The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : If Hillary is Iago, Who Plays Cassio?

Text Size

The Spectacle Blog

If Hillary is Iago, Who Plays Cassio?

By Philip Klein on 1.23.09 @ 11:48AM

Alex Massie, responding to a report that the Royal Shakespeare Company sent out a press release entitled, "Obama: Is he an Othello for our times?" writes:

Perhaps the RSC mean to suggest that Obama will be manipulated by his subordinates - one of whom may feel that they have, unjustly, been overlooked for, nay denied, a prize they thought was deservedly theirs. Presumably, then, the RSC mean to cast a woman as Iago and that this actress will bear an uncanny, if disturbing, resemblance to one Hillary Rodham Clinton...

To take this further, perhaps the suggestion is that after being denied a prize to one of his subordinates, the person who feels slighted manipulates the one who was actually chosen as his lieutenant. In other words, does that mean that Joe Biden is Cassio?

View all comments (5) | Leave a comment

Robert Stacy McCain| 1.23.09 @ 12:31PM

More to the point, who is Brabantio in this analogy?

Gene| 1.23.09 @ 2:33PM

Clouds on the horizon.??? Great analyasis

Gene| 1.23.09 @ 2:38PM

I know now I should have gone beyond the sixth grade,,Imight know more about Shakespeare.

Shoshanna| 1.24.09 @ 2:09AM

While I could buy Hillary as Iago-- she would, in fact, excel in the role-- I very much doubt that even she could successfully convince President Obama that Michelle was sleeping with Joe Biden...

... And, if she somehow managed to do so, I can't quite imagine this particular Othello becoming sufficiently worked up about it as to strangle his wife.

More likely, he'd form a committee to study the root causes of adultery among highly placed members of the government and their spouses, and ask Congress for funding.