The Clintons and the Gestalts of Interpretation

May 7, 2008

One of the things Tony and I have been discussing over the past few days is the way in which people develop hardened ideas about who a public figure is (like Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama) that then shapes how we integrate new information about them. If I think that Hillary Clinton is a diabolical, calculating, sociopath then this will shape how I interpret her insistence that Obama distance himself from Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Conversely, if I’m a Clinton supporter who thinks that she is a good, shrewd politician, I will view her opportunism as a sign of her political deftness. I think Sally Quinn’s article today does an excellent job of presenting everything that I have always founds objectionable about the Clinton’s: their obfuscations, drama, narcissism, etc. However, the article is a partial telling of a story. There are other interpretations of the Clinton’s that are much more charitable and complimentary. I wanted to link to her article both because I think it represents the “gestalt” of the Clinton’s that a lot of Obama supporters adhere to and because it is a good example of an interpretation of who they are that doesn’t do justice to their complexity. At the same time, there are always stories that more closely approximate this complex reality than others and on this count, I think Sally Quinn gets us pretty close.

Posted by MATT Posted in Bi/Partisan Politics, Current Events, Posts by Matt