Saturday, April 28, 2007

Hilarybilly


Youtube footage of Hilary Clinton's patronizing tendency to adopt a (somewhat) southern accent in front of black crowds has gathered attention in the last month or so.

For examples, try here and here.

Instead of ignoring this, she's come out with another Clintonesque defense of it.

"I think America is ready for a multilingual president," she said during a campaign stop this week. The ballsy junior senator most recently from New York notes that she's lived in Illinois, Arkansas and 'the east cost' for each of the thirds of her life, so it's entirely reasonable that she's picked up accents.

Now, I might be willing to buy this one. Having lived in Minnesota, for intance, I was roundly joked at by friends of mine from back home that I'd picked up a touch of the verbal qualities of the actors in Fargo at one time.

The real test of how genuine Hilary is would be to examine audio tapes of her during her time in Arkansas.  While tapes might not be too plentiful while she was the first lady of Arkansas, surely there's a plethora of them during Bubba's first run at the White House.

I can't find the "Tammy Wynette" 60 Minutes episode on Youtube, but I'll keep an eye out. If she had a drawl then, and shed it as she moved to the east coast, maybe we can take her at her word.

After you inhale, though, don't hold your breath.

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