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May 26, 2008

Comments

Feminist Review

I'm no Hillary fan, and I do agree with some of your assertions. I don't, however, think it's accurate to say that she "owes every public office she has attained to the fact that she married a powerful man." She didn't marry the president. She married Bill *after* she had begun her political career, and he was hardly a powerful man when they got married. Her creditials for holding office really do speak for themselves in comparison to other elected officials, so even though I am not a supporter of Clinton, the feminist in me wants to point out that she is plenty qualified to hold office.

Abiola

I am not claiming that Hillary Clinton is "unqualified" to hold public office, just that every public office she has held to date has been due to the name recognition earned her by being married to Bill Clinton, a statement which is indisputably true. It may be that she would have made something of herself politically in an alternative universe, but I'm not dealing in counterfactuals, and in the world in which we live Hillary is a person claiming 35 years of "experience" in politics simply by virtue of who she's been sleeping with throughout that time, a claim that would (rightly) long have been dismissed as absurd had it come from either Barbara Bush or Laura Bush. Sure, Hillary got started in politics before she married Bill, but she wasn't getting anywhere politically or career-wise until the marriage, and the evidence is that this stagnation is what prompted her to eventually accept his marriage proposal after her initial refusals - by which time Bill was already clearly a strong prospect for Arkansas' Attorney-General office. It just is not the case that Hillary married a man who was some sort of unknown prospect and only later learned he had a knack for politics.

The question is not whether Hillary is smart, cunning or ruthless enough to be President of the United States: far from being a dummy or naive, Hillary has demonstrated herself every bit the equal of Richard Milhous Nixon in all such respects. The question here is to what extent Hillary's prominence in political life owes to her efforts alone rather than to the political machine created by her husband, and the answer to that question is that she bares no resemblance to women who managed to attain office all by themselves. One can say what one will about Margaret Thatcher, but there is no disputing that she is second only to Winston Churchill amongst the British heads of state of the 20th century, and that this owes entirely to her own outstanding qualities as a politician rather than to her marital status: it is perfectly possible, easy even, to imagine her at Downing Street bearing the name Margaret Roberts rather than Thatcher.

Feminist Review

I'm always wary of 'indisputable truths'. And you're right, there is no question that a part of her political status can be attributed to who she's married to, and that can be reversed, as well, to question how much of an influence she has had in her husband's political success. That's the beauty of relationships, marriage or otherwise - that we owe much of who we are and what we gain to our friends and family and colleagues. I don't see this as something that is unique to Hillary's situation. I see that as a fairly universal experience, despite what career path one takes.

Nanuestalker

That is the greatest load of horse-shit. Make about as much sense as saying you aren't permitted to reject racism. To say that Hillary owes who she is to "marrying well" has no merit and I agree with "Feminist Review" comment on the matter. Here's a NY Times article that might assist you understand some of what made Hillary the person she is...
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/us/politics/05clinton.html

Won Joon Choe

Nanuestalker,

I read the NY Times article that you linked for the 2nd time (I read it when it was originally published last year), but I still don't see how it refutes Abiola's obtrusively obvious, commonsensical point that Ms. Rodham became a Senator and a presidential candidate because she is Bill's wife.

Please consider that Abiola is not saying that Rodham lacked the talent to have risen far in politics on her own; but the fact is, unlike Meir or Thatcher, she did not begin from the bottom, paying her proverbial dues every step of the way. I don't see how this fact is even disputable or controvertible. Ideed, ironically, n spite of the fact that she is often characterized as "Machiavellian," Machiavelli would have certainly dismissed her because she did not rise on the strength of her own arms, so to speak.

Also, please show some consideration, period. Calling a perfectly reasonable opinion "horse-shit" isn't going to make reasonable folks you want to persuade exactly amenable to your brand of persuasion. It's not like Abiola claimed that the earth is flat or that Bill Clinton has super-human self-control.

Nanuestalker

Won -
What Abiola is suggesting is that the man made Hillary because unlike Thatcher etc., Hillary's husband was a successful politician reaching the highest office in the US.

If anything Hillary is remarkably successful despite of her husband. With respect, I'll stick by my assertion that the article is horse-shit. It was be as stupid as saying that only that Thatcher received an Oxbridge education an was supported by her successful businessman husband through law school she would never have made it. Describing Thatcher etc. as a feminist icon is quite humorous and maybe that was the intention of the writer that I've missed.

I was retold recently a joke that was doing the circles during Bill Clinton's presidency:
Hillary and Bill stop at a gas station. the attendent comes out, wipes the screen, pumps the gas and, wow, “Hello Hillary” he says.
As they’re driving away Bill asks Hillary who the dude was. She says: he was my boyfriend in Junior High.
Bill chuckles: “Well just think you coulda married him. If you had where would you be now?”
“Married to the president of the United States” comes the cold reply.

Abiola

"Nanuestalker",

I don't begrudge you your delusions - Xenu knows there's no shortage of those amongst Hillary Clinton diehards - but I warn you to read the commenting guidelines on here and abide by them if you wish to avoid being banned.

I have zero tolerance for insults, profanity and swearing on this blog, and minimal patience with bald argument by sheer assertion of the sort you've been trying to palm off on here: either lay out in a sober, reasoned fashion your reasons for believing that Hillary's success does *not* in fact owe to the factors which are evident to anyone else, or else go find somewhere else to express incoherent rage at seeing your idol blasphemed; tell as many jokes as you like, but if you think they'll convince anyone around here other than yourself, you're used to a much lower level of intellectual rigor than what I find acceptable.

I await your efforts at demonstrating how a carpetbagger from Arkansas with no previous record of public office whatsoever could have landed in the US Senate on her first try without having been married to a two-term President ...

Won Joon Choe

Nanuestalker,

You are, in the manner of Buddhist monks who recite mantras in the hope that doing incessantly so will eventually get you to the promised land (I know, because I was once among them), simply asserting that Rodham would've succeeded in politics without Bill. But I am afraid that repeatedly asserting a claim, absent facts and arguments to support it, gets you nowhere--at least among intelligent folks who are unsullied by ideology.

I also found your "joke" neither relevant nor funny.

Nanuestalker

[As I suspected, Nanuestalker is just another foulmouthed idiot with nothing to say worth a pitcher of spit. Go fuck yourself. - AL.]

Chuckles

Damn,

This is persistent.

Won Joon Choe

Logic is a rare commodity in this (online) world.

Won Joon Choe

Seriously, there are many reasons why I don't Blog, but among the primary must be wasting my time dealing with incoherent hecklers.

Nanuestalker

[Nanuestalker, fuck off - A.L.]

odocoileus

This article lays it out quite nicely:

http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11496736

It's clear that Hillary's dependence on her husband's power left her ill equipped to make good decisions on her own. Her campaign was a nightmare of mismanagement and infighting.

If she could have risen to prominence on her own, then why didn't she?

Loneoak

[Don't bother commenting on my blog if you have no intention of respecting my rules. Idiotic, insulting comments like yours are precisely the sort I have no interest in seeing on here.]

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