Anna Montana

Matt Singer at Left in the West has promoted a commenter named “Anna” to full front page posting privileges. That’s not the sort of thing I much care about, as I regard blogs as a tempest-in-teapot kind of media. I doubt most Montana voters know of the existence of the blogosphere. Like op-eds, blogs are interesting, but don’t determine the outcome of elections. It’s still a door-knocker’s world.

“Anna” is a Clintonite, and a brash and petulant one at that. She’s resentful of Obama and his supporters, has a thin skin and lacks substance. She’s not done much to earn a place at the head of the class. In a microcosmic sense, as in one grain of sand compared to a beach, it’s not unlike the New York Times putting William Kristol on its op-ed pages. It doesn’t add much light, but stirs heat and fire, and is good for readership. I suspect Anna’s feminist tendencies confer an automatic faux-credibility on her. She gets to walk right on by the depth and reason booths at the blog carnival.

But I write this mostly because my old pal Bob fairly well leveled Anna. (Read the entire thread here.) She was showing her lack of depth in not being able to relate to the angst of those who were upset over Hillary’s Bobby Kennedy analogy. Bob told his story:

I was in Viet-Nam when JFK was assassinated. It occurred shortly after the coup against the Ngo Dinh Diem regime and their assassinations. I was sitting in the mess hall across from a draftee from Texas, who proclaimed how “proud” he was that JFK was killed in Texas!

Following the assassination of JFK, the assassination of Martin Luther King occurred, followed shortly thereafter by the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. I was living in Santa Monica at the time and was in the living room of my apartment watching live coverage of RFK’s campaign visit to Century City. That live coverage included his assassination. I went nuts! I screamed: “No, no, no, no…!” over and over again. My girlfriend was asleep in the bedroom and came running in to see what was wrong. I was still screaming. It was simply too much. Viet-Nam, Diem, JFK, MLK, RFK! I just couldn’t take any more.

When Hillary Clinton made her repulsive remark citing RFK’s assassination as an example of why she wouldn’t quit her primary campaign before June, I came uncorked again. I guess you might call it a PTSD relapse or flashback or something. I agree, JC, that Anna is empty of all reality concerning what any assassination, let alone multiple assassinations (and attempted assassinations) have done to this country and its psyche. I don’t know what Matt Singer means when he refers to Anna’s posts as “magical.” For me, she comes across as entirely callow and sophomoric, if not in fact adolescent.

I get the feeling that as a self-described “feminist” Anna believes that she is carrying a heavy load for women, including Hillary Clinton. I don’t buy it. Anna is no Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, Germaine Greer, Gloria Steinem, among others who did the heavy lifting to give Anna the opportunity to play pretend heroine in a tremendously successful “women’s liberation” movement. It’s too much to ask someone to grow up before their time, but at least, Anna, you could get over your sense of self-importance and take a break from your pretenses of all-knowing punditry. Limit yourself to your own experience, which obviously is not very much.

To which Anna replied:

This kind of thing is the reason why new people don’t post comments here.

‘Nuff said.