Monday, April 28, 2008

Fatal Attraction



That's another way to describe Hillary Clinton: She is like the character Glenn Close played in Fatal Attraction:

NPR's Rudin: "Hillary Clinton is Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. She's going to keep coming back and they're not going to stop her"

Summary: During a discussion on CNN about the Democratic presidential primary race, NPR's Ken Rudin stated: "[L]et's be honest here, Hillary Clinton is Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. She's going to keep coming back, and they're not going to stop her."

On the April 27 edition of CNN's Sunday Morning, National Public Radio political editor Ken Rudin, during a discussion about the Democratic presidential primary race, stated: "[L]et's be honest here, [Sen.] Hillary Clinton is Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. She's going to keep coming back, and they're not going to stop her." In response, co-host T.J. Holmes said: "What, Ken?" Rudin replied: "Well, we'll figure that out, there's a lot of ways to imagine that." Rudin returned to the analogy later, stating of Clinton, "[T]here may be a lot of pressure on her from the party bigwigs, whoever they are, to say, look, it's time to go, but she'll say, look, I'm in it until the end. I expect her to be in until the end, as Glenn Close was."

At the conclusion of the interview, Holmes stated to Rudin, "We know you were at the correspondents' dinner last night in D.C., where the president was, and hear you all had a pretty good time. But you look good this morning for partying all night." Rudin replied: "I'm faking it." Co-host Betty Nguyen added: "Maybe that explains the Glenn Close analogy, who knows?" Holmes then stated: "Fatal Attraction, we don't get that reference on this show a lot."

In the 1987 film, Close plays a woman who begins stalking her co-worker, played by Michael Douglas, and his family following a one-night stand with him. In the film's climax, Douglas' character seemingly drowns Close's character in the tub, until she suddenly springs from the water wielding a knife. She is finally shot dead by the wife of Douglas' character.

There are at least two ways of interpreting Rudin's message here. The kinder one (yes, this is the kinder one) is that Hillary Clinton can't be stopped by anything less than being killed by Michelle Obama, that she is an almost unkillable monster.

The less kind interpretation has to do with what that particular movie was all about. It was a parable about bad women: working women, uppity, independent, demanding; and about good women: mothers who stay at home and support their husbands through thin and thick. It was a movie about the loathing, fear and hatred of women who don't follow the "good woman" code of behavior, and what happens to those women at the end.

It could always be the case that Rudin is unaware of that interpretation. And pigs also fly almost every day.