Completely Unnecessary

Wonkette isn’t liveblogging the Dem debate - presumably because they’re still hungover from Saturday night and can’t break out the bottle again - so I got lured into HuffPost’s liveblog. I skipped the insipid opening commentary and got into the meat. If you can call it that.

I am not kidding - this is their coverage (ellipses in original):

THE DEBATE

Glynnis (9:05:37 AM): Welcome to the first Democratic debate …from Iowa. George runs through the lineup by talking about Iowa poll support Biden and Kucinich are tied at 2%. Gravel has none.
Rachel (9:06:40 AM): Which gets a rather uncalled for laugh, I think. Shame on you, George.
Glynnis (9:05:55 AM): Stephanopoulous goes straight for the jugular. The big question is does Obama have enough experience? Hillary?
Glynnis (9:06:10 AM): She’s wearing a taupe suit. Not showing up so well on the background of red white and blue.
Rachel (9:06:40 AM): I know - her first fashion misstep!
Rachel (9:06:47 AM): Where is the Vogue-sanctioned Huma when you need her?

Wow. First comment and only forty-three seconds to mention Clinton’s fashion faux pas.

Not only that, but there’s a certain something that seems to be missing. In HuffPost’s coverage, the candidates are referred soley by last name, the exceptions being Richardson and Biden, with whom the first and last name is occasionally used.

There’s one more exception: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

She is referred to as ‘Senator Clinton’ once and ‘Clinton’ four times (she also has a mention as ‘Clinton’ in a Richardson quote).

By my count, she is referred to only as ‘Hillary’ thirty-one times.

But she’s just a some fashion victim, so I suppose it doesn’t really matter.

There’s a certain amount of intentional overreaction in this (and most of my blogs while I’m at it) - I certainly refer to her on occasion as Hillary, as I might use ‘Barack’ or ‘Bill’ - but it tends to be when I’m not taking them very seriously. It’s the disparity I find interesting, not the use of the name itself.

To that point, however, the Clinton campaign can’t have it both ways. They can’t criticize the cleavage coverage and then turn around and use that ‘I’m your girl’ nonsense. She’s a US Senator, not a ‘girl’ - she and everyone else should know the difference.

The thing that’s missing is respect. And worst part is that her campaign seems willing to forsake it to make her more palatable to Middle America. I don’t want a girl for president - if she’s going to win, she should be running as a strong Senator and as a strong woman.

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