Emdashes. The New Yorker between the lines

Best of Emdashes: Hit Parade
Our Daily Comic: The Wavy Rule
Archive: Ask the Librarians

Send us a question!

Frequently:
Headline Shooter
Seal Barks
Eustace Google
Looked Into

The Squib Report
X-Rea: Irvin Type Watch
Letters & Challenges
On the Spot
Eds. | Personal

Now Is the Moment to Recognize an Unsung Heroine

Filed under: The Squib Report Tagged: Barack Obama, covers, David Remnick, Hillary Clinton, politics, Seth

Hillary.

I mean, wow.

She was as good as her word, and then some. There's something almost novelistic about the position she found herself in. A figure of such polarization, loathed by the right wing and even loathed among plenty of Obama supporters for a brief period (now over, one hopes!), obliged to support her rival, about whom she surely had and perhaps still has profound doubts, in a situation that lent itself to scurrilous speculation (she wants to run in 2012!), leading to a triumphant outcome in which her own contributions proved to be scandalously underemphasized—that's some weighty stuff, right there.

You have to feel for her. She deserves the unmitigated thanks of every Obama supporter. One always knew that her support for the liberal project was unquestioned, and she proved that in every way one could possibly want every single day for the last few months. She is a champ.

So what is Hillary's fate, now? I hope it is Senate Majority Leader, if she wants that role; I assume she does. I do think that she has the mind, nerve, DNA of a legislator right down to her very core; freed from the burdens of perennially preparing for her next presidential run, I fully expect her to fulfill the greatness that everyone knows her capable of.

David Remnick said that the Obama-Clinton battle of spring 2008 "is something we're going to be talking about and thinking about for a long, long time." I think that's absolutely correct. My favorite moment of that race was Super Tuesday, February 5, when New York and a host of other states took to the ballot box, and all of New York City was pitched on the razor's edge, unable to decide between the two candidates, a dynamic captured to perfection by Seth's flippable Eustace Tilley cover, which came out a couple of days before.

0 comments

Post a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, it may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Thanks for waiting.)

Your name

Your email address

Your website address

Remember personal info?

Your comments

See me speak at SXSW 2010 (http://sxsw.com)

Who we?

Emdashes, founded in 2004 by Emily Gordon, is a place where keen and dedicated readers of The New Yorker, past and present, can find related news and commentary: about people, subjects, and ideas within the magazine, and events and conversations outside its pages. Learn more about us and our contributors.

Affinities | Blurbs

We welcome tips, questions, and comments about The New Yorker past and present, plus related events, links, typeface sightings, &c. To contact the magazine or send a submission, click here.

No fear: Everything you say or send is off the record unless we ask for your permission to use it.

This site is neither owned nor operated by The New Yorker magazine or Condé Nast Publications.

Some writing by Emily Gordon

Review: A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore (for Newsday)
Annotated slide show: a wet, festive 2009 Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for nycgo.com)
Proposal: A better-looking MetroCard (for A Brief Message)
Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
Review: Does a redesign of The New Republic mean a change of tune? (for Print)
Interview: four online obsessives and visual cataloguers, Kate Bingaman, Nicholas Felton, Ellie Harrison, and John D. Freyer (for Print)
Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
Interviews: winning New Visual Artists Eleanor Grosch, Zigmunds Lapsa, Christian Cervantes, and Kate & Camilla (for Print)
Profile: lindy hop legend Frankie Manning (for Newsday, with Robert Fouch)
Feature: Rea Irvin, illustrator, bon vivant, and The New Yorker's first art director (for Print)
Profile: screenwriter and novelist Joe Keenan (for Newsday)
Review: My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World by Julian Dibbell (for Newsday)
Review: Charles Dickens by Jane Smiley (for Newsday)
Review: Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry (for Print)
Report: Learning to read with comic books edited by Françoise Mouly (for Print)
Report: The New Yorker's redesigned website (for Print)
Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
Review: The Complete New Yorker (for Print)
Interview: Matthew Diffee on the appropriately inappropriate cartoons of the The Rejection Collection (for Print)
Interview: Roz Chast on Brooklyn, pysanky eggs, and animation (for Newsday)
Review: books about various New Yorker cartoonists by Liza Donnelly and Iain Topliss (for Newsday)
Review: Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life by Linda H. Davis (for Newsday)
Interview: Edward Gorey (for Newsday)

More clips.

Tell me more

They say that dashes “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like em dashes—emphasizes what’s between: in particular, between the lines, covers, and issues of a magazine close to my heart.

Primary sources

The New Yorker
Events listed by the magazine
Web resources: New Yorker writers and artists
Books, Organizations, &c.

Founded by Emily Gordon, edited by Martin Schneider, designed by House of Pretty, and illustrated by Inkleaf. Additional drawings by Carolita Johnson. Kissable pencil girl by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.

The Rossosphere