‘Shocking And Weird’: Was Rachel Maddow Right About Bill Clinton’s DNC Speech?

It’s been hard this week not to view all the media pundits sitting at their conference tables with the vast Democratic National Convention gallery in the background—as a group of paid vultures waiting to pick every speech to the bone with praise and criticism; from the tenor, tone and cadence of the dialogue, to the clothing and appearance of the speaker.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow was quick to pummel Bill Clinton for his lack of “feminist” appeal during his long speech to introduce Hillary Clinton Tuesday night; especially the first 25-minutes that talked about meeting and courting his wife.

“The top of the speech I found shocking and weird.”

After just watching a man speak with humor and emotion about how he met his wife and the personal details of their early life together, many people tuning in were “shocked” at Maddow’s stark criticism, even though she was professional enough to give him high marks for the last part of his oration.

“But I think the beginning of the speech was a controversial way to start, honestly. Talking about ‘the girl,’ ‘a girl.’ Leading with this long story about him being attracted to an unnamed girl. {Then} building her whole political story for the whole first half of the speech around her marriage to him. Unless there were worries that this was going to be too feminist a convention, that was not a feminist way to start. But the end of the speech was really good,” said Maddow.

Maddow may have been coming from a place of “sisterhood”, but her remarks were in stark contrast to the audience’s response at the convention, and by many social media accounts from people watching at home.  Bill Clinton is a master story teller and there was no doubting the love and admiration he had for his wife on a personal level and for all her professional accomplishments.

CNN did a much better job of highlighting the positives in Clinton’s speech, by fleshing out little things unknown to the audience. Like the picture that Bill painted of them saying goodbye to Chelsea at her college dorm. His story was told simply from the side of two parents going through the emotion of cutting ties, without mentioning the security guards outside the door or the presidential motorcade waiting in the street.

Nonetheless, Olivia Nuzzi wrote in her Daily Beast article Wednesday in what felt like a sense of shared sisterhood with Maddow:

“In the spring of 1971, I met a girl,” he began on Tuesday night. He then went through, in what felt like painstaking detail, the story of their courtship and early years—although Hillary has at times contradicted Bill’s version of events, not uncommon among couples of any social or political status, in fairness.

Bill Clinton is a very popular former president and public figure.  His DNC speech may have had mixed reviews from the pundits, but anyone listening would be hard pressed to deny his sincerity and his ability to talk from the heart, instead of a teleprompter.

Clinton’s definition of Hillary as a change maker and someone with accomplishments opposite of Donald Trump’s mockery and accusations—brought the house down and his lack of attention to “feminist” concerns wasn’t even noticed until a talking head brought it up.

Watch a master storyteller share the admiration for his wife:

https://youtu.be/oKLzJ-BcQTw

Bravo to you, Bill!

Feature image by AP/Scott Applewhite

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