Unless you've been hiding in a cave out in Afghanistan or something, I'm sure you've heard by now at least some of the whining about "sexism" emanating from Hillaryland to explain away Hillary Clinton's managing to throw away all the advantages of front-runner status and global name recognition she enjoyed at the start of the nomination race.
This "sexism" charge has always rubbed me the wrong way when coming from Hillary Clinton, who owes every public office she has attained to the fact that she married a powerful man, especially when it is paired with an effort to depict her as some sort of feminist path-breaker. The reality is that Hillary falls drastically short of being any sort of feminist heroine, and if you want to understand why I think so, I suggest you read this column by Peggy Noonan; Noonan's words so eerily match my thoughts on this subject that it is almost as if she simply channeled my cogitations directly onto paper.
Hillary Clinton has proven herself to be many things - not least of all a total incompetent at managing any project of substance, a compulsive fabulist in the vein of Baron von Munchausen, a shameless panderer willing to promise any crowd anything no matter how nonsensical and impossible, and a race-baiter of a crassness unseen since the salad days of Jesse Helms and George Wallace - but the idea that someone so quick to cry "sexism", despite owing her political life to what used to be called "marrying well", should have her allegations granted credibility, let alone that such a person should be elevated to some sort of pioneer for feminism ... that just takes the cake. Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher are real feminist heroes - or at least they would be in a world in which their politics didn't automatically disqualify them with the Susan Sontag contingent - and Hillary Clinton would only deserve to wear that mantle if "feminism" were redefined to be "a person who climbs the sociopolitical ladder by sleeping with the right powerful man" - and by that definition any number of courtesans, demimondaines and socialites of yesteryear would also qualify. In her corrupt nature and power-hunger, Hillary Clinton bears a far closer resemblance to Eva Peron than she does to Thatcher, Meir, Merkel or any other female leader of principle who attained high office without the benefit of an adulterous powerful husband to hitch a ride with.
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.
Posted by: Feminist Review | May 26, 2008 at 11:43 PM
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.
Posted by: Abiola | May 27, 2008 at 11:31 AM
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.
Posted by: Feminist Review | May 27, 2008 at 02:54 PM
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
Posted by: Nanuestalker | June 02, 2008 at 10:26 AM
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.
Posted by: Won Joon Choe | June 02, 2008 at 11:24 PM
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.
Posted by: Nanuestalker | June 03, 2008 at 07:40 AM
"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 ...
Posted by: Abiola | June 03, 2008 at 11:22 AM
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.
Posted by: Won Joon Choe | June 03, 2008 at 12:29 PM
[As I suspected, Nanuestalker is just another foulmouthed idiot with nothing to say worth a pitcher of spit. Go fuck yourself. - AL.]
Posted by: Nanuestalker | June 04, 2008 at 10:10 AM
Damn,
This is persistent.
Posted by: Chuckles | June 04, 2008 at 01:10 PM
Logic is a rare commodity in this (online) world.
Posted by: Won Joon Choe | June 04, 2008 at 07:07 PM
Seriously, there are many reasons why I don't Blog, but among the primary must be wasting my time dealing with incoherent hecklers.
Posted by: Won Joon Choe | June 04, 2008 at 07:08 PM
[Nanuestalker, fuck off - A.L.]
Posted by: Nanuestalker | June 05, 2008 at 03:54 PM
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?
Posted by: odocoileus | June 06, 2008 at 11:53 PM
[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.]
Posted by: Loneoak | June 08, 2008 at 02:42 AM