I have been doing a lot of thinking this month about Hillary, and just why she is so publicly vilified, and at last I think I have figured it out.
She came out of the closet.
Hillary Clinton has been reviled as having been too ambitious and too involved in her husband's presidency by the same people who now say she wasn't involved enough to claim White House experience.
But first ladies who were active in their husband's presidencies are hardly new. Eleanor Roosevelt is an obvious example. Also roundly criticized at the time, although many now revere her as a woman before her time. She also, coincidentally, had to bear up with grace while her husband philandered. Many to this day do not know how FDR died - being fellated by his mistress in her apartment. His body was moved back to the White House, and the "polite fiction" was maintained by the press, and by his widow, that he died quietly in his own bed. Can you imagine Bill Clinton getting away with that one? But another time for my rant about the media.
Nancy Reagan, love her or hate her, ran her husband's presidency during much of his second term. He was debilitated by the onset of Alzheimer's disease even then. It's just not enough time has passed for this to be acknowledged - another polite fiction presently intact. We had a dementia victim with his hand on the button for those four years.
Edith Wilson, wife of Woodrow, ran the country for six months when he was recovering from a stroke. If you disagree on the Nancy Reagan example, Mrs. Wilson's story is well accepted and documented by prominent historians. The polite fiction was maintained that she was reading all papers to her husband, discussing them with him, and "acting on his instructions".
So what did Hillary do that was so different? I'll tell you. She didn't maintain the polite fiction. She stepped out from behind her husband. She rightly said, I am part of a team, but I am a person in my own right. I am doing the work, and I will acknowledge that publicly. This was her great sin. And good for her. During the Clinton presidency, women everywhere had long been accepted as equals by any fair-minded person. Women contribute equally (indeed sometimes more) than men do to our culture and our country. It is ridiculous that we expect the presidency to stand alone as an example of times-gone-by that never were. Because she stepped forward, she was perceived as pushy and assertive, not womanly. Well bullshit. I'm sorry. There have always been assertive goal-oriented women kicking the pants of men who needed it. And God Bless 'em. There is nothing un-womanly about demanding to be treated with equality and respect.
The next thing she is guilty of is for the failure of her health-care reform efforts. The subset on this one is, of course, that she chose a "real" issue to be her First Lady project, rather than something innocuous and "lady-like" (more sexist bullshit, see above). First, at the time she tried to do this, she was a Washington neophyte. This was really too big a job to take on as your first thing. The equivalent of a sixth grader choosing to make a working nuclear reactor as a science fair project. Secondly, few at that time had the vision to see or acknowledge the coming health care crisis. Because this wasn't perceived as something that needed to be done, it was very hard for her to enlist any help or cooperation. The equivalent of trying to warn Victorians about the damage of Radon gas in their homes. Third, I will say this. If you haven't failed at something, that means you haven't tried anything new or different. Thomas Alva Edison went through a thousand tries before he hit on a successful light bulb filament. I think one failure on an issue as complex as overhauling our entire health care system can be forgiven.
So there are the big reasons that Hillary is so reviled by so many. Doesn't seem very fair does it?
These are my reservations about her:
1) Her position as a polarizing figure (fair or not) is a drag on the ticket.
2) Unfortunately, I think there are many men in this country who will not vote for a woman for president.
- that's me playing pundit
3) She is the ultimate Washington insider candidate. That is a sword that cuts both ways. I have no doubt that she would be able to take the reins of the presidency from day one. And yes, she can probably deliver more actual results than a president who is trying to change the political system. But on the other hand, do we really need more of the same?
Things will never change if we keep electing the same kinds of people. At this point in the country, I would like to see the government focusing on more long term goals than just getting re-elected. I would be willing to forgo short-term progress to see some real changes happen. I would like to see the system change. I would like to see an America where you didn't have to be ridiculously wealthy or in the pocket of special interests to have enough money to run for president. I would like to see term limits for Congress - we are desperately in need of new blood and new ideas. I would like to see the term of Presidency go from four to six years, particularly with the election process now shaping into a 2 year run. As screwed as we would have been this last time had it worked that way, I think ultimately it would be a better system.
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