Paglia on ‘Hillary’s breathtaking lack of concrete achievements…’

Camille Paglia writes:

They don’t give a damn about international affairs—all that matters is transgender bathrooms and instant access to abortion.

I’m starting to wonder, given the increasing dysfunction of our democratic institutions, if the Hillary cult isn’t perhaps registering an atavistic longing for monarchy. Or perhaps it’s just a neo-pagan reversion to idolatry…

Am I the only one who noticed Hillary’s high-wrap collar, pallid, puffy face, and bulging eyes during her choleric New Hampshire primary concession speech in February? (Another unusually high collar followed the next morning.)

My tentative theory is that Hillary may have sporadic flare-ups of goiter, worsened under stress. Coughing is a symptom. High collars mask a swollen throat. In serious cases, an operation may be necessary. Is this chronic thyroid condition disqualifying in a presidential candidate? Certainly not in my view, but I don’t like being lied to—by candidates, campaign staffs, or their media sycophants.

Oh, and when asked about Leonard Cohen:

Well, this is a sticky wicket! I love Canada (where fair play is national dogma) and have gone out of my way for decades to evade Canadian journalists’ questions about Leonard Cohen, who has iconic stature for them as a singer, composer, and novelist.

There can be no doubt about Cohen’s manifest intellect, emotional depth, and productivity. The problem for me is first, the labored, lugubrious monotony of his sepulchral singing style (I feel like I’m trapped with Morticia in a Charles Addams cartoon) and second, the painful over-calculation of his lyrics…

Sometimes wonder if there’s a Canadian malady in all this, because I’m always reminded of Cohen when I watch Klute (1971), starring Jane Fonda as a mercurial New York call-girl. The acclaimed Canadian actor Donald Sutherland stands around in that film like a big, moist-eyed mope (Basset Hounds on Broadway?), as Fonda with her pioneering shag-cut gamely tears up the scenery in one fabulous outfit after another.

So I’ve come to suspect that Canadians, with their vigorous, jut-jawed frontier past, somehow revere Leonard Cohen for his subtle, soothingly baritone erasure of conventional masculinity. It’s all self-flagellation without the inconvenient Catholic baggage. Whipped cream, anyone?