Gone were the days of pill-box hats with matching Chanel suits, nomes de plume like "Ladybird," and the mousy-yet-ingratiating public characters that might easily be nicknamed something adorable like "muffin." Hillary demanded her own set of nicknames, most of which I can't print in good conscience.
And there was quite a reaction - to this day, the backlash against the first lady can still be found by watching CNN as "average Americans" (most of whom are usually from somewhere in the Bible Belt) announce their disgust of "that Hillary Clinton," blaming her for such things as far beyond her control as the bombings of Sudan and Afghanistan.
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| Jack Schillaci Slam It to |
But about midway through her husband's first term as president, the formerly vocal Ms. Clinton became more publicly sedate, more content to sit on the back burner as the "big boys" worried about such things as national policy and economic development. When her husband signed the Welfare Reform Act into law in a clear showing of election-year ass-kissing, White House spin doctors played Hillary's former vocal opposition to the bill down, further pushing her away from the spotlight and closer to the role of the first housewife.
But there's nothing like a scandal to bring out the guns fully ablaze. After the revelation of the Lewinskygate, she went on national television to announce her belief in "a vast right-wing conspiracy." Since then, she has continued to stand steafastly by the president throughout his troubles, causing many pundits to consider her anti-woman. Some believe that she should burn her bridges and move away from her philandering husband.
But I view it differently. I have no doubt that her feelings for the president have long since passed out of the range of love. What with Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky all knocking at the gate to her conscience mind, I doubt anyone in her position could still hold any amorous feelings for Billy boy.
But even the administration's greatest enemies have to admit that the president and his wife make an excellent team. She has as much invested in his presidency as anyone. They say politics makes strange bedfellows, and in the case of Hillary Rodham Clinton, they couldn't have been closer to the truth. She probably realizes that to split with him now would not only damage him but would also hurt the progress of many of the policy perogatives that Hillary wants just as much as her husband.
She also probably realizes another chilling reality of American politics - that women (or minorities, for that matter) don't get elected to the highest office in the land. It's become something of a normative political reality - evidenced by the fact that even in our "enlightened" times, no major political party has ever even nominated a woman to run for president under its auspices.
This is really a sad commentary. For a government that claims to be representative, you'd think that women and minorities would have broken through the "glass ceiling" by now. Indeed, the only break our country has ever had with WASP-y male domination was by the election of JFK, a Catholic.
Through her husband, Hillary has had the opportunity to work in as close to a capacity as president as any woman ever. She has had the chance to shape national policy and serve as a role model for women in and out of politics across the nation.
But Hillary is the perfect person to buck the political trend - she's intelligent, strong-willed and one hell of a politician. It's time that we, as Americans, get over our collective squeamishness of being led by someone with two X chromosomes. Vote Hillary Rodham Clinton for president in 2000.
- Jack Schillaci can be reached over e-mail at jschilla@umich.edu.
09-22-98
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