Life's a bitch, and so are all the anti-Hillary slogans

Creative ways to smear Hillary Clinton hit new highs, lows.

Published January 28, 2008 7:24PM (EST)

Last week Broadsheet told you about the varied and creative efforts to find new ways of calling Hillary Clinton a cunt. In case you were absent that day, they include a Republican organization called Citizens United Not Timid dedicated to "educating the public about what Hillary really is" by selling T-shirts bearing its awesome acronym (because nothing says "not timid" like printing up a bunch of Hanes with a slang word for lady parts! Way to show 'er, cowboys!) and the quirky little rebus tee that puts the C-word in "Country Music."

But this was just the tip of the insult iceberg! The country -- or at least onesie manufacturers everywhere -- is awash in imaginative expressions of filthy Hillary hate!

Thanks to lots of reader tips, and a couple of spins around Cafe Press, Broadsheet has begun quite a collection of these misogyny-laced slogans. It should be pointed out that every presidential race (and most administrations) provoke reams of bad puns that strain the limits of taste -- Bush-trimming till you puke -- so in sorting through Clinton-bashing fun, I've tried to restrict this list to stuff that's particularly representative of the gender anxiety stirred up by the New York senator.

One Broadsheet reader pointed us to Monica Crowley's personal acronym for Clinton supporters: the Clinton Ladies Intervention Team, a deeply weird stretch (Intervention? Clit? Huh?). But if you think that reference to a clitoris is a strange way to knock someone, you'll like the scads of supportive Hillary slogans that employ backhanded lady baiting: the "Just vote for the bitch" dog T-shirt is probably my favorite, but you can also get "Monica Lewinsky's ex-boyfriend's wife for president," the cheerfully misandric "No Penis, No Problems" (uh, are you people serious?) and an exuberant "H08!" -- Get it?

In the "Points for Honesty" category, there is the direct "This Woman Scares Me" and "Anyone But Her '08" -- available as a messenger bag!

Once you take a turn for the negative, however, you come across a veritable rainbow of loathing! Forget about the vast array of pointy-hatted, broom-straddling, hooked nose witch references -- bo-ring! Why stick with the hackneyed bitter old sorceress motif when you can illustrate your chicks-with-dicks fantasy by drawing Hillary standing at a urinal under the illuminating observation, "She's not what she seems" or just let your Freudian freak flag fly with this illustration of La Clinton astride the White House. The claws! The fangs! The spiked dog collar, red heels and spread legs about to envelop the big strong American flag! This really should have been the poster art for that vagina dentata movie "Teeth."

Then there's the junior high school kind of thought that says the best way to get to a girl is to call her ugly. From this quarter, we get "Even Bill Doesn't Want Me," "Stop Mad Cow," the succinct "Stop the Beast" and that old KFC Hillary Meal Deal chestnut: "Two fat thighs, two small breasts and a bunch of left wings." Har!

Then, of course, we come to the violent and terrifying, where we find gems like "Wanna See Hillary Run? Throw Rocks at Her!" and the winner of some kind of award too horrible to even name: "I Wish Hillary Had Married O.J."

Thanks for playing. Keeps those cards and letters coming.


By Rebecca Traister

Rebecca Traister writes for Salon. She is the author of "Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women" (Free Press). Follow @rtraister on Twitter.

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