 | JAMES MILLER Miller on Tap |
|---|
High Stakes Miss America. Let me tell you a story. It's about a young woman. She is a product of her times. Unusually bright, she rises to the top of her class and graduates far superior to her peers. She then enrolls in a prestigious Ivy League school where she excels yet again. Despite the advice of her parents and friends she enters law school, where, again, she bests her classmates and graduates at the top of her class. This lady is Hillary Clinton. Or is it?
Elizabeth Dole is a remarkable woman. She graduated from Harvard Law, near the top of her class. She went off to work for all of the Republican greats of her era; schilling for Nixon and the rest of his greasy brethren. She has held two cabinet posts in two administrations and until very recently has been the head honcho of the Red Cross.
Hillary Clinton has had almost as illustrious a past as Dole. She graduated Yale Law near the top of her class and had a very successful practice as an attorney with the Rose Law firm. In fact, she could be arguably considered to be a less accomplished woman than Elizabeth Dole.
Yet these two women are as different as night and day when it comes to their husbands.
Hillary is the biggest political liability since Billy Carter. Since the day Clinton took office, the two of them -especially her - have been subject to more slams, jokes, innuendo, jibes, tweaks, pokes and cheap shots than Gary Hart in a Victoria's Secret.
And for what? What is so different about these two women that they seem like polar opposites during their respective conventions?
I'm going to give away a little political trade secret. The two women aren't that different at all. Both of them are stunningly well educated and both of them have risen to the top of a male dominated field. They only differ in the minds of the oily back-room mercenaries, and thus, the American public.
Republicans are still a party of the old days. The real old days. Like, segregation old days. A Republican's wet dream is for life to be a scene out of "Gone With The Wind" where women are quiet, demure and exist only to bring pitchers of iced tea out to the menfolk and black people still refer to white folks as "boss," but that's another column. They would prefer that their women be silent, corn-fed, strawberry blonde baby factories who quietly stand behind the podium and applaud appropriately while their husbands attack such worthy targets like the poor, the homeless and anyone else not lucky enough to be the son of a rich, white podiatrist from Dayton.
It only complicates the issue when the women of your party start growing brains and demanding things like an equal voice. And then everything goes to hell, and you find yourself reversing your sensible opinions on everything from abortion to discreet wife-beating to unrestricted, masturbatory gun-ownership.
Which brings me back to the poor first ladies. Professionally, there's no difference between the two. They are both aggressive, successful women. The only difference is that the Republican handlers have decided that most voters who prefer to see a flat, brain-dead Elizabeth Dole who has no intellectual effect on her husband. It's comfortable. It's easy. The husband goes out and spends his day smiting the Communists or the homeless or whoever is supposed to be our enemy this week and the little woman stays at home and bakes bundt cakes for his triumphant return.
Whereas the Democrats have the evil and spiteful Hillary Clinton who leads her husband around by the nose, runs the country and practices evil, twisted, lesbian witchcraft ceremonies.
Right.
The thought of an accomplished woman even close to the leader of the free world makes the average Republican so nervous that they are willing to engage in that most unprofessional of tactics, attacking an innocent bystander, a candidate's wife.
There's no practical difference between the two women. And the outrageous part of this silliness is that the American people are expected to buy this line of manure.
The fact that the Republican Party can stand in front of two such similar women and expect us to buy this three-legged coffee table of a political strategy is a consummate insult to our intelligence.
So when you trot into a voting booth come November, bear in mind that one party is gambling on the fact that you haven't got enough brains to recognize a huge, flaming untruth when you see one. Happy voting.
- Death threats can be sent to James Miller over e-mail at jamespm@umich.edu.