Sundown on the Ottawa River

Saturday, March 8, 2008

It isn't fair calling Quasimodo a Monster!

On Friday, a senior foreign advisor for Barack Obama's campaign resigned over a comment she made about Hillary Clinton. It's reported she called Hillary "a monster," during a newspaper interview. Before resigning she apologized sincerely to both the former first lady and Barack for her comments.

Here's my take on this. We know what she meant, because we aren't stupid. But if we were stupid, we could accept this plausible explanation. Here it is; not all monsters are bad. In fact some monsters are even lovable. Let's take the "Cookie Monster" for instance. That is one likeable monster that everyone loves; kids, parents, other Muppets, we all love the Cookie Monster, even though we may disagree with his food choices. Remember “Oscar the Grouch?” He was a monster who lived in a garbage can. Did we hate him? Of course not, he was a loveable monster, even though he hated just about everything.

Monsters aren’t all bad, so why all the fuss from Hillary. Is she getting a little thin skinned, or taking these comments too personal? Perhaps it’s the fact that most monsters are of the male gender that might be bothering Mrs. Clinton. She has been running on the model that she will be the first Female Candidate with a real chance of becoming President of the United States. It’s true that men have been giving her a hard time as she has been saying; especially white men, and black men, according to recent polls.

I think what I’m getting at here is; she needs support from another demographic besides older women and Latinos. Monsters; she could definitely use ground level support from monsters. Of course, it’s difficult to define who is and who isn’t a monster; just ask Quasimodo, the deformed bell ringer from the novel/movie; The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He may have been ugly and misunderstood, but was he really a monster? He turned out to be kind of a hero, attempting to save Esmeralda’s life. Of course Hillary is beautiful in comparison to the hunchback, and to anyone who isn’t a Republican, or Obama supporter. It’s just that unusual high pitched laugh or cackle (as some call it) we hear occasionally; “The bells, the bells!”

Finally, I would like to think that if Senator Clinton had a sense of honor, she would insist that Senator Obama rehire Samantha Power since she has sincerely apologized for the Hillary monster comment. When I think about it, wasn’t the name Samantha used by Elizabeth Montgomery who played a witch in the 1970’s TV series “Bewitched.” Now I stand behind my observation that Samantha was a very “pretty witch.” Just ask Darrin or the other Darrin.