Molly I has the Dowd beat covered. But Dowd is to Camille Paglia as a candle is to the Sun, or as a mildly narcissistic chipmunk is to Ann Althouse.
Paglia has a column in Salon because the editors of Salon hate you. Here are her latest dribblings on the subject of HRC:
Hillary's stonewalling evasions and mercurial, soulless self-positionings have been going on since her first run for the U.S. Senate from New York, a state she had never lived in and knew virtually nothing about. The liberal Northeastern media were criminally complicit in enabling her queenlike, content-free "listening tour," where she took no hard questions and where her staff and security people (including her government-supplied Secret Service detail) staged events stocked with vetted sympathizers, and where they ensured that no protesters would ever come within camera range.
See, this is funny, because as an actual resident of upstate New York, I went to one of HRC's events when she was campaigning for Senate against noted snotnosed twerp Rick Lazio. It was at a fairly large restaurant/banquet hall. Oddly enough, right outside the restaurant, there were about a dozen protesters... and they were in camera range! Also, HRC gave a brief talk, and then took unscripted questions from the audience, comprised of local people, and while some of the questions were fluff, some of them were tough questions about what she would do to help the local economy! (As an aside, HRC for whatever reason comes across much more stiffly on TV than in person -- in person she can be quite charismatic.)
Paglia is nuts. HRC won in NY because she ran a smart, tough campaign upstate -- which can be as conservative as any red state anywhere. Paglia is talking about a subject upon which she is entirely ignorant and trading on stereotypes, quelle surprise. In a weird way this sort of plays to HRC's advantage, as it did in NY: all she has to do is show up and be different from the misogynist caricature, and she impresses. I saw this happen at that restaurant first-hand.
And Hillary has a sycophantic press...? Occasionally, yes, she gets a puff piece, but on the whole, wow, that's crazy. She has people like Paglia writing this vapid bullshit about her all the time, for openers. Beyond that I submit as evidence 1991-2000.
And it gets worse:
That compulsive micromanagement, ultimately emanating from Hillary herself, has come back to haunt her in her dismaying inability to field complex unscripted questions in a public forum. The presidential sweepstakes are too harsh an arena for tenderfoot novices. Hillary's much-vaunted "experience" has evidently not extended to the dynamic give-and-take of authentic debate. The mild challenges she has faced would be pitiful indeed by British standards, which favor a caustic style of witty put-downs that draw applause and gales of laughter in the House of Commons. Women had better toughen up if they aspire to be commander in chief.
I mean, holy shit:
There's more, especially some giggly nonsense about Dianne Feinstein and a dose of ignorant bullshit about global warming (which is false because of Hurricane Camille in 1969). But overall Paglia is, characteristically, as lucid as a coked-up Larry King, only without the deft segues.
Remember: Camille Paglia writes for Salon because the editors of Salon hate you.
UPDATE: Althouse chimes in. Video of a conversation between Althouse and Paglia is here.
[Note: edited to maximize snark]