MSNBC's Colgan obsessed with Sen. Clinton's past "Coke-bottle glasses"
SUMMARY: Discussing the presidential prospects of Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rudy Giuliani, political analyst Flavia Colgan
asserted that Clinton will have an "authenticity" problem in
"moving to the right on issues" because "a lot of folks
aren't going to be able to disregard ... those pictures of her with Coke-bottle glasses."
Colgan has twice previously referred to Clinton's
"Coke-bottle glasses" as evidence of an "authenticity"
or "trust" problem.
On the December 19 edition of MSNBC News Live, along with Republican strategist Frank Donatelli and MSNBC political analyst Flavia Colgan, host Chris Jansing discussed the presidential prospects of former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R) and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY). Jansing asked Colgan about a Newsweek poll that showed Clinton with 48 percent and Giuliani with 47 percent in a hypothetical match-up, which, as Media Matters for America noted, Newsweek left out of its article purporting to assess Clinton's electability. Colgan asserted that Clinton will have an "authenticity" problem in "moving to the right on issues" because "a lot of folks aren't going to be able to disregard ... those pictures of her with Coke-bottle glasses."
Colgan has referred to Clinton's "Coke-bottle glasses" as evidence of an "authenticity" or "trust" problem at least two other times this year on MSNBC. As Media Matters documented, on the August 21 edition of MSNBC's Tucker, Boston radio host Michael Graham asserted that Clinton "is not going to be elected president in 2008 under any circumstances, period," because "the first woman elected president of the United States is not going to be a b -- a witch, and that's just the way it is." Colgan responded: "I have never supported Hillary Clinton on this program or any other for president. I think it's very sophomoric, with all of the points you could make about why not having Hillary, to say she's a witch." Colgan then asserted that "a lot of liberals have been very upset with her," adding that, "yet, no one's going to trust her as a conservative 'cause they still remember her and those Coke-bottle glasses." On the May 31 edition of MSNBC's Situation with Tucker Carlson, Colgan asserted to host Tucker Carlson that "I can name a number of issues that the left is upset with her about and the right certainly will never take her as -- as a moderate. They still have the vision of her in Coke-bottle glasses."
From the 1 p.m. ET hour of the December 19 edition of MSNBC News Live:
DONATELLI: That being said, though, the one big negative for her has always been electability, and to the extent that she can show that she runs even with the Republican front-runners, it can only be helpful to her.
JANSING: Yeah, I mean, a lot of people are looking at this poll, obviously Hillary supporters, Flavia, and saying, "See, the electability question is a specious one." But is it and if it's not about electability, what's her biggest obstacle?
COLGAN: Well, I think her biggest obstacle is a number of things. One, I think, that watching [Sen.] Barack Obama [D-IL] and his charisma and his ability to connect on a visceral, emotional level with people has really highlighted one of her weaknesses, which is likability and, again, I go back to authenticity. You have Hillary trying to move to the right on issues, but yet a lot of folks aren't going to be able to disregard, you know, those pictures of her with Coke-bottle glasses. So, you still have conservatives feeling that she's a liberal and are never really going to trust her and now progressives and populists wondering where she stands.
From the August 21 edition of MSNBC's Tucker:
GRAHAM: The nomination is hers if she wants it. This is meaningless. She'll be on the cover of Time, Newsweek, Home & Garden, Popular Mechanics -- doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. And it doesn't matter in 2008 either, because Hillary Clinton is not going to be elected president in 2008 under any circumstances, period, for one obvious reason -- the first woman elected president of the United States is not going to be a b -- a witch, and that's just the way it is.
There's a certain -- America is not ready for it, that's it. And it's not fair, it's not unfair, it's just the way things are.
CARLSON: If you want a woman for president, what about [Sen.] Barbara Boxer [D-CA]? What about [Sen.] Dianne Feinstein [D-CA]? People who have actually done something for their country, who have served in the Senate for infinitely longer than Mrs. Clinton has. Who actually have impressive records. I mean, why not them? I don't get that. Why is that, Flavia? If you want a woman for president, why one of the least experienced people in national life, Hillary Clinton?
COLGAN: Look, Tucker, I have -- I have never supported Hillary Clinton on this program or any other for president. I think it's very sophomoric with all of the points you could make about why not having Hillary, to say she's a witch. I mean, absolutely, there are other -- there are other women who I think the country will -- but one point I want to bring up: Time. I think it's absurd that she's been on the cover 11 times. I think it's absurd that she's on the cover this month where 35 words are dedicated to the federal court opinion basically saying that the wireless tapping stuff was unconstitutional. I think this is ridiculous for her to be getting so much hype and I don't, as a Democrat, support her or think that she is a great candidate for us because I don't think she can win. I don't think she can --
CARLSON: What about your liberal friends? What about friends you know who are involved in politics who are liberals? Most liberals I know don't seem to support her. What's your experience?
COLGAN: No, my experience is that a lot of liberals have been very upset with her, not only that they don't feel that she hasn't taken on a lot of the big issues and instead has focused on, you know, flag-burning bills, but that she also has, you know, kind of tried to have it both ways and hasn't had a very strong position on Iraq, wasn't on the right thing on the bankruptcy bill, but yet no one's going to trust her as a conservative 'cause they still remember her and those Coke-bottle glasses.
From the May 31 edition of MSNBC's Situation with Tucker Carlson:
CARLSON: I want to read you quotes from Hillary Clinton, just to refresh your memory in case you don't remember.
"What do our government institutions mean?" Hillary Clinton wondered aloud. "What do our lives in today's world mean? What does it mean to be educated? What does it mean to be a journalist? What does it mean to -- in today's world to pursue not only vocations but to be part of institutions, to be human? We are breaking new ground. It's not going to be easy to redefine who we are as human beings in this post-modern age," end quote.
That's garbage; like that's sophomore in college stuff. I mean, I'm getting back to my original point, which was: Where is the evidence Hillary Clinton has interesting, thoughtful ideas about the world? I don't see any.
COLGAN: Well, the problem is that when you're trying to be cautious all the time and trying to sort of follow the-inside-the-Beltway -- what consultants tell you, and a lot of pundits marvel at, that she is able to triangulate; she certainly doesn't triangulate as well as her husband.
And you really hit on the core. Whether it's Iraq -- I mean, I can name a number of issues that the left is upset with her about and the right certainly will never take her as -- as a moderate -- they still have the vision of her in Coke-bottle glasses -- but more than that; sometimes, the whole is greater than the sum of its part. And I think that there is a visceral gut reaction by a lot of Americans, whether this is fair or not -- I can't look into her soul -- but that she doesn't have an authenticity about her. That she makes decisions based on political calculus.
...Flavia wore thick glasses as a kid.
I'm just sayin'...
Didn't she come from the "Naked News," if not she would be a great commentator for that format, then we would not have to care what she was saying and stil enjoy the show!!
Happy Thoughts;
Dan Grady
- If you want a woman for president, why one of the least experienced people in national life, Hillary Clinton? - Tucker
This is evidence of juvenile reporting. Focusing on the "coke bottle glasses" he missed the most outrageous statement by Carlson.
Hillary Clinton may be a lot of things...to a lot of folks...but to call her the least inexperienced woman in politics...ROFLOL.
No charge for the help, Brian.
bill clinton sold the two of them as a package deal. and she has been involved in the political process for a long, long time, like her positions or not. tucker once more reveals himself to be the very silly person he appears to be.
But I agree with your assessment...Tucker is a real lightweight.
Obama's ears, Bush's command of the English Language, Cheney's demeanor. What will be next?
It will be a troll telling us that if all we have is time to obcess about what republicans think about democrats, then we have too much time on our hands because they have better things to do than sit around wondering what a dem looks like.
is any indication, Oscar, what's next will be superficial criticisms of Dems unrelated to job performance, and important personality traits and behaviors of Repubs.
if she wore prescription ashtrays??? What does that have to do with anything? I'm more concerned with her chameleon-like characteristics (can you say Slick Willy?) and her hair-trigger volatilty.
"can you say Slick Willy?"
-----
Yes, but it is one of the most irrelevant phrases to ever appear in Politics.
But, if it makes you feel better, say it all you want. It won't make you appear intelligent, but you can keep repeating it.
sometimes media matters confuses me, and this is definetly one of those cases.
the biggest criticism i hear about MM is that there is often a larger context that is overlooked in highlighting one specific news story. sometimes i disagree with that assesment, but here i beleive is a good case.
if over the past few years you had watched and read flavia's work, you would see that she is actually to the LEFT of hillary clinton. she was against the war and often speaks about democrats being too image-conscience and pragmatic.
it's obvious she's against hillary clinton being the '08 canidate, but so am i and many other poltical junkies that consider themselves to be to the left of hillary. i understand when MM highlights outragous attacks from those on the right, but i think they should be more fair to those who support the progressive agenda.
the arguement against hillary is that she is percieved as a devisive figure by many while she is actually a centrist, and in my mind that makes nominateing her a lose-lose situation. either: a) she loses because of an unfair far-left charaterzation and we have another republican president OR b) she wins, and we have a middle-of-the-road centrist president that supports free trade, big business, and a "strike first" military.
flavia has this one right, and i hope more democrats listen to her before the primaries roll around.
"sometimes media matters confuses me, and this is definitely one of those cases."
-----
Perhaps you should learn to read for comprehension.
"Perhaps you should learn to read for comprehension."
perhaps i should'nt have said "confuses me", but more that there are times when MM post things i don't beleive fit in with the theme of the site. but i think most people could understand what i'm saying.
i hate the grammer/semantics police on comment threads and message boards. if i post a response to something, i usually take about a minute to do so and don't waste the time to proofread or spellcheck. it's not like i'm handing in a thesis, geez.
What possible significance can it have to anything today that Hillary Clinton used to wear thick glasses years ago?
Mental myopia is far worse than optical myopia.
yes of course, the comments on the size of her glasses in unneccasary. what i'm saying is that flavia is right overall.
the glasses comment is very tiny in relationtion to the bigger issue. i prefer to look at the big picture than nitpick at details, but to each his own.
my point is that i beleive flavia is right in her assessment of a hillary clinton canidacy, and it's petty for MM to focus on one stupid comment when flavia colgan is actually one of the most progressive voices on cable news and is actually to the left of the democratic party on most issues.
p.s. if you're looking to criticize one of my posts, i'm sure you'll find a mistake 100% of the time. i'm a sloppy guy, what can i say? but i think we'd all be better off focusing on the big ideas instead of semantic details, which goes back to my larger point.
but it doesn't have anything to do with her glasses. I wore thick ones too.
I don't think this site is (or, at least should be) just about right-wingers in the media, but media distortion in general. Ana Marie Cox has said some remarkably stupid things in the past, and I like Wonkette.
"I don't think this site is (or, at least should be) just about right-wingers in the media, but media distortion in general"
i agree, and should make my point more clear. while i beleive any type of media distortion deserves attention, my point is that an attack on hillary clinton from someone on the right is much different than an attack from someone like flavia colgan who is politically to the left of hillary.
i just beleive that if you look through flavia's work, you would see that she is a supporter of the progressive movement and deserves the benefit of the doubt where many others in the media don't.
what these glasses have to do with anything. frankly, i don't know what she's talking about. i've seen hillary in glasses but the fact she is or is not wearing them.....?
I'm not sure what thick coke glasses has to do with anything either.
Is she saying that because Hillary DISCARDED the glasses for contact lenses and has made several other changes to make herself more attractive that these improvements to her looks make her LESS Liberal? And because she didn't come out of the gate already "pretty" that Conservatives won't trust her because her "good looks" aren't natural?
Not that any of the above makes sense...
Did her glasses make her look kind of like a hippy? And hippies are naturally leftists? Is that what has Colgan has in mind? So Liberals don't like that she took off her leftist glasses and Conservatives will NEVER trust her cause she wore them back in the day?
You know what? Nevermind. I'm CLUELESS as to what it all means ;-)
Regardless of her politics. If Coke bottle glasses is the best thing she can come up with as an indicator of Hillary's lack of credibility, then she's not much of a journalist. I have my own doubts about Hillary, but this is just silly.
Flavia is correct, many liberals such as myself do not want her to be the next president. She does support the ridiculous was in Iraq after all... I have always found Flavia's analysis to be good and on the spot so I am going to have to disagree with MMFA on this one. I WILL NOT vote for her as I believe she would not represent progressive values well. Sorry I do not see conservative misinformation here. I find it hard to believe that a liberal(Flavia) could be responsible for conservative misinformation anyways...
That's you're prerogative but your reasons for not supporting her has nothing to do with her glasses correct? I think the political pundits are getting sillier by the minute, they have too much time on the tube and either they can't find anything substantive to fill so many TV hours or the journalism profession is being over taken by complete morons.
of these attacks and smears makes so little sense it makes me wonder who is paying them.
and at the risk of being as petty and superficial as these talking heads, and reinforcing my fascination with "Conservative Humor" in general, and Mallard Fillmore in particular;
I've been sort of busy and out of the loop for the past week or so, don't know if this got any play here, but-
Anybody who loves Con humor for its absolute lack of humor as much as I do, and who hasn't checked out the DUI mug shot online of the Mallard F. cartoonist (Tinsley?), take the minute to do it.
I think it's the face of conservatism in 2006. A whore mug shot in the light of day,sad and hilarious.
almost ag a good as truthiness :)
to a Coke bottle, but I wouldn't be promoting it as a vision aide.
Obama's ears.
HRC's "shrill" voice.
Pelosi's "plastic surgery" and "big, wide, laughing eyes."
When I hear this grade-school playground level crap being spouted in the corporate media under the guise of journalistic political discussion, I can be sure of one thing: these noisemakers and their GOP sponsors truly have nothing of substance left to say, so they fall back on "yo mama" jokes . . .
Why can't see go back to Europe and do more BS on Miracles.
Rather have her talk on 08 which I hate than her blather on religion.
Flavia Colgan was told early in her life if she stands up with her legs apart that her'll brain will fall out. She just didn't listen to her elders!
Hillary's fat ankles.
If there is one thing that is going to occur in this campaign, as well as future ones, is the "cosmetic overview" of this candidate or that one.....from the "Breck" man to "Big Ears" Obama to "Coke Bottle" Hillary.....the insistence of the media to draw some sort of "vanity" comparison to a candidate as opposed to finding real issues & opinions of those candidates is something I'm afraid the public will just have to get use to.
I find Flavia's assessment of Hillary's positions or lack of positions to be more of a front than a real assessment....Hilary is doing nothing more than shoring up her voting base for the primaries & nat'l election.....what candidate has ever played their cards before they even declared that they are running for president??....and Flavia should know better.
is she talking about, anyway? I certainly never noticed anything odd about her glasses. Is she a bad person because she's too cheap to spring for the polycarbonates, or what?
Wearing "Coke-bottle glasses" is a liberal thing?
to divert our atention from the formerly coke-snorting dry-drunk a**hat of a "decider" in the oval office.
So nice to hear what concerns the self-described "grown-ups" so much.
Next thing you know, these idiots will be telling us that if she gets elected, there will be a cooties pandemic like none we have ever witnessed.
It's obvious that Flavia's point is that conservatives will always remember Hillary as a true left wing Democrat and won't trust her as a purported centrist. She's simply describing the image of Hillary from the 60's and 70's when she was an activist left winger with a rigid, intolerant appearance - hair pinned back and with thick glasses - as evidenced by all those old photos of her.
Obviously someone of Flavia Colgan's intelligence and political bona fides would not waste time criticizing Hillary for her choice of eyewear! That's preposterous.
waste her time, but that still leaves the point of what is she talking about. some 35 year old pictures are the tipping point of whether conservatives trust hillary? kerry won three purple hearts and he still got attacked.
This is why democrats are so frustrating. You put down one of the strongest and boldest critics of the Republican party, someone who has been squarely against the Iraq war unlike Hillary. Instead of dealing with the zillions of times she goes on to talk about Iraq, Iran, minimum wage, God knows I see her all day at work. Talk about poverty and truancy and other issues dems besides Edwards don't touch. You splice together a comment which I think other posters are nuanced enough to have picked up what she meant so I don't need to repeat, but perception is powerful. Anyway, get a life. I love it when you guys call out Republicans and Democrats who are wimps, Flavia is neither and frankly for any of us who follow her career what you did is very dishonest!
Flavia is an asset to the Democratic presense on MSNBC to counter all the GOP morons they stick on there. She has given some great arguments and really defended the Democrats from attacks by people like Tucker and Scarborough for a couple of years now. I can overlook these tiny meaningless comments she made because it was a Democrat just making an observation about how right-wing voters view politicians. I like Flavia. She's not attacking Democrats here, guys, Hilary just isn't her main pick for a Dem president. She's not mine either.
And I want to add that the point Flavia was making is that the right-wing base that Hillary wants to ralley for her run, which will never work, aren't going to see her as the person she is trying to be now. They still see her as the glasses-wearing stiff wife of Bill Clinton. Flavia is making a statement about the shallowness of the GOP base and Hillary's inability to reinvent herself.
Go Flavia...
but why question hillary's "authenticity" because of the glasses she used to wear?
"Coke bottle glasses" = pundit metaphor for image problem. "Sgt D is an arrogant ass" = the Marine equivalent
Hillary has an image problem. So do I. But it's starting to improve. Her numbers are inching up. So are mine. I just recently had a fellow Sergeant take me aside and apologize for thinking that I was an arrogant ass all these years, "until she got to know me" (and after we downed several shots of tequila at her going away party I threw for her.) And so we are getting to know Hill. I think she will be the nominee unless a "Kennedy" comes along. Plain and simple. Hillary, like me, has a moderate charisma threshold. Mine is probably higher than hers...(remember I am an arrogant ass), But the bigger issue is not what she wore way back when. Or if she is a witch or not. Who really knows. Dick Morris? So coke bottle glasses it is. Flavia is just concisely reporting the perception. Flavia, Media Matters, me...We're on the same team. It takes a village and a united party. A united effort. And Team Clinton will be wise to learn what I did, a good Party and some well timed shots can do wonders for your image. Just don't shoot the messenger.
the smears for '08 have already begun... I'm glad we're focusing on substance here...