Appearing on the Thursday edition of MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes, National Organization for Women (NOW) President Terry O’Neill ripped critics of Hillary Clinton from the 1990s to the present for leveling “silly” attacks on the Democratic presidential candidate as she’s looking to “bring another sea change to our politics.”
The feminist also argued that, with Clinton having officially declared her candidacy for president, the former First Lady will be subjected to “a lot of more bogus, sort of pearl clutching attacks” that will be dismissed by female voters because they “are very much prepared for the kind of attacks to be more bogus” because “[t]he voters really want to know about issues” instead.
Host Chris Hayes then invoked the AMC show Mad Men in his next question to the former Clinton campaign staffer regarding criticism of Clinton and women overall since the early 1990s:
Although, I can’t overtly tell whether I’m sanguine on this, but one of the things that struck me as we’ve been going through this archival footage is I have the same reaction that you have when we watch an episode of Mad Men, which is, well, we have made some serious progress here. I mean, it does seem like some of the things that were so, you know, contentious or polarizing or ridiculously inflated as issues then are not that bad now or have gotten much better. Do you think – am I being overly sanguine about that?
Not surprisingly, O’Neill agreed Hayes’s assessment and that the attacks on Clinton in the ‘90s “were so stupid” and predicted that “a lot of the attacks on Hillary Clinton going forward are going to 10, 20 years from now going to be viewed as silly and stupid.”
O’Neill went on to blame the American people for being uncomfortable with the idea of Clinton in power and toted the standard liberal line about criticism of President Obama being more vicious than what any other president had faced:
It's just this huge anxiety, I think, that the country has with something that's different. Let's look at the way our first African-American president has been treated. In many ways, he has been treated very badly and I believe that’s been an expression of huge anxiety about this sea change in our politics. Hillary Clinton is proposing to bring another sea change to our politics and that is going to raise the level of anxiety and so, a lot of attacks are going to be silly.
The relevant portions of the transcript from MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes on April 16 can be found below.
MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes
April 16, 2015
8:18 p.m. EasternNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN PRESIDENT TERRY O’NEILL: She is a trail blazer in exactly that way. She has been the one – and let's be clear. In the '90s, I think for many women it was an issue and nowadays, we just – we simply accept that people are allowed to decide what their name is. That actually was not generally accepted in the 1990s, but when the First Lady of the United States is saying, you know, I'm making choices here, she opens the way for a lot of women. This is exactly what’s going to happen. You know, we’re going to be – now that she is a candidate for the presidency of the United States, I think you are going to see a lot of more bogus, sort of pearl clutching attacks on her and – but I think that actually women generally are very much prepared for the kind of attacks to be more bogus and we are prepared to pivot right to the issues. The voters really want to know about issues.
CHRIS HAYES: Although, I can’t overtly tell whether I’m sanguine on this, but one of the things that struck me as we’ve been going through this archival footage is I have the same reaction that you have when we watch an episode of Mad Men, which is, well, we have made some serious progress here. I mean, it does seem like some of the things that were so, you know, contentious or polarizing or ridiculously inflated as issues then are not that bad now or have gotten much better. Do you think – am I being overly sanguine about that?
O’NEIL: No Chris, I don’t think you are. I think they have gotten much better and I think one of the reasons they have gotten better is that they were so stupid back in the 1990s. It was a seriously – we care if she can make cookies? You know, we care what she decides her name is? And I – but I think that's the point. I think a lot of the attacks on Hillary Clinton going forward are going to 10, 20 years from now going to be viewed as silly and stupid. It's just this huge anxiety, I think, that the country has with something that's different. Let's look at the way our first African-American president has been treated. In many ways, he has been treated very badly and I believe that’s been an expression of huge anxiety about this sea change in our politics. Hillary Clinton is proposing to bring another sea change to our politics and that is going to raise the level of anxiety and so, a lot of attacks are going to be silly.
HAYES: And there’s also something at the core of it too – I just – about the human element of running for office or public life, which is that people are going to come to you – and this is true of men and women and candidates of different races in varying degrees and they are going to try to take away things that you feel are essential to yourself because they don’t poll well or because people are making a huge deal of them and like you said, about picking your battles, I mean, that is part of public life for everyone who gets into it.
