is more or less my age, and none of the women I know in their late '50s and early '60s look that bad. It just makes her look old and tired -- if simply campaigning for the presidency does this to her, does she have the internal and external stamina to actually hold the presidency, rather than be Bill's backseat driver? Despite my dislike of Hillary, before seeing that picture, her stamina was one of the few things I would not have questioned about her.
Always good to lead off with a joke.
Always good to lead off with a joke.
Actually, it's a commonplace observation of the other side of the blogosphere that Hillary presents the worst of all possible worlds from their point of view: she is perceived by the voters as the most liberal of the lot, thus making it less likely that she will win, while, in fact, she is the least liberal of the major contenders, thus making it less likely that, if she were to win, she would advance a liberal agenda.
Is this wrong?
It originated with Reuters on Saturday afternoon, linked here at that time along with several other photos.
If a pic of Hillary and Huckabee's dumb video are post-worthy, what about the news that Halliburton employees brutally raped an American in Iraq, then did everything in its power to cover it up---all with the help of gov. officials. Or how about the fact that Huck---the righteous Christian---pardoned a rapist who went on to rape more women despite the fact that other victims begged him not to. Because he's so forgiving, like Jesus? Nope, because one victim was related to Bill Clinton!
Or, how 'bout the fact that there's new evidence that the telecom. spying plan began in earnest well before that "surprise" attack on 9/11.
Nah, I'm just being silly. Hillary has wrinkles!!!
A pox on both reactions.
...And people talk about BDS.