OPINION
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Their Phony Yuks Run Amok
Writer says Hillary and Rudy are only hurting themselves
By Jonas Oransky
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Posted Dec 12, 07 2:50 PM CST
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(Newser)
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The presidential frontrunners have both taken to laughing loudly when facing hostile questions, and Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter says they’re tittering up the wrong tree. Hillary Clinton laughs uncontrollably when her health care plan is compared to “socialized medicine” and Rudy Giuliani gets giggly when quizzed on his mistress. Of course, neither is really amused; when they’re laughing, it’s “really a glare.”
Great politicians often use laughter for manipulation, Alter allows, including FDR; but the New Dealer’s amusement was also deemed “as joyous, hearty, rolling, thunderous laughter as ever was heard on this sorrowful globe.” Clinton and Giuliani are both funny in private, but their fake guffaws make them look inauthentic. So they’d better sit tight—and save the laughs for jokes.