Comments on: "This was what college students did before Facebook."

"This was what college students did before Facebook."

kliuless — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 12:49:59 -0800

Not sure if I put my finger on it, but that's my impression reading some excerpts from letters Hillary Clinton wrote to a high school friend whilst in college. I've been entertaining Barack Obama as Lincoln -- an impression he's actively cultivated (so, another Simpsons tie-in :) -- and I welcome uncanned glimpses into candidates' formative years to get a better idea of their 'character' (as if they're running on character and 'bio') so it was great to read her reminisce on her childhood: "I'd play out in the patch of sunlight that broke the density of the elms in front of our house and pretend there were heavenly movie cameras watching my every move."

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 12:56:03 -0800

Wow. Those are some very unfortunate striped pants. It had to be said.

By: william_boot

william_boot — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 13:13:32 -0800

I liked the part where she quoted Khalil Gibran.

By: Defenestrator

Defenestrator — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 13:13:43 -0800

I've only read the first link so far, and plan to read the rest when I have time. I can help but admiring Hillary's intelligence at the time. I'm a sophomore in college and like to think of myself as an intelligent person with intelligent friends, but I don't believe I've met someone who seems as smart as she was.

By: Defenestrator

Defenestrator — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 13:14:16 -0800

I can't help***

By: delmoi

delmoi — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 13:15:38 -0800

in 20 or 30 years are we going to be reading some AIM logs from a future president?

By: ibmcginty

ibmcginty — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 13:17:14 -0800

I am not Hillary Clinton's #1 fan, but I like these letters. She comes across as thoughtful and endearingly unpolished and self-absorbed. “How about a compassionate misanthrope?”-- that's funny. And her perception, and willingness to mention, that her pal was a "reactor" rather than an "actor" is a perceptive point, and a balance or a choice that everyone faces.

By: ibmcginty

ibmcginty — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 13:18:18 -0800

delmoi: yes.

By: Abiezer

Abiezer — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 13:20:20 -0800

What kind of friend turns your personal correspondence over to a newspaper before you're dead? Shockingly bad form.

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 13:22:56 -0800

Note to self: don't ever become famous enough that the New York Times would even CONSIDER publishing the crap you wrote to people in your 20s. No no no no no.

By: sour cream

sour cream — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 13:25:18 -0800

Maybe the kind of friend that thinks it will actually help you achieve your goals? Or maybe even the kind of friend that was asked to turn over the letters to the NYT by her campaign advisors?

By: wafaa

wafaa — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 13:30:50 -0800

WOW. I was just checking in to the blue, saw this post, went meh, clicked on Encyclopedia Brittanica in My Favorites, and on the front page ....... The Simpsons. I'm a-sceered!!!!!

By: Abiezer

Abiezer — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 13:37:49 -0800

You're second's a point I'd not considered, sour cream. I would hope there was some agreement beforehand. Because even if well intentioned, it wouldn't be a done thing for me without.

By: carmina

carmina — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 13:56:10 -0800

sour cream, the guy gave out the letter when Hillary was first lady.

In the late 1990s, Mr. Peavoy was contacted by the author Gail Sheehy, who was researching a book on the first lady. He agreed to let Ms. Sheehy see the letters, from which she would quote snippets in her 1999 biography, “Hillary’s Choice.” When Mrs. Clinton heard that Mr. Peavoy had kept her old letters, she wrote him asking for copies, which he obliged. He has not heard from her since.

Your theory maybe right for the re-spin of the story now, but I doubt the letters are not authentic. I personally like very much how she comes across in those letters. She would make an excellent Mefi poster, don't you think?

By: delmoi

delmoi — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 13:57:05 -0800

What kind of friend turns your personal correspondence over to a newspaper before you're dead? Shockingly bad form. Well, interestingly Hillary had actually told him that she'd be keeping his letters to sell when he was famous.

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 14:41:26 -0800

I think letters such as these are released to show how passionate she could be, and how human, to the people who only see her as a dry, shrill cuckold. They certainly aren't winning over any Nascar dads. To me, however, they only highlight how much she's abandoned. It seems to me persons as confident and volatile as the girl in those letters are sometimes the ones to wind up farthest from their original ideals, painted into a corner.

By: invitapriore

invitapriore — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 14:53:56 -0800

I can't help but like the person who wrote those letters. Whether she still exists is another matter, though I'm certain that that intelligence remains. Reading through her thoughts, I can't help but wonder why very little of that sophistication is present in her (or, really, anyone else's) political speech. A hollow musing it is, I guess, because the answer is an obvious one. I don't know whether to be comforted by the fact that some of our famous politicians only appear to be mindless churls or disturbed that they are required to be so for their audience.

By: Brian B.

Brian B. — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 15:21:36 -0800

Reading through her thoughts, I can't help but wonder why very little of that sophistication is present in her (or, really, anyone else's) political speech. This is why most conservatives distrust them. They are instinctively suspicious that they are hiding something, which happens to be their intelligence.

By: hexatron

hexatron — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 15:36:05 -0800

Ambrosia Voyuer; To me, however, they only highlight how much she's abandoned. I don't know how old you are, but I am over sixty. For most people (probably for everyone who doesn't work long and hard against it) the years past thirty are dominated by subtractions. Or 'focus', to the incurably optimistic.

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 15:57:12 -0800

hexatron: I'm young, 26. I have a lot in common with that girl in the letters. But I'm no stranger to your concept of "focus." I'm on the verge of abandoning my the unknown satisfaction of attaining my uppermost career goals to known contentment of togetherness with family and friends. The scale of "life balance" teeters forever, however imperceptibly. Focus isn't a bad thing at all. But the kind of passion and self-examination in her letters leaves me hard, hard pressed to understand why she decided to spend a moment of her time fighting sex in video games. She's bought, per Occam's razor. Obama's measured demeanor is "focused" with regard to the (really interesting if I may say so) life experiences and revelations described in Dreams from My Father, but it's not inconsistent with them. I get that feeling from Hillary.

By: Cool Papa Bell

Cool Papa Bell — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 16:06:48 -0800

I cannot responsibly vote for anyone that at any point in their adult lives thought that those pants were reasonable for public viewing outside of a circus tent. They may as well be telling me they believe in UFOs, pyramid power and Gotam, God of Fire. "Yo ... Bippity the Clown ... step away from the nuclear codes."

By: psmealey

psmealey — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 16:13:22 -0800

I cannot responsibly vote for anyone that at any point in their adult lives thought that those pants were reasonable for public viewing outside of a circus tent. Vive la différence. I actually think they're pretty cool, dated, but cool. Think about the fact that a young Hillary Rodham was wearing them when she, by pretty much anyone's definition, was a total square. I can't even imagine what the hip kids were wearing.

By: quonsar

quonsar — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 16:19:49 -0800

heavenly movie cameras watching my every move. in the major league baseball spy satellite.

By: Uther Bentrazor

Uther Bentrazor — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 16:20:47 -0800

I'd [have] hit it.

By: 235w103

235w103 — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 17:55:24 -0800

Wow. These are really great letters. So, exactly when did the Pod People replicate her?

By: caddis

caddis — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 18:05:24 -0800

She's pretty cool.

By: Huplescat

Huplescat — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 18:17:15 -0800

Hillary was president of the Young Republicans at Wellesley. She didn’t get it then, and doesn’t get it now.

By: Flunkie

Flunkie — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 18:33:20 -0800

Laura Bush as Helen Lovejoy
Dick Cheney as Judge Constance Harm
Harriet Miers as Waylon Smithers
George W. Bush as Rich Texan
James Holsinger as Dr. Nick
Gerald Ford as Bumblebee Man
The 1/2 Hour News Hour as The Itchy and Scratchy and Poochie Show

By: Cool Papa Bell

Cool Papa Bell — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 18:50:42 -0800

OK, in order to refresh my memory while reading the article, I checked out the Hillary Clinton Wikipedia article, and I'll now say something nice about the Senator from New York. Look at this picture. One of these women is not at all like the others in terms of intelligence and education. I now return to my normal curmudgeonly self...

By: kliuless

kliuless — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 19:05:56 -0800

in the major league baseball spy satellite. that was my favorite episode :P i'd forgotten!

By: nightchrome

nightchrome — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 21:04:03 -0800

Obama as Lincoln?! You mean he's a tyrant? Wow, you guys really are screwed come next election.

By: Crabby Appleton

Crabby Appleton — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 21:08:01 -0800

From the NYT article:

“Since Xmas vacation, I’ve gone through three and a half metamorphoses and am beginning to feel as though there is a smorgasbord of personalities spread before me,” Ms. Rodham wrote to Mr. Peavoy in April 1967. “So far, I’ve used alienated academic, involved pseudo-hippie, educational and social reformer and one-half of withdrawn simplicity.”

What strikes me is that she was consciously using various personas, even at that tender age. I think a certain amount of phoniness is forced on politicians by the political process, but in Hillary's case it seems to be part of her character, which is disturbing.

By: nasreddin

nasreddin — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 21:43:11 -0800

This makes me think she's Myrna Mynkoff from Confederacy of Dunces. What I have to respect, though, is that she was apparently in Saul Alinsky's inner circle.

By: objet

objet — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 22:09:39 -0800

"...and pretend there were heavenly movie cameras watching my every move..." It's called S.A.D.D.: Sociopathic Attention Demand Disorder.

By: psmealey

psmealey — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 02:46:53 -0800

I dunno, flunkie. I always kind of thought George W. Bush was a proper analogue for Ned Flanders (to Cheney's Montgomery Burns).

By: Tlogmer

Tlogmer — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 02:47:52 -0800

Thanks, Dr. Freud. Care to make any other long-distance diagnoses?

By: pax digita

pax digita — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 03:34:48 -0800

Wow. Those are some very unfortunate striped pants. It also has to be said: Yabbut on her, back in the day, kinda flattering. We all dressed more or less like that unless we were uptight square @$$holes, and you probably would've too.

By: DenOfSizer

DenOfSizer — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 04:00:57 -0800

So, Obama's gay?

By: CautionToTheWind

CautionToTheWind — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 04:13:23 -0800

Hillary is the requiem of the Democratic Party.

By: 445supermag

445supermag — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 05:56:23 -0800

This guy thinks she will be the requiem of women in politics... Who thinks she will give up George Bush's stolen powers?

By: psmealey

psmealey — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 06:00:28 -0800

Wow. Blew that one. I meant Waylon Smithers, rather than Ned Flanders.

By: Foosnark

Foosnark — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 07:53:20 -0800

I'm voting for Kodos.

By: Snyder

Snyder — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 13:22:17 -0800

This guy thinks she will be the requiem of women in politics... That guy is a blithering idiot.