She Who Laughs Worst Gets Laughed At

Last week Hillary Clinton made the rounds of the Sunday morning talk shows and introduced a technique that hadn't been seen from her before. Whenever a tough question was asked, usually about her health care proposals, Clinton broke out into what appeared to be inappropriate laughter. She did it on every show, and it became obvious to me that this was not a spontaneous demonstration of mirth, but a planned political technique to belittle the question and throw the questioner off his/her game. The media is beginning to notice the same thing:

They call it the Clinton cackle. It comes out of the blue, lasts a few seconds and leaves those who witnessed it wondering if they have missed a joke. Hillary Clinton's deployment of the full belly laugh is the latest weapon used by the leading Democratic presidential candidate when she is being pummelled by reporters or rivals.

Friends say the cackle is her way of deflecting aggressive questioning. It may also be a sign of nervousness over Iowa, where she is now running second to Barak Obama, according to one weekend poll.

Hillary Clinton still leads comfortably in the national polls over her closest Democratic rivals – Mr Obama and John Edwards. But Iowa is the first bellwether state in the race, where the first major event in the nomination process occurs in early January followed immediately by the New Hampshire primary.

Defeat in Iowa would be a serious blow and may explain why Clinton is using humour to deflect criticism rather than the withering ripostes she is known for.

Mrs Clinton's friends say she has a terrific sense of humour. But her sarcastic tendencies do not go down well with Mid Western voters. So she has turned to laughter. When attacked about her many flip-flops – she voted for war in Iraq but now opposes it and she opposed universal healthcare but now wants it – she now bursts out laughing.

Conservative radio hosts routinely play Hillary Clinton's "cackle" on their radio shows and her enemy Dick Morris says it is "loud, inappropriate, and mirthless... a scary sound that was somewhere between a cackle and a screech."

While doing my weekly radio interview on KHND (Harvey, ND) last week hosts Rick and Chuck played a sound bite of Clinton's laugh. I haven't heard anything like that since I saw Wicked on Broadway. She's just a broom and a cauldron short of doing MacBeth.

As the campaign heats up the questions get tougher, expect to hear it...a lot.